Perks is making the game more complex than it needs to be

Just speaking on Quickplay but before this season I was very happy with the balance of most Overwatch heroes. I could go into a quickplay game on any of my niche mains and safely secure a win or even get alot of kills -/ heals. However, now everything feels so off. Me and my brother used to carry on multiple heroes. Now we can’t even do that anymore. Perks have made everything so complex to the point that I can’t keep track of everyone’s new abilities.

I think one of the main appeals to Overwatch is the simple yet fun combat which enhances skill and performance. The perks add another few ability choices which further complicates balance and synergies.

It is a great idea at first but the perks are very far from being balanced. We have heroes now who are borderline unkillable such as Zarya. Bad players who can pick up Moira and carry entire teams like it is nothing. Then on the other hand you have heroes who are now far too weak to play against super strong/ broken heroes. I would prefer a separate mode entirely for them and I really don’t like the integration they made with the perks being the entire game basically.

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Personally I’m enjoying perks quite a bit. Do perks really shake up the game that much to you? Not trying to doubt your experience, but the perks overall don’t feel drastically crazy to me.

Alot of them are just a buff to a single part of a character’s kit. With a couple perks being overpowered exceptions.

I’d say Zarya feels awful to play against, but to me she felt awful to play against before the perks. She’s sort of always been a tank who demands counter swaps.

But I am sorry that you’re unhappy with the state of the game. I hope the perks grown on you over time.

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Yes I have played ranked and quickplay since Overwatch 1. I’ve been Diamond and Platinum many seasons in both games. I prefer to be called a casual player because I only play ranked now for the weapon points. I don’t dislike perks, rather I want them to be awesome additions for the game. They are super close to being that way, but light nerfs need to happen for characters like Zarya, Mauga, and Moira. I truly believe most all other characters including Sombra are balanced and don’t need adjusting with perks.

My personal experience in several games -ranked and quickplay has been players meta switching to comps like Zarya, Mauga and Moira. Usually with all the 3 in the same team. Most team compositions can’t counter this composition and teams who are winning throughout the game completely collapse when we see these 3 heroes in the same team.
This has happened in quickplay role que, quickplay open que and all ranked ques.

My favorite perk additions for the overwatch roster are:
(that i absolutely love)

WINSTON
MAJOR PERKS:
REVITALIZING BARRIER – Barrier Projector heals allies within it for 30 health per second

REAPER
MINOR PERKS:
SOUL REAVING – Collect Soul Globes from dead enemies to restore 50 health.
MAJOR PERKS:
RAVENOUS WRAITH – Leaving Wraith Form grants 40% additional lifesteal for 3 seconds.

PHARAH
MINOR PERKS:
DRIFT THRUSTERS – Pharah can move while Barrage is active.
HELIX SHIELDS – Convert 75 health to shields.
MAJOR PERKS:
FUEL STORES – Jet Dash grants 50% fuel. Maximum overfuel is increased by 100%.

HANZO
MINOR PERKS:
SCATTER ARROWS – Storm Arrows split into 3 new projectiles on their first ricochet and bounce 2 extra times.

MEI
MINOR PERKS:
CHILLING REACH – Primary Fire’s range is increased by 30%.
MAJOR PERKS:
BITING COLD – Secondary fire hits slow enemies by 15% for 1.5 seconds, stacking up to 30%.

WIDOWMAKER
SCOPED EFFICIENCY – Scoped shots cost 3 ammo instead of 5.
MAJOR PERKS:
DEADLY DEUX – Venom Mine gains 50% increased damage and a second charge, enabling 2 active mines at a Time.

JUNO
MINOR PERKS:
FAMILIAR VITALS – Pulsar Torpedoes lock onto allies 35% faster.
MAJOR PERKS:
MASTER BLASTER – Mediblaster can crit enemies.

REINHARDT
MINOR PERKS:
CRUSADER’S RESOLVE – While using Barrier Field, your passive health regeneration triggers 50% sooner.
MAJOR PERKS:
CRUSHING VICTORY – Charge damage grants temporary overhealth for 50% of the damage dealt.

MERCY
MAJOR PERKS:
CHAIN BOOST – Secondary Fire links to a second nearby ally.

KIRIKO
MINOR PERKS:
FORTUNE TELLER – Kunai hits launch 2 Healing Ofuda to an ally in front of you.

TRACER
MINOR PERKS:
BLAST FROM THE PAST – Pulse Bomb’s radius is increased by 50%.
MAJOR PERKS:
QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT – Recall grants 50 overhealth that decays over time.

HAZARD
MAJOR PERKS:
ANARCHIC ZEAL – Spike Guard’s spikes gain 25% Lifesteal.

D.VA
MINOR PERKS:
EJECTION SUIT – Eject grants 75 temporary overhealth.

JUNKER QUEEN
MAJOR PERKS:
A SAVAGE SATIATION – Carnage’s impact damage gains 100% lifesteal.

RAMATTRA
MAJOR PERKS:
NANITE REPAIR – Ramattra is healed for 50 health per second while within Ravenous Vorte

TORBJORN
MAJOR PERKS:
ANCHOR BOLTS – Deploy Turret’s throw range is increased by 50% and it can now attach to walls and ceilings.

SOMBRA
MINOR PERKS:
VIRAL EFFICACY – Virus’ cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds when an enemy affected by Virus is eliminated.
CTRL ALT ESC – Teleporting with Translocator while at critical health initiates passive health regeneration.
MAJOR PERKS:
WHITE HAT – Hack can be used on allies to restore 100 health over 2 seconds.
STACK OVERFLOW – Hack’s silence duration is increased by 100%, but its range is decreased by 3

SYMMETRA
MINOR PERKS:
SENTRY CAPACITY – Sentry Turret gains an additional charge.
MAJOR PERKS:
SHIELD BATTERY – Symmetra regenerates 20 shields per second while within 10 meters of her teleporter

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Did you see Ana’s perks? The problem with perks is yeah most of them don’t shake the game up too much but a few are insanely powerful.

And that’s how it’s always going to be because are developers have never been very good at balance.

And that’s the problem with perks. The basically created a new way to make the game inbalanced

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it seems like you’ve gotten used to a particular way of playing, and now that that has changed, you have to change your playstyle. And for, whatever reason, it’s not working.

You can still cary games, you just have to find a new way to do so.

Too many heroes perks don’t cover their weaknesses, so when heroes perks ENHANCE their base experiences, that’s a nerf to that hero.

You could say that about characters’ regular abilities. When you first started playing, you didn’t know what the characters’ abilities were, and you had to take time to learn them.

When you add anything new in, it’s going to take time to get used to it. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, just new.

People were saying that long before the perks came out.

Perks do not allow bad players to carry the entire team. They encourage & pick up the good players.

It seems like you’re upset about the new things, and that’s valid - change can be scary & unpleasant. Be kind to yourself & give yourself time to get used to them <3

I would recommend playing Mystery Hero, where you can get a feel for a lot of different perks in one game!

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It’s VERY rare to take anything but the obvious perks. Often there’s one that’s simply better than the other. Typically it’s that the bad one is too situational to be useful because the devs have tried to be clever and failed.

as a moira main… i agree :sweat_smile: (at least nerf the damage orb debuff, cause damn that thing shreds through a team. the healing orb is fine, finaly some ranged burst heal with moira)

but they’re new, so obviously they are going to change pretty much all perks after they gather enough info

While I do agree it makes it lore complex, I don’t feel like it took too long to learn. Many of them are pretty minor and doesn’t really matter if someone has it or not. The more impactful ones we generally know people will pick, so we know what to expect. After some play time anyways.

is more complex but is faaaar from being more deep, gameplay is the same trash, now you only see some more numbers you dont fully understant what they change

The irony is that perks are much more suitable for Arcade, yet perks only exist outside of Arcade.

Blizz just can’t do anything right.

oki ty <3 I appreciate it. I just did a mystery hero match it was alot better

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I hated Junkenstein’s Lab for that very reason. OW becoming overcomplicated is the worst thing that can happen to the game right now, though I think the perks manage to be okay for the time being. Not looking forward to Stadium but I hope people enjoy it.

I will agree that the readability of the game is gone. They work so hard to display how heroes are different and what they do in a very obvious manner, and this muddies all that work. Maybe this will change but I’ve never one yet bothered to check the scoreboard for what the enemy perks are. Maybe I’m telling on myself a bit there but it’s just one step further than what I’m willing to do to get an edge in the game.

Of course! <3 Mystery Hero is the superior game mode.

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That,95%of people dont play.

It sounds like you have two problems…

  1. You haven’t found the perks the complement your playstyle on your pool of heroes. For some heroes, this takes a few games… for example, I almost swore off Kiri out of hero pool until I found the perk combo that works for me. I actually added Hog to my hero pool because the Hook perk and the team heal vape actually allows me to not troll when I play Hog lol.

  2. You just gotta learn what the perks do the same way you had to learn what the abilities do when you were new. You’d like to believe that Overwatch isn’t a complex game… but that’s because you’ve been playing it for a while. This extra layer of things to learn may have its growing pains, but once you learn it and recognize the perks, I’m sure you won’t even give it a second thought.

  1. I’m not sure how that is supposed to influence my opinion.
  2. I’d love to see your source for that.