Despite it being a brief post, here’s an even more brief summary:
- Ranked SR is confusing
- Grouping with friends has issues
- Matchmaker has problems
- Changes coming in S3/S4, which will be talked about "Soon"TM
- Progression loop doesn’t feel good enough, they are working on it. Changes coming for that in S3, will be announced next week.
- Ult refund when swapping reduced to 25%, and a lot of Ult costs are going to be adjusted
- More frequent balance patching with hotfixes
- One-shots and frustrating hero mechanics probably going to get reduced. Feedback on that would be appreciated.
- Feedback is good. They are listening.
Here’s my take:
- Ranked SR is confusing
- Get rid of the hidden SR and 7/20 system. And otherwise just fix matchmaking. (And get rid of map pools)
- Grouping with friends has issues
- A lot of this is matchmaking related. But personally I’d like to have read/write access to the Notes field from battle.net, without needing to Alt+Tab. Too often I see a random teammate, and then weeks later I have no memory.
- Matchmaker has problems
- When are you going to tell people that Matchmaking issues are largely because of a lack of Support players?
- Season 1, it was pretty clear there was some Queue Time issues due to a lack of Supports.
- And it’s pretty obvious that there’s a direct tradeoff between a Matchmaking Speed and Matchmaking Quality.
- Changes coming in S3/S4, which will be talked about "Soon"TM
- Looking forward to it.
- Progression loop doesn’t feel good enough, they are working on it. Changes coming for that in S3, will be announced next week.
- Skin tokens would be nice in the battle pass, instead of skins for a hero you probably don’t play
- Maybe bring back non-monetized lootboxes. For rare tier skins etc.
- Also equipable skinned in-game UI would be nice as an additional cosmetic. Like the old Winamp skins.
- Ult refund when swapping reduced to 25%, and a lot of Ult costs are going to be adjusted
- I think a lot of people were expecting it to be 30% but exclusive to the DPS Role again. Especially SVB, where he comments that counterswapping on Tanks/Supports early into the match is too impactful. Where as it’s much less of an issue on DPS. (Also this frees up more room for Support Role passive changes).
- More frequent balance patching with hotfixes
- One-shots and frustrating hero mechanics probably going to get reduced. Feedback on that would be appreciated.
- If it were me, here would be my take.
- Widow: Glass Cannon
- Hanzo: Turn his damage partially in to “DragonFire” DoT’s so it’s not an instant kill, if Supports or medpacks are nearby, also make SonicArrow deployment more obvious to the enemy team. Buff his Lunge distance if needed. (Note, DragonFire would basically be the same as Ashe Dynamite fire, except blue)
- Sojourn: Just remove the headshot entirely on the non-Ult rail shot, since she’s always going to have the problems of being a highly mobile generalist, with a small hitbox that is really evasive with ADAD spam. Unlike Widow/Hanzo she doesn’t really need to cut her mobility while sniping.
- Junkrat: 90 damage mine with no falloff that gets 120 damage when it lands on a surface. Make the grenades do less damage per bounce on the ground (Not wall bounces). Give him 225hp to compensate. Also allow him to regain control of his character instantly after using his Ult, if he moves afterwards. (Partially based on this feedback)
- Pharah: Reduced rocket explosion radius. Then something like more health, more mobility, or maybe no selfdamage from rockets but it can be used as a selfknockback tool. Also 100% immobility during Ult is a bit silly, maybe some mobility or the capability to cancel the Ult somehow.
- Mercy (In regards to PharMercy): Have separate healing values for teammates in the air, and teammates on/near the ground, with the increased grounded heals being indicated by a “magic circle”.
- Feedback is good. They are listening.
- More Reddit AMAs would be nice.
- Maybe have a dedicated temporary forum section for Experimental Cards.
- Also, I’d suggest having more verbose patch notes, and use that as a mini-blog platform. Accompanied by KarQ style YouTube/TickTock short videos covering the patch changes. Maybe have an in-game splash screen to notify people about the patch changes, with some pictures of the affected heroes.
