If we can’t balance the heroes for the mode then why not balance the mode for the heroes?
What would this look like? No idea, just occurred to me! Still how about some global ruleset for FFA that serves to soft-balance the heroes? I’m sure we/ devs could think up some global effects that could balance out some of the peaks and valleys in hero performance.
*Edit: HEY! I thought of a rule: A Range on Offensive Constructs
No self heals is a start. (That includes Doom shields) Everyone should have to rely on hp packs to heal unless they’re a support.
Alternatively characters that can’t self heal should get hp back on kills (depending on the hp percent of damage they did.)
Reaper, Reaper, Reaper, McCree, Doom, Reaper, Reaper, Reaper, Reaper, Hog, Reaper, Reaper, Reaper
That’s DM right now, garbage.
I think Zarya should be able to bubble an enemy in FFA to get charge in the same kind of vein that Ana can self Nano.
The design of FFA as a mode really just favors one-shotting and killstealing too much. Given that there’s a big difference between heroes in their capacities to do either of the above, it can never be balanced.
Maybe factoring in assists could reduce the need for one-shots and reduce the effectiveness of killstealing somewhat, but many people don’t seem to like the idea of this (as it allegedly goes against the premise of FFA).
First thing that comes to my head is that roadhog’s self heal does not grant him a 50% damage reduction in deathmatch
No, the issue people have with this is depending on how valuable assists are, they would base the entire meta around them or it wouldn’t make a difference in what heroes are picked.
Its kinda frustrating that at high ranks its reaper 95% with some rare appearance of Hog and Mccree.
Any global rule would need to generalize more. Something like:
Any offensive constructs have a range limit.
Hard to word that well, what I mean is a class of items: Moira Orbs, Junkrat Traps, Turrets, etc. that we can call “Offense Constructs” (OC or whatever, you name it). Everything in this class of items has a max distance you (the builder/caster) can be away from them before they disappear. If the item is on a cooldown, that cooldown resets.
It could address some cheap stuff… like Junkrat throws a trap and goes walkabout. Later you’re caught in that trap and murked by someone other than Junkrat. He’s nowhere near. It’s a situation that only benefits the kill stealer. With that OC range in place, the trap and/or mine goes away which, yes, will put a range on legit trap/mine set-ups. Junk could either stay in range of the original trap/mine or get them back to lay again wherever he’s wandered off to.
Same with Moira Orbs, she tosses them in a fight, it eff’s off to Narnia and winds up sapping the last micro-bit of health off some uninvolved player half a map away. With OC range in play that Orb would poof out once too far. Moira gets her CD back to make up for losing all those kill steals.
Sym, too far from a turret, it poofs, her counter increments up one, solves the cheap-feeling (kill-steal) of getting sniped for your last bit of health by an abandoned turret and the problem of Sym’s turret regen being too slow to allow for the fight and flee gameplay FFA kinda requires (which encourages “nesting”).
Torb, same deal. Also acts as a bit of tech to get his turret back without the (too harsh for FFA) cooldown. He can just move out of range of the turret he wants to destroy to be able to put a new one down where he currently needs it.
Anyway, that’s more the type of rule I was thinking. I could keep listing examples but the idea is to balance FFA with global rules that can nerf where needed and buff where needed to make a more level playing field with fewer kill steals and more intense action.
*Goes to wait for someone pointing out some glaring flaw in this OC rule… barring that, no one will reply because reading.