OW needs to fix MM and balance around OWL. Rework queueing in groups so it treats them the same as solo queue. Then we can all play actual OW not just OWL pros. We should all play OWL like games to the best of our ability in comp.
Well first of all nothing bad about a casual game. I think Overwatch started out as one as well.
Your video is interesting and it does make sense maybe the devs should watch it. 
Right now it seems to me they try to run into both directions casual and pro. But it isnt working and they look a bit clueless with their changes to the game.
Agreed. I’m all for casual games but I do not appreciate a casual game that tries to convince you it’s competitive without some serious changes. Changes like certain maps being banned for example.
1 Like
The reason the game is so unbalanced is that they designed a game that relies so heavily on teamplay but nobody wants to actually play as a team below really high ranks. They made the characters so diverse and interesting that everyone gravitates towards specific heroes that they enjoy playing. TF2 which is probably the closest analog to this game alleviates the issue by having a significantly smaller character roster and fairly little differentiation outside of the weapon itself. The casual mode also is played in matches of 12v12 where a single team is almost guaranteed to have some of every class and can counter various aspects of the enemy’s team due to only having 9 classes.
Other games that take advantage of PvP play with heroes and abilities, such as MOBAs, tend to alleviate the issue by not only having a significantly larger roster of heroes (upwards of 100), but also the fact that you’re locked in to a hero at the start of the game and can see the enemy picks right away, leading to effective counter picking. You also level up and can choose between dozens of items change your stats (chosen based on what the enemy team does), so it’s a lot more dynamic. Small things such as a hero’s base damage are not nearly as important in the grand scheme of the game because of how much everything changes.
P.S. Overwatch is not a MOBA, nor does it have “MOBA-like elements.” Both just share aspects of RPGS in common, which have been gameplay mechanics in games for literally decades, long before MOBAs existed. MOBAs are a very specific format of game which is a subgenre of RTS games. /rant
I’ve been playing Blizzard games since 1998. The general consensus is balance changes happen too slow such that players get bored and quit before meaningful changes take effect.
Take Starcraft 2 for example. How long were we stuck with a stale meta in the early 2010s with minuscule changes every 8 months while players got fed up and quit? Or in Hearthstone… 8 months to change UtH and Undertaker… seriously.
I rather they make aggressive changes and backpedal as needed. At least change is exciting.
I see where you’re coming from, and the recent changes to engineer did do a lot to make the game better, but in the end of the day changing games to be more fit for competitive is almost always going to be the best possible solutions to unbalanced characters in games in my opinion. Hell, if you look at the past few balance patches for TF2, those changes have made TF2’s competitive a lot more balanced. The Short Circuit made pushes painful for a team to attempt, but now it has a higher skill cap as a weapon, can kill spam almost as effectively, and can actually help a lot in player on player combat.
1 Like
Not disagreeing with you, but some of the most experienced TF2 players don’t have the best suggestions seeing as there’s such a disconnect between top-level TF2 and pub games.
You are right about balancing for top players however, and what I think this person is missing is that the past few balance changes for TF2 have been so good precisely because they’re focused on the competitive side of the spectrum.
When you say, “balanced for OWL,” I hear, “Balanced in the hands of good players that understand the complexities of Overwatch.”
I think there’s a bit of a flaw in looking at it this way seeing as TF2 is at least supposed to be completely balanced around competitive, because if you’ve ever been in a TF2 pub, half the players aren’t trying to win anyway.
TF2 is an example of a great casual game to where competitive tournaments make their own rules like weapon bans and map bans.
Map bans are just map pools, pretty standard for even official competitive games to make them. Now technically competitive TF2 events are endorsed by Valve, just not properly sponsored. At this point the pool of banned weapons is pretty small. It’s really just a necessary evil to make the game function well at a high level. It wouldn’t be unplayable without these changes, it would just suffer a lot from unfair playstyles these weapons bring to the hands of skilled players.
My experiences with TF2 are part of the reason I’m so in favor of balacning around competitive.
Well what I mean when I say “balanced for OWL” is “balanced for players that are way more skilled and organized than normal players at most ranks, on a patch behind everyone else, playing with teammates that they have practiced with for months, using strategies and comps adviced by coaches” Real overwatch isn’t OWL.
2 Likes
The weapon banlist shrunk because Valve did some good balance changes. I agree they are a necessary evil. They help reduce cheese comps and RNG. Crit-a-cola was like legit OP for professional players and that was a weapon pretty much always banned. Reduction of RNG is why items aren’t used in competitive Smash.
I’d argue they tend to be more extreme in impact rather than that they have more impact
If Zen gets hit with a nerf his pickrate in OWL is barely going to blink one iota unless the nerf actually makes other heros better than him in some or all situations. If that does occur, his pick rate will go crashing.
In Casual Play, a nerf will likely dent his pickrate but, people will likely still play him even if it makes him non-viable.
You’ll notice in this thread that many people are praising TF2’s changes. In recent years, TF2 has started putting more effort into competitive players.
TF2 currently(as of when I typed this) has 13,562 players on servers of which 268 are on Competitive Servers (This includes both Community Competitive Servers and Valve Competitive Servers). Source: General Statistics - teamwork.tf Some (Myself included), would argue that Valve shot itself in the foot by listening to feedback from only one section of the community causing an exit from a fair number of players and the death of many community servers. (They also did a poor job of listening which is why the Community Competitive Servers have more players than Valve’s Competitive Servers quite frequently).
That would require them to actually backpeddle, which they seem to be incapable of doing (obstinacy).
Blizzard is also know for pendulum swing changes. I don’t know why it’s so difficult to find a place closer to the middle ground. The OW devs said that they didn’t want to make huge changes, yet that is literally what they did.
More frequent changes would be nice too. But I guess that’s a pipe dream for Blizzard games.
How balance is decided in other games
Only do something when a mob of angry gamers are figuratively yelling and banging sticks on the ground in a tribalistic fashion.
How balance is determined in Overwatch
Only consider how changes may positively impact the Overwatch League.
In all seriousness, I think something everyone should acknowledge is that if there is a hero that the collective community has determined to be a “throw character” then there needs to be something addressed balance wise. It’s especially concerning that people are being banned for choosing these “throw characters” because others falsely accuse them of throwing.