The game, since the beginning, has only catered to the 1% balance wise. There is no regard of new player experience or low rank balance
Well here’s the specifics of what I have in mind:
[OW2] Balance Design Blueprint
Basically:
- Tanks get more lethality+sustain+anti-CC but can still be dueled
- No more stun+kill combos for Mei/McCree
- Weaker AntiTank for “Ranged TankBusters”
- Snipers are easier to kill
- Hog gets a barrier equivalent
- Hammond as a DPS
Well for now I don’t think many new casual players are going to play the game now casually. Especially since a sequel is coming out. Most nerfs and buffs are based on what the meta is in higher rank since it dictates what low ranks will play like not including bronze-gold
Widow is the only true sniper and she is already easy to kill. Hanzo and Ashe are also easy to kill if you count them unless they have a pocket but if they have a pocket then they should be hard to kill
Diamonds meta is just masters/Gm meta for a reason. They think they can imitate it so they play it for the most part same goes for plat
Would you prefer “sharpshooters”?
Regardless ranged burst damage either needs to get weaker, or the heroes themselves need to get easier to kill.
I’m not understanding the “balance around casuals and low ranks” mentality here by some people in the thread. I still believe that if youre wanting to play the game casually, then why should you care about balance in the first place? Theres nothing wrong with playing casually, but youre lying to yourself if you say you play casually, then moments later suddenly care about the balance of the game and want it catered to around your level. The people who are more competitive and wanting to climb, balance should be taken more account in those departments.
The balance could be a lot better but in most competitive games, they should always focus on the top. Never on the bottom. This does not apply with only Overwatch mind you, it can also apply to other video games or even games such as sports in real life. Balancing around lesser skilled players is simply just babying you and by no means losing that incentive to get better. Games in the lower brackets of skill should be a journey to improve your way to the top where rules and balance is focused on. I may not agree with everything that Hobbs is saying but the main point hes making for balancing being focused on the top is valid.
I mean im not a part of the top 1% or anything but i still understand the ideology of balancing the top is the right decision. I just wish that it was taken more seriously and improved than what it is now though.
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If they become even easier to then they will become useless like how Widow currently is because it will be way to easy to kill.
You can nerf the damage all you want granted if you nerfs Widow she actually becomes useless.
You cannot fix q times by making tank more absurdly OP than they already are. You have heroes in this game like D.va with literally 85 percent pickrate when skilled people play her.
Most heroes are supposed to be good in one of Poke, Rush, and Dive, and ok in a secondary situation. D.va is amazing in Poke (INFINITE damage mitigation for 2 seconds, recharging every 8 seconds), amazing in brawl (insane close range burst), and amazing in Dive (can fly very quickly on a 4 second cooldown). On top of all this, she has 300 armor and can delete half the ultimates in the game.
There is no world in which D.va is anywhere close to balanced at the moment, and yet all the other tanks are so broken that they can actually compete with her.
The devs have repeatedly said that tank cannot be fixed by making it more powerful. This is why they are going 5v5, fundementally most people have no aim and no brain, but they can learn aim (hence DPS q times).
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Would be funny instead of a breather he could get a skin tight barrier on himself that protects from cc kind of like zarya bubble but a little more tanky. But to not make it as op melees could prob go through it. To include like other splash effects such as Ana’s anti
I’m not understanding how people can’t interpret “balance” as a euphemism for hero usage variety.
And that they somehow act like hero usage variety only matters for something like 2% of the players.
Hero usage will always have variety in lower ranks lol
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You do realize I’ve probably individually spent more time thinking about role queue design than this entire forum combined, right?
Then present your arguments, and you better be smarter than that Jin guy I just wasted my time trying to explain Ashe to.
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The playerbase bleed is rather irrelevant and fairly normal for a game like OW over this period.
It COULD have boomed but blizzard hasn’t done well. Therefore only a devoted player base has stayed (including you posting here) and there are still new players, I’m one of them.
Btw, trickle down balance is good. Case closed there.
I mean the issue with Tanks is that they needed to buff them to make them more popular, but they couldn’t because compositions were too durable.
5v5 bypasses that issue by dramatically reducing the overall durability of compositions. Which gives a lot of room to buff Tanks.
Such that the only limiting factor on buffing Tanks, is that they aren’t too “unfun” to 1v1 duel against DPS.
This is only part of the issue. Its not fun for 1/3 of the team to have 2/3s of the impact on the game.
THE WORST POSSIBLE SITUATION FOR GAME DESIGN is when something is really effective and really unfun. That is the position tanking is in. It has all of the power and none of the fun. Buffs aren’t the answer. Hence 5v5 is the solution they are going with.
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Buffs are the answer, but they have to be the right kind of buffs.
I.e. Higher levels of self reliance
I.e. More lethality, more self sustain, more anti-cc, but less survival in duels
Aka, the playstyle features that DPS players enjoy, and would be compelling to convert DPS players into Tank players.
Buffing the role that is already strong isn’t the answer it’s just a boring role.
This is the same role that is 1/2 of the worst meta in the game
This is the role that started double shield
This is the role that keeps trying to power creep D.va and Hog because the other ones in the role was so strong. What makes it worst is that D.va was already strong
I disagree. In every single game ever tank is the least popular role. This is for the same reason that rts games are unpopular. Tank by its very nature requires a lot of macro and space making which people aren’t interested in. Most people who play games have a full time job which requires signifigant effort. After a long day people most often don’t want to think. Simple as that.
If tank is to remain tank you cannot have all at once
- More lethality
- More self sustain
- Less dualability.
Without losing health and durability. If they lose their health and durability, they are no longer tanks, and cannot do any tank things. They would just be ultra-dps.
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