I’m watching this video and I get to the part where he mentions the definition of over centralization
If you don’t wanna watch the video, here’s the quote:
“When an option or mechanic is so unbalanced that it makes fundamental aspects of the game completely irrelevant”
or, in the context of Overwatch, when one thing in a hero’s kit is so powerful, that it makes fundamental aspects of the game completely or mostly irrelevant. Here’s a few examples I think should be looked at
Rammatra's Ult (Annihilation)
Breaking through Rammatra’s ult through block and most forms of healing is nigh impossible. Here’s some math
Kiriko heals 88 HPS, If Rammatra takes 75% less damage through his block, then you need 352 DPS TO CANCEL IT OUT.
If you’re in a situation where you cannot risk being away from him for those three seconds, then you lose, there is no waiting it out, or punishing any aspect of his kit
Symmetra's Ult (Photon Barrier)
4000 damage is unbreakable, a fundamental aspect of the game, which is breaking shields is completely irrelevant to 99% of heroes
Pharmercy (Pharah with a Mercy keeping her up 24/7)
Most heroes are balanced around being played at their optimal ranges, Widow is good at long range, Reaper is good at close range, etc. When a hero like Pharah is able to distance themselves 12 m into the sky instantly, then stay at that range almost indefinitely, take that and account for the 55 HPS Mercy grants and Reaper, Symmetra, Rein, Brig, and every other projectile/melee heroes aren’t going to realistically ever kill a Pharah, invalidating their ability to play at their effective range against you.
Sombra's Invisible Hack
Invisible hack means that certain heroes won’t have the ability to counter hack before it’s landed, Zenyatta, Wrecking Ball, Doomfist all have pretty much no chance of stopping a hack before it’s landed.
And for good measure, here’s a couple examples of older cases of over centralization
Sombra's old hack
5 second silence was unbelievably powerful back in the day, Completely ruined the point of watching cooldowns and such when she could just disable them for 5 seconds. especially harsh on heroes like Sigma, Rein, Zenyatta, Ball, Doom. Man sombra has some kind of vendetta against these heroes ong.
B R I G
One shot any squishy that got near her, Mobile heroes had no place in the same lobby with her.
Moira
when we had two tanks, healing both for 75 at the same time was insanely powerful compared to the 88 single target healing, 55, 30, and 12 AOE, plus her ult charged like 12% faster and that was when healing tanks gave you just as much ult charge as healing a DPS, and there were 2 of them.
Sigma
1500 HP Barrier, his shift blocked hooks, 1 second cooldown on barrier, almost a full second of slow on his ult’s slam, just a little broken.
ANYWAYS TLDR: Just because something is over centralizing doesn’t mean it’s overpowered, Sombra invis hack is garbage rn. The point is we shouldn’t have things like this in the game period.
Give Rammatra’s ult a timer like every other ult, hell, if you want to make it infinite, make it so that it has a risk to it, like maybe he needs to non stop land punches to keep it full, then compensate somewhere else in his kit if he needs it.
Symmeta ult should have at least 3000, but even 2000 wouldn’t be bad, then compensate to the rest of her kit, maybe make her gun not chew through ammo so quickly because why?
Make it so that Pharah can’t fly as high, and/or as long. Then compensate for better tools in general.
Either don’t let Sombra hack while invisable anymore, or make it have a much longer cast time that would be equal to how long it would take to decloak first, then hack. Maybe make hack go back to 50% or make her ult function like OW1, like anything dude she’s dying out here.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m never going to say over centralization ever again for the next year outside of this thread.
I don’t really have a take regarding the video but I just wanted to thank you for putting the actual context behind what you said instead of just linking the full video and expecting people to watch. Wish this was a forum standard.
I like the idea behind it, but it’s easy to overapply in discussion. Like you could claim that one-shot kills are “overcentralization” because healing is a fundamental element of the game. But you could also argue that they’re a counter. Is healing so fundamental that something being able to always get through it is a problem? Do you always have to be able to heal damage? And moreover, are one-shots fundamental to the game?
A good example of overapplying overcentralization (yes I just said that) is Symmetra’s ult. is it a problem that the shield can’t be broken? Do you have to break it? Is barrier busting as fundamental to Overwatch as ledge guarding is to smash? I’m not sure about that. Certainly, her ultimate is strong, but it’s not like you can do nothing but sit and wait for it to expire.
I think a better example would be something like Sombra being able to push a payload while invisible. Thankfully I think that was changed before she got her perma-invis, but if it hadn’t that would actually be breaking a fundamental aspect of the game.
Most of your examples though (except maybe Ramattra) fall more under “this is really hard to fight against”. Which, sure, but so is ledge guarding in smash.
I usually expect nobody to reply even when I make this as short and simple as possible. Making things like this allows me to see replies like this for people who don’t want to invest time watching a random video about something they don’t care about, but thank you for the reply, you can expect a quote with context under any video I mention.
I would actually argue that one-shot kills aren’t overcentralizing for healers, or at least the ones we have in OW.
Widow, Hanzo, and Sojourn can’t one shot tanks, and so that fundamental aspect is still intact.
Other’s like High Noon, have such low uptime that it’s fine to have them ignore that aspect since Cass will be using his ult like, 1/30th of a match’s duration at best.
Hog hooking a tank off a cliff is countered by positioning in a way that prevents him from rotating more than the max amount of degrees he can, or by expending a resource like a movement ability or barrier to avoid it.
This is a fair point, which is totally something you can’t convince everyone of.
Pharah can always play out of certain heroes effective range
BUT you can’t have a whole team run heroes that can play outside of close range (Example: there’s no flying tanks, you could just focus on them instead)
Symmetra’s ult cannot be destroyed unless you have whole hog or some other 800+ dps source.
But Some heroes can either wait for them to poke their head’s past their side of the barrier, or some just ignore barriers all together like Rein or Brig.
Here’s an example of over centralization done right versus one I think is done wrong.
Torb’s Turret for example, completely invalidates the idea of using your positioning to avoid shots, since it’s aimbot. However, there’s many things to consider, such as
Where should the torb place it?
somewhere where it will farm as much damage as possible?
Or draw as much attention as it can?
This also requires map knowledge
putting it somewhere where it will not be destroyed quickly since it starts off with low health
for the enemy
how can we destroy that turret?
Then using their own abilities, aim and positioning as well as gamesense to not put themselves in a position that risks even more than the value gained from destroying the turret.
Symmetra’s barrier to me, is one that trades most things people consider normally, in favour for one or two creative uses.
Symmetra’s Barrier
Blocks specific abilities with good timing and gamesense (like reins shatter, and by tracking ult charge)
Where you should place it (usually just straight down the middle but there are a few exceptions)
but for the enemy
how can we destroy it? (You probably can’t)
how can I use my own abilities? (you usually can’t)
aim? (any more thought required in the aiming aspect is more than canceled out by the fact that the barrier is usually making it so that aim won’t change anything.)
