When Seagull streamed the first look at Sigma, he was accompanied by both Jeff, and the designer of the hero, Josh Noh.
Jeff said explicitly that Sigma’s Kinetic Grasp did not delete projectiles, only drained the damage, so he’d still get sucked into a Graviton Surge, he’d just soak up the damage of that initial hit. Jeff even expressed a hint of regret at D.Va’s ability to delete projectiles and deny ultimates.
Once we got our hands on Sigma, we found that this was not the case. Sigma deletes projectiles, complete with kill feed icons and voice lines for doing so. It was completely intentional.
It seems like a pretty big mechanical decision for Jeff to just not know about it. It had to not only get approved, but go through the entire design pipeline, from animation to coding to the VA. He didn’t just say it doesn’t delete projectiles offhandedly; he said it firmly and repeatedly that it does not do that, and yet it does.
Why the discrepancy? Was the team divided or undecided on the direction for Sigma’s Grasp?
Personally, I’d rather be able to eat beams than eat ults. Sigma is very fragile for a tank, and Jeff described his Kinetic Grasp as a purely defensive ability that’s supposed to keep Sigma alive when he’s getting pressured. It doesn’t do that if the enemy has a Zarya or Symmetra burning down his barrier. His only defensive ability provides inconsistent protection.
It already has a long cooldown and gets interrupted by stuns. Even if it blocked everything, it would be easy to work around. People work around Zarya’s bubble, and that protects her from all sides, protects her from non-melee CC, and has a shorter cooldown. Sigma needs a good defensive ability, and the game doesn’t need another DM.
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It’s not the first time this has happened. Heroes (and pretty much everything) get iterated on over and over by the developers. Certain mechanics get implemented, taken out, then put back in after testing. Sometimes Jeff or any of the other designers simply forget what features they decided to keep in and which they dumped.
If they added resource meter, but removed the ability to eat ultimates, i’d be happy
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I’d agree with you if it was something small that he wasn’t really sure about, but the ability to eat ults is a huge power sink in a hero’s kit. When streamers come to Blizzcon, the devs say when they aren’t sure about the specifics of a new hero’s kit.
Jeff was adamant that it did not delete projectiles. He said it multiple times.
I would rather have that version than a bootleg DM.
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Sigma’s ability is on a decently long cooldown. It’s not so readily available, as it is with Dva.
Dva needs the competition anyway.
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Lol what kind of answer were you expecting. He clearly just forgot if they left that in or not… I assume that it was something they debated back and forth on and tested a lot with and without. The hero had been in the works for months.
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I bet they had a version of sigma that did not eat grav/pulls and they playtested both versions. Then they probably decided that the idea of an ability that turned damage into shields would be weird if it didnt also eat the projectiles, so they changed it. I bet jeff might have played more of the version where sigma couldnt eat the ultimates so he thought it wouldnt on live either.
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If you are talking about sigma, well, it’s not… I think they said this, I’m not sure about this, but the 32 hero should have been mauga (I forgot his name, I think you got it) but for some problem about his kit as much as I understood, they decided to create a new whole hero. And this is the reason of the hero delay. But if this is true, well… Congratulations to the ow team, they’ve created a hero with all that pressure, with limited time, and this hero seems to like to the community.
his defensive ability is his giant 1500hp shield.
they should make the rock a damage+ knockback ability as a last resort protection, not a useless long distance spam stun.
The barrier has a short delay and doesn’t deploy if you don’t hold the button long enough. It’s inconsistent, and doesn’t save him in close quarters.
Kinetic Grasp is his defensive ability. That’s what the devs described it as, and it’s pretty much it’s only function. It protects Sigma, and no one else. The problem with it is that it doesn’t protect him from beams, and he doesn’t have the range or mobility to avoid heroes like Zarya or Symmetra.