Blizzard can tell if a 3rd party program is accessing the game and ban for it.
Blizzard can’t tell that you have a 144Hz monitor running to ban for it unless they come to your house.
Its a matter of fesability, not that they are ignoring hardware advantages.
That’s correct. But then why this pretence of a “foundation of good competition is every player being equally equipped”? They should just come out and say “Yeah, some people have better hardware, and we recognise that in reality, it’s not a level playing field, far from it - although we’d like it to be. We’re aware that 144hz monitors could potentially grant the player a far greater advantage than an app like Visor could.”
Sounds to me cheaters are angry because they’re being exposed as cheaters.
I realise now that my phrasing may have been misleading. While the game was technically “designed” to be played at the top level of PC, I didn’t mean that it wasn’t designed to be played at lower levels. By logic, any game that has a minimum requirement that is not the top level and does not have a maximum requirement is designed to also be played by superior PCs. Again, hopefully that makes sense.
You have made me question whether or not this is actually the case, though. I remember hearing something about how widescreen resolutions aren’t supported because they’d provide players with an advantage over those without wider screens. Not entirely sure, though, so perhaps there is a limit to certain specs.
i was just about to say this, sounds like someone is salty they can’t use visor anymore 
I’ve never used Visor or the other one, I forget its name. The specific wording of “every player equally equipped” is actually what intruiged me here.
so, you’re being nit-picky for the sake of it? aight…as someone said, there’s a matter of things they can and can’t control, also they have specifically said no third party apps, which is what this is so there’s that…
i personally find it a tad annoying and also pointless to dissect the devs every word but that’s just me c:
They can control your software, not your hardware. So they control what they can control.
It’s not being nitpicky - the wording is fundamental to their entire game design philosophy. I’m sorry you find this annoying - just wanted to have a nice discussion about it.
Yes, they can’t actually control the hardware players use - but then should they pretend it’s a level playing field when it’s so far from it?
I’m aware that Tom Powers’ post was specifically referring to third party apps. Blizzard’s rules are perfectly clear - the questions raised are about the philosophy behind those rules.
look, i’m sure they though most people would understand what they meant with “level playing field”
blizz, hire me, i will rephrase your sentences so that every person who likes to take things too literally understands
“we wanna keep it a level playing field as much as we can/as much it is in our power/with things we CAN actually control”
that’s how I understood their statement, i guess they should have been more specific so that everyone understands … oh well…
It’s in their power to control frame rate - they could enforce 60 frames per second lock on everyone. This would be fairer for the greater portion of the playerbase, no?
sure i guess, maybe then make a suggestion for them to do so? i honestly had no idea tbh, even less that they could control it…the more you know
They could, all they have to do is detect the current refresh rate being used 
. They could also force the frames per second to something like a maximum of 60.
Yes. Not only can they control your maximum frame rate, they can also control your maximum resolution, positional surround/high definition audio availability, widescreen support, network packets sent and received or tick rate (could be limited so people with better bandwidth have less advantage) and more. While they can’t directly control the hardware players use, they have the power to indirectly offset the advantages better hardware grants with software limitations.
I won’t suggest Blizzard actually implement a 60 FPS cap, because I’m not the one holding onto a pretence of “level playing field.” They (Blizzard) are. I know full well that it isn’t and never will be, because if you tried to create a truly level playing field you’d limit the enjoyment factor for people who have invested in the top end systems, thereby losing sponsorships and money. They want you to buy that newest HP Omen monitor. At the end of the day isn’t it always about the money?
They could probably just put a benchmarking tool in the tutorial, it not only gauges your hardware performance but determines other specifications based on your ability to perform certain tasks and reactions. If you don’t meet a narrow set of requirements they can just disable your access to competitive until you play on hardware that does. This way they can achieve their equal playing field for the competitive sections of the game whlie not restricting the average player/user from just having a good time.
Sounds like a good idea.
I stopped playing on PC games 5+ years ago cause it’s never a fair playing field. Everyones hardware is vastly different. At least on console everyone is equipped with the same hardware for the most part. you can only get so many different things to upgrade your xbox
It actually depends on what monitor you have. I have used 60hz monitors before that were high quality and got almost no tearing. But I’ve also used cheaply made 144hz monitors that tear for days. I am now using a monitor that can swap between 60hz and 144hz and there’s no significant changes in the amount of tearing that is seen on the monitor.
Game should’ve been capped at 60fps and 60Hz. Then it would actually be fair.
If Blizz want to supply everyone that buys their game with a standard hardware set up let me know.