What is the purpose of Overwatch's Beta?

[Krazzorx]

I'm legitimately confused about what they are testing here. Is it just balance? I don't see any bugs from the streams I'm watching.

Clearly they are testing something, but what?

[Chickat]

Hype.

10 chars.

[Torgent]

I'm legitimately confused about what they are testing here. Is it just balance? I don't see any bugs from the streams I'm watching.

Clearly they are testing something, but what?

Same as every beta that comes out now. It's about hype and balancing.

[Jester Joe]

To make me feel bad that I can't play it yet.

[Krazzorx]

If it was just hype it would be releasing extremely soon, which it clearly is not. If it was ready for release they obviously would, so what is missing?

[Antereon]

And to test technical things like servers and crap.

[Archon14]

I saw a bug today where Hanzo killed Mercy through a door before the start of the match. Hilarious.

[Zenlogic]

There are a few bugs that I have seen so far, one is the u can bastion in your spawn on one of the maps and shoot at the last checkpoint, and be invulnerable. Hanzo's arrow can kill people through the starter door randomly. Another one is Mc Cree's flashbag ending insantly, aka not lasting the 1.5 seconds. even though the ability clearly landed and threw off a hit marker.

[Kolvarg]

Building hype, testing balance, stress-testing servers and overall just polishing everything.

You can say what you want about Blizzard but at least to some extent they still uphold their quality and polish standards even with Betas =P (Considering the days of buggy early access we live in)

They'd do themselves a favour if they don't take as much time in beta as they did with HotS, hype fades over time.

[StationaryHawk]

Just because you don't see bugs doesn't mean they don't exist, and just because they don't exist doesn't mean they couldn't exist. That said, they'd also be testing stuff like balancing, the servers, etc.

[George Costanza]

The Closed Beta will be composed of a small number of testers who will have regular access to our public beta test. Our goal for the Closed Beta is 100% gameplay feedback, and we’ll be encouraging participants to discuss and dissect every hero, map, ability, and other aspect of the game on our upcoming beta forums.

In order to get the most meaningful and constructive feedback possible, the total number of players in the Closed Beta will be extremely limited—though we’ll be adding more people from time to time to make sure we have the right number of heroes actively engaged.

The first phase of the Closed Beta will deploy on October 27 in our Americas and Europe gameplay regions, and players may be added gradually to start (with more being invited as new features are ready to test). During this time, we'll continue to make preparations for our Asia gameplay region, which is set to come online at a later date.

We'll provide more details—including an FAQ—once the Closed Beta begins.

From time to time, we’ll also need to open up the floodgates and call upon an army to overwhelm our hardware. The goal: get as many heroes playing as we can, all helping us “stress test” our servers to ensure they can withstand the assault.

These larger-scale Beta Test Weekends will be brought online occasionally for a limited time, generally over a weekend, and will run concurrently with our ongoing Closed Beta test. Because Beta Test Weekends are primarily hardware- and tech-focused, the number of heroes, maps, and gameplay modes will be restricted—but feedback on everything will definitely be welcome.

Multiple different Beta Test Weekends will be assembled in various parts of the world. We have tons of would-be heroes signed up for the Overwatch beta, and we want to give as many as possible a chance to play during the testing period. The first Beta Test Weekend is currently slated for after BlizzCon—stay tuned for more information following the event.

Blizzard. So next weekend is the first open beta weekend :P. or the one after.

[Famine]

I'm legitimately confused about what they are testing here. Is it just balance? I don't see any bugs from the streams I'm watching.

Clearly they are testing something, but what?

They are testing whether they should port this to consoles ASAP.

[Krazzorx]

They are testing whether they should port this to consoles ASAP.

There's no way it would work on consoles, while I'm certainly not opposed to console ports as a concept at all, this game would not work on a console, way too fast without a mouse.

[I-Thalos-I]

This explains it:

https://youtu.be/PnRpV4V5H0w

PS: no idea how to make the video playable in the reply

[Jester Joe]

Blizzard. So next weekend is the first open beta weekend :P. or the one after.

They said the weekend betas are invite only also.

Q. If I don't get into the Closed Beta, am I guaranteed access to a Beta Test Weekend?
A. No. While Beta Test Weekends will include a much larger number of players than Closed Beta, they will also be invite-only. You'll need to opt-in to the Overwatch beta to be eligible.

http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/blog/19932055/#faq

[Tehterokkar]

No bugs? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfmCOKt48pE

[Tenjen]

the obvious bugs have been removed but there are some still lying around that people are running into and reporting. Fixing these final bugs causes bugs. A lot of balancing an tweaks have to be made to the heroes and this can cause bugs.

More and more people in matches or loads and loads of matches going on can reveal bugs. Suggestions can be made to improve the UI or ideas thought up from gameplay to improve it (what people need to see, shouldnt see, at a glance)

[Gsara]

There's no way it would work on consoles, while I'm certainly not opposed to console ports as a concept at all, this game would not work on a console, way too fast without a mouse.

Why wouldnt it work on consoles? It already has controller support.

[Noctifer616]

Bugs, server stability, game balance etc.

[Very Tired]

There are a few bugs I've seen. Junkrat's tire clipping through stairs, Reaper being able to teleport into cars. Play of the Games managing to be a complete joke some times.

But in general I would really hope the game to be almost spotless by now. It's been in a playable state for over a year.