I wouldn’t say is easy to balance 1v1 characters. They have their own hardships, for example having more normal moves (just pressing buttons) than any OW characters have entire kits, then you need to add directional moves, jumping moves, special moves (which can be divided with light, medium, and hard), special EX moves, supers, etc.
What I think the key difference here is that releasing a broken fighting game character (I’m looking at you Leroy Smith) in a game doesn’t make all the others useless or changes drastically the meta. The Broken character will just be S tier and all the others will the same.
The problem with OW balance team is that they seem to want to release overpowered characters with a lot of abilities without figuring out correctly how all the characters combinations will interact with it.
I think they are not very competent with balance to be honest. Even knowing that some characters are a problem, they leave them be for months, and we all know how that always ends.
Right now people claim we have the best balance in the last couple of years (even tho we still have under performing heroes and they artificially banned 2 supports), but that is the result of the Dev team not releasing new heroes.
When OW2 comes around, even if they add only new 1 hero (I say probably will be getting at least 5) the balance will go directly to the trashcan, unless they release them in an under-powered state and adjust them from there.
Everything is viable for the majority of the player base, now more than ever. Around 3.2k or so you’re already into the top 10% of the players base. So below that sits 90% of the player base who can pretty much play whatever.
BUT you can’t just play whatever, on every map, any game mode and vs any given comp the other team is running.
I still don’t understand why people think that’s ever going to happen.
I thought OW was a game where you can choose you favorite character. if your favorite character isn’t viable or is a throwpick, that’s horrible game design. In the Halo Reach, you have different abilities and weapons but depending on your skill you can win matches.
That’s because there are set heroes that just out class all the others in that heroes role still… 90% is not viable in high end matches. There are a few heroes that are much MUCH easier to play and get value out of than others.
The correct way to play the game has always been to play a role, not just a hero. That’s sort of the entire point of Overwatch as more team dependent game than most other FPS games.
the issue is the community trying to smash a round peg into a square hole and then blaming everyone else that it doesn’t fit.
I mean if a person plays chess and has their first 10 moves only pawns, don’t whine the game is ‘off balanced’. Don’t point at checkers as well it works there. It’s a totally different rule set and game play by design even if the board is the same.
the difference between meta and non-meta yet viable is usually not that big…its all perception…not like we have a way of measuring whos actually better in any given situation…we play meta because we think its meta…
in fact if all the heroes were “viable” youd still have a meta develop anyway…
Fair enough, but it’s always a way to balance a game, always. OW feels like a rock paper sissors coin flip game. Back in the day I played Lucio not because he was a must pick or meta, it was because I love his character and playstyle. I manage to climb with him because I learned his kit and role. I hope you understand where I’m coming from.
Well sure, but at what cost? Should Widowmaker start to get shield piercing rounds if more than one shield is being played? Should Winston get his jump back 50% faster if the other team is running certain anti-munky heroes?
I guess on some level that’s a more “let me play just one hero” sort of balance but it would kill the over all feel of the game.
hero pools tried to address this issue, people didn’t really like it. Hero bans might work but odds are only at a top level of play. Map design helps too but certain elements of the community just will not play their role, only a hero.
I don’t think that can be balanced.
Don’t fighting games have tier lists usually? As far as in the competitive community anyway? I can’t play them worth a damn so i don’t usually get into it but I’ve heard discussions about it and usually see the same teams in games like MvC and KoF.
No, I never said I wanted to play just one hero. I used Brig, Symmetra, Doomfist, Mccree, and I missed out on Bastion and Mei to think about. These characters are so useless now it’s a joke. I still agree with you.
Yeah but they are completely useless. It’s just mostly a bias list to say “my characters are better than yours” list hahaha
I guess we’ll just pretend the same 5 heroes that have always been bad aren’t still bad and the same 5 heroes who are always slaying have not been slaying.
At best, the devs deserve a prize for having 7/8 tanks actually playable for a change .-.
sadly there is still people that will still throw the “cheese heroes should never be viable”
or the “just git gud” at ya when you write about any underperforming hero.
mei and symm are not being played for a reason.
Oh the overwatch community is plagued by “blind-follow culture”…
what do I mean by this?
It’s one thing to have a majority opinion…that’s exactly what meta is…the community’s popular opinion of what the best heroes are…not the actual best heroes…majority opinion…it’s not exactly rooted in scientific truth…
I always bring up goats…goats was not the “meta”…something else was “meta”…but someone decided to play that combination out in a tournament and had success and lo and behold “oh hey guys this meta we’re playing…the ‘best’ heroes’…isn’t as good as that thing” => goats is now meta…the other thing is no longer viable even though it was JUST meta
So whatever there is a “meta”…there’s always a meta…big whoop…the point is that as a community we have become slaves to this concept…we do not question it…in fact we do the opposite…we treat those who would dare not conform to this ideology with disdain (Remind you of something else?)
“How dare you use the 7th listed person on overbuff!!”
“Um so and so so on YouTube said that hero is garbage…please get off”
“Hero X isn’t used in OWL…clearly it’s trash…I’m reporting you”
“Hero X has a .3% higher win rate…use them instead”
Like I said…most heroes are perfectly viable…and will work in most situations…but it doesn’t matter…because people are only interested in what popular opinion says