Title: Bold claim
Me: Feeling myself today
I wholeheartedly disagree. They took a more casual hero shooter design and tried applying competitive fps balance. They further ruined balance below the top .001% by balancing the game by OWL standards, a 100% unrealistic and not only improbable but absolutely impossible setting for even GMs.
- OWL members scrim for hours a day, know their teammates by voice, literally discover and define metas meaning they can close the skill gap required to, you know, actually utilize the elements that make metas a meta and don’t have to deal with smurfs, throwers, trolls or the thought that Blizzard may not care about them at all
Even if a high GM player put themselves through the same schedule and had the same, or perhaps even greater skill, they still can’t 6 stack every game to guarantee effective communication with trusted teammates.
If OWL dies, I think it’s an exaggeration to say I’d be happy, but I would be excited for what’s in store to change for...you know...99.999% of the playerbase
It’s also worth noting that role queue’s implementation, one of the most influential changes to the game imo, was likely rushed due to OWL as Jeff said the reason why the game even had open queue was because queue times would be highly problematic. Despite multiple changes to the matchmaker, Jeff’s prediction of a 13 minute queue to play Soldier 76 is scarily true and I believe it would have been either postponed for OW2 with a much more efficient matchmaker or completed by 2019 as less resources would have been consumed by OWL
I just wanted to see if anyone else had a similar feeling. One could also say I not only believe hero pools and map pools should have restricted to OWL but OWL deserves an entirely separate balance.
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Would that be confusing for Blizzard to represent their “highly competitive game” only its actually not like the real game?
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- Yes lol. But it’s simply not fair OWL drag such a monumental portion of the player base.
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I do think there are pros in addition to the cons of balancing at the top .001% level of play in almost ideal circumstances in every game but, the way I see it, the game OWL league plays is not a game we have access to. Therefore, applying their balance to our game just does not make sense to me.
Thoughts?
Btw… I don’t believe one thing ruined or even could ruin Overwatch but OWL was on the mind.
92 Likes
TBH the best thing for the “game” is for OWL to die in a fire. Then they can find more conventional means of making income off their game, and put more effort into balancing it for the common player. We all win.
84 Likes
I would like but I’m past my max so here’s a 
9 Likes
Everyone who love this game is waiting for the OWL Death. But sadly, is just an illusion
34 Likes
After years and years, i think the problem is: OWL didn’t ruin OW, BUT OWL so EARLY ruined it.
I think it was simply rushed too much.
30 Likes
Ok I’ll stop every post I like but like 
Periodt.
3 Likes
I think Overwatch could have been both, a great casual and competitive game at the same time. Blizzard just didn’t do it right.
15 Likes
Yes I’m hoping it dies quickly so we can focus on making the game fun for us.
9 Likes
OWL causes imbalance within the game, and it came so early before Overwatch really had a chance. I feel like it also rushed in a lot of poor balance decisions. I personally think OWL was also one of the reasons Mass Resurrect was removed (Hear me out). Just imagine the crowd goes wild then the entire enemy team got brought back, yikes. Whats funnier is they made Mercy even worse by making OWL start off with moth meta… Lets just hope it dies so we can actually get some proper balance after what, two years…?
24 Likes
to OP: I believe the main issue is the timing of OWL. I think that had the nuts and bolts been tightened on the ship of Overwatch ahead of time, fixing bugs, not completely changing heroes and sticking to their designs from the get go, etc. A lot of the issues we have today wouldn’t be as prevalent.
As a clarification as well: I don’t think OWL ruined the game so to speak, but I do think that the priority of where the game’s direction should’ve gone could have been reconsidered at certain twists and turns, such as not releasing OWL until the game itself was more developed.
4 Likes
every mayor game that has successful esport , didnt start as an esport, but organically became that…dota, cs:go…etc.
people made it, they wanted to compete on another level, started making tournaments on their own, and at that point, developer steps in, invests and gives people what they want.
blizzard forced it, it never had a decent chance to evolve on its own.
7 Likes
No.
Developer and team balance destroyed ow. Owl was also a trash. You dont remember only goats or double shield on Owl for months?? …
3 Likes
In a way i hope OWL turns out like the HCS Championship in order to teach blizzard a lesson about ignoring your wider playerbase, OWL viewership is already waining and pros suffer playing and training everyday it probably won’t be around for much longer.
4 Likes
Most bad balance
like objectively bad was intended to change the way OWL played
But I also think the devs have poorly managed this game…but it is quite easy for me to say that as I lie on my bed and spit on their work
3 Likes
Another thing i found funny about OWL. Goats in OWL was ran in every game, even the same team comp at times, against one another, it was hilarious. Double shield also did the same thing. The only time it was really unrestricted was with Moth, when you could really play anything as long as you had Mercy.
Oh how poor balance has such strange outcomes
A hero ban system (bans decided by PLAYERS) would have fixed this quickly as teams could run new comps without fear of being stomped by GOATS
2 Likes
But you know blizzard, they arent the smartest and def dont take action when needed.
Ban brig = no goats
Then again Brig was a balancing disaster
2 Likes
The problem is that devs never put the hero balance as first priority on the dev strategy.
Also they tried to fix balance problems just buffing the counters and not nerf the problem. Then they created a powercreep or broken heros on lower ranks.
2 Likes
Yeah they really aren’t, seriously one of the easiest and simple solutions right now that would make us happy would be introducing a player decided ban system this would completely remove the need for Role Q and Hero Pools and make a lot of us temporarily happier.
2 Likes
The game is balanced around the top of the ladder. EVERYWHERE else on the ladder the game is balanced. It was balanced a year ago. It was balanced a month ago. It is balanced now and it will likely be balanced a month and a year from now.
1 Like