climbs atop soapbox
Apparently the Overwatch gods have imparted a pink-haired man with a prophecy of impending salvation. Him being known as a true and faithful messenger, and only this, makes him worth listening to. Something is coming, although by the sound of it the chosen one’s words are being exaggerated by youtubers who might as well be begging for attention. This something appears to be hero bans. Anyone who thinks hero bans will divert players from DPS to tanks and to an apparently somewhat lesser extent supports and will bolster the game’s playerbase is engaging in a degree of wishful thinking equaled by visions of world peace and harmony. Over the long run queue times will remain problematic, compensated only by a loosening of SR spreads and lower matchmaking quality.
The fundamental problem that hero bans have little to do with is a disproportionate preference for playing DPS heroes. This is a game with the perspective and action application of a first person shooter. The crosshairs in the middle of the screen are how you do things. There are no items, there is no leveling, there isn’t clicking anywhere else on the screen. What happens in Overwatch better be engaging relative to those crosshairs. Holding W, looking in a general direction and holding a mouse button is not a recipe for mass success. Neither is being given an excuse to be more precise. Like it or not people want to be rewarded for skill.
What the developers have resorted to is fitting the square peg into the round hole, forcing Overwatch players into numerical parity between the roles. Predictably this has resulted in problems as avoiding longer waiting times wasn’t the reason why many people play Overwatch. Some argue this change was implemented in part to ensure better representation of DPS heroes relative to a scourge like GOATS that made the OWL look like an especially queasy investment, thus everyone should be thankful for it. Except even when GOATS was the most effective way to play the game players in the competitive mode avoided it and continued to play funner styles. The developers being unable to deal with GOATS was entirely on them.
There is another, insidious sin committed that has turned many into inert cynics who will take any dump befalling them. Only the developers know what sort of counter-productive sorcery they’ve been indulging balancing this game that has resulted in 6+ months-long metas after 6+ months-long metas that got old much quicker than that. The imbalances were obvious, the need for and even key changes were obvious, yet for months on end nothing would be done and when the changes would finally come the game didn’t enter a state of dynamism but yet another state of imbalance that produced a different stale meta players would have to patiently outlast while a number of heroes were left for even longer periods of time in the trash bin. Four years of Overwatch have amply demonstrated that whatever sophisticated process the developers of this game follow behind the scenes the results do not justify it.
Yet due to the unbelievable sluggishness of this process all the plebs in this community have learned, like conditioned dogs, that the reality is heroes can only be rebalanced over the course of many months, let alone dramatically and collectively. The true reality is this is complete nonsense. There is no intrinsic limiting factor other than these developers sitting around applying whatever dreadful concepts they have learned to make them the professionals they are on paper. A bunch of heroes can have substantial changes applied to them in the course of no longer than a week, liberally speaking, granted someone thinks of them. A test environment isolates these changes so that the crocodile tears of the kids playing this game can only flow when it is time for them to flow.
So with all that written let’s get into a potential actual solution to the roles problem that has people sitting in queues and will have people experiencing double tank, double damage, double support until they die, as a dead Blizzard game like Heroes of the Storm doesn’t technically die. Hail Blizzard.
Eliminate role queue entirely. This game wasn’t made for LoL freaks where on the front-end it’s the loltyler1’s of the world blowing a gasket by vice of existing while on the back-end it’s the Asian human calculators for whom algorithms are the Alpha, Kappa, and the Omega. Let my people play. Implement restrictions at the team selection screen whenever it’s used. One of each role at minimum, three of each role at maximum. 2-2-2 and 3-2-1 in all varieties.
But what about solo tanking or supporting? Let them suck on this so they stop complaining, or at least so you can justifiably smack them. Take a group of tanks and supports - the “mains” - and buff them to intentionally OP levels. No, don’t make them raid bosses, but enable them to solo their roles. The emphasis should be on tanking, healing, and survivability but I couldn’t resist throwing them a few bones. I’m a simple man and I like my numbers p.orn classy so relax and contemplate. Overwatch isn’t rocket science either.
Main tanks - Reinhardt, Orisa, Winston, Sigma
Obviously shields are the theme here. They are powerful, have been indispensable throughout the game’s history so it’s not like variety is taking a large hit by restricting them, and their stacking is the stuff of nightmare. It’s important to have at least one dive tank in this group and arguably Hammond could be one and invoking Winston’s shield is arbitrary but it’s just a choice I’ve made. I should also point out I’m unaware of the current state of these heroes as I’ve stopped playing the game. You can rebalance heroes, you can’t rebalance players. (broadly speaking)
- Reinhardt - I think firestrike is a significant ability in how fun he is to play. Increase its damage. Increase his movement speed slightly. He’s a largely melee hero who also holds up his shield as opposed to placing it so make him a little more maneuverable. Perhaps this would mean that Orisa will have a bigger shield than she currently does. I think his shield should also have perpendicular side “flaps” to some extent so as to improve play against Sombra. Obviously Reinhardt would be team dependent in this respect but it makes Sombra’s life more difficult. It’s important not to make him a monster in survivability. No 900 HP Reinhardts as people’s silly imaginations might conceive. However, he should be tanky.
- Orisa - Remove all movement speed penalties. Tighten her spread somewhat. Tone up her other two abilities. The displacement/pull one warrants particular comment. If the range of the effect is increased it could wreak havoc on certain maps. Yet I think I would like to see the range of the ability be increased. So increase the ability’s range but keep the pull distance constant or close to it. Orisa won’t pull heroes to the very center but she will pull across a wider radius. Perhaps buff the slowing effect. Obviously her shield might have to be improved.
- Winston - Dramatically reduce the cooldown of his barrier. Perhaps shave a second or two off his jump. Perhaps increase his HP. Keep the damage of his weapon constant but add a mini-stun every four seconds of him dealing damage to a hero.
- Sigma - This hero I have less experience with watching and zero experience playing. He is interesting in how flexible his barrier is. When Sombra hacks him do not remove a placed barrier or even a floating one (if it floats, just place it at the point it has gotten). Just disable Sigma’s ability to move or cancel it. I assume Orisa’s and Winston’s shields/barriers don’t disappear if the heroes are hacked, but if they do, change this too. Keep his offensive capability constant. Perhaps increase the size of his barrier somewhat and if it has been nerfed recently obviously buff it. I’m not sure how exactly Kinetic Grasp works despite reading the details of it so no opinion there. Basically, this is a pretty interesting hero. Make him more durable if you have to, tweaks here and there for him to be a main tank.
Ult generation may have to be slashed across the board. We don’t want these heroes ulting all the time. Same applies to the main supports.
Main supports - Mercy, Lucio, Ana/Zenyatta
As these heroes are especially vulnerable solo a main thrust is buffing their survivability. They all immediately go to 250 health.
- Mercy - Increase the range of her fly to ability, reduce the cooldown to 1. Her regeneration could be buffed by increasing its rate or even by having a lesser constant regeneration value when the higher rate hasn’t kicked in. Considering her enhanced maneuverability and higher HP it’s probably a good idea not to go too crazy. Certainly buff the healing capability of her ult. Range, chaining, magnitude, it needs to be a substantial defensive ult.
- Lucio - Increase the range and magnitude of his heal. The speed buff should not cover as large of an area. Lucio is already a dynamic hero to play, aside from increasing his own health and his healing ability not much needs to be done, although his damage may need to be reduced a little. His healing is an aura, he has movement speed to get places, he has the option of being aggressive. In fact, there is one thing I might add to him. Have his weapon 2 button modify his Soundwave/boop into a self-knock that enables him to get around faster and jump higher, especially directionally. Maybe Lucio can keep up with dive compositions. If Sombra completely negates his ult that’s an issue that might need to be considered.
- Ana/Zenyatta - I couldn’t decide which one should be a main healer in light of Ana’s ult. If Ana, make her crit heal on headshots of her own team. Reduce her ammo if necessary. She needs further survivability so her weapon 2 should be a self-injection, say of around 150 HP over three to four seconds. Quick application but briefly replaces her rifle. Zenyatta gets a second healing orb. Don’t know if healing needs to be buffed. On weapon 2 add a Mind of Buddha ability. It would be a short state of invulnerability during which he can’t shoot but can cry to his teammates for help. His character should probably say something in-game.
Although powerful and hopefully more fun to play these heroes will become mutually exclusive. One max main tank and one max main support per team. Then the rest of the team can decide whether to maximize DPS or play other compositions, although I’ve kept DPS maxed at three. The hybrids and different heroes also get a slot, whom I was hoping could be in compositions independent of the main tanks and supports but that may be unrealistic short of crazy synergies, which is an interesting thought to consider further and perhaps quite promising for expanding variety. These main tanks and main supports should also hopefully be more appealing for DPS players to play occasionally, and should get some more adherents from others. The trick with them is to make them perform their roles solo if necessary without making them stupidly powerful.
PS
You can have Bastion crit again in turret form to contribute to countering GOATS-like compositions. His spread makes him poor at long range, but at close range he’ll become deadly and useful. Just one obvious idea that appears to have evaded people.