Experimental Card Recap - June 5

[Molly (Molly Fender)]

Hey folks!

Earlier this afternoon, we ended our most recent test on the Experimental Card - thanks to everyone that participated in the experiment while it was up. If you missed it, check out the Past Experiments notes: HERE.

Overall, this test was meant to take a balance pass at some of the heroes we feel are not currently in-line with their counterparts. We saw lots of discussion and feedback surrounding two heroes in particular: Genji and Moira. So, we wanted to take a moment to share some insights into what we were trying to achieve, as well as some learnings from the experiment.

GENJI:
We are generally trying to find a stronger niche for Genji, especially now that he’s competing against both Echo and Doomfist as a mobile burst damage hero. In this experiment, we tested pushing his strength towards dealing with hitscan heroes through Deflect. Additionally, we made adjustments to his Shuriken damage and Secondary Fire spread to improve his close range damage consistency. We feel both of these changes are getting us closer to our overall goal of bringing Genji in line with our other mobile burst damage heroes.

MOIRA:
We’ve been having a lot of internal discussion and playtesting to find the right place for Moira. Moira’s damage is especially powerful because it heals her and is fairly easy to use. In this test, we were looking for ways to decrease Moira’s damage while maintaining her overall power level by increasing her healing per second on Primary Fire. From the start we were pretty hesitant about these changes, but we wanted to give players a chance to play and provide opinions as well – that’s the beauty of Experimental Card! We’re glad we did the experiment, but we feel that this test still doesn’t hit our goals for Moira overall. We’ll be reverting these changes for now, but will continue iterating on changes for Moira - so you may see more experiments for her in the near future.

Thank you again to everyone who participated in the Experimental Card. Please continue to provide your thoughts and feedback!

[GreyFalcon-11737]

Nice. We got notes…

[bananafish80-1304]

Thanks for the update; personally, I’m glad the Moira changes didn’t go through-- yet.

It feels great when devs listen to our feedback.

[OW2IsDead-1987]

Thank you for giving us an update.

[JonStriker-11942]

@Molly

Thank you again to everyone who participated in the Experimental Card. Please continue to provide your thoughts and feedback!

I wonder how you guys feel about the other stuff. All in all, I liked the Hanzo changes. And, I understand why people want to see Echo’s beam tone down in some way. I think range was a good way to go. That way you’re still rewarded with the ability, but it carries a greater risk, because you have to be in closer range (16 m on the experimental vs 20 m)

[Arcadium-1386]

Don’t go through with free-cancel deflect. Dumbs it down and reduces counterplay. 2s is fine.

[Vaati-11470]

@Molly

We’ll be reverting these changes for now,

So Moira mains can finally stop crying, thank god for that.

Also sounds like the Genji changes will be going through.

[ant-11471]

i think it’d be interesting if echo’s beam lasted shorter so it’d be less punishing on tanks but stays as a ranged option

[MyWandBroke-1912]

as someone who playes a lot of moira, i feel that the dps nerf was too much but the healing buff was a decent addition.

[KevinAteNine-1753]

@Molly

Moira’s damage is especially powerful because it heals her and is fairly easy to use.

You just opened Pandora’s box…

[GreyFalcon-11737]

Likely they are just gonna slowly shrink the beam width over time.

[Jessicka-1960]

@Molly

We feel both of these changes are getting us closer to our overall goal of bringing Genji in line with our other mobile burst damage heroes.

Hes already better than both Echo and Doomfist. What even is this?

[ComeGetPsalm-11676]

@Vaati-11470

So Moira mains can finally stop crying, thank god for that.

The irony of this statement.

[Kaedi-11739]

My biggest “annoyance” with Moira is how the projectory changes with her damage orb. I feel this is more of a map design issue rather than a hero balance issue, but it can he pretty frustrating to evade that purple ball when you think it should turn left and I go right but the orb just goes right as well and melts any remaining HP I have.

[Yourself-11293]

It is for OWL.
In OWL, genji is worse than echo and doomfist
On ladder, it’s pretty much the opposite.

It is a shame we had to come to balancing around 100 players who play with each other for months on end with coaches and are the best players in the world
I’m going to keep mentioning this thread

Separate balancing for OWL needs to be done

Balancing around OWL is ruining the game. It’s gotten to the point where players are saying that they’d rather OWL not exist. It’s time the devs had separate balancing for OWL and ladder play. These players are playing basically playing a different game from us. They have coaches, best players in the world, and play with the same teams for months on end. It’s nothing like ladder play at all. That way, OWL might be more enjoyable to watch as well. Start with number changes to heroes, and see i…

[Zwei-11485]

@Kaedi-11739

My biggest “annoyance” with Moira is how the projectory changes with her damage orb. I feel this is more of a map design issue rather than a hero balance issue, but it can he pretty frustrating to evade that purple ball when you think it should turn left and I go right but the orb just goes right as well.

This bothers me as someone who plays her because there’s so many times where I try to bounce it towards allies to heal them, only for the thing to go out to get cigarettes and never come back.

[Dysvalence-1915]

Glad to see these notes but having something out before the card goes live is a good idea. Like, it’s very easy to assume that dev stupidity and randomness is behind any one change unless told otherwise, and I feel like that’s counterproductive for discussion and feedback.

[Vaati-11470]

@ComeGetPsalm-11676

@Vaati-11470

So Moira mains can finally stop crying, thank god for that.

The irony of this statement.

No irony whatsoever; have you seen these forums the past two days? Acting like it’s the end of the damn world. A few Genji mains complaining about his state prior to this doesn’t compare.

[Selauriel-1801]

Is the sky no longer falling? Are we gonna chill out now?

[MagyTheMage-1534]

looks like they really did listen to me about genji, because this

@Molly

We are generally trying to find a stronger niche for Genji, especially now that he’s competing against both Echo and Doomfist as a mobile burst damage hero.

because this is exactly why i suggested changes for him and the exact reason i stated