Because the game is an esport and not a casual game balancing around lower ranks is a bad idea. Gm players and pro players know how everything fits into the game and they know how a character should be played which means they can accurately describe what changes must be made. Low rank players however play things incorrectly and dont stretch the game to its limits like pro’s do, because of this they deem things as “broken” even though in most cases they arent, its like using a toaster incorrectly and asking the toaster company to fix the toaster just because you cant use it. If you dont play the game to its limits, or you dont play the game and its heroes correctly your input including mine (since I am only masters) should be ignored in favor of pro players in my opinion. In school we learn about finding credible sources, for example in the medical field you cant provide input on certain things because you dont have the qualifications to, same in overwatch in terms of balancing it should be up to the pros who are qualified in this field.
A big example of the ill effects of listening to non credible people was the last widow changes which did nothing at all, in fact the nerf that was applied which was falloff was the biggest thing asked for by lower ranks. And what happened with those nerfs, nothing because those players dont know how to deal with widow and they dont know why she is good. As several pros and most famously chipsa has said, dont nerf what makes widow good instead highlight her weaknesses. If they instead listened to the pro’s and say gave widow 150 health instead of fall off and an ammo reduction widow would have been nerfed in a healthy and fair way. That one nerf would have been all that was needed for widow. Especially in widows case though the general audience shouldn’t be listened to since widow punishes the most crucial thing low ranks lack which is awareness (or lack thereof), so the only way low ranks would be happy is if you were to gut widow and make her terrible, which we can all agree isnt a good way to take this game.
Hero design is game balance in our case because we’re free to switch heroes any time during the match and we’re free to use the same ones as the enemy team. Specific hero balance would be a much bigger deal if we were locked into our hero picks for the whole match/round.
Well, there are definitely ways to balance both for high tiers and low/middle tiers. OW just isn’t designed with that in mind. It’s a willing decision to primarily balance for only 1 skill level and invite everyone to argue over which one it should be.
This is where you are actually wrong. If a hero is fundamentally stronger, you will climb higher than on another hero. Stronger heroes are easier to climb with. This has the largest impact on the ladder. At the top tiers GM into Pro the game becomes less about the power of the hero itself and more about how well you can work with your team. Teamwork becomes more important that hero power. To force a hero with weak team interaction into the high levels by just making it OP just imbalances everything. To reduce the power of a team heavy hero to negate that benefit in high level just ruins the hero. In the end, you have a worse game over all.
And let’s be real honest here: Blizzard does not balance around GM or even top 500. There have been heroes that have been trash at that level for a LONG time that remain untouched. And they have specifically nerfed heroes that were already bad at that level. And they have buffed heroes that were already performing well at that level. What they are really focusing on is making sure that heroes they feel are fun to watch are played a lot in OWL. Heroes are intentionally made OP (not balanced) so they would have high play time in OWL. Balance is completely secondary to that goal.
Yes he did. He was already performing above average middle of the pack in GM before the buffs. And that was where he was the worst. Then he was given massive buffs. Everyone knew what it would do, Blizzard included. He was buffed to get the OWL plays, period. It is not an accident that the heroes the announcers like to hype plays on are the ones Blizzard buffs, and Genji is one they love.
This is not true. It seems true only because you are generalizing the average case to the individual.
Let’s take an absolutely crap hero like Brigitte. Yes, there are Brigitte players at 2500. However, this does not mean a general 2500 player will be able to play Brigitte at 2500. Hero power matters, and it probably even matters more in low rank because you have less skill to make up the difference.
So, let’s say Brigitte is weak enough to count as a -500 debuff to your playing skill. It’s probably that bad or maybe even worse. So if our archetypal 2500 player plays Brigitte, they will fall to 2000. You might say that “Brigitte is played at 2500 so obviously it’s possible to do it”, but that’s just because that guy is 3000 SR player stuck at 2500 because Brigitte sucks. The 2500 player cannot play Brigitte without losing a ton of games and falling in SR. Its not like they can just suddenly start playing at a 3000 level. So really, they just have to not play that hero.
Or, to put it another way, the only reason crap heroes can be played in gold is because they’re being played by plat/diamond/masters players. Gold players cannot play them in Gold. And the only reason they can’t be played in GM is because there isn’t a rank above GM for players to sink down to GM from when they play crap heroes.
nah they need the game to be fun for the majority of the players not just the top few %
you might say they are not playing the game right in lower ranks, but if playing wrong is what they do they still need to have fun. the game would die without the bronze through plat tiers
we cant all hit the top ranks either by definition so blizz has to consider everyone, which they do to some degree
thats not the right way to look at it. people that play “wrong” still need to have fun or they will quit
you cant just say to everyone in plat or lower- get good or the game will suck, its only balanced for top tiers. (we cant all hit those ranks by definition)
its more important for all ranks to have fun than it is for GM to be balanced. the game would die without quick play-platinum players. they are like 80% of the population
all ranks are considered, blizzard has never said they only tune around gm.
and yes, it is important for people who play wrong to actually still have fun, thats why blizzard does it. if they only tuned for good players then 80% of the fan base would leave