All the complaints they are listening to (when I mean accounts) are at higher tiers - people react much slower at lower tiers so 6 seconds is not as impacting as 6 seconds in high Ladder/OWL.
Alright, thanks. That seems like a pretty wild assumption to make, but at least it helps explain where your previous statement came from.
Maybe watch some analysis videos on it by commentators - it was stated as the reason often.
in the last 2 years the only buffs I see people ask for in regards to sombra with any consistency are:
- damage. whether it is per bullet or tigher spread
- faster hack speed
constantly citing her low winrate as a good reason for implementation. compare 44-46% now to 37-39% (before rework).
And then there’s the ones that talk about countering. Like they know what countering is. And the way they talk about it clearly suggests they perceive it as something that should require virtually zero effort on the counterer’s end to apply with an equally low chance for the counteree to outplay.
like idk dude. I feel like that thought process is ruining this game because it’s become fairly apparent that this has become a key principle in design philosophy when creating new heroes.
The only buff I’ve seen people asking for are better visuals for hacked targets. Every post I see suggesting damage buff has a comment from a sombra player right under it saying “nah just better visuals and qol stuff. Like a damage threshold of more than 1 damage for her abilities.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone say hack needs to be faster. So Idk where you got that one dude
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Eh, I don’t think I’d consider third-party YouTubers reliable spokespeople for Blizzard’s internal decision making process, either. Aside from the rare interviews with devs, they’re speculating just as much as you and I are.
It’s all there. Hack speed was buffed 3(?) times. Then people complained when it got a cooldown if interrupted.
It’s just one of those heroes like Symmetra who people are NEVER satisfied with.
I mean, most of the complaints when the cd was added was do to the numerous bugs with the Los checks. At that time they left her unplayable because her ability straight up didn’t work. It took them like three months to fix those.
This is the sombra buff post I see the most. And the top relevant topic when you search sombra on here is a list of bugs
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I am still trying to revive those threads, but I am no longer trust 3 since I have been inactive lately.
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Well, yeah. I’m 100% okay with the nerf to EMP and hack duration.
I’m annoyed they didn’t give her anything in return. They just flat-out net-nerfed her in two ways, without any form of compensation or recognition that she’s weak.
I lose trust in the devs when they things like this, because that REALLY screams, “We don’t know what to do with the hero, and even though she’s REALLY not statistically too strong, we’ll nerf her anyways”.
If they have data, it’d be REALLY freakin’ cool if they can share it for once…
Not the same. Sombra remains the only hero in the game that specifically is made an exception to the universal “healing others and yourself generates ultimate charge” rule they made a big announcement about. Sombra remains the only hero whose entire kit is ruined single bullet, which places two of her abilities on a full cooldown. Two of her abilities are literally stopped by 0.000001 damage bullets. Even sleepdart can be used under fire.
Sombra has nothing going for her but EMP. Blizzard keeps trying to destroy it- hence the healthpack charge change- but they refuse to give her something else so she doesn’t need to rely on it. Everytime time someone tries, Blizzard nerfs it to the ground. Thus, she goes right back to being an EMP bot, which Blizzard keeps trying to destroy.
Blizzard has a clear disdain for her.
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It’s only okay if you also give compensation buffs. And not a year down the road either.
Their analysis echoes the takes of pros and coaches for OWL.
Blizzard isn’t a mod team.
Overwatch made over a Billion before 2017 was even half over and is still likely bringing in hundreds of millions a year.
We should be seeing either good speed or good changes. Instead we are getting slow updates and bad changes.
The last major changes to Sombra directly were around a year ago.
After those changes buffs were in consideration and then got axed due to her performance in contenders.
Now that the character performed well in OWL she’s suddenly getting a nerf.
48:40 Jeff talks about Sombra
She’s getting nerfed due to her performance in GM/OWL with the hope it doesn’t cause too much damage lower.
Amusingly, I think the nerf that is going to hit her is going to not be in use for much/all of the current stage of OWL because they got it done too late. So, if she needed the nerf to not be dominant, she’s going to be dominant. If she ends up being a no show in OWL 2-2-2 the nerf is going to be nearly entirely pointless.
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This is a fair point. A lot of time, low-tier characters are actively held back by specific abilities because those abilities are a powerful gimmick around which they have to be balanced. You can pretty much go hero by hero and point that gimmick out, too:
For Sombra, it’s Hack/EMP
For Symm, it’s teleporter
For Mei, it’s her primary fire (I would love for this to get nerfed and buff her elsewhere)
For Bastion, it’s sentry
etc etc
I think there are instances in which it’s better to nerf an underperforming hero, so that you can free up space in their kit to buff the non-gimmicky portions and make them more viable. Ideally that’s the route they’ll take with Sombra.
To use the example of Mei, since I mentioned her:
Severely nerf the slow/freeze on her primary… but
Buff Cryo (reload ammo)
Buff Wall
Buff her health, even
The thing is, with the amount of time that some of these have been issues you ought to have a real plan rather than just a nerf and fix later.
People are still going to be picking said heroes even if they are garbage and dragging whatever team they are on down.
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Well, sure, I agree. It’s kind of threading back to the eternal question of “why does Blizzard take so dang long to do things,” particularly balancing issues that have been around for years at this point.
And the answer is… I don’t know. I legitimately have no idea why they drag their feet on this stuff. But it hurts the game when they do so.
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Remember when people said Junk’s mine was too strong?
And everyone said, ‘lel git gud junk is trash’?
Then he got two. Suddenly the damage is OP.
Abilties can be OP even on bad heroes.
yeah, my point was basically
“The only issue is Blizzard’s awful slow patch cycle speed. Saying a change is ‘bad’ and ‘shouldn’t go to live’ is bad feedback. Blizzard seldom listens to these kinds of topics, and people end up acting entitled to their favorite hero, even though they don’t have any ‘ownership’ over said hero. If you have a problem with the changes, explain why, give suggestions, and wait. Repeat this process until a compromise is reached. This is how healthy relationships work. You don’t own your favorite hero, Blizzard is letting you play with them while they do their work behind the scenes”
No, it’s using your brain and seeing the writing on the wall before it before it ruins the game. Not everything needs to be tested in live to know it’s bad.
You’re right, they don’t listen. Then, they trip over themselves trying to fix what they broke because they didn’t listen. See: Mercy 2.0, Hanzo 2.0, DVa 2.0, Dva 3.0, Doomfist’s release, Bastion 2.0. There are other examples of them breaking the game’s balance, but that was instead them dragging their feet because the hero was unpopular.
“Healthy relationships” are a two-way street. Players are always being asked to put in all the effort when there is clearly no reciprocation. It’s both funny and sad.
Show me where anyone claimed ownership over a hero ever. I’ll wait.