As a CoD veteran, let me tell you something

I’ve been reading some of the more thoughtful posts; reading and re-reading. Some of them make great points, some only make points based on personal opinion. In both cases, however, the well written ones get many upvotes.

Here’s the thing. Here’s the hard part to swallow:

It isn’t that Blizzard doesn’t care about you. It’s that Blizzard cannot afford to care exclusively about you.

Blizzard is not your next-door-neighbor. They cannot answer to every complaint you have about their front/back yard. They are a company; in fact, they are one half of a much larger company, which includes Call of Duty and Destiny franchises. And they need to remain competitive against that other company, be it EA or Valve.

I know, I know… this is the moment when you’ll say: “But we pay for them to exist.” And if your response is so simple, then I’ll response even more simply: “So then. Stop paying them.”

But it isn’t so simple and anyone who knows how corporations work understands why Blizzard cannot simply do whatever anyone with 200+ votes talks about on here, or why they cater first and foremost to the OWL. Of course, they definitely try their best, within certain limits, to appease the fanbase. But in the end, even Jeff Kaplan must answer to Morhaime, and Morhaime must answer to Kotick and Kelly and the rest of the Board. And they must answer to majority shareholders, so that when someone says… “Completely redo the most popular of Heroes, even if top tier won’t like it…” you have to understand that’s just not doable. I mean… come on, now.

Imagine you had a fruit stand, and you stocked some fruit 2-feet too high for most of your customers to reach and handle, but there’s about 10 people who come by every week, who buy 90% of your stock of this item; the other 10% goes bad or you eat it. Sure, you can say “Let me stock it lower,” but then there’s the risk that all the handling will bruise the fruit, and the 10 people who come by will start going elsewhere because they don’t want bruised fruit… or maybe because they felt entitled to it - whatever. The point is… you’re going to think twice about it. And if your fruit stand is actually a chain of fruit stands, the majority owner will think even harder than you, because you losing him all that money is money he now has to find elsewhere… and that requires energy and time and, possibly, money.

TL;DR - CoD already went through everything you guys are doing, back during “Ghosts,” and the devs listening to every little thing ended up ruining the game. In fact, the constant weapon imbalance in Ghosts was a direct result of devs paying way too much attention to every bickering fan on the forum. And Infinite Warfare was the last straw. If you keep bickering about every little thing, OW will end up with a currency system, like CoD. Trust me.

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Overwatch already has a currency system…

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When most the community wants dive to finally die after a year, but the devs don’t even speak of a tiny nerf to their posterchild metamaster, that’s when we get a problem. It’s not catering to one person’s opinion, it caters to everyone who isn’t in Overwatch League pretty much.

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I don’t think anything that goes on with Blizzard games like OW and etc do not have to go through Kotick or anyone on the Activision side, but Morhaime maybe, but I am sure that even the board doesn’t hold the trigger on what changes are needed to be made in the games. I am sure if they find something like a change in subscribers or sales in the game or users in the game decline, then they may step in and ask the directors of those games to find out what is going on and what is causing the decline, then maybe find a solvable resolution to fix it.

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I agree with you. But in the end, there are meetings, and in this meetings, things are informed. Sure… no one says, “We’re gonna nerf Genji.” But definitely, someone brings up … “We’re gonna be making drastic changes which may affect next quarter earnings for OW sales, incl. add-on sales. People in forums have been asking for these for a year now.”

And someone will say, without reading the report. “How many people?”

And if the number isn’t something drastic, like 50,000, then the changes simply will not be made. Those changes take time, and time is money for them. It’s just not worth the risk for a couple of posts getting 500 upvotes.

You’re correct. The fact is also that the forums are a very small percentage of a massive fanbase.

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Sorry, TL;DR.

It took tf2 roughly 10+ years to get to the current state, where people argue more about cosmetic and monetary values than actual game balance, seeing as I believe its much more stable balance wise than Overwatch. Granted, there’s only 9 classes, which perhaps is the big problem with overwatch, also one of its strengths.

So… Maybe 20 years for overwatch? Lol…

The problem is trying to make everyone happy, but most of the people on the forums are the vocal minority compared to the user base. Yeah the game might have 2 mill players actively play it, but how many of those are really going on the forums really saying Genji needs changed? Maybe like 1% of those 2mill. So if they took that feedback out of the 1%, then what about the other side that isn’t talking about it who might feel the change isn’t needed? If they make that change, they might have just cause that other half to just stop playing because of a change that might have not been needed.

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You give me a TL;DR apology… but then write up a comment as long as my own TL;DR?

Come on, man…

While this could certainly be the case, corporate structures vary quite widely. We have no idea who has authority. Video games are a creative industry, so I imagine the lead dev has final say on most gameplay related issues. I honestly doubt the board gives a damn what Mercy’s ultimate is.

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So you’re saying your own TL;DR was too long? I’m confused.

I hear you, but Act-Blizz is not your run of the mill corporation. Any public company answers first and foremost to stock prices.

Or did you miss the recent report on their stock value dropping steadily since mid-March?

They have two big games on their hands (CoD and OW), and a new expansion coming to WoW. CoD is not performing well, and OW is currently their money child because Destiny ended up being too tight knit.

I think this is a lot of people first shooters and they seem to think we should be able to play it like WoW pvp or something too

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That may also be a good point, though I imagine that’s not a large majority of people.

Many people came to OW after CoD screwed up with IW, and Battlefield 1 ended up not being as amazing as people like to pretend it is, beside the visuals.

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Reading the feedback is something they should do, cuz one of the devs accepted they IGNORED THE FEEDBACK for rework some characters and in some adjustments. With this kind of attitude nothing can be done

It’s one thing when they’re trying to please everyone

It’s another when they aren’t at all and are focused on E$PORTS, while still pretending to be our friends and loading us up with nonanswers

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Completely agreed regarding the stock prices. But a board usually doesn’t bother micromanaging a company that much. It’s possible though. I think it’s far more likely they emphasised OWL, a hero release schedule, en event schedule, expected returns, etc. Because OW is doing so well, the creative team could just as easily have more clout than usual. I’m sure they look over major patches and things like that, but I’d honestly be surprised if it was with a red pen.

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You can’t nerf dive without killing it. Dive is generalist heroes. Without generalist heroes then the game is just a bunch of specialist and is a giant cluster. If you have a bunch of generalists then strategy doesn’t exist because everything is just reskins.

Forum Mod Edit: This post has been edited by a moderator due to masked language as it is in violation of the Code of Conduct.

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ignores whole post
ok typical forum post. Honestly this relates to why the first democracy was flawed. PEOPLE ARE STUPID. believe it or not they are, and they dont know what is right
EXPLAIN TO ME
how much fun triple tank with junk will be to watch in OWL
DIVE is only op in gm+

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Played CoD from WaW through BO3 (and IW zombs)

Literally everything you said was correct. I distinctly remember Ghosts looking like the Godsend CoD when it was released. The perk system, point streaks, gun play, etc. That all died out very fast and I began to fully understand how bad all of the community’s ideas were. Nothing will ever pass MW2 in terms of fun in MP, and that game got balanced ONCE to nerf supermodels.

Community feedback is important but the devs need to be careful who they listen to. I thought this was a great post

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