Totally. The data tells you the balance. The forums tells you how the balance feels.
Both are useful.
1 Like
I still don’t think it’s right.
They need to make an effort to reach out to the broader community.
Not just people who visit the forums.
For example
Me and maybe about 10 of my friends irl play overwatch. I think I’m the only one that goes on the forums.
Yet I have no way of controlling my friends money… and I also don’t share the exact same opinions they do.
Although in my head I like my opinions… why should my opinion be worth more than theirs?
Furthermore just taking the opinions of those that give them to you is lazy. Some people are quiet, some people are shy…
True data collection requires effort and trying to encourage people to share their opinions.
If dev blog posts and advertisements encouraged people to come for the forums and share… maybe we could get larger pool of data.
For now tho I feel the forums are just too small for the devs to take any opinions from her seriously…
Even though you and I would like our opinions heard and to be special…
I don’t think it’s fair for everyone else
Comms isn’t Blizzards strong point. While I agree with you, it isn’t going to happen.
1 Like
Cree mains are quite special.
Shucks darlin’, so are you.
If the developers listened to this forum then they would have to delete everyone from the game until only Mercy, Moira and Kiriko were left.
Nah, I don’t need to play the easiest hero in the game to get value.
Everyone is relatively easy.
Some people are better snipers.
Some people are better brawlers.
Some people are better space makers.
Some people can multitask better and support the team.
1 Like
And Cree can be played by a hamster with brain damage.
Well the community is pretty gnarly. Why would they want to expose themselves to the cesspool of the forums?
Back when they were active on the forums things were a lot less… waves hands around… this…
You know, they would come on and actually lay down a lot more of what was happening, and why they did the things they did.
So they had a much nicer forum.
1 Like
Well if they are only pulling their data from gm streamers, pros, forum users and maybe Reddit/twitter
They are only balancing for the dedicated player base. Those that are super involved.
And it’s not a good thing. It puts the balance for the average player out of wack.
For example the game feels very well balanced around diamond. Yet diamond and up is a small percentage of the player base.
Balanced around diamond already suggests that top players are pulling balance towards them.
A more appropriate place for the game to feel good at should be around 2600.
You want the largest percentage of the player base to have access to the largest amount of hero’s.
And unfortunately if torbs turret feels good to use in gm… it probably won’t feel good for bronze.
This is how you actually kill a game. You make it excellent for your top players at the expense of everyone else.
Tbh I personally feel if any demographic should have a limited roster of viable hero’s it should be the top….
Not the majority.
They could do things like mess with hit boxes the higher you climb if they wanted to keep it balanced throughout
3 Likes
This is something I write about a lot, and yes, 100% you are right.
Moving to F2P means that you need a flow of new players, and you need to keep them. So low ranked play HAS to work. It is literally the thing which keeps you afloat.
You could remove everything above Plat and the financials of the game wouldn’t really change much. You lose our your low ranked play, and that is your new players… and now you have REAL problems.
We do get a lot of low ranked players on the forums, and it is worth listening to the problem they have. The new player experience is super important for games.
4 Likes
…double shield + mass rez would be back the same day ew…? 
Yes those are the opinions I think matters the most. The experienced players will always complain about the meta reguardless of what it is.
For example whatever support is on top in gm will get attacked on the forums… even if the game is mostly balanced.
But what about gold/plat? What’s bothering them? What mechanics do they dislike?
It’s more likely they have complaints about something like Moira spawn camping them.
Yet Moira isn’t even the meta. Gm/masters/&diamond players deserve way more to be spawn camped by Moira.
But new players like Moira too… so if we adjust her would that also be taking away from their experience?
Brainstorming issue like that… are probably more important than addressing top 500 issues
A simple fix would be adding a crit for her suuc. So you get value if your in the general area but also get additional value at high play… heals and orbs are free still
1 Like
Yep, you understand Blizzard’s business model, and what they actually care about.
They WANT to balance for high ranked play, and they do, right up until something is a problem in low ranks, and then they get in and fix that.
Why? Because they know they have to. Most people don’t understand this, because they don’t want to understand it - and they are constantly surprised every time Blizzard does this 
Blizzard’s devs, regardless of what a lot of the forums will say, are not dumb, they are however dealing with problems the players don’t understand, or want to understand.
Moira is interesting, the reason they have her like that is as an anti flanker.
You change her, and Genji will explode in low ranked play.
2 Likes
They should balance for gold play and fix things that are a problem in gm.
Like why have a delay on meis primary fire? She’s a good hero with lots of self sustain. Why overemphasize the more free parts of her kit while toning down the icecle? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate if Mei freeze was less oppressive for lower ranked players yet he range was more fluid.
And mercy for example. It was clear that dodging tackles like a running back was her best skill expression. Her healing and dmg boost are not complicated… those numbers could have easily been adjusted as well. Nobody in plat is diving a mercy to shut her down. People in plat can barely kill though a zen orb. So for plat and gold she became better and for the top… worse.
Junk rat. Players at low levels hate that the mines bounce and kill them. Yet landing directs on players is skillful on junkrat. What do they do…nerf the mine…
It seems more like top level solutions to me tbh…
The game feels good at my rank but…. They already have me as a player and I can only buy so many things
Naw… Moira suuuc does 45… crit suuc do 55 let both charge the healing the same.
Her right click is actually crazy good even in low ranks. (I main Mei and Sombra).
It just inverts how aim works with her, you click then aim. It was more interesting back when she actually froze people.
The problem is you are bumping into something else the devs have to make sure they keep. Which is hero uniqueness. You COULD turn her into yet another main line DPS, but every time you make adjustments to do that, the game loses more and more of what draws people to it.
It is why a lot of the things you don’t like are kept.
Weirdly enough in lower ranks they do, and in higher ranks they do. Mercy is interesting, and I think well designed. Her healing is strong in low ranked play, and her damage boost is strong in high ranked play. They can tweak how strong she is in each by changing how much power each has.
Yep, they know this is a problem… They are making adjustments to the engine so that after the first bounce, his nades will have a smaller radius.
That problem will solve itself, it will just take time for them to put in the system they want to use to solve it!
Yep, but that is because the engine change hasn’t happened yet.
And just like that, Moira is worse at anti flanking, and better at flanking herself… It would push her towards DPS Flanker Moira.
She needs to keep her anti flanker status, if you don’t want flanking to swamp low ranked play. Genji is already VERY highly picked there.
1 Like
If you move Mei to make her freeze do 150dps but you don’t have to charge the right click it just fires…. Then it would still be super good for anyone including gold.
But then new players have less to complain about a Mei just holding right click… and high players find her more viable…I think Mei is good too and I used to always play her in ow 1
Low key I use her to counter ball right now. Imo she’s pretty good against him.
Naw Moira sits at 50 dps w her suck. If her self regen and heal gained remains the same… she would be just the same against dive. 45 with current hitbox. 55 directly on.
It’s her lifesteal,orbs and fade that give her survival. They arnt hard to execute. Tbh tho I go Moira when the enemy is running Ana zen. She can flank shut them down well. Brig bap… you ain’t killing that as Moira.
Glad to see they are adjusting what the majority of players dislike about junk.
And they should know by now low level players don’t peel for their back line… so why balance anything differently?
mercy…… I don’t speak for mercy mains but when I’m on support I personally value my survivability above the rest of the other stats and would much rather have something I’m healing die…. Than die myself.
So don’t know what they were doing with those changes…
Ana for example id rather have Ana do 70dmg 70 healing antiheal 3sec and have a wall climb or a hanzo leap.
I’d rather have Kirikos healing nerfed again than suzu protect her less or her blink nerfed.
Anyway…. I’m glad they are balancing around gold and plat.
1 Like
This is the problem though, you end up with a generic DPS then. Which is one of the thing the devs REALLY don’t want to have happen, they have been talking about that a lot lately.
Both her and Sombra are really good vs Ball.
Mei’s walls are just great.
It isn’t dive, it is Genji.
Yep.
Right, so the back lines have to be able to deal with flankers more directly, and you can see they have done that change.
The latest changes? I honestly don’t know. I think they wanted her to have more impact, so they wanted to change healing. But, they also knew she was pretty strong at the moment, so they had to do a tradeoff.
But, I’m not sure about the change at all. We will see what happens in a couple of days.
I’d be cool with that, but again, they REALLY want all of the heroes to be very different from each other… and making them more identical isn’t going to get traction.
Yep, and you noticed that is the path they chose, again, they said they wanted to keep what made her unique in there.
They are more these days.