In most cases, the players at the top of the skill ladder understand the game better than the developers. These players spend hundreds of hours in game testing it and pushing its limitations in every possible way. Ideally Blizzard should hire or pay the GM to Top 500 players to give them advice on how to make the game better. If you want the best advice on a subject, you ask the person with most expertise. They are the only players who can prove that they actually know what they are talking about.
8 Likes
ah yes, gm players canât be biased in any way letâs listen to them
74 Likes
All because GM players touch less grass doesnât mean they know how to do game development.
Ideally, you balance for the majority of players - because the majority of players are the majority that experience your game, duh.
48 Likes
also i remember we had those content creator (most of them were gm players) experimental patches. hints of bias on those experimentals. some broken buffs too
12 Likes
Players, no matter how good, are not gamedevelopers. They see it only from a performance based perspective. If you remember the OW1 experimental patches based on GM and top500 streamers, you saw that they are as clueless as we are when it comes to what to do with the game.
9 Likes
Many of the takes Iâve seen from GM players and higher sound incredibly biased based on who they like to play or hate as a character.
18 Likes
nope, they donât all know what theyâre talking about and in a game like this, the only reason some people can climb is by abusing metas and broken characters instead of skill. This is why tier lists exist and playrate matters. 9/10 theyâre just as bias as the gold player
3 Likes
While I do believe the game should be balanced top-down, I disagree that they should only listen to GM+ players. Balancing solely at the top can have really bad repercussions at lower ranks which can make the game a very bad experience. If you alienate the largest segments of your player base then the game dies, even for the GMs.
7 Likes
Honestly mate, the entirety of the GM and top 500 players could leave OW2 (Iâm not suggesting I want them to) and never come back, and the core game wouldnât notice. There just arenât enough people in total in those groups to keep OW going.
Where if the entirety of say plat and below left OW2 tomorrow, the game would die a quick death due to lack of players.
IMHO you balance around the meat of the bell-curve, not the outliers.
15 Likes
Yes, bc playing a video game for hours everyday magically gives an education, high intelligence, and total immunity to bias.
4 Likes
That is a terrible, terrible idea.
If the devs are to take community feedback into consideration, which they often donât, then everybody has to be heard. They can see which ideas are widely agreed upon and adjust their patches accordingly.
Listening to only a select group is a recipe for disaster.
4 Likes
Yes, lets disregard the input of 99.9% of the playerbase because NONE of them have any idea how the game âreally worksâ.
3 Likes
If they did this all that would happen is heroes they despise will get changed lol
1 Like
Top down balance should be the default approach, but at the end of the day, what matters most is keeping the majority of players happy and GM+ is a minority among minorities.
And besides, even practicing top down balance, isnât achieved by just blindly listening to top players. Everyone has biases and those players are no exception, theyâre as bad (if not worse in many cases) as any of us. Then thereâs the actual pros who are playing a totally different game than even GMâŚ
What the devs are already doing by taking all groups of players into account is the proven successful method.
1 Like
In the past they have listened to exclusively GM+ players in some cases, and itâs literally no better than listening to the playerbase at large. GM+ players arenât going to magically care more about balance, theyâre going to take every opportunity to spin a narrative to massively buff their mains and heavily nerf whichever heroes they donât like. See also; Flats demanding Rein gigabuffs, Samito demanding Moira being gutted, heroes like Ana/Tracer never falling below A-tier because theyâre GM+ favorites. Even OWL players are biased, and their complete refusal to accept balance changes that would nerf Tracer/Widow directly lead to the creation of Brig, destroying the game for a long time.
Metal-rank players have some really bad takes at times, but GM+ players would actively ignore the concept of balance if it meant making their mains as busted as possible.
6 Likes
Having a game cater entirely to the top 1% of the ENTIRE player base would be so dumb youâre better off giving full control to a monkey. It would lead to the very, very fast downfall of a game cause 99% of people do not matter.
5 Likes
Pretty much guarantees that toxic comps that wreck low ranks never leave the game because theyâre âcounterableâ with a high degree of skill.
which makes it very easy to just lie to the developers, t500/gm players are just as biased as you or me
flowers by irene, go back glowie
2 Likes
This would work great for comp!
Is what an idiot would say. The experience in gm is entirely different to how it is in bronze, a character that is busted in gm might be completely balanced in bronze, and if they only listen to gm players, it would make the experience horrible for lower ranks that donât have the same metaâs and problems, and then if a hero is broken in bronze, but fine in gm, the game devâs wouldnât know because they only listen to those gm players.
2 Likes
LOL. You guys would make the game so un-fun that everyone BUT GMâs would leave. Then you guys could just play with each other. 
4 Likes