Can we get a dev to talk about support?

While I think there’s a substantial amount of truth to what you say here, I have a few concerns/points of response.

Firstly, concern, yes, many damage players have indicated that they don’t feel like they have impact. Many tank and support players have voiced the same frustration. Why do damage players, in this instance, get priority? Is it as simple as there are more of them?

But, if there are more of them and fewer Tanks/Supports, but we remain with a system where Tanks & Supports will bottleneck queues, wouldn’t it make sense to focus in hard on Tanks & Supports feeling content with the degree of impact they have on the match? I feel that’s especially important in light of one of the biggest ongoing complaints being queue times, and while I know nothing is final yet, the direction Blizzard has talked about for OW2 hasn’t exactly been met with roaring approval from the Tank & Support communities, which threatens any good that the shift to 5v5 was supposedly going to bring. If Supports & Tanks are leaving or switching to DPS or just hanging out in PvE because they don’t like how the playstyle change or feel that they don’t bring enough to the PvP table, then that wholly undermines one of the primary reasons for 5v5.

On top of that, just as food for thought, I wanna address these two points in combination:

While… I do think there is some truth to what you’re saying here, I think it’s also overlooking some key points.

On their faces, Tank & Support are pretty simple, too. Tanks are a shield. Supports are healing. While they’re not as on-the-nose as Damage (though that even started as Offense/Defense), I don’t think people are overly confused by those titles to the basic function of those roles in a match. Most people understand that.

Now, understanding the full impact of those roles and how they factor into a match beyond the most basic function does require a more-abstract appreciation for how they enable the team… but the same is also true of DPS. An early Widow pick on the enemy Tracer means heroes like Ana & Zenyatta can play much more safely from the backline. Effective harassment from a Genji/Tracer/Doomfist means they’re pulling attention off the rest of your team, relieving some of the stress on your Tanks & Supports. The list can go on. The reality is that everything you say of Tanks/Supports is true of DPS, too, but for whatever reason, we don’t recognize that DPS do play a very impactful role in the game that exists beyond “pew pew pew.”

Now, because Overwatch is objective based and because every hero can deal damage, I do think that DPS are less consequential on the negative end (i.e. a bad DPS won’t sink your team as fast as a bad Tank), but they nonetheless can be immensely consequential on the positive end, which I think goes unrecognized. If Tanks & Supports are expected to see beyond the basic “shield shield shield” and “heal heal heal,” why not hold DPS to the same standard and elevate the expectation of impact from “kill kill kill” to “who I kill, when I kill, how I kill can drastically alter the opportunities available for my team and enable them to do things they may not be able to do otherwise?”

I agree with your (seeming) idea here that optics matter and this is why we have the issue with feelings about certain roles’ level of impact right now, but I’m not sure that argument is actually being applied as fully as it should be. Based on what we’ve seen so far and heard so far, I certainly don’t think so.

Finally, I wanna bring up one last thing:

Refer to YOURFRIEND’s comment here. Optics matter, like I said above, though in a different context this time. I’m assuming Blizzard has been putting more of an effort to keep a finger on the pulse of the community and their concerns. It certainly seems you’re aware that there is a lot of concern about Tanks & Supports, and this concern has existed for a while now. That in mind, and keeping in mind the potential ramifications for queue times if Blizzard bungles the Support & Tanks roles, then why hasn’t Blizzard been more readily focused on addressing & alleviating those concerns?

While there has been a little more in the way of Tank talk than Support & DPS talk, it’s not that much more, and a pretty non-negligible portion of Tank players aren’t exactly thrilled with the information we’ve received. Support players are basically eating scraps, and nearly all of those scraps are negative. One major, MAJOR shortcoming of Blizzard for years now has been messaging. They botched the Diablo messaging, they botched the Hearthfire messaging, and they’ve been botching and are continued to botch Overwatch messaging. If I could offer a bit of advice (wanted or not :slight_smile: ), Blizzard needs to focus in hard on the Tank/Support messaging soon, especially Support, and they need to be very focused on how those changes are going to benefit the player experience in those roles, because as I’m sure you’ve already seen, there’s a lot of worry that Tank & Support players are not going to be enjoying Overwatch 2 very much.

12 Likes

Nah, swore an oath to pacifism: I couldn’t harm anyone if I wanted to. Plus I’m lazy. Killing someone takes too much time, energy, and effort to do, and is waste of human life and resources.

That’s of course what many would like to project - that doesn’t make it reality.

I think you are what we refer to as a “defeatist”. Similar thoughts were had around the turn of the 19th century and earlier btw. This thinking is nothing new. Maybe you take a bit more of a stance in the world might help.

Then read a book in clinical psychology and stop harassing people.

Yeah, that’s quixotic. If you saw the actual results of that, you’d be begging for the polite, civil mask to be put back on.

3 Likes

What makes wanting to know about the human psyche and emotional make-up “degenerate”? I’d understand if it was a more… intimate desire, but mine’s are purely of knowledge and information.

Hi there Darkot. I saw your response in the previous post and made note of the feedback.

In the interest of transparency in my process: I generally tend to avoid communicating solutions to the dev team. Your breakdown of the root cause of concern (the change in detection radius may be confusing and could be better communicated) is exactly the kind of feedback that’s most useful. It’s clear, concise, and to the point.

15 Likes

Yep. Definitely the M.O. of a psychopath.

See, this is what I meant.

Just say “I’m a pathological troll” and call it a day.

You’re trying to make everything more clever than it actually is.

2 Likes

That’s exactly what I find fascinating: when a human is placed in stressful environment, they become more hostile and aggressive. What if there was a way to alter that so that would not be the case. What would a world of logic before emotion look like? That’s what I love about humanity: so complex and full of mysteries.

1 Like

I’d prefer the term “wishful idealist”, after all, this is the era of titles and whatnot. People impose titles and qualities to themselves a lot recently, for some reason.

I wouldn’t call myself clever–there are people far smarter than me, that we can all agree with–I just enjoy passionate conversation and debate.

1 Like

Glad you’re assuaging a concern about a DPS hero rework.

Lol

1 Like

And I’d prefer the title “wealthy billionaire”. But we have to call things what they are.

And what you’re describing is a pathological troll.

2 Likes

Closest thing we are going to get for a dev talking about supports for now I guess.

Fair enough! Thank you for letting me know and taking note of my feedback. As a Sombra main, I truly appreciate it.

We don’t deserve you Andy :sob:

1 Like

I love the thought of Andy sitting here with a bowl of popcorn watching people armchair diagnose each other as psychopaths


Pretty sure that’s missing the point of his comment there.

3 Likes

Technically you could be a wealthy billionaire if you played the right hand, but the chances are low (though never truly 0).

Kind of ironic we’re having a discussion about masks and identities in the month of Halloween (October). Rather amusing, don’t you agree?

You mean mood, and not emotion right? Any ideals you possess is the result of emotions, it is what propels logic towards a direction.

The reason is to describe themselves on a practical level. That’s what words do, describes something.

1 Like

Literally the only concrete assurance he can give is pertaining to a DPS hero. It’s incredibly transparent as to what the dev’s priorities are

3 Likes

You seem to think that I am unaware of these analyses - there are many factors different than before. I now you think what you have read which is a popular view point now is undeniable truth, but in reality, it’s not. This “Oh woe the end is nigh” thinking has gone on forever in one form or another. I am old enough to recall when everyone was convinced it was only a matter of time until Soviet Communism ruled the world… unthinkable to you, but it was not long ago in reality. It’s hip now to predict the “Demise of the West” but many people are forgetting that we are talking about 2 BN people even in 100 years, at a time when the population may hit 10 BN, and 15%-20% of the world pop is nothing to sneeze at, it wavers on hitting it, but a highly industrialized integrated area is quite strong and has many factors supporting it.

You way, way overestimate the averages at work and some of the underlying problems these areas also have.

1 Like

To me it just seemed like he was using it as an opportunity to tell people that giving the devs details about problems is more useful than giving solutions

You’ll take away what you want from it though I guess :man_shrugging:

Reckon I will read between the lines, ya

1 Like