Is this game seriously "balanced" toward only 15% of the player base?

Well to be fair, they do have different rules from college to professional. They aren’t Core changes to the game but are still there.

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You mean Masters and above?

I honestly dont see any issue with that

Even if each hero is balanced at the same level at high ranks, theres always gonna be those heroes that are easier or stronger at low lv

It would be a nightmare to balance ALL heroes to be balanced or fair across all ranks

Take heroes like Reaper, Bastion or Doomfist for example, they are considered noob stompers

Reaper do to his survivability and dmg, Bastion due to his insane dmg, and Doomfist due to Rocket punch, but at higher levels their effectiveness reduces drastically

If it’s about competitive eSports, it should be balance from the top down.

If it is about playing all arcade style where competitions don’t matter, balance is more secondary where fun is primary.

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Not really. They weigh their opinions more heavy but a lot of things are based on the wider audience.

Even then, they should be basing it on the high level players who actually understand the game. Balancing the game around low ranks does a disservice to both high rank players by wrecking their experience with nonsense like Brig, as well as robbing lower players of the satisfaction and experience of improving themselves by nerfing and buffing their problems away.

I hope so.

This forum has no idea what it’s talking about at least 90% of the time.

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He means Diamond and above… Master and above is only 4%
We know from Jeff Kaplan himself!

How does that make sense from a game perspective, or a business perspective? To balance a questionably “dying” game based only on the Top 15% (and they are mostly getting paid to play)?

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The game isn’t balanced around people who still have to learn how to play the game and overcome obstacles. The game is balanced around those who know how to play the game.
And there is a very good reason for that.

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Well idk the exact numbers :v

But the point its the same

And that is? It would seem you’d want to “balance” a game around the majority of people that play said game. Not around a very small percentage.

Well, I’d like to point out the distribution.
If one were to read this forum without too much critical thinking, one could think 90% of the player base is Master.
But nothing could be further from the truth… only 4% are master, only 14% are Diamond and above…
32% are gold, the biggest slice!

Do you think we should balance a hero like Widow for Bronze?
Widowmaker is useless in the hands of incapable players. So let’s say we’d buff her to the point where she’s actually a strong pick in bronze…
What do you suppose will happen when people learn how to play Widow? Especially at the higher ranks?

Essentially, balance doesn’t effect the “majority” of the “casual” playerbase all that heavily. That’s due to the fact of skill variance, etc. People ask for PVE content, balance as we understand it wouldn’t apply to said PVE content due to how different it is etc.

People will one trick or hard main a hero come hell or high water, people won’t join voice chat, you’ll drop as a solo Q into a 5 man stack vs a 6. All kinds of craziness happens.

Balancing for the top does make the most sense. As it’s at the top that each hero is represented appropriately and to the best of their capability within a team setting.

The chaos that engulfs the mid tiers basically renders fine balancing irrelevant. You can run a GOATs comp, doesn’t mean you’re playing GOATs. Same with Dive.

People, generally, especially around here, don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. And I’m no different. I know one thing, that is that I know nothing.

Kids need to chill and humble themselves.

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Ok fair point. So why not “balance” the game off of Gold and Platinum where the largest chunk of players that might minimally have a clue reside?

Trust me i believe the complete opposite with the “braindead”, “no skill” or whatever that a bunch of noobs say here

I think it’s not a bad idea to balance the game around the middle ranks, per se.
But ideally, you’d want to keep their maximum potential and player growth in mind.

Because Gold and Plat don’t know how to play the game properly tbh.

It’s like teaching a 2 year old chess. These pieces have these rules and these pieces have theirs and they move on this board like… And they slam a pawn into your entire line and scream “CHECK MATE HAHAHAHAHAHA.”

Mass Rez was perceived as OP by a lot of Gold and Plat. That’s a joke. As someone that has spent a lot of time in those ranks. It wasn’t OP, it was just a gimmick. And in higher tiers it was used just to bring up Pharah cuz you weren’t afforded anything else.

There is no balancing for the gold and plats, as the gold and plats vary as a mf. You have to balance for how each individual hero interacts with the game environment as a whole when team play and awareness is present.

Nerfing Sym cuz her turrents destroyed kids in a bronze level QP match is stupid af.

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Isn’t skill matching part of the “environment as a whole”? If so then the balance done to date is a fail.

I guess my bottom line point is it seems ultimately self defeating to have a game that is “balanced” against an ever increasing skill ceiling. It will eventually choke out anyone that is just starting from ever having a chance to enjoy the game.

To which 15% do you refer, the top or the bottom?

Bronze4Lifer here, speaking from the bottom 15%, I think the PTR changes took a big bite from Zarya, a smaller but completely unnecessary bite from Symmetra. Decent gifts to Soldier and Pharah. Massive and completely unnecessary gifts to Lucio and Winston.

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The majority of said game either are terrible at the game(regardless of how it’s balanced) in bronze-silver or they’re just at the cusp of learning core mechanics in gold-plat.

The game should not be balanced around people who still have a lot of room to grow.