The Overwatch League needs it to land, rejuvenating a professional base that wants a fresh taste of a familiar game.
Jon Spector felt that was going to be delivered, and that people would get a glimpse soon. The Overwatch League grand final is on Saturday, and pros already eliminated from the playoffs will get to test Overwatch 2 for themselves.
“We’ve got a game that plays well at the pro level, but I do expect that I think you’ll probably see some of this on Saturday with our grand final show match,” Spector said. “I think the pros are going to find stuff that’s over tuned, overpowered or something that we tested internally that turns out to be busted when you give (Lee “Carpe” Jae-hyeok) the ability to play that hero.”
Leave it to professionals to discover Bastion with a shield or a six-Winston compositions are unbalanced. The message here is that there will be silly updates needed, but the development team will have notes eight months in advance from players that can abuse mechanics better than any other in the world.
Further proof that they balance around the OWL and that the OWL is killing OW. Can’t have unique interesting heroes when those heroes aren’t liked by the OWL or are balanced around the OWL.
Look at it this way.
These people are under contractual NDAs, and their employment is tied to Blizzard.
Also, Pros are pretty good at “breaking the game balance”. Which is good, since devs tend to play the game, as they intended it to be played.
Nice move, let 1% of playerbase play a game the rest of 99% is waiting.
The thing is, most games are balanced around their most competitive game mode. The MOBA SMITE is balanced around Conquest, its core game mode. Super Smash Bros Ultimate is balanced around the professional tournaments and stages. Overwatch is balanced around the OWL. We just have to accept and get used to it, even if it hinders creativity…
Would you explain how?
It’s a good thing people that are actually good at the game play test it.
Ooooo can’t wait for one of them to accidentally leak it
OWL really has been hard carrying Actiblizz PR since the lawsuit and I think the involvement of the other orgs really helps with that. At the very least it’ll ensure that OW stays afloat.
Generally this:
The game should be balanced around higher-end play though. If you balance around silver or gold skilled players then the game will be horrible.
The only problem with high-end balance is the amount of players is small. You won’t get a good balance for all heroes. This means heroes like Torb, Junkrat, Mei, Roadhog, Bastion, and Moira heroes to name a few won’t ever be balanced and viable at high-end gameplay.
If Blizzard wants more of our trust then they need to release hero testing stats. Show how much playtime every hero gets in testing both by the internal team and the OWL players. We should also at some point start seeing communication between the OWL players and Blizzard with input on what changes each hero should get. Until we get something along those lines, I don’t trust Blizzard and OWL to balance every hero. They will focus on only some heroes and play favorites.
Literally nerfs Ridley
I am not sure what exactly you are referring to. Why is it the OWL’s fault that tanks are unfun to play and pretty much impossible to balance?
I’m not Sakurai, okay!? T_T
Everyone was complaining about the devs not being skilled enough to show off 5v5 as it should be, but now we’re all upset that the most skilled players in the world are getting a chance to show you how 5v5 is going to function? Forums make up your minds
You are exceptionally bad at math if you think OWL players make out 1% of the entire playerbase…
Also, I don’t see the problem in letting people who’s livelihood is based on it play the game early. OWL teams have to have a minimum of 5 players signed for a year contract by January 3. The main reason why we’ll even get to see OW2 before it’s release is because of OWL.
Because all the Tank nerfs where put in to help lower the durability of OWL tier GOATs/DoubleBarrier.
Where as the bottom 95% of players get to enjoy an excessively boring tank selection because of it.
And goats/ double barrier wasnst/ isn’t exceptionally boring?
Ikr? Looks like OW2 will be dead on arrival. Seriously, why even let a casual audience play the damn game if you aren’t going to balance with them in mind. OOORRRR why not just balance OWL and casual versions of the game independently of each other?!? God I hate e-sports.
I think this season has been brilliant,
Most teams that have looked really competitive, and then you have the Valiant
To some people. Fun is subjective to individuals.
However Fun is a lot less subjective to population groups.
And queue times should make it pretty obvious that “Non-Aggressive Bullet Sponges” are not that fun for the vast majority of the playerbase.
If making Tanks more fun to a typical Overwatch player means you lose some of those RPG/MOBA focused players? Oh well. Let them quit.
You don’t balance a game after people who don’t know how to play the game.
Ow2 would certainly be dead on arrival if the forums decided the balancing lol