Update: Survey is now closed. Thank you so much for all who participated! Results can be found here.
Alright, so as we all know, Mercy has been a popular subject around here. As such, there have been many opinions on how to handle her, as well as many accusations thrown around on both sides.
That said, I prefer data over opinions. So instead of all this back and forth “he said she said”, for the next few days I’ll be running a survey so we can finally sort through what’s actually a popular opinion, what’s baseless accusations, what the quiet ones are thinking without fear of being drowned out, and, most importantly, so we can get a solid understanding of where the devs should go from here. Bad comes to worse, at least this will allow us to get all of our ideas in one place.
I should probably note I’m not a professional survey-maker. I tried my best, but there’s always room for improvement.
The results are private for now to encourage everyone to be 100% honest, though of course I plan on sharing the results publicly in due time, probably in a new thread.
I figured I might as well make an FAQ-esque section to this to try and help address what I feel to be common concerns, and so you don’t necessarily have to scroll through the entire thread to find the 3 posts where I might’ve answered something.
What do you plan to do with this information?
On top of looking at the obvious questions such as “Do people find her enjoyable”, I also hope to see if I can go into more detail on the different demographics and try to tackle some common stereotypes such as “Everyone who think she’s fine doesn’t actually play her” and “All Mercy mains seem to enjoy is Mass Res and nothing more”.
I’ll also see if I can release a cleaned up copy of the CSV alongside my interpretation of the results so those who are interested can look through for themselves if they wish to either double check my math or look for new findings/correlations.
When can we expect the results?
They’re out right now! You can find them here
Why do you need to know my in-game ID?
(Disclaimer: When I say ID, I strictly mean public gamer tag that you go by in-game or on the forums. I do not want any login information such as an associated email, and you should never be willing to give that sort of thing away. To those who left it blank thinking that’s what I intended, apologies for the misunderstanding, but good idea playing it safe)
Strictly for reliability purposes.
I legitimately don’t care who said what. But if you leave a valid ID with your responses, I can know that you aren’t just some troll trying to throw off the data by submitting the same useless responses over and over again.
Leaving an ID also means that if you were to lose the Edit link, but want to change or clarify something, you can.
As promised in the survey, I will count your response even if you leave it blank. However, I also plan to run the numbers a second time strictly using the responses with a given ID.
Also remember I do intend to keep the ID’s 100% confidential. Even if I release the full CSV to the public, I will remove that question from the list so answers remain purely anonymous.
But my ID is private, so I feel uncomfortable leaving it.
Wth all due respect, no, it really isn’t.
For example, if you were to go to my Career profile page, with a quick glance at the url you can see that mine is Slyther0829#1317. Even private profiles can’t hide this as it’s used to identify the profile itself.
This goes double for forum users, as it’s used in Forum Profiles as well.
With console players, the finer details may be a little different, but the general idea is still true.
Are you only using the forums?
Yes. At least that’s as far as I plan on personally going. I’m not personally all that active anywhere else, so I’m just sticking to what I’m familiar with.
That said, others have already begun sharing the survey amongst other groups. If you wish to do so, feel free. More responses and more communities taking part means the more accurate this is to the Overwatch playerbase as a whole.
Won't the numbers be skewed one way or the other?
Yes. And No.
Due to the nature of this sort of thing, those unhappy with the current state of things are much more likely to give their responses than those who are currently pleased. There are also large groups that will naturally share the same opinion amongst themselves, so if this were to be shared, there would naturally be a sudden flux towards said opinion.
That said, all opinions do deserve to be heard. I can’t simply say “Well I’ve already received X amount from Y group saying Z, so time to just cut the ties and find someone who disagrees to keep things balanced.” If you think one group is dominating the charts, then you can always help by finding others to represent the opposition more clearly. With enough responses, the numbers eventually stop being skewed and are simply representative of what the majority seems to think.
I will say, however, the great part about the second section (Self Identification) is that I can see exactly what type of players are saying what. If it feels like a specific group is “dominating” the results, I can simply run the numbers without them as a factor and see what everyone else thinks. If the numbers come back relatively the same as they were with the group included, it’s easy to say that the group wasn’t necessarily skewing anything there, at least not by themselves.
Also know I am actively watching the numbers as time goes, so I’ll notice if any sudden shifts in one specific direction were to happen, and I’ll be sure to make note of it down the line.
The second and third questions (Why do/did/don't you enjoy Mercy) are confusing!
Yes. Yes they are.
Apologies for that. I would change it to make it clearer, but that would invalidate all previous submissions. Especially by now, it’s far too late to do that.
Just know you don’t have to stick to one small grouping. If you enjoy something, miss something else, and dislike a third, feel free to mark them all. They’re only split up like that so it’s clear what’s a positive and what’s a negative about her current state.
When in doubt, you can always put in your own reasoning using the “Other” option.
If you have any additional questions or need a specific clarification, feel free to ask. I’ll try to get to them ASAP. Though if I end up taking a bit and you wish to finish now, you can always edit your response later.
If you have comments on the survey or just want to leave your opinions on Mercy here to start friendly conversation as time goes on, feel free to leave them.
Thank you for your time, and happy gaming.
Yeeted a survey entry. Godspeed you quirky data collector.