Devs ignored Niandra & Skiesti with S4 Mercy

General Discussion
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because they are playing a game SO different to 99.99% of the playerbase. its completely weird to even think a game developer should cater their videogame to that small of a % of players.

regardless, i dont know if you know this, but its generally the same 15-20ish heros played in OWL. mercy has a very low pickrate in OWL. most OWL players dont even use her in competitive play in their own time. how would they know more about one hero than someone who has dedicated an extreme amount of time learning that hero (we are talking 2000+ hours) and their interactions with every other hero in the game? and its not like these mercy one tricks we are discussing (skietsi and niandra) are low ranked, im pretty sure skietsi is a consistent t100 player

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First time reading a Hyphen reply?

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cries in Junker Queen

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Outside of the odd corner case people tend to play Mercy because she offers basic gameplay that still has the potential for very high value. No other hero allows you to avoid as many basic skill checks as Mercy, while still being a pretty high value hero as long as your team isn’t really out classed.

Professional teams don’t tend to have the skill discrepancies that exist on ladder, there doesn’t tend to be a “carry” they can pocket for as much value as they would get playing a support with more individual agency.

Only way this changes is if she’s overtly over powered like back in Moth meta, or her design is changed to giver her some direct agency (which would likely require engagement and therefore -risk). You really can’t have direct agency if all you’re doing is healing and buffing.

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I legitimately do not care about GM players or streamers, there’s already too much of streamers basically whispering in the devs ear and then we get terrible balance changes. Remember when we used to have a PTR to test changes? Haha not anymore, now it’s just straight up influencer only previews and any feedback that’s not wrapped in a stream or influencer communication is thrown right in the trash. Remember when we used to have early patch notes and developer update videos? Haha not anymore, now it’s the devs saying to go watch x streamer’s stream to get their opinions or hear what the changes are early.

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Lol sure buddy

Plus 20 characters

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Ptr was stopped BECAUSE NO ONE PLAYED IT.

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:pensive:

This why I can’t play her in FFA! Nothing in her kit, no not even her ult is great as it takes ages to charge as it is designed for her healing

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No offense OP but Skiesti is the whole reason Mercy’s even in the state to begin with. She was the most vocal about keeping the omnidirectional movement in-despite nearly every other high rank Mercy player saying it’s fun but a bad idea.

Also, Jeeze nobody here watched the video cause Niandra stated the two biggest issues was the inconsistent cooldown and that the flow of the kit is still janked-even SVB pointed that out!

They mentioned that yeah GA is a bit borked but it’s still workable-they’ve mentioned these changes had them changing up how they play by using more natural cover and such.

Big yikes and shows how much Moth PTSD has a hold on some of ya’ll.

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Yes I do but it was hard to let the devs know what was great and what needed more work…

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The devs being somewhat unresponsive to normal player feedback during the Kaplan era was better than currently where normal players don’t even get a chance to provide feedback in the Keller era. If you’re not an influencer, streamer, youtuber, etc, Blizzard does not care about what you have to say and will take your feedback straight to the trashcan. I doubt they even read the threads here or on the bug report forums, except whenever some drama happens and they send in forum moderators to clean up.

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because the pro players have been playing every meta to exist in more competitive scenarios than any one trick has ever played in, they have entire staff teams dedicated to teaching the players everything about the game lol

again, ladder literally doesn’t matter, anyone can hit t100 if they spend enough time coinflipping games. skiesti nor whoever this “niandra” player is are not considered good by any actual competitive player, i can guarantee you this

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Wow. This is some mental gymnastics right here.

Look, you can have whatever opinion you want. But the facts are that these players were invited by the devs specifically to provide feedback about a specific character.

They did so, and it’s often ignored to the detriment of the gameplay of said character.

Logically, if the devs are going to do that to people they invited to give feedback, how does that look to your average player?

You can discount these players all you want, but I don’t see you getting invited by the devs.

So how about you simmer down a little and check that ego.

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dude what?

first of all, yes, the OWL teams understand synergy, positioning etc at an extremely high degree. but thats at the cost of knowing one specific heros in and outs. many OWL players specialise in say ana, or zen, but literally not one specialises in mercy. again, how is someone with say 100ish hours on one hero supposedly more knowledgeable about that one hero than someone with over 2000 hours?

objectively untrue. if you disagree, prove it to me and hit t100 on a minimum of 3 accounts, one tricking mercy solo, just like skietsi has done.

im not too sure about niandra, but skietsi is a competitive player. you can call her bad, or say she isnt good, but her rank disproves that

regardless, niandra has dedicated an entire youtube channel purely on mercy, on tips, on her stats, on how she thinks mercy is in the current meta ect.

blizzard invited these two players to give insight on mercy. because blizzard knows that they know the most there is to know about her

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because im not a content creator

how is it about ego? i just stated that the competitive ladder is a joke and hitting top 100 means nothing anymore lol

yes because no one thats a pro player will do this

because theyre pro players???

i would rather gouge my eyes out or get an ice pick lobotomy

wrong lol

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Because Mercy can’t heal, while damage boost is active, one demands quite powerful teammate to use it on, “erase enemies in blink of an eye” powerful. And Bastion, unfortunately, isn’t “chosen one”.

Lack of multitasking on Mercy means, that measuring her in same way we do other supports, doesn’t produce correct results.

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Pls, for the love of god, do not balance towards content creators

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Because while GMs that mostly one trick a character, while knowing the in and outs of that character better than anyone, are inevitably biased to make their hero be good in all situations. I’m not saying that their ideas aren’t good, but when you one trick a character you become fundamentally blind to your characters niche and start wanting them to be playable all the time. Its like taking balance advice for doomfist from getquakedon or genji from necros they won’t be wrong about their characters but they will definitely include buffs that make those characters work outside their niche. And when it comes to mercy in particular, the characters she enables can be very unfun to play against. This is not a balance statement rather just a feel statement. You could absolutely play it perfectly mechanically and positioning-wise to counteract the enabled target, but ultimately for me personally as a tank and dps player, the adjustments necessary to deal with the scenario just make the game play in a less rewarding way.
Final thoughts, balance is a two way street your character deserves to feel fun and impactful but not ar the cost of other players fun and impact, in s1&2 mercy movement was incredibly rapid, and the only way to deal with it consistently was playing one shot characters, even then it was incredibly difficult, in s3 mercy’s 50% increased healing effectively made her keep targets that should have died, live, sometimes even in the face of ultimate abilities. So far s4 mercy as far as I have seen, is obviously not as impactful as she was in the first 3 seasons, but feels more fun to play into.

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But now you’re falling into the trap of dismissing a person because of the potential for bias.

All people have a potential for bias.

Someone could just as easily say you’re biased against content creators because you’re jealous of their influence and invitation to the dev discord discussions.

As for the fun argument, it’s pretty obvious that what is considered fun is incredibly subjective.

But what is most interesting about Mercy, is that she has probably been changed more than any other character in the game’s history not because she was overpowered, but subjective complaints about fun.

“It’s not fun to not be able to kill Mercy!”

Why? Because you think you’re entitled to an easy kill against a hero that can’t really kill you?

It’s also not fun helplessly watching people die because you have relatively low HPS (even S3 Mercy had low HPS compared to other supports) and now your mobility has been gutted not because you’re objectively powerful, but because people think you should die easier because reasons.

It’s the same reason people complain about damage boost, despite Mercy contributing the least damage and kills even with boosting others.

It’s the same reason Mercy’s flaws, like a distinct lack of autonomy, is blatantly ignored when the complaints start. GA is good, but it’s also completely reliant on the presence and position of teammates.

Objective data and logic doesn’t matter.

When Mercy has impact, that impact must be attacked and diminished. Because of course, Mercy is a skill-less hero.

And skill-less heroes shouldn’t be good, or else I’m not having fun.

From my perspective, the vast majority of complaints about Mercy are rooted in bias, rather than logic.

Because logically and objectively, she’s not able to perform to the level of most other supports.

If she was, you’d see her all over pro play.

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Sure but lets not be dishonest and pretend that OTPs dont have an insanely HUGE chance of said bias, and Mercy OTPs in particular dont have an appreciation for other skills in the game since those required to play Mercy are not as transferrable as pretty much any other OTP.

Anyone is willing to listen to something sane and logical when it comes to balance, the problem comes when people scream against bias and then …

See? Great example.

Ultra biased stance based on unrealistic expectations and standards. The irony lies that 99% of the Mercys that respond with “Just learn to aim better lol”, do NOT possess the skill to kill a Mercy using basic movement.

So yeah, when even T500 are complaining Mercy became ultra evasive for too long with little effort, was not bias, was not “Mercy haters lol”, it was a logical, verifiable, sane stance.

Not now but it once was. Oh and we all remember that. Do you though?
When that happened, yes the Moth meta, Overwatch was, arguably on a Top 2 WORST states of the game ever, in almost 7 years.

Nah thanks :+1: