Blizzard, do you have a solution in the pipeline for removing stall tactics?

Competitive Discussion
1

I posted a suggestion a while back on how we should address stall tactics on 2CP (or even the final checkpoint for the payload) and I originally suggested that once it reaches overtime, the players should stop respawning so the last one standing wins. However, after further evaluation, I can see how that would be a bit dull actually because let’s say you go into overtime while pushing the payload to the second point, but you’re only 20% of the way there.

Well, then you would have to wait until they pushed it ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way to the next checkpoint before being allowed to respawn again since that’s when overtime would reset (unless, of course, they were completely out of time that is). So, here’s my new proposition. How about once overtime begins, the respawn timer increases with each death?

First death during overtime could increase the respawn by 5 seconds, then the second death would be 10, third would be 20, and so on. That way people would still be allowed to respawn, but it would cut back on the stall tactics we often see teams using to drag out matches for far longer than they should. There’s nothing worse than reaching the second point at Hanamura, only to reach overtime and suddenly see Tracer, Mei, and D.Va come out of spawn just to stall the point.

Meanwhile, your spawn is all the way behind you, so you don’t have the same kind of freedom they do when it comes to swapping during this time. I think the increased timer would also prevent people from trickling in as much and actually try to group for one last push. I understand you need to try and get one person to keep contesting during overtime, but it just sucks when you see someone randomly run in, die, then another person follows soon after, and so on, without letting the tanks go in first.

I know sometimes it can’t be helped, but trickling is very common in Overwatch and overtime is partly to blame for that since there’s no good way of handling it as defenders. You’re basically trying to buy as much time as you possibly can and hope you get enough time to build an ult and clear them off the point/payload. Anyway, I think you get the gist of it though.

tl;dr: Let’s add time to the respawn timer for each death you receive in order to deal with the stall tactics used during overtime on 2CP maps as well as contesting the payload.

2

That would change the balance of the entire game in an effort to address a valid strategy.

If you’re having trouble with people using stall tactics, then focus down heroes quicker.

4 Likes
3

Maybe the balance of the entire game needs to be looked at then? Stalling certainly isn’t a “valid” strategy though. It’s more or less an act of desperation that is sometimes rewarded when it really shouldn’t be. The attackers are at a huge disadvantage during overtime on 2CP because the defenders’ spawn is right near the point, whereas the attackers have to stick with what they have since they don’t have time to swap heroes.

It more or less allows defenders to have a lot more freedom and can possibly switch to a last second counter to get you off the point. That in itself isn’t valid or fair, imo. I think it goes without saying that most of our players, pros and casuals alike, will agree that 2CP is more or less a nightmare, especially on maps like Anubis.

You go from having 4 minutes left to fighting off enemy after enemy constantly respawning because they’re trickling in repeatedly to stall you, then your 4 minutes are suddenly gone and you’re into overtime, still trying to cap the point, but unable to do so because there’s a Mei always getting inside to ice block herself, then wall herself into a corner to buy time for another person to get on point and repeat the process while the attacking team dies one by one.

As a defender, it seems incredibly cheap for us to be able to basically steal a win this way and as an attacker, it’s incredibly frustrating to deal with since, unlike other games, there isn’t a punishment in place to force a longer respawn upon death.

4

I’m saying health pools, mobility, everything would need looked at. Imagine playing support against a decent dive team. You’d either have to hide like the old Mercy, or risk sitting out half of the game.

And defenders aren’t necessarily at an advantage when using stall tactics. If they’re resorting to stalling, then they’re trickling in, which means it’s one hero versus the multiple left on your team. You should also be doing whatever you can to block them from getting back on the point in the first place.

1 Like
5

Well, it would give an incentive for your team to watch your supports’ backs (which is certainly lacking as it is anyway). Also, just because the defenders are resorting to stall tactics doesn’t necessarily mean there are multiple left on your team. It could be a 2v1 with the two of you still trying to take the point, but that Mei stalling would buy them just enough time to change it to a 2v2 when D.Va comes out, then the next thing you know, Tracer is back so it’s 3v2, and you’re still waiting for your teammates to come back from spawn, but by that point, it’s probably too late.

If your respawn timer increases every time you die during overtime (it would obviously reset after overtime is over), I’d even take the additional respawn time as a support if it meant that stall tactics wouldn’t work any more.

6

What you are proposing is already in the game in a similar form.

From the overwatch wiki:

Respawn time will always take 10 seconds on normal case in every standard
game, except:

  • When it is overtime, in this case the respawn time will be extended to 12 seconds.
  • When attackers outnumber defenders on a objective on Assault, Escort and Assault/Escort maps, there will be a respawn delay for the defenders. If the point hasn’t been captured and the defense team hasn’t regained the advantage after 15 seconds, the defender respawn timer will slowly begin to increase until it hits a maximum value at 75 seconds.
1 Like
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I’m already aware of this. That’s not what I’m proposing. It was a step in the right direction, but it didn’t really solve the issue, honestly. We still see plenty of long stalls on points like Anubis, Volskaya, and Hanamura (haven’t seen them as much on 2CP Horizon though for whatever reason).

8

Stall tactics aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be.
You can still stall and I occasionally see the defending team turn it around with stall tactics but ususally the attackers take the point once they clearly have the upper hand.

In the cases the attackers do not take the point with a clear advantage they usually make mistakes or focus targets poorly. That is ok. Bad play should be punished.

Your solution would make it impossible to turn any game around once you hit overtime. The respawn penalty is way too harsh.

1 Like
9

It’s not to make it impossible to turn any game around once you hit overtime. It’s to reward the players that aren’t dying repeatedly. As it stands, if you’re a defender on 2CP, you can die multiple times and it won’t really matter. You’ll continue to be able to use stall tactics because you have spawn advantage.

If you’re an attacker and you die during overtime, you’re basically screwed because the battle just changed to a 5v6 or whatever. You’re going to be at a disadvantage against defenders on 2CP because you’ll eventually run out of resources (see: ults, Moira’s healing, etc.) and health. Meanwhile, your enemies are constantly coming out refreshed, they’re able to charge their ults freely without any downside, or even swap to different heroes during overtime, whereas you are placed with multiple restrictions as attackers.

It’s just not particularly fair one way or the other. They’re going to either have to implement a harsher penalty for careless/reckless deaths during overtime or move the spawn further away from the point so the point is closer to the center of the map rather than directly next to the defenders’ spawn, giving them an advantage.

10

You still haven’t addressed the question of why stall tactics should be removed.

If defenders are trickling in, they will more or less lose very soon. Remember if you are “stalling” and the respawn timer is of such importance, chances are that you are charging into the point 1 by 1, and hence should be easy pickings.

If the attacking team cannot deal with one hero at a time with efficiency, they deserve to cap at a frequently stalled rate.

There is nothing inherently wrong with stalling and I don’t see anything that warrants change.

For the attacker/defender advantage unfairness, the thing is, in competitive games, both teams get a go at attacking and defending respectively. Hence, the “advantage” is nonexistent–both teams get an equal chance at both the disadvantaged and advantaged position.

For QP…well, I don’t think balancing around QP is a good idea at all.

1 Like
11

True, but considering the fact we have examples of other games tackling this issue in a better manner, I think it’s safe to say that this stall issue could be resolved and give both teams a more fair playing field. Just because both teams have an “equal” chance under unfair circumstances doesn’t necessarily mean that the game is balanced.

There can definitely be changes made to the system. They’ve already looked at it before, but it has been a while since they’ve addressed 2CP, so hopefully they will take another look at it before the end of the year and touch up on some ideas they have in mind to alleviate the stalling problem which still exists in the game.

12

Excuse me for being direct, but I simply don’t understand what you are saying here. “Balanced” refers to both teams having an equal chance by definition. As in, a weighing balance. Same weight on both sides. if they have equal chances, that is fair and balanced already.

Also, EVEN if both teams have an “equal” chance under unfair circumstances doesn’t necessarily mean that the game is balanced, you haven’t proved that it ISN’T balanced right now. You’ve explained how overtime and the respawn timer works. You’ve explain why you don’t like it. But you haven’t presented objective proof that this is an unbalanced system.

And ya know, if it ain’t broke…

1 Like
13

Ummm… You do realize I’m not actually the only player that has a problem with 2CP, right? People know it’s unbalanced. It has been unbalanced for well over a year and I’ve already explained why, and what they should look at in order to fix it. Also, I’ve already argued with someone in-game about what the term “balance” means, so I’ll keep this brief.

By your logic, matchmaking is perfectly balanced since both teams have an “equal” chance of obtaining a good player and a bad player. However, you and I both know that matchmaking isn’t balanced at all and sometimes you get a bad player twice in a row or even three times in a row, then there are times where you get a good player multiple times in a row as well.

There are also instances where the other team gets a 2-5 stack, while your team consists of nothing but solo queuers. Yes, you could get that stack too, but we don’t live in a perfect world where matchmaking is fair. We also don’t live in a world where 2CP is balanced either since what you’re suggesting would imply that both teams have an even chance at obtaining the point, but we both know that isn’t true since both teams are having to deal with an unfair system in the first place, and they’re at the mercy of a matchmaking system which may or may not give them good players on their team.

As much as I love the game, it’s not perfect and it never will be. I’m sure they already know that, but we should strive to fly as close to the sun as we can anyway. Even if we can’t reach perfection, then getting the next best thing would be better than what we’ve got right now.

14

Your analogy with matchmaking is flawed.

Both teams don’t have an equal chance of obtaining a good and bad player. They have a RANDOM chance. Random means a chance of being equal, but also a huge chance of NOT being equal.

That is not the same as stalling, overtime, and respawn. ALL defending teams get the same system for overtime and stalling. ALL teams get a go at BOTH attacking and defending. This is an EQUAL chance, and by no means random.

2 Likes
15

Oh, I see. So you’re willing to acknowledge a system is flawed and unbalanced when it suits you (see: matchmaking), but you’re going to sit here and continue to claim that 2CP is balanced, even though it’s flawed for a different reason than matchmaking. Okay.

Yeah, I think we’re done here.

16

A balanced match maker means that it is matching teams with roughly equal skill.

Having a balanced map/game mode means that both teams (under the assumption that they are of equal skill) have the same chance of winning no matter what side/map position/ whatever they are playing.

For 2CP this means the following:
You want a roughly 50% chance that the attackers can take both points and a roughly 50% chance that the defenders can hold one or both points.

Now you run into a problem. You need to give the defenders an advantage to achieve this. Why? Because defending is vastly more unforgiving than attacking.
The attackers need one good push to win. The defenders can lose the game with one mistake.

That is why on second point the defenders spawn closer to the point and the attackers have to walk some distance.

Blizzard is keeping track of the success percentages of attackers and defenders and are balancing the maps and game mechanics accordingly.
This system is not perfect but it is pretty good.

There will most likely remain small imbalances on some maps. Some are more attacker friendly and some are more defender friendly.
This is why we play both attack and defense in competitive.

Your proposed change would drastically reduce the defenders advantage thus resulting in a higher win percentage for the attacking team. You would end up with 2CP maps that end with 10-12 or 6-8 instead of the 0-0 / 2-2 we usually see now.

17

Lol did you even read my points?

You’re completely missing the entire point and the fallacy of your argument. You’re comparing the defender/attack respawn system with matchmaking. My point is that they are not equal.

Let’s look at matchmaking first.
You have ?% chance to get a good player and ?% chance to get a bad player. That’s because matchmaking will never find two teams with completely identical abilities, unless they are complete clones of each other, which is impossible.

Matchmaking only tries its best to get two teams of similar SR, but SR doesn’t even correspond to the player’s actual ability to play (e.g. said player might have been boosted, smurfing, or playing a hero other than the one that got him to that SR). Hence, matchmaking is NOT balanced–it is always and completely random because there are too many factors at hand. That causes some people to get continuous bad streaks with throws, or good streaks with smurfs.

Don’t give me the “Oh so you are okay when it suits you”. Everyone has been both beneficiary and victim to matchmaking.

The defender/attacker respawn time is different. In a competitive game, both teams get a chance at attacking and defending. In other words, regardless of how harsh or lenient the respawn system is, BOTH teams get the chance to use said system.

The chances for both teams to benefit from the respawn system is 100%. The chances for both teams to be harmed by the respawn system is 100%.

THIS is what it means to be balanced. It is the same for both teams. In fact, that was the flaw that existed in the competitive system in season 1: If both teams drew the first round in 2CP, in the second round, it was a complete random chance for who would defend and who would attack, and chances were that the attacking team would cap the first point and win the entire game.

The system currently is FAIR because both teams get the same chance at attacking, defending, and making use of the stall/respawn system.

Try to understand people’s points before throwing insults around

1 Like
18

If only there was a character that would prevent stalling the point.

Oh wait. There is… but no one ever uses her.

19

I do find it interesting that stall only works on 2cp but not payload maps.

Tempo on 2cp is so awkward on the second point. The attacking team needs to kill 3 defenders for their 1 in order to keep advantage. However on payload maps a 2 to 1 suffices due to the smaller space required to contest.

They did adjust spawn times already once but maybe they might need to make some further adjustments.

Also Hanamura seema to have the ahortest distance you need to travel to get back to the point from spawn on defense which is why I believe it’s the hardest map to attack the second point.

20

attack sym teleporter? o_o