Precisely. As I’ve said above, Shield Bash is the best comparison we can make to Accretion.
Both fulfil the same role: self-peel, disrupting mobility and interacting with channelled abilities like Barrage and Whole Hog. Shield Bash is blocked by shields but not by Matrixes, why should Accretion be blocked by Matrixes?
You think the community was widely requesting the first tick of Frost slow effect get reduced, and Frost slow effect duration get reduced?
Do you think the community was asking for Frost Piercing when Mei was a throw pick?
At the moment, that’s how I see it. It’s basically akin to a body-based ability like Charge, Shield Bash, and Rocket Punch. Something with a pinning effect that basically invalidates all other counter measures.
But while Charge and Rocket Punch can ignore barriers, Shield Bash and Accretion cannot, and I figure there may be some specific coding there that happens. It’s a just another weird exception.
That would mean Zarya beam would have to be blocked too right? That’s a hard no for me.
They were pretty widely asking for something about the slowing effect to be done, and yes–the rate at which it slowed and the duration for which it slowed were items in there, particularly the latter, but also the former (especially from Hammond mains, who often complained about being brought to a screeching halt by a single tick of frost)
IIRC this was actually one of the more-frequent requests for Mei because of how frustrating it was for Mei players when their beam got body-blocked.
Again, don’t oversell yourself. You’ve supported some fairly-widely suggested ideas that have gone through. That doesn’t make you a crystal ball or mover-and-shaker of balance, because there have been a huge amount of things you’ve suggested that haven’t been added.
You could say that.
Such as a near exact replica of the Role Queue interface, complete with “Quickplay Classic”, a month and a half before it’s release.
✅ [2-2-2] Putting RoleQ into Quickplay
Or the specifics of the “Balance changes without patching” 4 months in advance.
✅ Balance changes without patches
Zarya/Sym beams are rigid energy weapons
Mei frost is a fluid, with a moving animation
I’d argue Mei attack shares more on common with TorbUlt.
“Near-exact replica” is, again, overselling it, and again, a lot of people were suggesting ideas such as a flex queue, non-role queue option, etc at this time as well.
Also worth mentioning that, by the point that your thread was made, Blizzard already likely had hashed out how RoleQ would look structurally. Once again, I think you’re being overly generous to yourself about how you influenced this decision–Blizzard had been working on RoleQ for over a year by this point, per their own description.
Except this had already been done in the past (number tweaking without PTR, that is), and yes, people had already been suggesting hotfixes as a means of making balance changes. Blizzard hadn’t been exploiting it to its full potential, true, but it’s not like you were the lone or even leading voice on that matter. Plenty of people have asked for them to start making more-granular changes directly to the game without pushing patches that require going through cert
Once again… don’t oversell yourself. You’ve supported ideas that other people have been talking about, including some that have been talked about since very early in the game (i.e. the hotfix thing, which was also brought up during the Omnic Crisis because of how long it took to fix on console). And you’ve suggested a huge number of ideas that haven’t been seen at all. Just because you’ve gone with the general community zeitgeist on a few issues and those have been implemented does not mean:
Yin describes very well how your proposal would be inconsistent and is working from a basis that just isn’t true. I think it’s disingenuous to just dismiss his point by riding on false laurels.
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I think it’s bizarre to say a moving frost attack is the same as a rigid energy attack.
And the only justification is emotional interia of “how it’s been in the past is fundamentally better just because that’s just how it’s been”.
Or “change is bad, because it changes things”
Because they operate similarly at a functional level? I think it’s bizarre to look at the tree of “one is bendy and one isn’t” over the overarching forest of “they’re both beam attacks and fundamentally operate in the same way”
The argument here hasn’t been “don’t change it because we don’t want it changed.” Don’t even pretend that, it’s incredibly dishonest. The argument has been that such a change would be considerably inconsistent at the design level
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I think if we’re concerned with design, and if devs have learned anything from GOATs era, that
- “What pierces Matrix and similar abilities, largely determines the meta”
- A lot of players would enjoy the ability to peel against Mei Frost. They really dislike how overwhelming she can feel.
- This inability to Matrix non-ult CC is largely what’s suppressing Dive.
- D.va has the potential to be a really popular tank and increase tank queue usage. But Mei/Sigma mess her up a lot.
And I think that’s a bit more important than emotional somewhat similarity.
Especially since a Mei frost isn’t that much far off from a reaper shotgun in usage.
And there’s really no pre-existing idea from other FPS games of how a “frost flame thrower interacts with a canceling field that selectively blocks some attacks and not others”.
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I… don’t think that’s true at all. I don’t even know how you came up with this, considering there were no significant interaction changes to Matrix or similar abilities (of which there weren’t any in GOATS) during this time, and certainly none that caused a flux in the meta. I see no basis for this conclusion.
This is true, but I don’t think this is a justification to create inconsistencies in how the game works. I think a lot of players would be equally happy if Mei’s frost was just flat out weaker, which… it is. It’s not a “we must do this contrived idea to please the masses” situation. There are numerous options available, and we don’t need to force ourselves into the one that disrupts the game’s functional continuity.
Again, not… really? Not only does Dive not depend on DVa (recently, most iterations of Dive have been MonkeyBall–Winston is definitely the larger determinant here), there are a lot of things that influence Dive’s viability, such as Mercy, Zen, and Lucio all being weaker in their pro-Dive functions than they used to be, such as Hanzo providing a burst DPS option that’s resistant to Dives, such as Reaper actually being halfway decent and thus taking a steaming poo on all three Dive tanks, etc etc. Again, this seems like an unfounded conclusion.
I agree with the first statement. The second, not so much. Top-down balancing from the developers has messed her up. She was already bad by the time Sigma rolled around–the only reason she was continuing to see usage in high ranks was because of her strong synergy with GOATS. Mei does hurt her, but this is also intentional–that’s the point of a counter, and Mei is a DVa counter. Removing that interaction removes a very-purposefully designed aspect of balance. It wasn’t an issue before, and it’s not an issue now.
And I think ignoring all of that to default back to “emotional attachment” is incredibly dishonest.
Wow, really groundbreaking conclusion here. Good thing Overwatch totally operates by the rules of other FPS, right?
Mei’s weapon is a beam. It functions like a beam, it’s balanced like a beam. There is a pre-existing idea from Overwatch about how beams should interact with abilities like Matrix and Grasp. That alone creates an argument of consistency which is more-than-adequate to dismiss your suggestion (and which is also related to player experience as it allows players to easily identify and execute expected counterplay).
I still say hell no to matrix blocking freeze. I would prefer actual fixes to d.va’s kit that don’t rely on a single hero being good to matter. Plus we all know that this would be one of the first things to go if Mei is in the dumpster. And given past trends I would exactly be suprised if Mei is heading there soon.
Both sides I don’t think it is a good change for and harmful to both heroes.
What about deflect?
I’m kinda mixed feelings on that.
I’d say chop up the rock into dust, and maybe reflect the frost.
What is the most comfortable comp to play becomes meta. Doubleshield didn’t start because Sigma can throw rock through DM, but because he can essentially fully back Orisa up, and vice versa.
Also, their primaries’ ranges almost match: yes, Sigma’s primary, unlike Orisa, is limited in that regard, but it rarely happens so that enemies are more than 20 meters away from a choke S/O are holding.
And Sigma’s balls pack great shieldbreaking potential, so he is a solid answer to the most meta tank, Orisa.
Just don’t let her get close. If she does so, stun the hell out of her. The general rule is that the best answer to freeze is zoning; unfortunately, heroes that excel at it are not even close to being meta.
Barriers dominance forced dive to stop being meta. They cut off divers from the healing and force them into CqC on the enemy’s turf. DB also deals a lot of damage to non-shielded enemies long before they even get to its position, so dive is naturally slowed down - and that finally kills it off, as the very value of dive is obtained through rushing an enemy.
D.Va is incredibly reliant on the composition her team is running: she needs a follow-up to her aggression. So, if any dive heroes fall out of meta, she also does so in terms of dive, but still keeps her position in brawly comps (like GOATS). Unfortunately, both are shut down by DB due to the aforementioned reasons
As much as I hate Mei this nerf is unnecessary and is going to force dive meta as well make her f-tier, even with multi-freeze she’s gonna be garbage against dive because dva is gonna use her matrix? Nice logic mate, glad there isn’t people like you in the dev team.
Sigma has the power to control gravity. Is it so far fetched to think he uses that power with his accretion, and that’s why it ignores DM, Grasp, and deflect?
Making it so Mei is plenty powerful in Diamond/Plat but kinda meh in Masters/GM is the goal.
And I think a lot of Masters/GM players would love more Dive.
And if D.va is popular in Platinum through Bronze, that would help Tank queue problems a lot.
Also I think it’s a little bit bizarre for people to complain about “Dive” when they don’t play in skill tiers that had “real Dive”.
Basically Accretion acts like a ranged Melee Attack, like Rocket Punch and more specifically like Shield Bash. THe stun hits, and then the damage hits. I think it’s coded the same way as Shield bash at its Core, as it’s blocked by shields but not things like Deflect.
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To be completely fair (and I know this isn’t your argument), all beams have varying effects and aren’t really consistent with each other, either. Mei’s beam/spray has a slowing/freeze effect. Winston’s damages multiple targets and ignores barriers, Symmetra’s Sentries have a built-in stacking slow, while her LMB ramps up in power and charges up ammo on barriers. Zarya’s beam is tied to her passive energy build up from damage taken by barriers and Moira’s RMB has a drain effect. Functionally, they’re all beams, but they all have a special effect attached to them that makes them unique, thus their only consistency is that they are classified under the same function, but carry a unique special effect that’s generally inconsistent with other beams.
Then, of course are the non-damaging or non-aggressive beams like Mercy’s and Moira’s healing. Moira’s healing beam closely resembles Mei’s in that it has a similar conal effect, and is blocked by barriers, but unique in that it carries a heal over time over Mei’s.
Essentially, every beam used in Overwatch usually carries a secondary effect or some kind of element that enhances the beam’s power (damage), or provides a unique debuff. Understanding that; maybe it would be fair to provide some kind of feedback on that level that could see some kind of change to Mei’s LMB.
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