I don’t think that has been the case thus far, mostly. But if nobody thought that pro players’ opinions have influenced certain balance decisions, and if nobody thought that ladder players’ opinions have influenced other balance decisions, then this thread would have never been created.
The implication by this thread is that the presumed unbiased party - the devs - are letting their decisions become influenced by biased parties - the players. All this “balance around OWL” or “catered to GM” and whatnot. I would HOPE that isn’t the case. But if there wasn’t any hint of it happening at all then we wouldn’t be here debating this.
I think E-Sports and in general overwatch do not have the OBLIGATION like REAL-SPORTS about:
On the NFL or Soccer you are not only forced to WIN the WAY you WIN is more important than that.
Barcelona or Real Madrid needs to win scoring 3 - 4 goals per match playing beatitiful OFFENSIVE-GAMEs not sending 9 people to stand the bus on their area and hold the 90 mins. Teams doing this are considered Scrubs in soccer
On the NFL the Offensive teams like the patriots, the 90s dallas cowboys, the 80s 49ers, dolphins were winning a lot with BEATITIFUL offensive games. Teams play to the defense often are considered BORING to watch and scrubs as well
On Overwatch the Pros find always exploits and abusive Metas even if this involve use quad-tank and 2 supports. I feel the OWL should make a regulation about:
2/2/2 or 1/2/4 mandatory as default team-comp and they should tell the players play OFFENSIVE and with HONOR do not use exploits or scrub tactics otherwise u are OUT of my team
Ow Dev team can’t balance the game based on a bunch the top 100 players are trying to exploit and abuse or the game will be trash soon. Balance the game RESPECTING the mechanical-skills and rewarding the players for high-mechanicals not for cheap tactics like CAMPING
Yeah it is. Mostly cuz you are ignoring an entire role to go 3/3 offering to the public a BORING and REPETITIVE show.
Using DVA as DPS instead of a real DPS character is an INSULT for all dps mains spend thousand hours of training on a Offensive hero
Using Brig as DPS instead of a real DPS is an insult to all these widowmakers were spending 500 hours on scrims for a “One hero button” win matches
Like i said 2/2/2 should be the official rule to avoid ignore roles and see beatitiful games like DIVE meta for example. Dive meta was EXQUISITE SHOW of skills and speed. With a widow in each team doing delicious duels
Goat is the opposite the ANTI “mechanical-skills” heros and that need to dissapair. GOATS should be WIDOW, TRACER, ZARYA, ORISA, Zeny and ANA top end BRUTAL-HIGH-MECHANICAL heros
You mean casual players that come here to complain about perceived “pro balance” basically.
I just don’t see what this whole “oh the pros” “pro balance” etc perception is really built on. Just seems like… weightless speculation a lot of it. Need to place blame.
I agree with much of what you’ve said regarding the ideal balancing approach and results. Not defending balance decisions here or anything. Just trying to understand where the “REEE OWL PROS ETC” came from.
There are few things in life more cringeworthy than gamers worshipping esports pros and disparaging “the casuals”, which include themselves. Stop doing it, please.
Yeah, one of those more cringeworthy things is just needlessly stereotyping and bashing people because of something they enjoy or like that causes no one any harm.
I’m honestly not sure. I think it boils down to fun, and fun can only be achieved through victory, and victory isn’t as easy at low tiers when a game is balanced around maximum hero potential, due to the insufficient skill of the players at low tiers to achieve that maximum hero potential. The game isn’t as fun for them, so the game must be unbalanced. Or something like that. I think.
Makes sense really. People look for convenient entertainment of certain types. Like I can play a lot of other games and it won’t give me the same “fix” OW does. Meanwhile, the teamwork emphasis in this game can make me rage like no other game can. We then try to find and secure as much enjoyment out of this as we can. Our ability to do so is tied to the heroes we play and the situations we play them in.
Then come all the various balance opinions and all that.
I just can’t really see what all this OWL and pro “they’re ruining the game” type of mentality is coming from. It seems so extreme. Like I ask people what pro balance things happened that like adversely impacted them and it’s usually just overall changes they disagreed with and they can perceive that someone influenced or caused it. It’s weird.
I dunno if we’d really be derailing the thread talking about the whole Seagull impact stuff. It kind of fits with the whole “blame the pros” “pros are ruining the game” type thing.
There was the Mass Rez change, there was Dva changes, like the DM nerf was a big one. The Sombra hack hotfix is ofc one of the strongest examples of “for the pros.” The recent Seagull stuff with Brig/Doom.
Those are the examples that typically come to mind. There is a lot of reason behind those changes well beyond Seagull or anyone etc. Sombras hack with the leniency and latency etc rendered LOS checks like irrelevant, then they went overboard on the LOS checks and now it breaks at stupid points.
There is reason. It isn’t just a “cuz of the pros thing.”
Give me more examples other than the Sombra one cuz I just dealt with it.
I don’t think the players are capable of the same things, no. But Genji? Genji is every bit as capable in bronze as he is in OWL. The players are different, but the hero is exactly the same.
Well I took Genji as an exemple because according to me, that’s the highest skill ceiling hero.
The level of mastery can be impressive, so I don’t know how you can truly balance that hero so he’s not truly OP at high level and truly bad at low level.
It certainly wasn’t stats, and it wasn’t like it was some new OP mechanic. Mass Rez had been in the game for the entire lifespan and it was considered too weak, until a pro player coplained about it being strong.
Which is fair, however it was the pros who pushed for it to be hotfixed and never bug-tested. The Hacking through walls was a problem, but because it never went to the PTR (because doing so would have the “strong” version of SOmbra in stage 3 of OWL) at the request of the pros, Sombra was absolutely broken. Blizzard may have been the ones who applied the rotten band-aid, but it was pro players who asked them to do it. If Sombra’s nerfs had been done through the PTR as it should have been, she would have been given a proper LOS check and bug fixes to go with it.
You balance the hero at it’s maximum potential against 28 other heroes at their maximum potential. You do not balance anything specifically around bronze level game play. He FEELS unbalanced at low level, maybe, but that’s not because he’s actually unbalanced, it’s because YOU just aren’t good enough to achieve maximum potential or efficiency with Genji yet. Keep improving and you’ll get there, I’m with you 100% in your efforts to improve. But just because you aren’t great at the game yet doesn’t mean there’s a balance problem holding you back.