Maybe some positive changes to Symmetra? A flat one second between damage ramps? 90/135/180 beam damage so she can actually 1v1 without her turrets? Faster orb speed. Faster shield regen passive?
Do you have a link to that?
First, thanks for taking the time to reply and give such a detailed response. Itâs always nice to see things from the developersâ perspective, and Iâd love to see more of this
I wonder, in the case of mei, if thereâs not some bias in play. Unlike tanks and supports, there are a lot of DPS options, most of which are at least somewhat viable. A lot of DPS players (or at least streamers) at the GM level seem to prefer to play something they like thatâs viable, over something they consider boring but OP, and I feel like Mei probably falls into that category for a lot of people. Obviously this isnât something that can be seen in stats, but I feel like itâs got to be a factor on at least some level.
So, Blizzard just seriously comes in with one of those damage mitigation posts just to satisfy the masses.
Honestly, at this point I donât even think you play your own game anymore and are just too focused on Overwatch 2 at this point, Blizz. Even I, who have been away for a few months DUE to your poor balancing (but came back due to the update that shields would get nerfed), can tell that the balancing is just still off and powercreep exist, but still you refuse to admit that your balancing is just not done well.
The first step to fixing a problem, is actually ADMITTING there is one. Saying winrates are high on Soldier/Genji was the same bull that you fed us when you said winrates on Symmetra and Torbjorn were high. Itâs called PICKRATE. 50 games played on one hero with a high winrate vs hundreds of thousands games played by other heroes with lower winrates doesnât mean that higher winrate means the character is balanced.
Like, this is even something you have recognized in the past⌠how can you fail to recognize this now is beyond me. I understand that you have a need for keeping the masses happy and making sure everyone can enjoy heroes, but making heroes more powerful every single time is not the way to accomplish that.
Take Baptiste, a healer cough that does more damage than Soldier, does more healing than Soldier, has a better utility than Soldier and oh wait, also has a better ultimate than Soldier.
Take Sigma, an off-tank that does more damage than D.Va, does more damage mitigation than D.Va due to having both a shield and damage mitigation once the shield goes down which BOTH are better than D.Va, has a better ultimate than D.Va.
IN WHAT WORLD do I ask you, does that not qualify as powercreep? Legitimately if you say that that isnât powercreep, you should go back and take some more math lessons. Reaper, Mei, Doomfist, Baptiste, Hammond somewhat due to his extreme knockback abilities, Sigma, Orisa⌠theyâre all busted in one way or another. Some do too much damage. Some do too much healing (or self-healing). Some absorb too much damage making other tanks basically unplayable. Obviously you can still play other characters, but NOT if you want to stay competitive.
Honestly Blizzard, with posts like this and the fiascos and mishaps from last year, youâre beginning to lose me as a customer. I actually was thinking about also investing in OW2 (after the literal hundreds of euros spent on OW1), but now? I really donât think I will. And sure, to you that wonât matter I guess. Consumers are no longer important within Blizzard, itâs all about the quick buck. Trying to make the easiest heroes have the most value rather than having a good risk/reward system, just so more and more people will play.
Idk what else people can say to make you understand. Every pro I watch that is asked about the state of Overwatch and they all unanimously agree on which heroes need work or a straight nerf.
I donât think buffing heroes that underperform is currently the issue. Start with nerfing the problems, and stop with bringing out heroes to counter other stronger metas.
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Devs being so out of touch with their game that they think Mei and Genji are on the same power level just because of pickrates and winrates.
Oh boy, where to even startâŚ
Even in quickplay, Genji is a bladebot and itâs rare to see genji get value outside of big blades. Genji has to be exceptionally good or the other team has to be badly coordinated. As much as I despise genji and his stupid weeb blades, I can recognice that itâs a lot harder to bring value with Genji nowdays rather than just going some random cheese character⌠or other Shimada. Why bladebot when you can go Doomfist anyway? He basically does the same thing but far more efficiently and doesnât need to farm ulti to do so and he canât just be succed from afar by random support played who had enough of genji shenanigans.
Genji is a character who has literally been powercrept. But the powercreep keeps on going.
Meanwhile Mei is the ice devil that makes tanks so frustrating to play the whole role has stopped queuing. Itâs just a nightmare to play against Mei in levels where she can icewall off your whole team because map geometry and then freeze the rest if her cheese wall isnât working.
Mei can bring value just by walking into enemy team and wildly spraying her freeze, even in top 500 and thereâs nothing nobody can do about it because thereâs no counterplay after Mei walks past the shield.
Harbleu is right to call the devs out for being so out of touch with their game. But then again, most people knew this already from how they managed to trash dva, symm, sombra etc. heroes for no reason.
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Why are you talking about GM like it isnât ladder? and the people that will care most about how effective a given hero may be are more than likely going to be the ones who want to climb in ranked.
Any ETA on doomfist 57 bugs that need to be fixed? We doom mains have a detailed bug list and how to replicate every single bug on doomfist.
Mei is a hero that doesnât need anymore 250 hp, she has survability, high cc and does 140 damage on Range, she has everything and that 250 hp doesnât have a reason anymore. The cc is opresing too. Please do something this girl got overbuffed along years o, on everything
If I may intervene here, what is the purpose of looking at stats from UNmirrored matches regarding the overall game balance? Doesnât this argumentation ignore the fact that a lot of high-rank games end up in mirror comps, playing the current meta heroes?
I want to point out in general, not especially to you, that it is important to know why those unmirrored matches have the stats you were looking at. Which match development triggers such numbers? How are the stats composed, e. g. which hero gets the win accounted? What if I play 10 min of Mei and swap to Soldier for 1 min to get to point, my team ends up winning, does Soldier or Mei get the win? If Soldier gets the win accounted, then it actually falsifies the stats. Or maybe a team runs meta on round 1, stomps the enemy team and then starts playing offmeta in round 2 because they feel safe and have the buffer to effort rather memey comps. That would also falsify win- and pickrates. And for sure there are more scenarios that support contradiction between stats and factual circumstances. You see that there are factors where the raw stats do not really reflect the actual situation. As you stated, pro play games are obviously another cup oâ tea which is evidently correct.
The meta forms for a reason. People find heroes that are stronger than others or neglect the value of other heroes. Especially in high rank, itâs not just an issue of perception. Itâs people experimenting and all coming to similar conclusions due to wins and match courses. Itâs based on experiences the player make, not just looking at numbers. It is okay for metas to form! To establish a balance that is so perfect that every hero can create the same value in every circumstance, is extremely hard, probably close to impossible, but it is not acceptable for metas to feel oppressive and obligatory to win, thus closing the niches for âoffmetaâ heroes. That is what this community sees, at least the rational ones who donât get killed by hero X once and write into the forums âH3ro X IS 0P, Bl1zz plz N3RF!11!â.
I see that the devs are active in the forums, but sometimes it feels like Blizzard is kind of sensitive or laissez-faire regarding community feedback. Too often it seems like the devs feel cornered or remain silent which the community will acknowledge as disregard. People are just very committed, and thus often emotional, towards the game which should be a good sign, since that shows that the game is exciting enough for people to care about its state (again regarding the more experienced and rational players). A lot of posts and arguments seem like the devs are trying to justify certain decisions, even though a lot of feedback from the community is not meant as an offense or neglection of the work the devs do, but an actual try to reach out and make this game a good place. I would like to suggest more cooperative and transparent approaches than just hiding in the dark, letting the community turn into a powder keg and once in a while check in to defend against complaints. In the end, we, the players, are the ones with the most user knowledge. Letting us co-create the game to a certain, but significant degree is definitely a good tool to create a pleasant experience and a happy community. For that reason, the workshop tool was such a breakthrough, because it enables exactly that!
I am not a Blizzard employee, so I have no idea what happens behind your (and Activisionâs) doors and why certain decisions are never made or delayed for so long, but please, use the experience we are sharing to your and in the end our advantage!
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with all due respect, last time a hero was not only op but also very unfun to play against, the dev team called it forum[insert hero name].
considering the time it took for x hero to be changed i can but be very sceptic.
Is there any chance we could get information about picks rates as the season progresses? It would be interesting to see the pick rates of Genji at the start of last season, compared to the end of last season. I suspect that he was played more at the start and less towards the end.
Leave Mei alone, you monster!
So was the Mercy Mega thread ever looked into in how to improve her overall gameplay? Not saying she needs anything. I find her quite thrilling but Im curious if you guys looked into Mercy further?
I like how dudes that have NO ACCESS to any data besides overbuff (yes, private profiles dont work there so NOTHING is gained from those) think they know more about pick rates and win rates than the actual Developers that literally can take a look in less than 15 sec.
Cmon guys, please stop trolling and dont make the rest of the forum look bad.
Again Josh drops the comment to shut up people and not only some of them dont shut it, but they refuse to believe those stats and ranks 
I mean, some people cant be convinced. If a developer is literally dropping the knowledge and you refuse to believe someone that has priviledge access to the servers stats ⌠OOF.
Big O O F
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If you could give some insight, what are the plans for Sombra in the future, or are there even any plans? Do you guys still perceive her as oppressive or do you guys maybe consider giving her some help?
Dev teams cherry picks what is fun and unfun to play against apparently. Itâs fine if we get obliterated by doomfist, frozen by mei, oneshot by hanzo from miles away but god forbid we press ulti to bring a team back in reverse of the ultis that killed them, feed on multiple barriers to charge up beam or make someoneâs abilties unusable for 6 seconds.
Dying to garbage with little counterplay constantly is apparently more fine than being mildly demoralised by something annoying the enemy team is doing.
I rather have hundred of little annoyances from symmetra than one frustrating doomfist.
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Can we see these stats on a regular basis?
Maybe like after each season?
Would go a long way to shutting down a lot of wrong perceptions
Iâm also hoping for something good too thats coming for Sym.
If what you are saying is true, that you also look at pickrates and how fun smth is, then its worth mentioning that Sym is at 0,3% pickrate and not very fun to play either considering how weak she is after the nerfs.
And SombraâŚshe is a tragedy with her own tale
Symm? Buffs?
According to devs, symm is balanced. We just need to git gud. =)
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Suspicious? Sceptical? I know you donât mean septic, so I think either of those is what youâre looking for.