Welcome to the OWL, how may we help you yawn today?
It’s not even balance around GM, it’s balance around OWL, where season ends by the time the patch might go live. So it’s not even remotely relevant.
If it was balance around GM I’d expect them to address Ana and Rein. They haven’t been touched.
4 Likes
I didn’t miss that point, nor did anyone else here. My main point here is that it’s wrong to just ignore the game that happens for 99% of the players. There’s no reason why their experience is less important than the experience of players in GM.
6 Likes
You are partially correct, but you need to frame the argument away from pick rates, because pick rates are not a substantial argument for balancing. There could be a whole host of reasons why certain heroes aren’t being picked over others, and it’s not specifically because of tanks or a lack of options to the tank role.
This is a bad argument.
Toxicity exists because you’re playing against real players who have some inclination of what to do with players who have no clue or concept of what to do. There’s a huge problem with communication in Overwatch (and in team games in general) where visual and audio feedback is limited only to the player and not to the team (excepting when playing Supports). There’s a huge lack of tutorials, basic fundamental terms are completely archaic (what is a Tank? Bastion? What is a tank supposed to do when they’re Roadhog). There’s no instruction manual telling you what key does what (which key communicates my ultimate is ready or I need healing).
And there’s no tooltips, basic individual character tutorials on how-to play said character(s), and no concepts or information on how to work together as a team. It is the most lacking - derisvely so - instructions a video game can ever have. I can go to a store, buy a set of dishes and receive instructions within the packaging on how to wash them. I can’t even get that much from a physical copy of Overwatch.
That’s why toxicity exists, because not even the developer wants to take the time to foster a friendly competitive community.
Pretty sure Blizzard already does this.
This isn’t really good reasoning for why they haven’t been touched. There could be a number of reasons why.
1 Like
Today I learned that the devs were balancing around GM. That is news to many other GM players I’d imagine.
1 Like
They said the balance is mostly targetted at Master/GM and OWL while also considering the other ranks
1 Like
That’s pretty different from just GM.
1 Like
First of all, the game is being mostly balanced by:
-
OWL, duh
-
Community influence
I don’t think anything more than streamers in GM matter to the devs.
I actually misunderstood and see now you want balance by plat/diam with consideration to all ranks.
why???
There’s a reason people say composition doesn’t matter at plat.
You still have so much more room in hero kits to consistently express your skill, including monitoring your team and enemies’ ult economy, that playstyle can overcome counters.
If we actually did this, Widow/Orisa/Sigma/Brigg would receive buffs while Rein/Ana//Moira/Genji would receive nerfs
1 Like
Yeah, that’s true. One thing for sure the game should be balanced for players who tried, and achieved better results than others, rather than players who only play for fun (why does casual player care about their rank again?)
1 Like
If that was true, they’d have buffed Reaper and Bastion and Sym and Sombra and DVA and–
But no, because they know that the wrong buff on those heroes means absolute wreckage in lower ranks.
1 Like
Most of this is based off of the analysis up here, showing that their current “moving the Meta” experimental is blind to the metas of everywhere except GM, and based off of the following quote during the reddit ama:
“when it comes to balance, we primarily balance the game around owl, gm/masters”
There is a logical flaw with this entire argument and it is the fact that you assume skill levels are somehow fixed and unchanging. Most players continue to improve the more that they play the game. Most players do not stay bronze or silver forever. Not simply in terms of mechanical skill, but decision making and an overall understanding of the game.
Players at lower skill ranks make different decisions than higher skilled players because they do not understand the game as well. As they start to learn more of the nuances of the game, they begin to change the decisions they make.
Anyone who does not fit this progression is the exception and the minority, not the majority, despite your claims to the contrary. You are suggesting that the game be adjusted to accommodate the temporary concerns of less skilled players without considering that doing so has consequences for those same players in the long term.
To demonstrate the reason why this does not work with an extreme example: if I am a player who picks mercy and only ever try to kill people with my pistol, I am not going to be very successful. My game experience is likely to be less enjoyable than the experience of most players. Should the game be adjusted to accommodate my playstyle? Of course not. Not only am I playing the game incorrectly (as a team game) I am making very poor decisions. My poor decision-making is the direct cause of my poor game experience.
While this might seem an unrealistic outlier centered around a single poor decision, it is simply a matter of substituting this one obvious decision for dozens of smaller decisions. Just because a less skilled player is unlikely to recognize the poor decisions he or she is making does not somehow remove the significance of the impact these collective incorrect decisions have on this player’s experience.
If you try and play your favorite hero on a team composition that this hero does not fit into, such as playing a widowmaker on a full dive team, you are inevitably less likely to be successful than if you played something that has synergy with your team. As a result, your play experience is likely to be worse. Is this a hero balance issue, or the result of a lack of understanding of how to play the game effectively?
You can extend this more realistic example to many other little things that a more skilled and more experienced player would do differently. Why is it a good idea to implement balance changes to improve the game experience for players that are making poor decisions?
Suggesting that you or anyone else is being discriminated against because the game is not adjusted to suit your play experience is irrational to the point of absurdity. Creating a culture of victimhood for less-skilled players is just as toxic as elitism.
6 Likes
Mercy isnt a main healer she is like in the middle and hog is just a fat dps
NGL I agree with this. I play in Gold and Brig/Lucio are infinitely worse than at higher rank (Diamond? and up) the fact that no one plays in sync/together makes AOE healing really weak since everyone is spread out and spams “I need healing”. Yes you can still get “gold healing” but usually the players still die pretty quickly around you and then blames you. I’d say in my experience the only reason to have a Brig down in Gold is to counter stuff like Ball and Tracer (maybe even Genji but I find that most people go Moira).
Also for shield Meta, in my experience, Zarya-Rein are mostly played. (Lately I’ve seen so many Dva but I’m not sure why since she doesn’t seem to work at any rank). So basically I dont think the doubleshield nerf is gonna do much at my rank except for making Zarya Rein more of a must pick.
My only solution to fix the “skill gap balancing” would be to make more heroes with over lapping abilities so one can be better in lower tier and another better at higher tier since they require more “skill” or because they’re harder to play.
Actually, you’re the one making the logical flaw here. It is irrefutable fact that a vast majority of players are below gm, GM is literally only the top less than 1% of players.
In your analysis, you’re assuming that Silver represents a flat, unchanging skill level. As players improve at the game, skill levels improve too. Silver players currently are far better than silver players were a year ago (I could link forum topics and streamers who have talked at length about this).
Even if players are improving, ranks are improving too. Assuming that every player (or even most players) will climb is incorrect, because when you hit bronze, it isn’t full of new accounts, it’s full of some players who have been playing for a long time.
This completely disregards the argument because I’m talking about balancing the metas at lower levels to be less oppressive, and “pistol mercy” is not a meta anywhere in the game. It’s flawed logic to compare my argument to “well we’d better buff Mercy pistol then because bronze players sometimes use it”.
Even so, Mercy’s pistol is often called a “noob trap” because there are few, if any, circumstances where pulling it out is actually a good idea. Maybe Blizzard should consider that and improve it so that it’s actually more useful to her kit instead of just something that experienced players know is a waste of time in most circumstances.
this is why i think brig needs to be reworked if they actually want to balance her around top rank games.
everytime they nerf her she’s barely getting worse in high rank situations, but she gets just worse and worse for low rank players.
and it’s mostly due to her kit being too big so she isn’t allowed to have a specific thing she’s really good at.
Props to everyone trying to make op understand even if it’s a lost cause… Balancing the game around people with no awareness and knowledge about the game seems like a recipe for success though, tracer does no damage in plat and diamond because they can’t track so lets buff her so she can erase everyone in gm and top500
2 Likes
Blizzard does not balance for only one level of play, let alone just (or predominantly) GM.
it’s not just gm, it’s mid diamond and above. People hard crutch metas at 3300+