This is why the devs have specifically said in the past that the ideal feedback is to “simply express to us what the pain points and problems of the game are in a way that is constructive, and not focus much on potential solutions at all” (paraphrasing). I think many people here on the forums get bogged down into the solutions too much instead of just saying “Hey, ‘X’ feels bad because of ‘Y’ reason, and it makes my experience feel unrewarding, causing me to log off feeling like I wasted my time”. This is the type of feedback that is most helpful to them. Simply identify what is an issue to you, why it’s an issue, and how it affects you.
Edit: Way I see it, there was nothing wrong with pointing out “hey these queue time differences are clearly a problem”. They are and they were. The issue is when you get so into the solutions that you’re going off of assumptions. Not saying Falcon was at all wrong for speaking on the issue, they’re just going off the information that was available at the time.
couple more answers that i found (not sure if this was the mercy answer or not):
How often do you consider introducing new abilities to a hero’s kit like you did with d.va’s micro missiles or hanzo’s jump?
And what heroes do you believe are in need of this?
**Alec (Lead Hero Designer - Blizzard) — **
When looking at adding to a hero or reworking them, we first ask: can we achieve our desired gameplay changes in their current kit and abilities? The GA meter for Mercy in OW2 is a good example of adding something new within her present abilities. If we can’t solve for desired gameplay within what we have, we’ll next ask if there is room on the hero for something brand new. We are currently asking those questions for Sombra and Roadhog. If we end up doing new abilities for either of them, it’ll take some time and I’d expect small holdover changes like the ones in our Season 3 patch.
What is your philosophy around using healthpools to balance non-tank heroes? More specifically, do you forsee any other heroes (existing or future) being balanced using healthpools <200 HP?
**Tess - (Assoc. Game Designer - Blizzard) — **
Varying health amounts is a great tool to utilize when designing or balancing a hero. Characters like Reaper and Mei, who thrive in close-range combat, can utilize their larger amounts of Health to help mitigate the risk of approaching close-range fights. Varying health amounts can also help provide flavor to a character. Tracer has a low amount of health because she’s quick and nimble, yet Torbjörn has more Health because he’s heavily armored. The last balance patch lowered Widowmaker’s health to 175, which shows we’re considering health amounts when it comes to balancing the heroes overall.
I think this is a fairly disheartening reply because it’s basically acknowledging that snipers can be super oppressive, but that’s okay because some counter picks exist. Not everyone has the luxury of picking or being good at the heroes that can effectively counter her.
They specifically stated in OW2 that:
They wanted to remove the hard counters from the game
Most players like to play (and are likely only good at) a small handful of heroes
This seems like a prime example of where they seem to ignore both of those things. “Pick her counter or suffer the entire match as she locks down the entire game.” It’s a lot like when they reworked torb, stating he was a “feast or famine” hero that is either oppressively good, or throws based on what he plays into.
Varying health amounts can also help provide flavor to a character. Tracer has a low amount of health because she’s quick and nimble, yet Torbjörn has more Health because he’s heavily armored. The last balance patch lowered Widowmaker’s health to 175, which shows we’re considering health amounts when it comes to balancing the heroes overall.
I wonder if we’ll ever get another natively 150hp character again
Nah, Alec said they are going to specifically respond to one about Mercy later. There will still be a Mercy reply that gets responded to. I think everyone needs to remember that reddit went down during their alloted time slot for this AMA and they had other things scheduled for the rest of the day. They’ll get to stuff, people just need to be patient.
Hawnu, take a chill pill and stop making everything about Mercy. Not everything is about Mercy and they are still answering things. You’re so dramatic lmao.
With being mention within conjunction of Mercy, Sombra, and Roadhog has me hesitantly optimistic.
I’m hoping some kinda a reload interaction for Mercy since right now her healing on crit teammates is broken.
As for Sombra I’m hoping for more like possible scouting abilities? Not sure what but something that could help encourage her to scope out and use that for an advantage.
I don’t play Roadhog so I’m game for anything new to test out.
I mean there is always the chance it gets answered, the most recent post was almost an hour ago and before that like 2 hours so who knows. Just really weird for them to acknowledge a part of a question, say it will get answered in another post, then not answer it in another post for hours.
Let’s see, it’s reality, we are seeing it, the devs are ignoring all the questions about Mercy, they are answering the rest, but what has to do with her, no.
For sure we’re getting the mid season balance patch March 7th. I feel like the implication of this AMA is that we won’t get a hotfix patch between now and then but obviously that’s just speculation.
