Okay, so I stumbled upon this thing called “OW Community Crafted Patch Notes,” and I was like, “What the heck is this?” Turns out, it’s this cool project where the Overwatch community gets together and makes their own balance changes to the game. Sounded interesting, so I decided to dive in.
First, I went looking for where all this was happening. Found a bunch of discussions and forums, mostly on Reddit I think, where people were throwing around ideas. Lots of arguing, of course, because, well, it’s the internet.
Then I started digging into the actual “patch notes.” It was this huge, sprawling document. Seriously, it was long. People were suggesting changes to pretty much every hero, some items, and even some map tweaks.
I spent a good chunk of time just reading through it all. Some ideas were kinda crazy, like giving Reinhardt a jetpack (lol). But others were surprisingly thoughtful, focusing on smaller adjustments to numbers and abilities. It was really a mixed bag.
- Hero Changes: So many hero changes. It was overwhelming, honestly. Everything from tiny number tweaks to complete ability reworks.
- Item Adjustments: Fewer changes here, but still some interesting proposals for shaking things up.
- Map Tweaks: Saw some suggestions for adjusting certain chokepoints and objective locations.
Trying it out
Then the fun part – I found a way to actually try this stuff out! People have created this custom game mode! Using the workshop I created a custom lobby and imported the settings, it was pretty easy once you find out how.
Played a few games with these community-made changes. It was… chaotic. Some things felt surprisingly good, others were completely broken. I swear, one game had this Bastion that was practically unkillable. It was hilarious and frustrating all at the same time.
After messing around with it for a while, I came away with a few thoughts. It’s definitely a cool idea, and it’s awesome to see the community so passionate about the game. But, man, balancing a game is HARD. Some of these changes were just… wild. It really makes you appreciate the work that the actual game developers do.
Overall, it was a fun little experiment. I don’t think I’ll be switching over to the community patch notes full-time, but it was definitely interesting to see what people came up with. It’s like a peek into an alternate reality of Overwatch, where the players are in charge. A bit messy, a bit crazy, but definitely entertaining.
