Many people want the game to be more “balanced” because it sucks right now (which I agree with, to be fair) but do not know exactly what that would mean or how to pull it off.
So how would you balance the game?
I personally am not a game dev, and don’t have much to say, but I believe that the game should reward skill expression and game sense, while punishing more passive gameplay (e.g. shieldbotting Rein should not be effective), and that heroes that are supposed to make your gameplay less enjoyable shouldn’t be strong (e.g. Orisa, Sombra). Just my two cents, however. I’d love to know what you all think.
Maximum Recharge duration reduced from 6 to 4 seconds
Maximum duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds
Doomfist
Quality of Life changes
Every single one of his abilities (including his passive) has been recoded to fix all bugs recorded to date with Doomfist
Returned all of his techs (like Seismic Slams stair tech)
Power Block
Movement penalty reduced from 35 to 25%
Minimum damage mitigated required to empower Rocket Punch reduced from 100 to 90 damage
Orisa
Energy Javelin
Impact stun duration reduced from 0.2 to 0.15 seconds
Wall stun duration reduced from 0.3 to 0.2 seconds
Fortify
Can no longer be cancelled manually
Cooldown now starts as soon as the ability is over
Cooldown reduced from 16.5 to 12 seconds
Ramattra
Void Accelerator
Damage reduced from 5 to 4.5
Projectile speed increased from 80 to 100m/s
Void Barrier
Health reduced from 1000 to 600
Cooldown reduced from 13 to 6 seconds
Nemesis Form
Applied armor reduced from 225 to 125 (to compensate for the 100 armor he was given basekit)
Ravenous Vortex
Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds
Height now stretches to the skybox
Annihilation
Maximum duration reduced from 20 to 12 seconds
Reduced visual effect
Reinhardt
General
Health reduced from 350 to 300
Armor increased from 250 to 300
Rocket Hammer
Knockback impulse reduced from 6 to 4.5
Damage reduced from 85 to 80
Charge
Damage increased from 225 to 250
Barrier Shield
Health reduced from 1400 to 1200
Earthshatter
Critical damage increased from 170 to 200
Roadhog
General
Health reduced from 700 to 550
Armor increased from 0 to 150
Pig Pen
No longer applies a vertical knockback boost
Inital damage reduced from 60 to 50
Take a Breather
Damage resistance reduced from 40% to 30%
Recharge rate reduced from 10 to 8 seconds
Cooldown reduced from 1.5 to 1 second
Sigma
Accretion
Knocked down duration reduced from 1.1 to 0.8 seconds
Impact damage increased from 40 to 50
Winston
Tesla Cannon Alt-Fire
Maximum range reduced from 40 to 30 meters
Ammo consumption reduced from 12 to 10
Now chains up to 4 enemies in a 4 meter radius for only 30 damage (direct hit target still gets damaged by 50 instead of 25)
Wrecking Ball
Quad Cannons
Damage increased from 5 to 5.5
Roll
No longer has collision with players (can still knockback players with Grappling Claw)
Grappling Claw
No longer goes on cooldown after respawning
Adaptive Shields
Overhealth gained per enemy reduced from 100 to 75
Damage
Bastion
Configuration: Assault
Damage reduced from 12 to 10
Spread reduced by 12%
Artillary Bomb
Moved to Ability 2
New Ability: Self-Repair
Is Bastion’s Secondary Fire
Allows Bastion to heal himself for 60 HPs up to 3 seconds. Takes 6 seconds to fully recharge
Cassidy
General
Health reduced from 225 to 200
Body hitbox reduced by 10%
Critical hitbox reduced by 6%
Peacekeeper
Damage falloff range rescaled from 25-35 meters to 25-40 meters.
Magnetic Grenade
No longer applies the Hindered effect
Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds
Homing duration reduced from 0.75 to 0.6 seconds
Maximum travel time reduced from 1.5 to 1 second
Impact damage reduced from 10 to 0
Explosion damage increased from 70 to 100
Genji
Shurikens
Damage increased from 27 to 28
Ammo reduced from 30 to 24
Dragonblade
Damage increased from 110 to 125
Can no longer be damage boosted (Effects Nano-Boost & Damage boost)
Hanzo
Storm Bow
Damage reduced from 120 to 100
Projectile speed increased from 110 to 125m/s
Projectile tip is moved from the middle/end of the arrow to the tip of the arrow
Sonic Arrow
Now displays the “DETECTED” message for enemies that are in Sonic Arrow’s detection range
Junkrat
Frag Launcher
Bombs no longer ricochet off the enviorment
Concussion Mine
Damage increased from 110 to 120
Mei
Endothermic Blaster
Damage per second reduced from 100 to 85
Ammunition increased from 120 to 150
Pharah
General
Health reduced from 200 to 125
Shields increased from 0 to 75
Hover Jets
Maximum duration reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds
Vertical speed increased by 6%
Regeneration rate reduced from 43 to 39 per second
Reaper
Hellfire Shotguns
Spread reduced from 7 to 6 degrees
Shadow Step
Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds
Cast time reduced from 1.5 to 1 second
No longer says a voiceline before or after teleporting
Sojourn
Railgun
Spread reduced by 10%
Railgun Alt-Fire
Can no longer headshot (doesn’t apply while in Overclock)
Overclock
No longer pierces through enemies
Soldier: 76
Heavy Pulse Rifle
Damage reduced from 19 to 18
Biotic Field
Cooldown reduced from 18 to 15 seconds
Sombra
Stealth
Cooldown now pauses at 0.1 seconds while capturing or contesting objectives from 1 second
Translocator
Projectile size reduced by 10%
EMP
Ability lockout duration reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds
Damage increased from 25 to 30% of current health
Symmetra
Photon Projector (Primary Fire)
Maximum beam length increased from 12 to 15 meters
Photon Projector (Secondary Fire)
After 1 second of holding the ability button, Photon Projector will continuously remain charging
Sentry Turret
Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds
Slow per turret reduced from -15% to -10%
Deployment activation reduced from 1 to 0.8 seconds
Teleporter
No longer is able to teleport allies (can still teleport non-player entities)
Cooldown reduced from 12 to 8 seconds
Health reduced from 50 to 25
Shields increased from 150 to 225
Cast time reduced from 1 to 0.8 seconds
Tracer
Pulse Pistols
Damage reduced from 6 to 5.75
Widowmaker
Widow’s Kiss (ADS)
Damage increased from 12-120 to 12.5-125
Headshot multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2
Now displays a red beam indicating where Widowmaker is aiming at (only visible for enemies)
Venom Mine
Damage per second increased from 15 to 20
Cooldown reduced from 15 to 10 seconds
Infra-Sight
Now displays the “DETECTED” message for enemies
Support
Ana
Biotic Grenade
Anti-Heal effect is removed
Now reduces incoming healing by 50% for impacted enemies
Cooldown is reduced from 12 to 10 seconds
Sleep Dart
Duration is reduced from 5 to 4 seconds
The duration reduction for Tanks is reduced from 30% to 12.5% (so the duration remains at the current 3.5s for tanks)
Baptiste
Regenerative Burst
No longer heals 40/80 health instantly
Healing per second increased from 10 to 25
Healing is increased to 50 for allies under half health (doesn’t count for Baptiste)
Biotic Launcher Alt-Fire
Ammo reduced from 13 to 10
Amplification Matrix
Width size is reduced from 9x5 to 7.5x5
Brigitte
Quality of Life changes
Now displays a ring representing the radius of Inspire thats only visible for the Brigitte player
There is now a number like Lucio’s under your crosshair representing how many players are within Inspire’s effective radius
Each Repair Pack UI thing (around your crosshair) now slowly fills up horizontally representing the cooldown of the ability
Repair Pack
No longer instantly heals for 25 health
Healing per second increased from 50 to 55
Maximum range increased from 25 to 30 meters
Barrier Shield
Deployment speed reduced to activate after 1 frame
Width & Height increased by 10% (doesn’t apply in Rally) Inspire
Healing expires upon Brigitte’s death
Illari
Solar Rifle (Primary Fire)
Ammo reduced from 16 to 14
Reload duration reduced from 1.8 to 1.5 seconds
Solar Rifle (Secondary Fire)
Healing reduced from 105 to 90
Maximum duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds
Recharge when fully depleted is reduced from 3.36 to 3 seconds
Outburst
No longer knocks back enemies
Healing Pylon
Shields reduced from 50 to 0
Armor increased from 0 to 50
Kiriko
Kunai
Projectile speed increased from 90 to 100m/s
Damage increased from 45 to 50
Headshot multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2
Ammo reduced from 15 to 12
Protection Suzu
No longer grants Immortality (it still cleanses)
Now grants 75% damage reduction for its duration
Duration is increased from 0.65 to 0.85 seconds
Cooldown reduced from 15 to 12
Lifeweaver
General
Health reduced from 175 to 150
Passive reload speed is reduced from 2.5 to 1.5 seconds
Healing Blossom
No longer has a speed penalty
Maximum healing reduced from 70 to 65
Life Grip
Instant healing reduced from 50 to 25
Now cleanses the gripped target
Tree of Life
Healing burst is reduced from 75 to 50
Time between pulses is reduced from 1.75 to 1.5 seconds
Overhealth gifted no longer has a small delay and instead starts expiring immediately after you leave either its effective radius or if its destroyed
Lúcio
Soundwave
Knockback meters per second is increased from 15 to 17
Wall Ride
Speed bonus increased from +30% to +35%
Mercy
Quality of Life changes
Fixed all bugs related to Guardian Angel & Resurrect (I.x. bugs with Prefered Facing Target and resurrect latency issues)
General
Weapon swap time is reduced from 0.35 to 0.25 seconds
Caduceus Staff
Healing per second reduced from 55 to 50
Healing is increased by 20% for allies under 50% of their maximum health (doesn’t affect Valkyrie)
Guardian Angel
Jump and Crouch cancel active ability state duration is reduced from 1.5 to 1 second
Jump and Crouch cancel active ability state can now be manually interrupted to begin the cooldown early again
Is no longer omni-directional nor can you manually superjump by pressing the Crouch button, instead, is fully reverted to how it worked back in OW1
You can still Backwards GA like in OW2, but it has a set distance of 6 meters instead of based off of a meter (and the 20% speed penalty while backwards GA’ing is removed)
Added a new text in the Ability description, “With the combo of (crouch+ability 1 buttons/keys) you can launch yourself vertically in the air”
New Ability: Angelic Devotion
If your within 15 meters of an ally, you can activate the Ability button granting the player in your reticle: 50 health healed instantly, a 20% damage reduction for 2.5s, a 25% reduction for all abilities active cooldowns, and a cleanse of all debuffs
Has a base cooldown of 8 seconds
Upon devoting a teammate, the Mercy player receives 5% ultimate charge if any amount of health was restored
Ability cooldown now refreshes immediately upon respawning in the spawn room like every other ability
Resurrect
Now is only an accessible Ability 2 in Valkyrie
Replaces Angelic Devotion in the Ability 2 slot for the entire duration of Valkyrie
Cast time reduced from 1.75 to 1 second
Cooldown reduced from 30 to 5 seconds
Resurrected players now spawn at 50% of their max health damaged (I.x. a 200 health hero spawns at 100/200 instead of 200/200)
Valkyrie
Duration reduced from 15 to 12 seconds
Resets the cooldown of Mercy’s Ability 2 upon activation
Healing per second increased from 60 to 70
Self-Regen healing per second increased from 15 to 20
Beam range reduced from 30 to 22.5 meters
Moira
Biotic Grasp
Self-heal healing per second reduced from 24 to 22
Biotic Orb
Projectile speed is reduced from 20m/s to 18m/s
Can now pause/continue the orb’s travel speed if the ability button is pressed again
Zenyatta
General
Health reduced from 75 to 50
Orb of Discord
Ability timer lockout now only affects Tank heroes instead of all heroes
Ability timer lockout is reduced from 7 seconds to 5
Damage received on Tanks is reduced from 25% to 15%
Overall, mostly good ideas, though I have things to say for some changes you’ve recommended, if you don’t mind.
Does this refer to the slight knockback Rein’s hammer does? If so, I’m not sure why this is a necessary change.
I feel like even with the buffs you’ve proposed, 1300 would be my golden spot for shield health.
In general, though, I like your proposed changes for Rein as a Rein main myself.
Does this refer to WB in his ball form? If so, how exactly would this work?
Would this be a resource like Hog’s healing? And, all things considered, does Bastion really need a self-repair ability?
This would definitely be a nerf in the end. I feel like if Nano and Damage boost was no longer applicable, the blade should perhaps deal slightly more damage, have a shorter cast time, or more power would be shifted to other parts of his kit, like slightly faster projectile speed.
I am surprised that you do not want to reduce the crit multiplier.
Would this change anything? Is it feasible to do?
This would definitely be a good QOL change.
I don’t think this would be a good change. It would remove an aspect of Junkrat’s skill expression, and make his projectiles much more dull.
If this was a compensation change for the lack of ricochet with Junkrat’s primary, I would definitely rather take ricochet than this.
This just increases the frustrating part of Mei’s primary, which is her slow. I don’t think she needs this change at all.
If both of these changes were implemented, Reaper’s dmg output would be too much, IMO. I would take reduced spread, because that would feel much better. If he gets an alternate fire with longer range, though, neither of these changes would really be necessary.
The shadow step changes are nice.
Would this mean that she immediately goes back into stealth when she stops contesting/capturing objectives? Even if she takes dmg?
I’m curious as to why you suggested this.
I don’t think she necessarily needs this change, though to be fair I probably don’t get as many good Tracers as you do. However, I think that her dmg is good where it is right now, and encourages a more aggressive and aware playstyle.
This and the Infrasight HUD change would be nice.
I personally think that a 50% reduction is only needed for tanks, but I understand how that might be difficult to implement. Regarding sleep, I do not think it needs changes. It can punish plays that are too aggressive and not thought out, while giving the Ana a chance to get away.
I don’t think that he needs more primary ammo while having less secondary ammo, especially if you want to nerf his regen burst and window at the same time.
Does Illari really need this nerf? I’m not sure what it would accomplish, and I think the ability would feel slightly clunkier without the knockback.
I feel like this reduces skill expression, but I understand why it might be a good change. In the end, not sure about it.
I think having boop at 17 meters per second would be good enough. 18 could feel oppressive, especially since you can boop enemies into the air, and you can’t do anything against it in most circumstances.
The speed bonus is nice, and I wouldn’t mind it, but I’m not sure if it is necessary.
I think Mercy would become unkillable with all the prior changes added, plus the Valkyrie buffs. This might feel too oppressive to go against. Especially with the pistol dmg buff.
I think that the orbs should do slightly less healing and dmg in return, because as the April Fools patch showed, it can feel pretty oppressive, especially because the enemy team can do nothing about it.
This isn’t a popular opinion, but I personally think that Zen’s lockout change was good. It incentivizes the Zen player to think about who they use the orb on, and when, while giving tanks an opportunity to do something about it.
Like I said at the beginning, overall, I like the changes you’ve proposed, and the ones I have no problem with I haven’t responded directly too. Thank you for your contribution!
Remove role passive, except or tanks. Make tank have 30% resistence to CC and negative affect (discord etc).
Reduce sustain healing amount accross the board.
Undo the zen nerf on discord.
Bring back moira “weaken” purple ball from exp card (that was an interesting change that they scraped because they mess up her heal one)
Remove kiriko hs crit, increase her base dmg. Remove immortality from yuzu, but make it so that the cleansed player stay cleansed for the next 5 seconds (can;t be cc/slept/discord/anti) + burst healing.
Switch bap immortality and window so that immortality is an ult instead.
Reduce healing from Illari turret, but make it the affected player % resistent to cc.
(this one is a personal preference) but I would switch illari gun around so the beam do dmg and the gun do healing instead. But that’s just me .
Make JQ fatter. Why is it that we have a tank with the body type of a runway model figure???
*Delete doom and ballcough cough I meant made Doom a dps again… yea…Or make him fatter
Give Mei and Torb fall off for their gun. It’s illogical and stupid.
Torb need a nerf. Why are they so affaird to have low skill ceilling character as F tier in high rank??
Make Mei a tank.
I rather they balance sombra to be more of a hard counter for high mobility character, and remove perma invisibility.
yes. i reduced it because it’ll overall make his hammer feel much better and reliable for up close combat (as knockbadk pushes the target away, which is not what a melee hero wants)
1300 may be good, i don’t know how good 50 more armor would play in effect so in all honestly 1300 may be the sweet spot.
mhm! basically in his ball form, he is able to pass through enemy players without colliding with somebody like tracer per say, or rein. however, he is still able to deal damage & knock enemies back by using grapple, pile drive, his little fire boost, etc. (i tested it in the workshop, and it works like wonders)
it would, it’s what he had in OW1. i wouldn’t say he needs it, but i feel like it would overall make him feel much better and more reliable without having constant need of supports.
ah, that’s why i reverted his damage on shurikens back to 28. but i wouldn’t mind increasing blades base damage to 125 per say. remember 125 + 50 (50 because of dash) is 175 so he’d be able to still reliably kill squishes easier now. but a shorter cast time or swing time would be welcome
if you do, then all it’ll do is it go from 120x2 = 240 to 120x1.5 = 180 which paired with a mercy damage boost, would probably cause him to be meta. i’d rather his base damage arrows be lowered anyway as his body shot damage is kinda ridiculous.
it would change things. people call his arrows “log sized” when in reality their not, it’s just where the projectile size itself is located at (at the middle or end instead of the tip) so changing its location would make his arrows be more pin point accurate required
skill expression with junkrat would be predicting where enemies are moving so you would time his bombs to their movement, the fact they ricochet only promotes spamming at chokes or spamming in general which is also what lower ranks have trouble with.
it reduces it, she’s so frustrating because of the high damage she deals on tanks and the fact she walls them off and is able to damage them for really high levels. reducing the damage but giving her more ammo would feel better for both sides.
i don’t see how it’ll be a lot. 5.4 to 5.5 is not even that much, it’s mainly just to help my OCD because 5.4 is such a weird number to settle on lmao
yes and no. if she’s contesting, her stealth cooldown pauses at 0.1 second (but obviously resets when she takes damage) and she’ll go immediately into stealth right after it’s captured or she leaves. the cooldown will always reset if she takes damage
usually a frustration with sombra is the fact that translocater is just fat and the fact that the environment teleports you instantly, you can get blocked by things that should’ve been able to pass through. it’s mainly a QoL change
her damage honestly is too much, and we shouldn’t promote damage creep. 5.75 is a good inbetween of the weak 5.5 but the strong 6 and it should overall help her feel more tolerable yet still able to get kills if your good enough
yeah in all honesty i think i should just change my bap changes cause i don’t like my direction i did with him. i’ll change it soon
a reason why people hate facing illari is the fact that she deals good damage along with having knock back whenever she tries to get dived which is her weak spot. she should have weaknesses too
i could probably see 17, and the speed boost change is just a QoL honestly and it’ll promote more wallriding plays and overall just feel better to use
my goal was to make her less pocket intuitive and make valkyrie an impactful ultimate again so it’s worth charging. i think rolling back on some changes would be smart, but the resurrect changes aren’t too bad. it’s respectively earn-able now, and the 5 second cooldown allows enemies to punish her for going for the resurrect by using boops.
i also basically nerfed her survivability with the GA changes, but it’s worth it because it’ll feel more fun to use the ability. i gave her a new ability to help her mid fight potential as those benefits given would feel incredibly nice. the staff changes are also to promote a triage healer play style too as it’s not as disgusting as 67.5 hps was, but it’s more tolerable.
i will say though that i should probably roll back on the pistol damage, but also keep in mind i reduced the duration of valkyrie and ultimates are supposed to be impactful, so giving her back her season 2 valkyrie HPs is not necessarily bad.
was that really a complaint? huh, i didn’t know that. foggy brain
i see your point! it’s a good one too, though i think the change just made him feel really clunky and in all honesty it didn’t fix the issue with discord orb. the problem is that it’s very oppressive on tanks, so making it worse on tanks but more effective in everybody’s else is a win-win as the zen feels less clunky, and the tank feels like they have a chance against him
thank you for your feedback, i greatly appreciate it
basically the experimental card we had in OW1 to test out balance changes given by the devs before they went live, or game changes such as the very first card which was a change from 2-2-2 to 1-3-2.
Should be balanced from the very middle of where the majority of players skill level is at. Middle out. Not top down. Making the game feel fairest to the widest audience is the play imo, keeps more players happy therefore more players buying battle passes and cosmetics.
That’s true, but since they nerfed it in like Season 3 or something it hasn’t been that noticeable to me, though I guess the less the better.
I’d love to test it out, though ngl I think my brain will feel weird seeing the hamster phase through ppl.
I guess that is true, but I feel like his primary fire would just feel weird if it blew up immediately. Maybe that’s just me though.
I don’t really feel the dmg too much as a tank, it is just the dmg that the rest of the Mei’s team dishes out that really hurts. I would rather take more dmg from the Mei herself than get more slow once her wall breaks, letting the rest of her team gobble me up. My opinion, though.
True, it definitely hurts my soul, but my main concern is that it will be a nightmare for low ranks, where Reaper already has a solid spot in his current state.
But she got a spread nerf as compensation, which I think was a good change.
I would say that her current weakness is her lack of consistent healing with her fragile turret, and in her current state she doesn’t need that kind of nerf, but it’s definitely a reasonable change.
Mb somehow I missed that change lol. I wasn’t here for OW1 GA mercy (don’t tell anyone) so I don’t know how her movement used to work. I like the changes you suggested, though I wouldn’t know how her ability would look like in-game, and I’m not a Mercy main so I don’t have much to say.
I just felt that you died quick to dmg orb, and Moira got her ult much quicker.
they didn’t nerf it, it’s a buff. reducing it from 10 to 6 was a 40% reduction in his knock back which was a buff
what do you think should change about mei in order to at least reduce that probability? like, reducing her wall health but in return giving her a reduced cooldown?
i guess but 6 is already proving to be too strong and like literally whenever she gets 6 damage per pistol back, she shoots up immediately to at least A-S tier which is not what we should do.
old GA worked in a way where it didn’t have a meter nor were you able to superjump whenever you wanted during GA. if you slingshotted, it was ALWAYS in the direction you were GA’ing to, never wherever your cursor was aimed at, along with the speed being a set distance i believe. if you did the crouch + GA tech and pressed jump at the end of GA at a target, you could superjump very high into the air.
you could also not backwards GA unless you practiced it for MULTIPLE multiple hours.
it’s mainly just a QoL change for like healing orbs in fights, but instead of pausing the speed completely, you could just have it reduce from 18m/s to something like 9m/s until you press it again.
That would be a lengthy post but to start, I think the major glaring issues that would have a huge impact on enjoyment across the board for the game imo is where I would focus.
moira orb- reduce travel speed, reduce damage, increase absorption rate (quicker to dissipate if on enemies)
kiriko throwing speed reduced
lifeweaver pull bubble can be broken (like a shield) instead of granting invulnerability
Cassidy increased magnetism speed once locked, tighter magnetism activation radius
Basically they make it so that whoever have the purple latched on do less dmg if I remember correctly. It was an interesting ability that the game hasn;t have. Im surprised they didn;t implement it to another character.
They should abandon everything they are doing and start over. They should get rid of this idea of 1-2-2 or what used to be 2-2-2 and do away with roles. The game should be balanced for 1-1-1-1-1 or any combination of heroes in any number. That way any arcade mode that has less than a organized full team is still balanced.
You do this by making everyone a damage hero with small unique quirks that don’t completely dominate what that hero does. This is how everyone other FPS works.
Of course this would make it not a role based hero shooter like we know it. The other option is to go even further into the trifecta of the traditional RPG tank, damage and healer roles. Make tanks purely tanks and healers purely healers etc… That way you absolutely have to work together to get things done and tanks aren’t these super heroes that are both damage and tank at the same time.
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