I’m down for that.
The way I see it, the upper limits of Team Composition Durability, and/or Team Fight Duration, is kinda the main hard limiting factor of the “Overall Balancing” of the game.
With JOATs (I.e. JunkerQueen GOATs from beta) kinda being the line in the sand on “too much”.
99% of new players will never reach GM and play against truly scary Widows. 90% of new players will not reach Diamond+ and play against moderately competent Widows. The vast, vast majority of players will peak around low Platinum and will die to any hero if they refuse to learn from their mistakes. These players might MAYBE see a scary Widow once in a blue-moon when the matchmaker starts deep-diving at odd hours.
Head-hunting Widows are not on the radar for player retention.
I think you’re overly focused on “technically possible to defeat”, or whether or not it wins the match.
Where as I’m focused on “Frequent Anti-Fun mechanics don’t justify themselves just by existing, and that to the extent possible, they either shouldn’t exist, or lower the frequency they exist.”
I’m not here to “own” anyone champ. I’m here to explain in my opinion why these are bad takes. Unfortunately, I and others have to fight against that kind of childish mindset that refuses to have an adult debate.
It’s far easier to link to points I’ve already made than to type the same thing in multiple places.
I’d like to introduce you to the matchmaker.
So those of us who are in GM and forced to play against them multiple games a day, ruining our gameplay experience? Who cares about us then?
Not like GM streamers are one of the main lifebloods of this game creating content, hype, and maintaining general interest in the game or anything…who cares if their games are unfun because of a hero dominating and making you unable to peak or walk around corners!
…okay you got me there. 
Those are map problems, not Widow problems.
You might not realize this, but I’ve mentioned the real reason why people don’t like widow. Dying in one hit feels unfair to play against. I don’t think it IS unfair, but the issue is that it FEELS unfair, which is perfectly fine. However, you need to know that nerfing Widow won’t solve this.
Burst damage as a whole FEELS unfair. Widow could kill you in two hits, and that would likely FEEL unfair. You could be previously damaged, and Mei can headshot you with her right click. That would FEEL unfair, so don’t think for a second that I believe you guys will stop at removing one shots. First will be the one shots, then it will be “Effective one shots” (you’re previously hurt, so a character shot you once and killed you). Then will be two shots, and so on until burst damage is left pretty much nonexistent. All the while, you guys will be complaining about the literal consequences of the nerfs while saying “You think we should nerf more things?! Yeah!”.
I think they should do both. People don’t really like Havana or Junkertown, and I think Widow should be made squishier in some way.
It’s a terrible change like almost every change in the joke patch notes, they’re for PvE first not PVP.
We’re not going to be deleting snipers cause you guys don’t wanna deal with them just stop lol.
For an event that’s supposed to be chaotic fun, this patch for Widow is very decidedly not fun. It literally de-incentivizes any reason to play her in this mode.
At least with past Widow changes, they were trying to justify reducing her power… this is just deliberately effing with Widow mains at this point.
Considering the difficulty in changing maps to not be dominated by Snipers.
It’s a heck of a lot easier to change a few integer values on the GAME_BALANCE.INI file.
Although, I am intrigued by the idea of turning WidowRifle, HanzoBow, and SojournRail into a mixture of direct damage and damage over time.
Say, maybe the base damage is instant, but the headshot damage applies as a DoT of either Poison, DragonFire, or PlasmaFire.
Which also would apply a visual you inform you “Hey, you just got headshot”.
Also serves as visual feedback to the player who landed the headshot.
Oh and it’s also a visual queue for a teammate to peel/heal for the attack.
Tailoring for a vocal minority just because they “bring viewership” is the exact opposite of how you keep a game healthy. Games don’t keep player retention rates high by balancing to the top end. It never works.
It means you’re balancing to keep the dwindling remaining players engaged instead of balancing to retain old and attract new players… if you’re doing the former, then your game is approaching end-of-life support.
We have had DOZENS of games as a service that did this and instantly dropped off in player counts as a result. Many of them eSports. What remains is a very tight game but with absolutely zero approachability. It makes the game un-fun for literally the lower 90% of the game’s playerbase that it has effectively excommunicated all of them and is trying to show them the door.
You might not realize this, but I’ve mentioned the real reason why people don’t like widow. Dying in one hit feels unfair to play against. I don’t think it IS unfair, but the issue is that it FEELS unfair, which is perfectly fine. However, you need to know that nerfing Widow won’t solve this. Burst damage as a whole FEELS unfair. Widow could kill you in two hits, and that would likely FEEL unfair. You could be previously damaged, and Mei can headshot you with her right click. That would FEEL unfair, so don’t think for a second that I believe you guys will stop at removing one shots. First will be the one shots, then it will be “Effective one shots” (you’re previously hurt, so a character shot you once and killed you). Then will be two shots, and so on until burst damage is left pretty much nonexistent. All the while, you guys will be complaining about the literal consequences of the nerfs while saying “You think we should nerf more things?! Yeah!”.
The difference between something like Doomfist punch one shotting and Widow one shotting mostly lies in the counterplay (Or lack thereof) there needs to be some sort of telegraph and also multiple options to deal with it.
The problem with one shot primary fires is that you can’t really bait out or counter a hero’s primary fire other than making them swap, you can bait abilities and ultimates, but with primary fires they can easily just line up another shot.
You are right about people probably thinking two taps are unfair, and honestly they can be to a degree, but at the very least with two taps as long as you play near cover you can duck behind a wall as soon as you get low, and if you’re the type to pay attention to enemies then if they’re looking at you you can expect possibly being two tapped, one taps completely take away your ability to duck in and out of cover.
yeah, unfortunately the devs are only capable of making good changes when they’re joking
Counter-Strike’s propensity to favor snipers is not because of any particular reason related to balance. It’s because the game isn’t enjoyable without them.
100% of the game’s utility is based around denying sniper vision so that people can rush in with rifles, and one team has a deliberate advantage by having onetap weapons that aren’t attached to a sniper.
The sniper is a necessary cog in that game’s design, or else it’s literally just a 60:40 T vs CT split.
People who don’t think widow is an insane issue have never been in higher level matches or are probably widow players themselves.
You don’t understand how badly this one hero takes an entire lobby hostage. On maps like jtown, havana etc it’s literally 8 people running around trying to exist while the widows play their own game.
Between the insane range, spammable oneshot, terribly designed maps, and one fewer tank to contest her, she is an absolute menace. This hero single handedly makes me hesitant to queue comp in GM. SOMETHING has to be addressed. Be it this DoT idea, reverse falloff, massive nerfs to grapple, more warning when she’s scoped, anything. She can’t exist like this. She is the unhealthiest design that has ever existed in this game because her kit does not appropriately fit in to the objective or map design of the game.
Change her fundamentally so high level players don’t win for free while also letting the low level players who don’t think she’s op get a different level of value.
Cassidy’s combo is an instakill. that’s the difference. It cannot be healed through. I think thats the real problem people have with it.
Game design isn’t about observing things in a vacuum. It’s about recognizing and reinforcing multiple gameplay loops over each other.
Literally every single character except for Mercy, Pharah, and Roadhog have some form of gameplay loop against Widow. And even then, Mercy/Pharah both have an unintentional gameplay loop they can implement over Widow by simple wicked fast AD strafe spam and mind games.
Back in the day, we had armor and shields to reduce 1-taps, with a +25/+75 shield/shield gen and +75 armor that gives characters like Reaper and Mei survivability against 1-taps. We had Cassidy which had 2 separate patches where he was literally counter-picks against Widow as “McSniper” before they implemented damage falloff… and then an additional patch where he was still basically a sniper even AFTER the damage falloff. Before role queue, we had the option of going 3+ tank, or multi-Mercy teamwide rezzes.
Tracer has mindgames with recall, and has the utility to bridge the gap. Reaper can TP close to but out of sight of Widow perches. Mei has ice walls to block her LOS, Soldier has the sustain to peek once and take a body shot then heal station. Bastion has a removed head hitbox in turret form, Genji has deflect and literal built in mispredictions in Overwatch’s netcode, Hanzo (swiss) cheesed with Scatter arrow. Sombra has flank and panic teleport potential.
All dive tanks can leap at her and put pressure, all barriers can literally occupy and make a wall so she never gets line of sight. Everyone had some degree of viability because of the game’s busted movement acceleration. Widow even had her own viability against herself before they nerfed her into the ground with the rescope penalties.
Yup.
Almost any sane company would prioritize Sales over Marketing.
Additionally, it’s in Streamer’s best interest to have a healthy active playerbase, because that’s how they maintain their own business. Less players = Less Viewers = Less Dollars
That said, if Snipers in this game are scaring away players. Then that’s a Financial problem for Blizzard.
The ONLY possible way for the venom change to be remotely viable would be for it to impart the anti-heal debuff to the target so that the only way to be saved from the venom is with a cleanse ability and not just generic healing.
It would still be a pretty stiff nerf.