OWC and why Less is More

[Dravidian-1300]

@Angel-2298

– For a fun mode that’s this OG supposed to be, it’s way too much effort to maintain

I’m talking about balance in general, but considering League of Legends (an arguably more popular game with about 170 champions) has champ specific balance for ARAM (a mode different from their standard) I don’t see this as an issue even if they did want to maintain a different balance.

@Angel-2298

Tiers are arbitrary, where do you draw the line?

That’s the trick. There are no hard lines and there will be some bleed, but some behaviors and gameplay patterns become more/less common as player skill increases. But if you want specifics, then here’s what I posted in a different thread:

@Dravidian-1300

I like what League does by creating balance levers with timers, hitboxes, and skill cost.

More skilled players tend to hold on to skills until they’re needed while lower skilled players use them almost on cooldown. So if a champion is doing too well in lower ranks a nerf that affects that rank more than higher ones would be to increase the cooldown and or the cost of the skill slightly.

On the opposite end of the spectrum higher skilled players tend to hit skill shots more often so a nerf to that end would be to make the hitbox smaller. Lower rank players already miss their shots/combos so it affects them less, but more accurate players take a bigger hit.

More general balancing can be done using health, damage, and/or healing.

Of course there will be some overlap or edge cases, but in general I think those are good rules to go by.

@Angel-2298

Learning different games as you progress tiers would be tedious

I’m not advocating for that, but I’m fine if different modes have different balance. They already do this with open queue since Tanks lack the bonus health.

@Angel-2298

Most of all, I don’t think OG needs any tiers at all.

Ah, I think this is where we’re having a miscommunication. By “tier” I’m just talking about player skill. Balance can have completely different effects depending on a players skill. It’s why lower and higher rank players typically complain about different heroes

@Angel-2298

Leave competitive to mainstream. Have OG being just fun.

On this, we agree. I think they went too far with balancing and made the game less fun.

@Yin-1797

Later on, it did get a better balancing streak, but only after Nintendo and HAL resigned to the competitive aspect of the game.

True, but it’s still nowhere near as balanced as it could be. Especially with items.

@Yin-1797

Kaplan wanted OW’s competitive to develop organically, like the the Fighting Game Community did. Activision and those within Blizzard offices pushed for the competitive aspect to be controlled and promoted through Blizzard themselves.

That’s my point, the competitive experience we had was not the initial plan, but perhaps I didn’t state it well.