So this post is more or less me just putting my thoughts out there.
So buffing and nerf heros for 10% of the players is the right way? I find that ever since Dive meta all patches have been for masters and up, witch only have 10% of the players in the ranks. Why do you Devs look at 10% and not 90% for nerfs and buffs. So I am no Dev ( I really want to be tho ) and I see there is one very big problem, and that is that the “meta” that is run at masters and up is what is making OW “bad”. If you Devs looked at the game over all and said "out how would this work for a sliver player "( not saying you do not do this already ) and how would he/she use this or how could his hurt these people. This (may) make the game feel better. If you do the math 10% does not out do 90% of the players. For one taking this patch and splitting it down into three parts would have been better then one big patch. Take the reaper change first and put it in, see how it does and what happends. Then take the Dva nerf if reaper does not work out very well, and put that in see how it works and what happens. If both patches do nothing to help “meta” then do the armor nerf, see what happens and how it works. Putting all three in at one time is really bad way to make a meta stop. Taking baby steps first instead of big steps would make the game flow better and not make a big up cry like what is going on.
It makes sense to base balance around the players who knows the ins and outs of the game and how to use and possibly abuse any nerf or buff that they put out.
If you based around say Silver, literally everything “needs nerfs”. Can you imagine the nerf hammer they would put on PharahMercy? It doesn’t make sense.
I do however think that they should have put the patches out in parts, everything was just crammed in there at once.
heres the thing buffs shoulnt be made for the bad/new players why?
simple its stupid a game should NEVER be based around lower tiers for example genji you could argue that genjis in bronze are horrible(assuming the genji isnt a smurf)
while in gm genji is one of the best heroes to play with why is that? if that genji where to be buffed to the point where bronze players could use him properly 2 things might happen
1.genjis skill ceiling will be lowered meaning hes gonna be straight up bad as you progress the game
2. hes gonna be stupidly op when you progress the game
neither of those are good options
and unless your gonna be bad at the game forever you will start too see either every hero too op or too useless
and thats why buffs/nerfs are made based on high tiers if your skill sucks said character sucks if your skill dosent suck said character dosent suck its all player based
granted overwatch does suck at balancing since you know reaper is still pure trash unless your in a lower rank they did the oppsite of what i just said
Balancing is different then skill. Making a patch around the lowest % of players is not the right way to put stuff in. Why? because only 10% of the players get what they really wanted out of a patch. Where the other 90% want something different from the 10%
there is an enormous difference between GM and silver.
Not just in skill but in literally everything. Silver/gold/plat players struggle with the most basic things, like grouping up.
You don’t balance for people that don’t know how to play the game. That’s how you kill a game. You balance for people that are playing it at a high level.
sorry but your math is just not applicable here.
if that were the case, youre probably also against aids prevention for example, since after a quick google only about 0,1% of people have hiv. why should we make treatments for only those?
its an exaggerated example, but it shows the problem. because you know what? the feedback of those 90% of people isnt as valuable as the feedback of the other 10%.
the game design process isnt democratic, its up to the developers to decide. and they have also often made balance changes that the top players disliked but bottom players liked. acting like the devs always and exclusively balance around grandmasters is disingenuine in the first place. there is no discussion to be had because the premise itself is already unacceptable.
Everyone has there own way of looking at stuff, but no one can say that the last year of OW has been fun and enjoyable. In turn that is because of nerfs and buffs happening. All I was “Trying” to say in this post is maybe change the way you balance and in turn you change the way people look at your game. Take your every day gamer that has played or is playing Ow, most of the time he will say Ow is fun but really hard to have fun all the time. You also see people that say “overwatch LUL” this is what other people see and why would anyone want to buy a game that has people talking crap about it. 3 years into a game and heros are still broken and some other ones are trash, no one is happy and the game makes people upset. That is not a good way to make sales witch is what is on top of the list for Bliz.
To be fair, no online game of this type will ever have true balance.
First, let’s face it, even if the devs tried they would most likely fail.
Second, to maintain interest for the game, it’s important to cycle metas, thus it’s preferable to always have stronger characters, the ideal being that those stronger characters vary with time.
You could for good reasons argue that Blizzard haven’t performed really well in that regard, as we had idk how many months of Mercy meta with the same comps, then idk how many months of GOATS, and before that many months of dive.
I don’t think it can be called “balance” if it only works for a minority of the community. Ideally, the changes should be healthy for every rank of players.
Take the sym changes for example. While removing her lock on made her harder to play, it didnt make her useless at lower ranks all of a sudden. It just gave her aim requirements. And it also felt better for higher ranks (not saying it’s perfect. But better).
The last year of OW sucked because they tried to make a low skill hero like Mercy more powerful and put res on a cooldown.
Then they decided to add a bunch of CC to try and deal with mobility culminating with the abomination that is brigette, another low skill floor hero.
Had they instead, balanced for the top and not continuously buffed winston when his pick rate was climbing in the professional scene, we wouldnt have had dive for that long in the first place.
Bad players face Genji/Tracer players with horrible winrates but cry about them like they’re overpowered. What do you do there?
Higher tier players use heroes closer to their full potential. Of course you balance around them. Only things that are super degenerate at low ranks need be dealt with, and there’s nothing actually that bad right now.