Hello devs and OW team,
I wasn’t able to find anywhere to submit feedback for the beta on console so I figured I’d post it here.
I want to start by saying I’ve been having a great time playing the beta thus far. I feel like I make a much larger individual impact on the games I play and when I die, for the most part, it feels like it was because of a mistake I made. That being said, there are a few things I’d like to address.
So first there are a couple bugs I want to mention.
-sometimes when pressing the button to shield with brig, the camera will flick almost straight up.
-Cassidy’s weapon fire is really muffled when on the opposing team, similar to the old Hog footsteps, it’s almost non-existent at times.
-not sure if it’s a bug or settings are different between the games but something about the aiming is off. If this isn’t a big, could you clarify what changed in the upcoming patch so that we can adjust accordingly?
-some audio, like from explosions for example, is delayed. I am using an Xbox One so it might just be a thing on my end
Characters
I focused on characters I main in OW1 and tried the new DPS and played some support so I don’t have much to say about a lot of the characters.
So to start, in my personal opinion, all high mobility characters should have less health than their non-mobility counterparts with the reduction of CC. The higher mobility already makes them harder to kill than other heroes, with Tracer being a prime example that the heroes will be fine and still survivable with lower health.
Ash - I love the new audio for the coach gun and viper, but I do think her fall off range could be extended a bit, out to say 40 meters. She’s supposed to be this middle ground between Widow and Cass but she stuggles in long range engagements against heroes that can spam like Sojourn or Soldier, where she should shine or be competitive.
Sojourn - I personally think her time to kill is too fast. 5 headshots and a rail kills a squishy. Not sure how you want to tune this but her burst is insane. Playing her felt unfair if the other team didn’t have someone playing her.
Widow - (this will be a long one) As a character, Widow takes the highest mechanical skill to play. Very fast or famine. Which is fine, when you do well you’re like OMG I can’t believe I hit that shot. But, I do firmly believe that utility based ults should be reserved for Supports and Tanks. That being said, I would like to see Infrasight reworked into a cooldown. My initial thoughts are to limit its effect to 30m from Widow, only she benefits from it (let’s be real, unless she’s handing everyone fancy 6 eye headgear, they shouldn’t benefit from it anyway), and it would only have a 5 sec uptime with a 15 - 20 sec cooldown. For her ult I would like to see something more impactful to the midfight. Maybe something like Sojourns ult where her shots charge twice as fast for a short period of time or maybe something similar to Tracer where when the Ult is used she’s locked into her scope and that shot would deal a base 200 damage (one shot, one kill). Outside of all of that and if you touch nothing else, venom mine is by far the worst ability in the game. If you won’t replace it, the cooldown should not be as long as it is.
Tracer - this one is short. She’s my third most played character, love her death. But I think you nerfed her damage a bit too much. It’s actually harder to duel in this version of the game than in the live one imo. I think you could probably adjust her damage to 5.5 damage per bullet, right in between the OW1 damage and where it is now.
Junker Queen - Great hero design. I think she’s fun to play against and has an interesting kit. But there are two aspects of her kit that definitely need looked at. 1. The hit box on her ult is massive. Like, she’s stopped before reaching me and it still affected me. 2. Her rallying cry (I think that’s what it’s called. The overhealth button) is Brig’s ult on a cooldown. The amount of overhealth she gives to the team needs tuned down.
Zen - Guys, you’ve done great work with nearly every rework you’ve done but you need to tune him down. Like, he is supposed to be a glass canon that’s vulnerable to dive. Now he has more health and damage then most of the DPS roster, he regens health faster than any other support (the passive stacks with the shield Regen, higher self Regen was Mercy’s passive and he is literally just better), he has a really strong knock back on his melee, and he gives his entire team a damage buff with no cooldown. Please reduce discord down to like 10-15% anytime it touched me I exploded almost immediately. Please reduce his health back to 200 and please remove the boop so that he can actually be dove again. By far the single most broken character in the game. A single character can not have the best passive, best ability, very high damage, and be extremely survivable. Like it’s too much, there needs to be a downside somewhere.
Reinhardt - I think he was fine before and didn’t need this change. He wasn’t oppressive. I don’t play him but I can see how much faster he’s dying now. Please revert that HP/Armor adjustment.
Orisa - nothing but positive feedback here. She has an interesting design now. Is fun to play against. I like the skill aspect of needing to bait the javalin before I can really commit to taking her in a duel. Great job.
Cassidy - outside of the audio issue I pointed out earlier, I do think the magnetic grenade’s tracking needs tuned slightly. I’ve seen that thing pull near 90 degree turns chasing people. It’s funny but kind of obnoxious lol. Outhereise I think it’s a great ability.
Bastion - I think Bastion’s design is interesting and fun. Definitely an improvement over the original design but the reconfigure needs looked at. It feels… unimpactful. Maybe it was just because it was me using it but I died incredibly fast in that form, to the point where I felt like I played better not using it at all. The recon primary fire feels kinda weird. I think, personally it’d be better with a faster rate of fire with lower damage bullets (adjusted to be the same overall DPS).
Symmetry - I know you’ve caught a lot of hate for this one and, admittedly, it’s not your best work. So instead of flamming you for the changes, let’s just make suggestions to try to improve them (though, my idea for a rework most people probably wouldn’t like playing against, myself included but it would be interesting).
To start, the secondary fire didn’t need it’s damage reduced. Junkrat does the same damage, shots faster and has a one shot combo. It should be reverted.
Primary fire change is fine if unimpactful (I have to say that I do love her visuals. You all nailed that side of her character. Great work)
Turrets are where I would make changes. People have said that it feels like she doesn’t really have much of an identity of job so my first thought was to make her job punishing rush/dive comps/setting up multiple cross fires. Give the turrets a long range projectile shot that does 45 damage (30 impact, 15 explosion) with an explosion radius similar to junkrat grenades, a projectile speed of 50, and a rate a fire equal to one shot fired every .75 secs. Give the turrets a targeting range of 30 meters. So I picture the rush/dive comp trying to close distance, and getting hit by these turrets from multiple angles set high out of reach. (Thier beam attack would be the same and they would switch to it if thier target was within range for that attack)
Teleporter - I think the cooldown could be reduced to 13 secs, to allow her to reposition more freely. I personally don’t see the teleporter as being much different than Sombra’s translocator and I think a slightly longer cooldown (13 secs) is fair for being able to move multiple people. I don’t think it should break automatically though. Start the cooldown after placing it and it stays indefinitely just like Sombra’s translocator.
Ult - My hot take on here, as I said before, I think utility ults should be reserved for Support and Tank heroes. So I would get rid of the wall entirely, I think it’s pretty obnoxious myself (it crosses the whole map it’s kind of rediculous). Instead, I think a giant laser would be much cooler and more appropriate for the DPS catagory. 4m radius, 20 meter length, and a 3 sec duration and it has piercing. Maybe 250 DPS? That should allow Transcendence and Sound Barrier to counter it while still being impactful if I’m remembering numbers correctly and some of the bulky tanks like Orisa should be able to tank it if they’re at full health and have their cooldowns.
Would this be a change people would like? Probably not but while I hate playing against Sym I do think the people you like her should have fun while playing her and I think this gives her a niche and identity. Alternatively, making her a support again is always an option. Either way, with how 5v5 plays, she needs a bit more versitility to be really effective.
Maps - I think that you did an excellent job with the maps. Gibraltar is absolutely gorgeous and I like Paraiso’s design as well. That first point though is really rough. The high grounds definitely need to be a bit more accessible for attackers in my opinion. I will say, I’m not a fan of the evening lighting on some maps, like King’s Row 1st point. I couldn’t tell which part of some of the characters I was shooting lol.
Overall I am having a great time with the beta. While all of this isn’t direct feedback for the beta, as I play more I will continue to provide more feedback.