The criticisms are valid but I’d also like to point out that major changes in meta’s aren’t always going to be popular. The health passive however, seemed to be very popular.
I’d think complaining about biased balance changes per patch hinders creative freedom as opposed to accepting what is given. If that makes sense.
I do also want to point out that uber buffing tanks isn’t necessarily bad but I do think it doesn’t mix things up enough to be considered different or creative since we’ve had super tank meta’s before. So it doesn’t seem as intentional as it might need to be to justify the patch on the surface level.
It’s hard for me to criticize hard metas (anymore) that involve hero’s like genji, sombra, sojourn, or pharah being strong since the meta will evolve again. Even if it’s unintentional.
Which brings back the question of if you think balancing should intentionally favor certain heros or meta’s. Even if a balance patch is meant to give EVERY character a level playing field, i don’t think it’s possible. This is especially true if they’re going to add more hero’s to the game.
An alternative is to tailor damage numbers according to matchups. But i think that might be very difficult for new players to ever keep track of. Although it would solve counter picking, even if it would be an artificial approach. There’s just too many hero’s.
But the closer the better. Just because you’re never gonna be Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work out at all. Wrong audience for that analogy, but ay.
What if adding more and more hero’s makes it increasingly difficult for that to ever be the case? If you still think balancing should always favor every single hero in the game then I don’t think you can ever complain about any patch where that is the main objective, even if it’s poorly implemented. The devs can’t tell the future & can only attempt to make it balanced for your ideal version of the game.
It does and it will. But that doesn’t change that the objective of balance should be exactly what that word implies: balance. In my opinion, at least.
You can if you believe that a certain patch doesn’t fulfill this objective. Or if you believe that the way they implemented it hinders enjoyment of the game, whatever. Point being: plenty of reasons why you can complain. Keep in mind there are more options than one to achieve balance. You can make Genji balanced in thousands of ways. Which way is best is up for debate.
I think the discourse surrounding the patch is mostly people chugging Haterade and pretending like they know what power creep is (hint: the patch isn’t an example of power creep). There are reasonable criticisms about the patch not going quite as far as it should’ve for certain issues, but they did quickly patch some of the more egregious ones. The people whining about tanks getting “giga busted” are just spouting hyperbole, they’ve been rotting on the vine for some time and the buffs aren’t massive by any reasonable stretch of the imagination.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t complain, I just think it’s important to keep in mind that the patches haven’t deviated from balancing the game to balance every hero.
Trying to balance the game perfectly is counter intuitive to asking for major changes like bringing back 6v6. 6v6 could theoretically happen, but what if it could be brought back for a season before going back to 5v5? I mean freely. But that season would (probably) be a disaster for across-the-board hero balancing with all the hero’s that’ve been added for 5v5.
Edit: So doubling down on the patch being super bad makes it more difficult to actually implement new and drastic changes and expect it to be well received.
I kind of agree. imo the community gets bored and I feel like it opens up the door for complaining more than not. Which is the opposite of what happened for the health passive being given to every hero where everyone seemed to love it and was a “game changing” balance patch. Again, I haven’t played in awhile so I’m unsure how the game feels at the moment but doesn’t seem like much has actually changed overall.
Well they are two different things. Balance is balance and fun is fun. Sure, balance is also fun, but fun isn’t just balance. If someone believes 6v6 offers more fun than a balanced 5v5 version, so be it, you know?
There’s definitely some truth to this, but I don’t know what the right solution is. Shut up and take it or complain… probably a mix of both, shut up for 4 days and complain then when it’s less heated
I hadn’t considered to ask if, “is fun fair?” That only really pertains to which hero’s the patch is fair to, right?
I think every player has a fair chance at picking the ‘correct’ hero on select. That is a choice but it’ll never be fair per hero.
Honestly, I also think one tricking will become more and more unviable with each new hero added as well & reworks are needed to bring certain hero’s back up to speed. But that fundamentally changes that hero which generally makes one tricks or mains upset or mixed on the reworks since it changes the hero into a different hero (while attempting to retain identity).
I mean, the game will still be functional if the devs completely ignore balance. The worst that can happen already happens in high ranks. high ranks simply abuse the game as much as possible. Naturally, the game is even less balanced with players that’re skilled at exploiting the system.
