Dev for a Day: What would YOU Change

General Discussion
1

I hear a TON of people complain about different things in the game they don’t like, but I very seldom hear people give a thoughtful assessment of what they would do differently.

So I thought it would be fun to ask folks to put on their Dev hat, pretend they had the executive authority, and give an accounting of what THEY would do.

So I am not looking to vague general notions like “reduce the mount of CC” but for actual specifics, which moves would you change, how would you change them? And some consideration, since you are the lead Dev in this scenario, for how those changes might affect other things, and how the community might react to those secondary effects, and what you’d do about that.

Or if your complaint is more vague like “Patch more often” then give some detail for how often, if you were in charge, you would roll out patches, how you would prioritize development time between balance patches and generation of new content, what balance would you strike that would be a reasonable release rate of both?

So something like this:

-General Thing I don’t like
-Broad conceptual approach to the issue
-Specific functional details of the implementation
-What secondary effects might his have do those need to be addressed, and how?

2

I would give monkey a secondary that charges up for a second or two and then shoots a longer ranged beam for 1 or 2 ticks that deal ok dmg.

3

Confirm Superjump (for those nagging about it) and buff Symmetra. :wink:

4 Likes
4

Hard nerf dmg and 1hk. And some changes to healing.

1 Like
5

Zarya
RC Ammo cost reduced to 10, (from 25)
Particle Cannon base damage reduced to 4.25, (from 4.75)

  • This is so, the 0-100% charge rate is properly scaled, (cause right now 100 charge is equal to a 77% damage increase, as opposed to 100%)

Bastion
Tank Form now uses the player’s custom reticule, (if not Default)

Soldier: 76
Pulse Rifle round-per-second increased to 10, (from 9)
Helix Rocket cooldown decreased to 6s (from 8)
Helix Rocket projectile speed increased to 80 m/s (from 60)
Biotic Field healing decreased to 200, (from 204)
Biotic Field duration changed to 4s (from 5) [50 HP/s (from 40)]
Sprint recovery delay decreased to 0.1s (from 0.3s)
Tactical Visor casting time reduced to 1s (from 1.2s)
Tactical Visor sensitivity slider now available

Sombra
Fixed line of sight checks for Hack
Hack now displays a skull over affected targets
Hack now has a 20 damage threshold
Stealth casting/exiting time decreased to 0.5s (from 0.8s)

1 Like
6

I have no idea because I’m biased. I shouldn’t balance lol

2 Likes
7

D.va

  • 300 health / 300 armor (big buff here , even with matrix buff , she need some natural tankiness)
  • Fusion Cannon number of pellet per shot from 11 to 12 ( around of 9% more damage)

Winston

  • Barrier Projector cd from 13 to 12.

Soldier

  • +5 total ammo.
  • No more need reload during ultimate or increase in 1 second the total duration.

Torbjorn

  • Revert the rivet gun’ blast nerf.

Brigitte

  • Self healing from inspire is the same for her and they allies but Briggite only gain self healing for the last 2-3 seconds (allies healing still for the last 6 seconds)
  • Barrier Move. speed from -30% to -20%

Mei

  • Endothermic Blaster damage per second from 55 to 50.
  • Initial reduction from 30% to 25%.
8

I would actually balance Doomfist and end this nightmare.

That is all

2 Likes
9

Make game modes toggleable before queuing.

1 Like
10

Hanzo: Removed from the game.

Widowmaker: Removed from the game.

Developer Comment: dabs

7 Likes
11

I’m going to remove Hack from Sombra, and give her Tracer’s pistols, just for a day.

So all the Sombra haters that want Hack gutted and her damage boosted would see the absolute nightmare she would turn into, and stop spamming the forums with that request.

Then I’d revert her unnecessary Goats nerfs, and call it a day.

12

Alright, I’ll give this a shot.

  • Sigma’s barrier feels clunky to use
  • The reason it feels clunky is due to the 1s cooldown between deployments, so obviously decrease the cooldown.
  • Decrease the cooldown of Experimental barrier to 0.75s. This way, it is exactly half of his rate of fire. Doing so allows Sigma to recall his barrier as the first Hypersphere has passed it and then have it ready for when he enters his 0.2s “cooldown” (Or reload, whatever you want to call it). This still forces Sigma to commit to his barrier somewhat without it feeling awful to reposition.
  • With the recent nerfs to all barriers I don’t imagine this having too many consequences, however, just for giggles, let’s say this makes his barrier too good at being used reactively and allows him to escape too reliably. What I would then suggest is reverting the cooldown back to 1s but allowing Sigma to keep moving his barrier in the same direction after it has stopped by holding the recall button instead of just pressing it. For those using toggle, this simply requires a slightly longer press than normal.
13
  • Completely replace Barrage with a new ult
  • Turn 50 of Pharah’s HP into armor that regenerates
  • Give Pharah a dive down reverse jump jet function
  • Remove stun on Brig’s bash, double its movement distance,
    and make it proc inspire
  • Reduce Brig’s melee length by 40% and increase it’s damage per hit from 35 to 45
14

mass reverts to season 9 patch
moira and brig removed
mercy revert to season 1 version

15

Probably I would use that single day to read a lot of statistics and not have enough time to make any change at all.

But turning role queue off from QP would be high on my priority list.

16

CC adjustments (11/28/2019):

  • Reduce buffed knockback by 50% (1.2x pre buff range, rather than 1.4x as it is currently).
  • Stun and freeze have 1.5s immunity between current effect’s end and the next effect can be applied.
  • Freeze ray snare duration adjusted to 1.2s window, rather than 1.5s.
  • Seismic slam and rising uppercut now respect the target’s momentum, like other snare/stun effects.
  • Gravitic flux no longer locks out mobility skills (unlike graviton surge).

How’d I do? :open_hands:

17

Most of these replies were just a wishlist of buffs to a hero that I assume the poster likes and wishes was stronger. Maybe I wasn’t very clear, but that’s not really what I was going for.

People complain constantly about “The game being unbalanced” and I’m asking what you would do to address that, give Solider a bunch of buffs or give Pharah a bunch of buffs, that doesn’t sound like someone thinking holistically about game balance, but just wanting their pet character to be more beastly.

Now a few people did give some broader ideas, like reigning in CC for example, but without any consideration for what effects that might have on the rest of the game.

It’s important to remember that Balance in a game like this isn’t just about nerfing or buffing a certain characters set of skills. You could make a small buff to say Solider, so that now shield break is better and he can get more value, and with just that one single change suddenly you start seeing a lot more Ana because now Nano-Visor is so good, and now that you see so much more ana, there is a lot more sleep dart around, so suddenly a handful of heroes that Ana hard counters with her dart start being played less, so other heroes come in to fill those gaps, and before you know it one small set of buffs to solider has created whole new GOATS like era of an oppressively good meta that almost everyone has to play or they will lose, even though you only changed one hero, even if those changes were arguably completely reasonable and good for that single character.

That’s just a hypothetical, but you get the jist, and none of the replies paid any heed to that kind of thing.

I think, and I could be wrong, but I think that 99.99% of the player base that complains about balance, if they were allowed to balance the game they way they want, they would utterly ruin it, cause it’s soooooo much more complicated than they think it is.

I personally think the current dev team is, and has been, doing probably very close to the best job possible, but there still might be a handful of suggestions out there from people who really can give a holistic approach with the ramifications of their changes in mind, people who are very good at “balance crafting”.

That’s kinda what I’m looking for.

1 Like
18

Just take symmetra back to 2.0 and add on some little buffs here and there

1 Like
19

Absolutes:

  • Remove Symmetra
  • Remove Paris
  • Change D.Va to 300/300, increase her DM to 3 seconds with reduced cooldown

Concepts:

  • Lower damage/increase TTK across the board
  • Reduce dependency on barriers while keeping them viable but not making tanks “fat DPS”
  • Make tanking and healing more rewarding and engaging
20

Î would make it possible to queue for several Roles in Role-Queue even when playing with a Group. I hate it when i cant pick DPS + Tank and i am forced to pick one just because i play with a friend.
(unless there is a valid reason that i am not aware of why this is a thing)