It is a major disppointment to me that leading up to Overwatch 2 there hasnt been any kind of beta for feedback leading up to launch. Instead the balance patches we will get at launch compared to the beta from months ago seems to be mostly based on how the heroes have been performing in the Overwatch League. Its never good to base you balance changes based soley on one skill level and I think the game is going to be unbalanced in every other tier because of this.
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What does it matter, really? The first season was always going to be chaotic and the number of people on the beta was too small to draw any relevant conclusions from. The new hype will carry season 1 and they can make a real attempt at balance for season 2.
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Itâll be fine as long as they release regular balance patches, even if theyâre not prefect. I donât know how many years it will take them to learn that lesson.
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Yeah this first season will be chaotic with DPS being little sonic hedgehogs around the map lol, but the passive will be nerfed quickly I think if itâs out of hand, all the other balance changes I donât think are bad
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OW has always been terribly balanced so I donât think people really care about that kind of thing, just as long as itâs fun. As long as they Blizz keep changing up where the balance goes and donât let it become stale and braindead (see: tank-dominated metas for 5+ years), things will be fine.
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What you have to remember is: Blizzard does not âbalanceâ the game to make it balanced. Their goal is to make it âexciting to watch.â Heroes they think will generate exciting plays are intentionally made OP so they will be in more games. Heroes that they think slow it down are intentionally trashed so they will be in less games. Both for OWL and streamers. So, with that goal, it makes perfect sense for them to balance around OWL.
It will not be balanced in pro play either. There is no way it is going to be even close to balanced in any tier.
I doubt that. I think Blizzard knows the passive will be a mess. But it does two things they want. 1) It disproportionally benefits the already strong heroes they think are âfun to watch.â So, it will help keep them dominant. 2) Will lead to snowballs, were 1 or 2 dps just roll over the enemy team after a kill. Which they think will make exciting clips and OWL plays. I donât think Blizzard is going to change quickly. In fact, I would not be surprised if it goes the full season. And when people complain they will say the same thing they always say when they make something OP and know it: âWe will be monitoring the situation.â
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Man solid theory, one problem they arenât even using the passive in OWL lol, so instead of the conspiracy theory it may be just because they are trying to find SOMETHING for the damage role to make things fair, this isnât it tho, I give this change 2 weeks lol
Yet.
They also havenât been using Kiriko in OWL. Do you think that means she wont be in it?
All of the stats and values they are putting into release will be in OWL. It will also be in play for streamers. And they get those nice âexcitingâ clips there are well. People watching twitch streamers getting that excitement.
Not a conspiracy theory. Just a conclusion based on observation and what they have told us.
Examples:
Genji giga-buffs. They did it specifically to get him lots of play time in OWL. They told us themselves how they were so happy to see him there. And there was NEVER a question that the buffs were completely and insanely over the top. The entire community and at least nearly all content creators and pros said as much.
Mei being Trash canned. Specifically in response to OWL announcers complaining about her.
Cassidy got buffed to OP directly after announcers talked about how they wanted to see more of him.
They directly told us they make balance choices based of clips and views when they told us why they kept Anaâs sleep dart despite moving the rest of the CC to tanks. They said they thought about moving it, but liked the clips and plays with it being used.
Honestly, it is pretty blatant that they make balance and design choices based on the views.
Basically the entire community recognizes this role passive is not fair or remotely balanced. Do you really think Blizzard doesnât also know?
It would take a complete idiot not to see that this passive massively disproportionally benefits certain heroes. You would have to be blind to not see the snowball effect this will have. Blizzard devs are not idiots. And I donât think they are blind. They can see the blatantly clear issues. They are choosing to ignore them for a reason.
This is no different than any other time they have announced and blatantly broken change to a hero and when they community said âthis wont work, it is badâ their response is âWe will be monitoring the situation and feedback.â Then they leave the change active long enough to get the desired clips and views.
This is going to be no different. It will last long enough for Blizzard to feel they got the crazy plays on streams and OWL to generate interest in the game and OWL. Only after that they will look at changing it. Then the question becomes how much is left in the season? A season is going to be 9 weeks. If we are 6, 7 weeks in they are not changing it. Heck, if we are even just half way through I doubt they will change it. And they wont get the excitement they want in 2 weeks. It is going to need more time.
Getting it changed inside 2 weeks is exceedingly unlikely.