The devs directly admitted in the patch notes to the hack nerf, that the main reason was to make it “feel less oppressive”
Sombra
Hack
Duration on enemy players reduced from 6 seconds to 5
EMP
Activation time increased from 0.5 seconds to 0.65
Developer Comment: Hack is a potent disable with a long duration. Reducing the duration slightly will make it feel less oppressive as the hacked player without reducing its effectiveness too greatly. The increased cast time on EMP allows for more time to react and opens up more counterplay for the opposing team.
Because it was a potent disable with a long duration. It was a balance change. Feeling less oppressive isn’t the same as not liking playing against another hero.
No one likes being frozen but they’re not going to remove that ability from Mei.
People dont like to play against Sombra because it feels “oppressive”. Which is just another buzzword to avoid using OP, since they knew the stats wouldnt back it up. So translated, they didnt like playing against it.
In this case this was a pandering to whiners balance change.
This part is pertinent to the discussion. Apparently a ban for balance reasons feels like a sledgehammer, therefor unwanted, but an actual sledgehammer nerf is just peachy with them based on past actions like Sym, D.Va, and Sombra.
It’s really how you want to interpret it. I see it as he speaks about directly choosing what the other team can’t play in a given match, and you should deal with things how they are in PVP game.
It has nothing to do with getting feedback from the gameplay experience and changing it according to the public opinion.
In regard to Sombra state specifically, I think they just can’t admit that they build with inherently flawed mechanics, and they are really scared to buff her because of that, in a similar state of Bastion.
Not sure you saw my “corrected” statement that Jeff made:
"Basically, it’s a PvP game. You don’t get to pick what your team does. The challenge is overcoming the enemy team with teamwork, ingenuity and skill. It feels really off to me that your team dictates how or what I play. "
This is what he ought to have said. We won’t do bans, because thats not in the spirit of PVP, but we will uhold bans of players for playing off-meta characters or unpopular ones for reports by people… bit contradictory in principle.
That wouldnt even fix anything because she wasnt even in a good state previous to that patch. OWL stopped using her in 2-2-2 even in her old state she was in.
She needs a bit more than some reverts.
I really hope they eventually fix her hack visuals and preferably add wall hacks to them.
They need to adress the coordination issue.
I find it the opposite where as Sombra it’s not working for the team because the enemy’s Brigitte is flailing my butt with her mace, and the Zen and Moria on my team don’t give two you-know-what about it because they rather play DPS supports. So I switch to a Bastion because I don’t play Sombra against Brigitte, and proceed to burn her down to dust.
Not liking going against a certain hero doesn’t necessarily mean that hero is badly designed, but if it’s a view of the majority it certainly can suggest that.
