OWL Stage 4 will be on an old patch - WHY?!

Competitive Discussion
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So I can’t post links (not sure if that’s a trust level thing) but in a twitch clip one of the commentators Sideshow confimed a leak that stage 4 would be on the pre Hanzo rework patch.

Which means that Hanzo will still be on his scatter kit and Brigitte is going in completely unnerfed.

All I can ask is…why? Stage 4 wasn’t starting yet. This was the perfect time to get OWL caught up on the most recent patch (more or less).

This makes zero sense. Is it to not “overwelm” the pros? That can’t be it. They play OW every day for practically work shifts. This wouldn’t bother them that much, plus a lot of them wanted this version of the game.

Now pros are going to be annoyed at dealing with a fully powered Brigitte.

Casters are going to be annoyed at having to constantly remind people that they’re on an old patch.

And viewers who wanted to see the Hanzo rework in pro hands and definitely wanted a nerfed Brigitte are going to be annoyed at seeing 5 weeks of the patch that only lasted TWO DAYS live and was considered more cancerous than 35% Iron Clad Bastion Comp.

What the hell were the OWL officials thinking not getting the game fully up to date? This is so stupid.

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Legit? it’s bold af putting that patch in to the game for the conclusion to the inaugural season. It seems so awful to watch but maybe it’ll be different for the pros. Big gamble.

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I don’t know what they’re thinking. They’ve had to have bee reading a BIT of the forums and sub reddits. They know how…divisive…unnerfed Brigitte is. Plus everyone was excited for new Hanzo in OWL.

There’s a serious lack of thinking over at OWL…

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4

Well this pretty much sucks it. As an avid watcher of the OWL, I am super disappointed. I don’t care about Brigitte as much as the Hanzo rework.

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In Fighting game competition … they can release a big balance patch 1 week before the event and play on the patch.

Pro player can adapt quickly and they are all in the same situation, so there is no unfairness and even if some match can be a mess it’s fun to play and to watch.

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And here’s the thing, the pros are still playing ladder. They’ve played these changes. They play more OW than most players. It makes no sense to not update the game fully for OWL. This hurts everyone involved, the players and the viewers forced to watch this old (and very disliked) version of the game.

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I’m extremely dissapointed that we won’t see the Hanzo reworks until the final stage. Really upsetting. Why does it have to be this way?

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We’re entering the final stage. So, unless they do playoffs on a different patch than stage 4, what they start with next week is what they’ll be playing when season closes. :frowning:

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For some reason I thought there were 5 stages. Now I’m really dissapointed :angry:

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Per the website, Stage 4 is it… although it does have 5 weeks to it.

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My interest just disappears if it doesn’t have new Hanzo.

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It’s a little bit of a coward move by blizzard.
They must feel more confident in the game play of the older patch being despite the claims of it only being a few days old, it’s really the game for the bulk of time we have seen Brigitte, she was just not in comp yet.

that said if they change the rule sets of the entire game world for what we are told is 35+ million players, I sort of expect the same game world for the few hundred or so Overwatch pros.

When you log into the game right now the game world is the same for all of us… but not the OWL? These are the sort of growing pains you get when it’s S1 of anything really. The lame 4th map is an issue, the short break time between stages has been an issue, patches not lining up is a bit of an issue. None of them make or break of course, it’s growing pains as they figure stuff out. S2 will be different I’m sure.

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Hopefully, at the least, we won’t see winston dva every single game, that is what’s made me not watch it as much recently, I used to watch every game, but now I just watch a couple of teams.

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If they don’t change it I 100% won’t be watching the next stage. I watched the first two stages religiously. I’ve hung in there for season 3, but the fact that the public is already playing on a patch that is wildly different than the OWL patch has me losing interest.

Making the pro teams play on the latest patch isn’t putting anyone at a disadvantage in any way. Every team would be subjected to the same limitations, there is no argument that makes sense from a fairness standpoint.

Less time to practice strategies might be good for the game. Overwatch is already chaotic, and making the teams adapt to the meta every season seems like the best way to keep things fun and interesting.

Pretty sure there isn’t a single one of us on the viewer side that wants to see the same exact strats for two stages in a row just to make the players feel warm and fuzzy. They are professionals. PUSH THEM OUT OF THEIR COMFORT ZONES!! MAKE THEM STRETCH THEIR SKILLS TO THE ABSOLUTE LIMIT!!! THE ABILITY TO RAPIDLY LEARN AND ADAPT TO UNIQUE SITUATION IS WHAT MAKES THEM PROFESSIONALS!!!

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15

I think that it’s fair to have one patch for an entire stage. But that patch shouldn’t be badly outdated and obsolete even before the stage begins…

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yeah that’s where im at with this too

i began watching owl cause i wanted to see how pros played the game, cause i had never really watched esports before.

But for most of stage 3 the game they were playing wasn’t the same as the one i was playing. And I was looking forward to stage 4 because I thought they’d finally be able to catch up.

But now it looks like stage 4 won’t be anything like the overwatch im playing right now. So I really don’t see why I should waste my time watching pros play an outdated game.

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God Stage 4 will be the worst stage in OWL. Just stun, stun, stun.

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Most likely because Brigette is far too broken to play.

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The players and coaches have been arguing that at the very least the Brigitte nerfs need to be part of Stage 4 if they can’t get Hanzo rework or Lucios walriding changes and all the other tweaks in.

It would be pretty stupid to not listen to their own talent on such a serious matter.

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this is how esports work, they play on older patches that the pros are already used to and have had time to practice in

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