More on Overwatch: Profit must pay a fine of $1,000 after an obscene gesture during a match

On January 25th, Jeff Kaplan, the lead designer of Overwatch, released a Developer Update regarding toxic players and hero balance. In the video, Jeff Kaplan talked about how the toxicity within the community has decreased after the rework on the reporting system, and mentioned the developers’ plans regarding the heroes that the community thinks should be buffed/nerfed.

According to Jeff Kaplan, the amount of reports has increased by 20% and the incidents of abusive chat has decreased by 17% since the report system rework. However, there are still toxic players out there and Blizzard is trying to come up with more ways to deal with them.

For example, Blizzard now has a program that monitors social media like YouTube and track downs toxic players before they are reported.

Next, Jeff Kaplan talked about Hero balance. Mercy and Junkrat will be nerfed in February, because the devs believe that they are the Heroes that needs to be balanced. Mercy’s Ultimate Ability, Valkyrie, will be nerfed, and the damage of Junkrat’s Concussion Mine will decrease as the distance between the mine and the enemies increase. However, Jeff Kaplan assured viewers that if the nerfs seem too extreme, there will be another balance update, so players shouldn’t worry about that.

Some other Heroes that Jeff Kaplan mentioned were Hanzo, Mei, and Symmetra. As for Hanzo, players have been saying that Hanzo’s Scatter Arrow can easily one-shot an enemy and has to be balanced. The devs are discussing whether they should adjust the ability or remove Scatter Arrow and give Hanzo a new ability instead.

The devs do not think that Mei is in a horrible place, but they will apply some small buffs to her. Lastly for Symmetra, the devs do not believe that Symmetra needs a major buff as she is a situational Hero, but will help her so she can be picked more.