Balancing around OWL is ruining the game. It’s gotten to the point where players are saying that they’d rather OWL not exist.
It’s time the devs had separate balancing for OWL and ladder play.
These players are playing basically playing a different game from us. They have coaches, best players in the world, and play with the same teams for months on end. It’s nothing like ladder play at all. That way, OWL might be more enjoyable to watch as well.
Start with number changes to heroes, and see it how it goes from there.
The thing is, devs want them to play the same game in OWL as they play outside of it so they can “train” for matches.
Thats why hero bans are still a thing for higher ranks, and thats why the bans were changed to be the same for game and OWL
I see it as a fairly big problem by now, that everything is “pro centric”. And I know - and get, and mostly agree with - the arguments for why balancing competitive games for the pros makes sense. But in a game like Overwatch much of that… doesn’t truly apply.
Plus, gaming is no longer a basement activity for a select group of ultrahardcore nerds. And don’t comment about my box collection, its sacred. I don’t have a basement so I’m obviously not included in that group! But seriously, gaming is a leisure relaxation activity done by millions upon millions of people.
It makes sense to balance “for the masses”. And to then separately balance for the entirely different context of pro-level play, which has hugely different requirements and expectations for your game. I mean the devs understood this when they started doing select balance changes for consoles.
To prevent them from destroying their own game.
I’ve heard people on these forums say they’d rather OWL not exist because of how it’s balancing ruins overwatch. It would be easier just to have different balancing.
It doesn’t have to be completely different. Just number changes would be a good start.
Disagree. As someone who enjoys watching OWL and playing the game, having essentially 2 different games wouldn’t make sense. Part of the reason why I watch OWL is to improve myself and my understanding of the game, when one version is balanced completely differently than the other it’s not possible to really learn from and will possibly make it harder to understand.
Hero balancing has to be based on top level play, because they know what brings the most value and what works and doesn’t work. Low level play is essentially random. It honestly feels like Blizzard has been balancing for low ranks the whole time.
Very bad idea. OWL is not something you learn from.
You learn on ladder. If you learnt from OWL you’d need a coach and a team you work with for 6 months who happen to be some of the best players in the world.
I think you guys have the wrong idea. I don’t want everything changed, I just want number changes to start with.
I mean, think of it this way.
Would you rather watch OWL players play completely the same game as you, while destroying the games balance? or watch OWL players playing with a slightly different balance, while keeping the game healthy for the masses?
It really isn’t. OWL shows the how to play correctly, what you learn in ladder is usually bad habbits which you need to unlearn for new ones with each passing rank. Analyzing OWL matches to get an understandng the thought process behind the decision making and the meta itself helps.
I keep suggesting a halfway point here: layer overwatch into two games. Overwatch Prime is the main game, includes all maps and characters. Overwatch Pro is the Competitive game, requires authentication, and is contiguous with OWL. The difference is that its a subset of characters and maps that are inducted into OWL play after review and balancing changes in OW Prime. Some characters might never come over, like Torb. This way you can satisfy that casual audience and a more hardcore eSports one as well.
That’s worrying, considering we are not playing a free-to-play game. This is a service, we are paying customers, and the “pros should have a place to train” idea suggests that the service they provide to us is secondary to their other business interests and if need be, they won’t hesitate to sacrifice the quality of said, payed service, in order to further their other business agenda.
Their main income is the regular players. Not OWL, not the sport broadcasts of it. Business-wise, OWL is a huge, expensive marketing campaign for their regular product. There are millions of us, and there is a handful of pro players.
But seriously, gaming is a leisure relaxation activity done by millions upon millions of people.