D. Va has taken a bit of a drubbing in the most recent Overwatch patch on the test server. Her guns do less damage and her armor is decreased; she’s shooting more bullets and has more health to compensate, but she’s still become squishier. The resultant outrage has led to a video response from game director Jeff Kaplan explaining that the test realm isn’t really about testing balance, but about testing whether or not the game crashes into a buggy mess after five seconds of play.
That’s not to say the developers don’t care about balance on the PTR, of course; it’s just not their primary focus, and given the small percentage of players who jump into testing, that feedback may or may not bear out once changes go live. The most important focus is making sure that all of the parts of the patch work without causing unexpected crashes or exploit-worthy bugs. So if you’re wondering why your brilliant dissertation on D. Va’s nerfing has gone without a proper response, there’s your answer. You can see Kaplan’s full response just below.
