Stop balancing based on the 4% player base masters

General Discussion
63

My fav mode is mystery heroes because that’s where the knowladge of how to utilize any hero the best pays off most. I think being able to be somewhat good with any hero is a skill. Same, being able to master one hero to the fullest potential is also a skill.

“skill” is relative to where is needed. The difference is that if you focus on only making the game better for the 5% of the playerbase who are the highest ranking ranked players and you ignore the 95% of who are mostly casual players and will never reach the skillcap needed to be that survivable as supports.

This exact thing happened to Rainbow Six siege, all my friends agreed that they quit because the devs became so obsesedd with balancing, that none of the operatives feel impactful anymore, people had their favorite weapon sigths removed from their favorite operative because top 500 players were aiming too well with it, had their favorite weapons rebalanced into a peashooter that can’t kill anything unless you are a top 500, and many more.

And what did these changes accomplish? Rainbow Six Siege went from its peak 28 million players in 2020 to 12-14 million players today, and most of my friends agree that they quit Rainbow because they got tired of the game being balanced for the top players.

Most players can’t survive as Genji for 2 minutes, but the top ranked players constantly want him nerfed because there the players have reached his skillcap.
Nerfing a character will reduce the skilcap but it will make it even harder for starting players to enjoy and learn him. Many players will never reach Genji’s skillcap, so they shouldn’t play him?

You might as well just make ranked-only heroes at that point.

That’s why when balancing a character, the whole effect it puts on the playerbase needs to be looked at not just what the top ranked players think.

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64

Overwatch has always been balanced for everyone and never for the top percentiles. In fact the game is at its worst in the highest ranks. The most successful games in the industry are all actually balanced for the highest ranks. Tac shooters and Mobas are brutally unforgiving yet everyone loves them.

65

All of what you are saying is ridiculous.
95% of players won’t reach peak sup gameplay but they won’t reach peak dps gameplay either so it evens out.
Not a single top500 has asked for a genji nerf ever since he got nerfed early in the game.
R6 was always balanced for the highest ranks. It’s literally the point of the 1 shot headshots. In fact all successful tac shooters and MOBAS are balanced for the highest ranks whereas overwatch has literally never been balanced for the highest ranks and thus has always had balancing issues.

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66

Bro I cba even responding to players who can’t understand it’s a skill issue :rofl: it’s exhausting

67

I think the support role passive is fine it just should proc mid fight so much, if it was like 2.5 seconds I think it’d be fair

68

To be fair, in Silver he probably does counter Bastion lol

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69

Are you just forgetting that Brig was a thing for months? Or Moira for months after her launch? And then again a few months after that? These heroes holding down a mouse button in the broad direction of an enemy was, for a prolonged period of time, better than a T500 Zen hitting his shots.

It’s up and down, then back up, then down, then back up. Maybe we’re moving back up, but it’s still much better than it was in other times in Overwatch history. Supports with skill expression right now are generally better in higher ranks than those without skill expression and I’m honestly not even seeing a significant trend in the other direction.

70

the amount of people who i see play terribly with their bundle moira skins is funny as. I’ve had people accuse me of targetting them because they have a $ skin and then ragequit the game when i’m just chilling playing normally.

honestly there is a trend with spenders in OW2 and bad mentality/ragequit/main character syndrome

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71

Level 4 endorsement? 40 dollar skin? Get ready for that “Defeat” screen.

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72

Level 1 endorsement? Insta lock genji? Looks like “Victory”.

73

Currently ranking up with dps or tank is only punished, because you lose more control over the match to the better supports. Only ranking up on support feels good because of that.

The incentive shouldn’t be to stay bad, basically keeping the skill issues for which the fun is optimized right? I understand the population percentage problem though.

74

I will always disagree with this. The bar is set too high. Balance should be around Diamond. High enough that you need to actually know how to play the game properly, but low enough that it’s attainable even playing casually. Most players will never reach GM, and those that do don’t play casually.

I just think it’s absurd to set the bar that high, especially when there’s a tendency to overlook why a hero might be strong or overperforming in GM.

75

I told you why they had to do it too. Its not going to change either.

Youre never going to get what you want, ever

76

As someone who has actually worked in the Hospitality industry, the average customer likes the kind of food they could eat at home. Fancy food, like what you get a michelin star restaurant, would be too refined for their palate.

77

Balancing should never be done based on either the top or the bottom players.

Every good, long-lasting competitive team game has been balanced around the just-above-average players. In Overwatch, that would mean the very top end of Gold and the bottom of Platinum. (Remember, Overwatch ranking is a bell curve centered on the middle of Gold.) You balanced based on what the slightly-good players experience because anything made for them won’t ruin the game for the true average majority, and will have less impact on the extreme bottom or top ends than if you balanced only for the very best or worst players.

Of course, every game is a little different and sometimes you have to adjust for something that is affecting the top or bottom players massively, but you should always do so with the majority and slightly-better-than-majority players in mind.
After all, it’s no good appeasing your top 1% if the other 99% get fed up, leave, and the game dies.

(1-on-1 games, like fighting games, are totally different and need to be balanced for the top players.)

So, yes, Blizzard need to stop, or at least minimise, balancing around the top 4%, or whatever the figure actually is. By the same token, they need to not balance around the bottom 4%, either (something they have rarely done, but it has happened). In fact, they shouldn’t really balance around the top or bottom 10%… maybe not even the top and bottom 15%.

Look at Counter-Strike, the single-most successful, longest-running, and generally regarded as ‘highest-skill’ team competitive shooter ever made. Those games have always been made for the public, first and foremost. The fact there’s been 24 consistent years of pro play out of that game is a side effect of the game being so engaging for the masses.
Then look at Unreal Tournament, which had its peak at around the same time as CS started. The first couple of games were balanced for the public and did well. Then they started trying to force focus on the pro leagues, designed later versions of the series for the top 1%, and public interest divebombed.
If you make a game the public loves, the pro game will persist. If you make a game only the pros love, your game dies.

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78

Have you seen GM and t500’s current top tanks and DPS?

Despite what this forum is obsessed about, its not Orisa the one tank ruling high ranks. Its Reinhardt and DF. Meanwhile, Soldier is THE most played DPS in high ranks right now, because he has been mostly overbuffed in the last 2 years.

But I guess that its easier to complain about the meh tank that is annoying that about the overtuned tank people have gaslighted themselves into thinking is balanced.

3 Likes
79

96% of the player base play a game where they can pick any hero, and barring being counter picked, that hero choice is irrelevant to the result of the game. Basically the overwhelming majority of the player base is playing a balanced game.

80

If they were balancing solely based on the top, they’d gigabuff support survivability given how freely burst damage flies around at the top with higher accuracy.

81

Who’d have thought ridiculous amounts of armour, manoeuvrability, CC and damage with a passive that negates the one counterplay to them, and a dps that was equally powercrept hard which is difficult to kill because of his self healing being buffed, his damage being buffed, and then fact that he has the ability to run away, would cause a meta to happen?

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82

The fact that both of those heroes are the tutorial kiddy training wheels heroes is also an issue.

Its hysterical that people are whining non-stop about Illari having high damage when she barely scratches what Soldier can do with bodyshots and his aoe rocket.

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