They didn’t outright say it but recent balance patches are an indication too. They know the community in general hates tanks like Orisa, hog and Mauga. And tends to enjoy heroes like dva, Winston and rein. What do you think of this. Do you like the idea of them forcing the more popular tanks to be meta?
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It’s not actually anything new. S2 Hog wasn’t doing well by their stats but they nerfed him anyway, purely because people hated him and Orisa.
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I am sick and tired of pretending that their attempts at balance or reworking heroes was EVER acceptable. This is for the best even if people do not realize it. The game will be more fun. If you have a problem with it, pick a fair hero and realize that it does not even matter because they are honest for a reason.
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I’ve always said they should balance based on fun factor, and rework what’s unfun.
I’ll take a Winston/D.VA meta over a Hog, Mauga, or even an Orisa meta any day.
EDIT: 6v6 would solve a lot of issues. Just saying.
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It’s a no brainer duh moment.
You give things that are asked people will return. Kinda like the classic line, “if you build it they will come”
People asked for pink Mercy for years, oh look, satisfied customers will play your game.
Shocker.
Man if they buff heroes that have a long popular playerbase you think people will return?
If you bring back 6v6 you think some of those millions that left will come back?
If you give players clan/guilds for competitive that they have been asking for years more people might will that increase interest and hype in Competitive?
Blizzard is as out of touch with its fans as Star Wars and Marvel are.
What? Gamers are excited at the return of Marvel vs Capcom games? People still love X-Men? Who knew?
I thought this whole time it’s some anti-wike agenda Orrrrrr maybe people friggin love X-Men that’s always sold more than Captain Marvel and Ant-man combined.
Op, the devs should start with giving their fan base what they want, instead of this trying to surprise players with things not asked like passives or 5v5.
Just like I don’t think anyone believes Winston needs buffs. I love Winston. His power levels ain’t the problem with Tank.
Going with popular isn’t the best solution all the times, but for these devs, it’s a step in the right direction.
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Based IN PART on community sentiment
It’s hardly the only criteria they use
Also “they don’t listen to the community”……or did people forget that part
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in the end all characters in a hero shooter are obnoxious to play against, and the character ur playing is the fun one 
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At the end of the day, SOMEONE has to be the best hero. Even if the game was perfectly balanced, there would be a reason to run a particular character over another more often than not. It just makes sense to allow the beloved heroes that very few people have problems with to reign supreme instead of a character that everyone despises.
That is just common sense.
Albeit, I bet the Reinhardt and Winston haters will come out of the woodwork. And I bet people will start disliking them solely because Blizzard vocally marked them for approval and they are jealous. Humans are fickle little creatures.
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Yep. The previous lead designer outright said it. So no surprise that the philosophy continues.
It honestly makes sense. You have to keep the majority of your playerbase happy, even if they have zero clue about game balance.
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A gaming company making changes to make the game more fun for most of their players? Crazy!
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Wouldnt have to be like this in 6v6. Genuinely everything revolves back to 5v5 being the worst decision ever. Theres no obscenity in the world strong enough for me to throw at whoever set that 5v5 ball in motion, its so moronic I cant believe it.
Everyones issues with these hyper-unfun tanks like Mauga and Hog come about because anytime they approach viability they are unkillable, unpunishable nightmares. Sure hook is despised, always will be, but an overwhelming amount of Hog hate during OW2 comes from the inability to kill this thing without an Ana.
Almost like back in OW1 with 6v6 these tanks didnt need to all be entirely self sufficient, with insane healthbars and healing numbers to keep up with being the sole frontline, and both healers couldnt just hard focus 1 tank without having the other one blow up.
Once again, remove 5v5 open queue and replace it entirely with 6v6 open queue, no passives, no S9 hp and hitbox changes, just a more classic pre role queue OW1 experience.
me looking for Mercy buffs
The sentiment of keeping heroes that people are… Less willing to face weaker than ones people don’t mind facing so much is kinda part of keeping the game alive?
As much as it sucks to say if I and most of the populace abhor playing against Ball and Ball in a perfectly balanced world is king Tank the game will wither as less people are willing to continually play into Ball. That’s just how people work.
I don’t particularly like the current feel of the game and am not playing nearly as much as I’d be expected to if I had the same amount of free time but did enjoy the game’s current feel.
Blizz is admitting that, yea they do take those feelings into account when they are somewhat community unifying. That transparency is a double edged sword though, now people know that enough voices screaming about how unfun some hero is there is a chance the devs will make adjustments accordingly.
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We say this but what happens where we are a couple seasons into a rein or Winston meta? Will people start to complain about them?
Possibly. Then you adjust to nerf them as people grow tired of those heroes.
That’s how balancing should work.
What’s that? A new strategy that isn’t “this character is played a lot. Nerf them!”? I wonder if that will actually work this time!
Heroes that are so oppressive that they make a huge percentage of players feel like they need to mirror them should be rebalanced. There should be map specific metas, not playing orisa mirror on almost every map.
Also orsia, mauga, and orisa went through phases of extreme tankyness. They were almost unkillable relative to the other tanks. All of these balance issues are what lead to them being unfun and nerfed.
I’ve always been an advocate that every hero deserves to be viable, largely because I had a bias towards them, as my mains, across games, have historically been the unpopular at high level options. Symmetra, back in early OW1, and Ret Pally in WoW. But now that I’ve long since given up on Sym ever being good, and that I now play heroes that are just fundamentally stronger, Ashe, Doom, Echo, Bap, JQ, etc, I have started to change my opinion on every character being viable.
Now that I’m on the other side of the fence, I can see my opinion shifting, but at the same time, I do also think that it’s more than that. Hog, Orisa, and Mauga, the meathead tanks, just absolutely make the game unfun to play, when I am facing them. And I think it’s not even a balance issue, I think it’s a design issue.
I do agree with the dev blog, as I don’t ever feel like I care if Rein is super strong or not, because he’s really fair to fight against. He has very clear strengths and weaknesses. Hog, on the other hand, especially, is so unfair to play against, with his like 20m guaranteed kill on a short CD, even occassionally on tanks, his well over 1,200 effective health, etc. And furthermore, the playstyle I am forced to play against him is just not enjoyable at all, and so I find myself wanting this character to be nerfed to unviability, because I never want to see him in my games.
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That is the dream in an ideal world. The problem is just that I realized it ain’t evah going to happen.
Absolutely! Those tanks suck. I believe people are conflating their frustration when playing against them with difficulty by accident. They are not difficult to play against. If anything, they are actually among the most straightforward tanks to play against.
Everyone should agree. The creatures that dislike Reinhardt are not real. It’s a fabrication put into the Matrix to confuse us.
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Like, the only argument I can see is that he doesn’t need to aim. But honestly, for me, I don’t mind if a character that has basically no range capabilities anyways doesn’t need that skill. I think it’s fair because half of the time he’s not even able to hurt people. And some characters should be less mechanically requiring, so that even players who can’t aim can still find a character to play and do well on.
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hes one of the tanks that does their job of absorbing damage and controlling angles / zones rather than focusing on one shotting or trolling people
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