Depends if enough people flag the post.
2 Likes
The OP, i.e. me, got pissed off at Jeff for his statement, hence the thread… no other reason…
Mercy is underpowered because of that 50HP/S nerf. Wouldn’t it have been more justified to try and bump up the other supports viability first before nerfing Mercy? She was in a viable spot with 60HP/S for a reason because she was consistent at keeping her targets that were being dove on alive.
Let’s put other supports at a 2 and Mercy at a 3 since she was “broken OP.” Now taking into account the Hanzo dragon boost nerf takes Mercy’s viability from that team composition away therefore she drops a tier to level 2. Now the support changes come through Moira remains at a 2 Ana gets a huge buff to nano bumping her to a tier 3 Support and Mercy receiving her healing nerf brings her down to a tier 1 Support.
That’s the problem. Mercy is now under being viable other than pocketing which was considered her “viability” prerework and we are back to square 1 except she is even weaker and less heroic.
5 Likes
FYI
For reference, I started playing in late December of 2017. I really love playing Mercy and have over 400 hours played.
I enjoy Mercy requiring thought as to whether you heal through a fight, damage buff for the quicker kill and ult generation, or flick between the two. It is engaging in a way that is different from aiming and damage dealing which is unique to Overwatch vs other FPSs (and why I loved the game.)
However, for me, the last few patches (while creating a space for other supports and re-balancing other DPS) are pushing Mercy out of competitive play and made her play less thoughtful. Here are my observations from my experience;
Concerns/Observations
-
Mercy is unable to heal through damage in most situations at this time, so damage buffing is the default now. It isn’t as interesting as there’s less judgement calls to be made.
-
Every other healer can damage and heal at the same time except for Mercy. Without healing throughput superiority she is just always on her back foot compared to other supports as her healing does not create enough impact relative to the healing and damage other supports can simultaneously put out.
-
Damage boosting not buffing hardly any ultimate’s makes her a lot less interesting to play. The hectic battlefield healing and then quickly jumping to damage buff an ult and seeing your contribution on the kill feed feels great - and we do not get that anymore.
Suggestions
-
Adjust her heal throughput to be competitive with the healing and damage output that other supports are capable of simultaneously.
-
Bring back her damage buff to ultimate’s. I know you are concerned about the Grav Dragon meta returning, but you nerfed Zarya’s grav radius. See how it goes and consider buffs to other DPS if they are not getting the playtime you want them to have.
-
Make Valk have some sort of dynamic that rewards thoughtful use of her ultimate. Maybe it makes the res faster, or it reduces the cooldown by a 15 seconds. Something to make Valk useful in more than two situations (tempo or clean up ult farming.)
Thank you,
Leukael
PS
We should consider Jeff and the devs allies. They are the people that made Mercy and they’re the only people who can make changes. They are all we have and it is short sighted to say they do not care. They may just disagree on what “better” is.
1 Like
She wasn’t balanced in her old kit. She was underpowered, and then she kept receiving buffs and became overpowered with 1sec regen and invulenrability res. Lets not forget that mercy mains weren’t crying for an E ability and for her to be a well-rounded character.
She now has res, the strongest ability in the game, so of course her incredible healing prowess will have to go down if she has an ability like that.
Mercy has been OP for TWO years both before and AFTER rework.
I don’t think the people who designed her hate Mercy. The character design with mass res was fun. The diving in with original Valk to resurrect multiple people over a short time period was fun.
“Heroes Never Die!” and the symbolism around it is iconic. That type of character design comes from someone who believes in the character being more than just a bunch of numbers.
I’m wondering if their is some internal conflict between those who balance the game and the character designers as they’ve opted to balance her around the worst bits of her kit whilst removing the fun parts of it. No one who loves Mercy would look at Valkyrie as it currently is and think it’s good character design.
I feel they’ve lost their way with her. Sacrificing the characters soul for the sake of balance.
8 Likes
I believe she got her invulnerability buff in January of 2017 and I think that is when Mercy became OP (and when the hide’n’rez tactics started for some). So, It’s not quite 2 years yet…
Personally I was content with underpowered Mercy and I never cried for any E-ability. In fact, I started coming to the forums in November of 2017, after Mercy’s rework, because I wasn’t happy with the rework. And I’d happily replace rez if it meant Mercy could be fun again.
Maybe the Developer, ya know, developed the game and and came out with something that was a solid base. Entropy took over, and players started doing things and playing in ways that no development team could ever possibly hope to replicate. They do really good with what they have. I don’t agree with the approach of the RNG and and lack of metrics, but I suppose they make great games first, and whatever happens after is just gravy.
Going as far as to claim at the Devs can’t play her because your perception of how Mercy functions is fundamentally different from the Devs is akin to stating a musician or artist doesn’t know how to perform art because you don’t like it. It just isn’t the correct way of approaching the situation, but I think you already know that.
Well can we avoid making broad generalizations about how the changes made affected the overall play style and impact in the game? I suppose it’s Resurrect that everyone’s on about; the fact that they made changes to Mercy confirms the notion of merit harboring the idea that she was negatively influencing game quality, which consequently affected the preexisting bias that’s apparently present withing the Mercy community.
People ask for transparency on the issues; sometimes it feels like the community needs to understand that often times, two birds in the bush is worth one in the hand. Dude, I don’t think the team woke up in the morning decided to break all the nice things, I think the ~97% pickrate spoke for it’self and it was addressed as best they could have.
You’d be surprised, OP. You might get them on your team whether you like it or not. This stuff is much harder than you think. If you can make three good decisions a year, you’re winning.
I see that quoted text from Jeff has a timestamp attached to it. It looks like it’s from today. He even showed you which heroes he plays. Look, i’m not rushing in here and saying Mercy is fine and everyone should just clam it, play her and let the metrics do their thing, what i’m saying is that you should really employ some metacognition, and understand that every good meal needs a dash of salt.
That’s too bad, because if you’re not part of the solution then you’re part of the problem and that makes you open game, OP.
There’s probably enough of a difference between elo’s here that I would find it highly unlikely you would see any of them in your OverWatch experience, however, I could be very wrong.
“And so the lamb rushed into the gaping maw of the lion”
How can someone hate the game and everyone who works on the game for almost TWO years still play the game?
Your complaints are pretty bad, of course they like what they work on, just because they wanted her to be balanced unlike you who want the game to remain broken for two years of her being utterly overpowered or cancerous game design.
Just get good or stop playing, literally. Silence=/= you not wanting to hear. They have mentioned mercy trillion times, but all you want to hear is “OK TODDLERS MERCY MAINS WE WILL BUFF MERCY TO HAVE 5 MAN RES INVULNERABILITY 60 HPS 0SEC REGEN” And give her E ABILITY that MAKES HER FLY
Considering I no longer play the game I think it’s a fair bet that I won’t play with any of them.
I appreciate your reply. It was rational and logic. While I do not agree with all the things you said I can respect it. I personally don’t need to see a revert but I’d like to see another rework, one that perhaps sacrifices rez to leave room for something more fun while keeping Mercy balanced. Thing is, I’m sure the designers had good intentions and perhaps it’s like this poster says in parts:
I kind of feel that the pursuit of balance has come at the cost of enjoyment. And while one can’t expect perfect balance or for all heroes to be enjoyable all the time I think it’s an ideal worth striving for. I think Mercy’s rework was reasonable fun while she had instant rez though it absolutely made her overpowered and needed nerfing. The nerfs took away the fun aspects for me though, and I’m not speaking about having an overpowered hero but about decision making (see an earlier post in this thread where I quote a long text). Basically they had to create balance, but it came at the cost of all the aspects that made me feel like my ability as a non FPS type player mattered. And if another rework can’t happen then I’d rather see a revert to the underpowered December of 2016 version of Mercy.
… uhm, I don’t really think you’ve read my posts if you were in fact replying to me. I want Mercy to be fun, not overpowered. I thought Mercy’s must-pick period was horrible from a social and game balance perspective. I do not want to go back to that. Additionally I can also live without mass-rez. I don’t need a revert… I just want Mercy to be fun again, whether that comes from another rework, changes to her current kit somehow, replacing rez all together, or a revert… It doesn’t really matter to me as long as she becomes fun and balanced.
Also, I am not playing the game anymore and haven’t for months. I wish I still found the game to be fun, but I don’t… yet I am hoping future changes will change that perception and I will once again find it fun.
except the definition of every mercy main fun is quite literally overpowered. mercy pre-rework was overpowered, and they want it back
Of course being overpowered is fun, while being balanced isn’t. which she kinda is at the moment. Yet you say u didnt play the game when she got…balanced, which is a month ago
The reality is mercy can only be fun and fair and balanced if there is no res in the game, but most of the community will explode even more if there is no res in the game.
Mercy before January of 2017 when she got her invulnerability buff was considered a troll-pick by many. I don’t want the invulnerability buff back. If I can’t have another rework, or if they can’t replace rez entirely, then I’d happily take December of 2016 version of Mercy back.
And no, not every Mercy mains definition of fun is for her to be overpowered, which can be quite easily observed considering many Mercy mains find her fun in her current state.
Overpowered is horrible. Perhaps not from a gameplay perspective, but from a social perspective. I dearly wish Mercy had never been overpowered. It would have saved me so many threats, insults, and a few “go kill yourself”
I haven’t played since January… Overpowered has nothing to do with it. In January it simply wasn’t worth the insults and threats anymore, she wasn’t fun enough and that has been a problem for me ever since they removed instant rez. Yes, instant rez was really overpowered but it wasn’t because of the power it granted that made it more fun, but because it flowed so well with Mercy’s kit. Of course they needed to nerf Mercy, but by doing so they made her kit clunky in difference to the pre-rework Mercy. It has never been about power for me. It’s about playing a hero that does not feel like a FPS type hero and being able to swoop around and making quick decisions. Blizzard removed much of the enjoyment with the nerfs (and for more detail about this I urge you to scroll up to a previous post in this thread where I have a long quote)
3 Likes
As far as I can remember, the only times she was a must-pick was post rework and back in the beginning of the game. The invulnerability buff simply made her not a troll pick.
The reality is mercy can only be fun and fair and balanced if there is no res in the game
It sure seems like it. At the very least, it’s difficult to imagine the balance team making this happen while keeping rez.
1 Like
I think that fundamentally, the issue with Mercy is her resurrect, and it’s the fact that it’s on a cooldown, meaning that it isn’t a reward that a good Mercy can earn and then deploy for maximum team effort, it is granted simply because she is fielded.
Putting the left shoe on the right foot; issue is DPS players don’t have a cooldown ability that, when pushed, grants an elimination. Really good DPS players can earn fast picks, and demolish an entire team, and this is considered fine because the DPS earned it. Or, it at least looked like they did.
Mercy pushes E and gets a resurrect because 30 seconds has elapsed. There’s a little bit more too it than that, but the perception is that’s how she works.
For the most part, that’s how she does work.
Personally, I think fixing Mercy involves the addition of a metered pool mechanic, where a Resurrect pool is filled passively, but it may be filled faster by a Mercy who is healing/DMG bossing lots.
This accomplishes two things: Enemy team can negate Mercy’s ability to deploy resurrect, and an under-performing Mercy will not have the ability to use Ressurect passively every 30 seconds.
I think this would discourage inexperienced Mercy players from picking her and using her as a “Res Bot”. It also adds an additional layer of risk/reward to Mercy play, which I think is moving strongly in the right direction. This would also reward experienced Mercy players by allowing good play to be rewarded, which trickles down to the entire team.
2 Likes
Look. Another thread about how people are upset that mercy isn’t a must pick anymore. I still use her frequently, she may need a few tweaks. But she is far from terrible like this post and many others are trying to imply. I get it, you don’t like the fact that you don’t feel important now that your main isnt a necessity for every comp. But frankly every time I see one of these posts I feel like mercy should just be removed. The mercy main community has so much ridiculous amount of toxicity that comes from it (how many megathreads we on now?) That i feel like it would almost be better to cut off that character and that playerbase.
Isn’t that basically an ult?
You didn’t read my opening post at all, did you? I’m pissed off at Jeff for claiming they are our allies when I feel that they aren’t. This thread complains about how I don’t think she is fun, and as I have stated many times in this thread I don’t want her to be OP. Heck, I don’t even need a revert. I just want her to be fun again, whether that takes a rework, revert, replacing rez entirely, or whatever. But I don’t think Blizzard has fun in mind when they make changes to Mercy anymore; balance seems to be their only focus, regardless of fun. But that’s from my perspective…
1 Like
Please see this comment:
4 Likes
True, they talk a lot without saying anything.