Josh: When we create something new, it is common that the actual resources of the artists are not ready yet, but the designers put a marker effect to convey the idea. In the case of Dragonstrike, Hanzo’s ultimate ability, we had huge circles that looked like a caterpillar, with bulging eyes that circled in front to indicate that it was the head. That made me laugh. Something similar happened with Lúcio’s Jazz design, since it was supposed to have different music than the basic design, but since it was not ready yet, we listened to a voice recording by Scott Lawlor that said “Jazz speed song, come on, go Go”. We were choosing the speed song all the time. It was awesome, I would have liked to add that voice line to unlock it. (Editors’ note: Can we do that ?!)
Geoff: There are so many stories that it is difficult to choose one. One that I remember right now is that the maximum ability that Lúcio has now is actually the third that we tested for the character. The first one was one that “stopped” or rather “super slowed” time and reduced everyone on the map to 5% of normal speed, I think we called it Tempo Shift or something like that. It also slowed projectiles midway, but Lúcio was immune to this effect and could skid normally, provided he could not deal damage to enemies. The idea was to use the bups To repel enemies (and projectiles, because back then it could also repel projectiles) and heal teammates, putting the team in a more advantageous position by the time the slow expires. It was crazy and it made for some really funny moments, but in the end people hated to be slowed down like this, no matter how final.
What we tried next was that, with his ult, he could recharge the meters of other players’ ult. We tried a couple of different versions, but although it was very powerful, no one felt, which is exactly what you don’t want to happen when you design something. In the end we tested Sound Barrier so that it could save your team from massive amounts of damage in no time.
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