Damage Creep, CC Creep, Mobility Creep OH MY! đŸ˜±

General Discussion
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Whether it be through reworks, buffs, or adding new heroes, there is definitely three creeps happening in Overwatch.

I made a thread awhile back explaining how damage creep was causing Reinhardt’s shield to drop like a rock (and even in the meta where he is brought to enable Zarya and Hanzo, it still doesn’t have the sustain it once had, but after studying the patches, the creep expands much more than I previous realized:

When I made the thread above, I did so from the perspective of a Reinhardt player, but I’m not starting to see that this goes far beyond Reinhardt.

But what is important in that thread is the Chronological history of patches that show 3 MAJOR creeps into the game. Speed, Damage and Crowd Control.

I suspect with the introduction of OWL the developers ideas/vision have changed, and they are on a path the make the game more faster, damaging, and crowd controlling.

When you study (and I mean really GO STUDY IT: http://overwatch.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Patches), you will see a chronological effort by the developer team to change their game. What are their reasons? Maybe they feel this is fun to play “and” fun to watch? I’m not sure, because they don’t really share their vision with us anymore.

Is there a reason to be concerned? Yes and No. I think there are arguments to be made for both.

The Yes argument:
I think Mercy Rework, and Hanzo rework have demonstrated the devs ability to try and bring their “new” vision into fruition (speed, damage, mobility), but this is met with failure by Over-tuning the hell out of their reworks. Mercy and Hanzo are clear examples of this. Valk (even from the pro’s perspective) was an overtuned mess.

And Hanzo’s rework, adding Mobility and Damage to his kit, created such a stiff/stale meta that Viable Variety for the dps roster was severally limited. THATS A PROBLEM.

As a tank player, I want to Grav with DIFFERENT dps heroes. I want to see viable variety, and Blizzard not only robs dps players of this variety, they rob ALL of us of it, Tanks and supports, because we often have to make our hero picks to best enable THOSE over-tuned heroes.

No Argument:
Maybe you enjoy all the changes and feel that the developers are working to make the game better. That their over-tuned heroes are a good thing, so long as they dial them back quickly. But I think an argument can be made that they don’t dial them back fast enough, often leaving over-tuned heroes on us for Months on end (Mercy and Hanzo being the latest).

What I want to see is the developer team to briefly share with us their vision. Let us know if they do actually desire more Speed, Crowd Control, and Mobility in their game. It’s clear the defensive class was reworked because it was not in line with their vision, already having Hanzo, Sym, and soon Torb reworked.

Are the developers interested in having VIABLE VARIETY in their game, or just taking a sledge hammer causing a pendulum swing, ultimately choosing for us what the next flavor of dps is going to be for 3-4+ months?

These are serious questions that need answers.

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They are doing the same thing they did/do with all blizzard games, like world of warcraft.
They rotate power around with exaggerated nerfs and overtunned buffs each time to create new forced metas and cycle anew every so often.

When it’s time for the next cycle, they will nerf hanzo to the ground, just like they did junkrat and overbuff someone else.

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First, thanks for the reply, hopefully we get more thoughts and conversations circulating in this thread.

I’ve heard people make this WoW argument before when it comes to understanding their balancing, and possibly their vision for Overwatch. And it does make sense when you look at the pendulum swing of nerfs/buffs (either directly or through reworks).

My MAJOR complaint about this method (if it is indeed true) is it doesn’t create what the game needs most: Viable Variety

This ultimately means Blizzard will spoon feed us their meta they have predetermined months before hand, instead of allowing for the game to organically come up with it’s own. It creates a two dimensional play-style when it should be a much funner/complex game than what it is.

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They arent that serious, but hasnt Jeff explained balance philosophy in a developer update before?

Rein is meta right now though.

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Same battle royal hero( Jeff) said, this game about “switching”, not like in UNCOOL game TF2. Then came “NICSHE” heroes, and toxic community arguments, " hurr durr hard to balance". It’s not about meta, i agree, it’s about viability! Like in support role, you just can’t have mercy in team, because other become unviable, and will have low synergy.

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The fundamental direction of the game isn’t a serious question?

Yes, and this community has pointed out major discrepancies in what he says, and what they have actual implemented. The inconsistency is real. What he says isn’t as reliable as the HARD FACTS, which is why I linked the history of the patches.

Rein is meta because he is the only tank with a reliable shield to stop storm arrows while also synergizing with Zarya to ult combo with Hanzo. Rein is a symptom of the meta, the cause of the meta is Hanzo being Over-tuned. Also this ties into VIABLE VARIETY.
Did you even read my original post?

Furthermore, this thread isn’t about Rein. It’s about the three Creeps.

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I hate the “but Reinhardt’s pickrates” argument so much. It still doesn’t address the other issues RichC brought up in regards to a crippling amount of bugs on Reinhardt, and the obvious power creep, like he stated, in reference to spam/more DPS and more CC effects.

Even in Jeff’s developer update he said Reinhardt is always a victim/result of whatever other heroes are doing well. Right now, it’s Hanzo and Mercy. Who synergizes the best with Hanzo? Well, obviously Zarya. Who synergizes the best with Zarya since she’s an off-tank? Clearly Reinhardt.

Two year old bugs are very serious issues to many of us, and just because they aren’t to you, doesn’t mean others aren’t getting exhausted with having to deal with them while receiving little to no responses about why they’ve been plaguing us for this long. There’s really no end in sight because we haven’t been told anything.

Last “date” we were told was “April”. Well, it’s August now, so what’s up?

This is not ok:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/7k7uve/reinhardt_bug_list_pls_fix_him/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/917s8w/its_a_hard_knock_life_for_us_reinhardt_bug/

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Cc creep is my biggest gripe at the moment. At least with mobility/damage theres still and element of counterplay. I feel so robbed everytime I’m rein and my shield is being focused and I’m forced to watch the enemy briggite walk up and bash me so I’m forced to take all the focus fire going into the shield.

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Welcome in PingPongWatch the best Ping Pong ball simulator ever done.

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CC is overall obnoxious when there’s a ton of it, because we have no abilities in this game that override the annoyance of it, other than Orisa’s Fortify. Getting a hero or two that offer a short group immunity to CC would be awesome. Or even if they start implementing more options like that on current heroes, but not to the extent of affecting the entire friendly team.

People use WoW a lot as an example because do you want to know what happens in PvP? I get stunned once by a rogue, and then immediately incapacitated, then a warrior charges me, and then a paladin stuns me for another 5 seconds. At least WoW has options for breaking away from those CCs, although there’s not a ton of options. OW doesn’t have that option right now.

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It’s been a weird ride this game. Every time they start to develop something the right way, they shift the meta and suddenly we’re right back to square one.

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Overall, the best news is that a team is limited to 6 players. So there’s a natural limit to CC and Stuns. Now, they can release 50 more stunning/CCing heroes, it won’t be worse than it is today.

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"Things are working and we actually have a somewhat decent pool of viable heroes right now
I mean
maybe only like 30% of the roster, but hey, that’s something!




MOTH MERCY AND CROUCHING HANZO, LUNGING SPAMZO COMING AT YO FACE"

Sweet. Now only 15% of the roster is useful.

Thanks

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Oh it can certainly get worse. There is no Main tank with a stun (they could add one). There is no Burst healer with a stun (they could make one). There is no off-tank with a stun (They could add one). Sure they have soft CC like boops, but no hard stuns.

When they dropped Briggy into the game, they spread out stuns into the 6 slots. They could certainly keep this trend going until every slot has a role with a stun.

That is why the game feels more stun heavy, it’s because they are giving stuns to different roles.

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I just want to know if they have a dedicated goal to get the game to a point where balance changes would not be needed anymore or if they want to create a new trend every couple of seasons by rotating the power through different heroes (so i can know if i should find another game to play).

If my heroes viability and revelancy is set just by arbitrary changes made by the developer team just because they think they should start a new trend in power and not by my skill and dedication in playing said hero, that’s what i want to know.

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I was ironically exaggerating, but you’re right.
Btw Orisa has a pretty powerfull CC ability. And Ana has a pretty powerfull stun ability.
But I agree, you can always do more. And let’s not lie to ourselves. There will be more.

I’ve come to that point : when they announce a new hero, i’m no more excited, i’m frightened, thinking “what abomination will come out this time”. And that’s pretty sad.

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Do you think Roadhog’s hook counts as a hard-stun? I guess it’s not 100% a hard stun because you have to be somewhat decent with aiming it, and getting the lead down correctly. And it breaks constantly


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This is what I want to know too. Are they interested in viable variety, or just predetermined flavors they spoon feed us


You guys are right, there are more stuns spread out that I wasn’t thinking about. There is a reason why it feels like stunwatch. There is hard CC and soft CC, and Briggy was a hero who had both with her shield and boop mace. Will they add more CC? Probably, because it’s getting to the point where if your hero DOESN’T have some CC they may not be worth bringing.

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Well, in fairness, you’re still correct with your original statement about stuns in a sense. The people with stuns in other roles have some of the lowest pickrates right now. People hardly play them anymore. So that falls back onto your statement about powercreep and lack of proper balancing.

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Maybe Soldier is not played anymore because of the lack of Stun/CC ability ? :thinking:

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