It's not much fun to bust open an Overwatch loot box and find a bunch of stuff inside that you've already got. You get some compensation for it in the form of in-game credits, but it's like getting socks for Christmas: Sure, they're useful, but it's still a drag. So Blizzard is making changes to the system that will "drastically reduce" the number of duplicates that players encounter when the pop a box.
Of course, fewer duplicates means fewer opportunities to earn credits, and so to make up for that Blizzard will also increase the amount of credits awarded by loot boxes, to keep things in balance. "We'll make sure that your credit intake will be at least the same, if not more," game director Jeff Kaplan said in the latest Developer Update video.
Kaplan encouraged players to hit the Overwatch PTR and "feel it for yourself," although he pointed out that, because Overwatch doesn't have an infinite supply of content, you will sooner or later encounter dupes. "But we think the change should be very drastic and significant, and feel fantastic," he said.
The Overwatch PTR is live now with the loot box changes, and also a new option to permanently save your highlight clips that Bo wrote about here. Kaplan gets into the loot box changes at the 4:20 point in the video below, and a blog post with full details is up at playoverwatch.com.
