The Anger Around the PTR Mercy Buffs Explained

[Titanium-1686]

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

This. Isnt. Your. Game.

Is this another way of telling me to shut up? Because my answer is “No”.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

This is blizzards game, they dont want mass rez, and they dont want mercy to be a must pick? they can do that. You can change heroes or change games.

It totally is another way of telling me to shut up.

I’ve already stopped playing Overwatch. I stopped over a year ago. I’m not going to stop voicing my opinion on this matter, however. Considering that I payed the money to buy the game, I have every right to criticize the product and its creators.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

its getting annoying to everyone else but the dev team on the forums because were tired of all the threads,

Good.

Changes never happen without “agitation”.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

we know shes in a terrible position
weve known it for the past year

And here you are, telling me to stop saying it because you don’t like to hear it. Get used to it; you’re not going to stop hearing it until Mercy is fixed.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

We gave up on roadhog after only halfway through 2017 when he got nerfed,

I’ll be blunt. That sounds like a “you” problem.

You choosing to give up on your hero, if anything, is the perfect example of what I will not do. You stopped advocating for your hero, and you got less than you deserved because of it. You settled for less, and are less than happy because of it.

I will not make that same mistake, regardless as to how much you want me to. Get over it.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

we understand your position, and we sympathize, we really do. but there is nothing we can do against it if we just complain. Just stick with mercy, like we did with roadhog, and changes will come sooner or later, but the constant forum spam,

You not liking our persistence does not make our posts “spam”. If there is a large portion of the playerbase upset for a long period of time, you will see a proportional amount of persistent backlash.

This is how a forum works. If a position is popular, a lot of people will take it. If you can’t tolerate that, why enter any of these threads? Why open the forums at all, if you are annoyed by persistence?

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

and the constant complaints and crying and screaming from a lot of people wont do anything good for mercy, you will just lose credibility in the eyes of the other members, and will be just seen as whiners.

Not when we’re the ones being civil and to-the-point. The people dismissing us as “whiners” (or whatever other insult/excuse they use to ignore us) are the ones who get laughed at, because that seems to be the only thing they can contribute.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

And this… Since the developers do listen to your concerns,

I will believe this when I have reason to.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

but you havent given them a good reason to change mercy.

We’ve given them better reasons to change Mercy than those that were provided to support the initial rework. Want to see?

_https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/why-i-have-yet-to-not-despise-mercys-current-state/182707_

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

If you give changes that theyre likely to love, its more likely they will make those changes.

And they have given us no indication of what changes they want to see proposed.

There has been no communication between us and them. Just us trying to get their attention, and them occasionally making a statement about Mercy that is irrelevant to our concerns.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

Also, you do not need all the threads,

We’re not the ones who made those 12 megathreads.

Talk to the moderators about that.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

The entire addition of brigitte
Hook 1.0
the entirety of doomfist.
Hell hook 1.0 was hated so much, it had countless threads against it by people who dont even play roadhog, its different when its from people who play that certain hero. Like if i complain about the current whole hog or hook, it doesnt mean as much as an outsider saying its bad, or good.

Reread what you quoted. You’d realize that none of these have anything on Valkyrie.

I’m pretty confident that Brigitte mains don’t mind Brigitte’s kit.
I’m pretty confident that Roadhog mains liked Hook 1.x. You said it yourself.
I’m pretty confident that Doomfist mains approve of Doomfist’s kit.

I’ll highlight what you overlooked:

@Titanium-1686

I don’t think it would be far-fetched to say that no other ability within a character is hated more by that character’s respective playerbase than Valkyrie is by Mercy players.

Mercy mains?

There are a hell of a lot of us who outright despise Valkyrie. If the Quickplay pickrates are anything to go off of, over half of us do.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

the thing here is, your desirable results for mercy mains, is not desirable for any other mains in the game.

Actually, you are wrong.

According to a recent forum survey, more players, of all three hero categories, excluding Mercy mains, would rather revert to Mercy 1.x than the number of people who would rather leave Mercy as she is (as of before the PTR buffs) or give her a flat buff combined.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

but complaining for a revert

@Titanium-1686

Please find a single sentence in this thread in which I state that a straight revert is the way to go.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

The mass rez was complained about constantly, on the forums, on streams, in the pro scene, on youtube, everywhere.

Do you want to know what has received even more backlash on all of those mentioned platforms for at least four times the period of the aforementioned complaints?

Mercy 2.x.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

It wasnt fun to play against,

@Titanium-1686

Shall we dive into a bit of player perspective philosophy?

Unless the hero is a balance concern, Player 2’s perception of Player 1’s character isn’t relevant. It is given that Player 2’s perception of Player 1’s character is likely negative when playing against Player 1. On the other hand, Player 1’s perception of Player 1’s character is not a given in any videogame. For the videogame to be successful, Player 1’s perception of their own character, or how it feels to play their own character, needs to be positive. If that perception is negative, players will stop playing. As a result, Player 1’s experience with Player 1’s character is infinitely more important than Player 2’s perception of Player 1’s character.

In short, a player needs to feel empowered by their own actions. The player does not need to feel empowered, and in a PvP game, should not and will not feel empowered, by the actions of their opponents.

Player 1’s experience with Player 1’s character was breached and disregarded when Blizzard tried to make Player 2’s perception of Player 1’s hero positive… which they also failed to do. By attempting to change that which neither needed to be changed nor could be changed, the balance team tampered with something that should never be altered.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

a mercy could just hide and do nothing until the team dies.

@Titanium-1686

Moving onto “Hide and rez” …

“We think it’s wrong to tell a main-healing character to go off and hide somewhere and stop healing for some period of time.”

But it is fine for a main-damage character to go off and hide somewhere and stop dealing damage for some period of time, like many heroes currently do in preparation for an ultimate?

In actuality, you are right; just not for the reason you think you are. You are correct because hiding was maladaptive for the team’s chance of victory, and therefore was a bad way to play her. Allow me to explain this in an even more elaborate manner than my past few megaposts.

The success of a mass-Resurrection (4+ revived players) depended upon several factors:

• The Mercy’s ability to survive and execute the ability in the first place (the obvious one).
• The number of players alive on each team after the Resurrection.
• The number of available ultimates held by each team after the Resurrection (but primarily the enemy team).
• The shock value of Resurrect against the enemy (by far the most important factor for the post-rez fight).

The last factor is more important than the other two post-rez factors because it determines what other factors need to advantage the Mercy in order to have a good chance at a successful Resurrection. As the enemy team is given time to reorganize and fire their first attacks at the newly Resurrected team, they would already have a positioning advantage and the first shot… that is, if the team was expecting the Resurrection.

If the enemy team is expecting the Resurrection, they will have the post-rez advantages of the first shot and additional positioning time. Of course, this is a very bad situation to be in for the newly revived team, requiring some very strong advantages of their own to compensate and have a chance at winning the fight. In this case, they would need both the numbers advantage and the ultimate ability advantage.

If the enemy team isn’t expecting the Resurrection, then the Mercy could probably get by with either the numbers advantage or the ultimate advantage and still have a chance at winning, as the enemy team might not capitalize on their positioning and first shot opportunities as well as they should due to the shock value of Resurrect.

How does “Hide and rez” fit into all of this, you might ask? Hiding before the fight removes the possibility of having enough of those advantages against the enemy team in the post-rez fight, and therefore any chance of a victorious post-rez fight against any team of similar skill.

Hiding leaves the initial fight to a 5v6, the missing hero on the Mercy’s team being the main healer and primary source of sustain. Obviously, this is a huge advantage for the team of 6 in the first fight, allowing them to steamroll over Mercy’s team with likely zero casualties, and ultimate expenditures used only to counter any of the opposition’s ultimates. On top of this, the team of 6 also now collectively has 2000-3000 more ultimate charge from killing 5 players in addition to any healing dealt over the duration of that fight. Thus, it hands the ultimate ability advantage to the team opposing the Mercy.

The opposing team, assuming they are paying even the slightest attention to what is happening around them, would notice that the enemy is crumbling very easily for a supposed 6v6, raising suspicions as to whether or not the fight really is a 6v6, quickly leading to the realization that the enemy Mercy is missing from the fight. From this, only one conclusion could logically be drawn; she’s waiting to use Resurrect. There goes the ultimate’s shock value.

At this point, even if the team of 6 somehow managed to sustain 2 casualties in the initial fight, it won’t matter. If both teams entered the fight with the same number of ultimates, the team that does not have the hiding Mercy has at least two more ultimates than the other team (2000+ ultimate charge, Mercy’s team used Resurrect). One or two offensive ultimates is the absolute maximum a team needs to wipe a freshly-revived team when they are expecting the Resurrection, resulting in the revived team staring down the barrel of a gun they have no chance of avoiding.

In contrast, a Mercy who stays with her team keeps the fight at a 6v6, granting her team more sustain and forcing the enemy to expend ultimates to overpower them. Once the ultimates started firing, the mercy would distance themselves from the fight, evade, or take cover, laying down pistol fire or amplifying damage rather than attempting to heal those for whom healing would be useless. As a result, the enemy was less likely to realize that Mercy has Resurrect (the enemy was comparatively difficult to kill, removing the prompt to think about why they were crumbling easily in the first place), Mercy’s team was more likely to pick off a few enemies, and Mercy has successfully baited more ultimates from the enemy team. As a result, her team has more advantages and fewer disadvantages in the post-rez fight.

The only cost to staying with the team was an increased chance of being picked off before being able to revive the team, which just follows the same risk choice explained in the Resurrect section; if taking more controllable risks now helps to mitigate the high risk later, then taking those smaller risks now is safer than not in the long run.

Consequently, reviving a team after hiding typically resulted in a second wipe, while staying with the team until it was unsafe to do so was more likely to yield favorable results. That is why it was “wrong to tell a main-healing character to go off and hide somewhere” . It was a bad tactic, as it usually backfired.

Rather than letting the issue resolve itself by fixing the SR exploit that ultimately led to the tactic’s rise in the first place, the developers decided to remove Resurrect as an ultimate entirely. They changed the thing that wasn’t the problem, and ended up pissing off the playerbase.

Sound familiar?

Anyway, I’ve used this example many times before, but removing Resurrect as an ultimate because some players abandoned their team leading to a second wipe is equivalent to removing Rocket Barrage as an ultimate because Pharah players too often blew themselves up with it. There’s no need to intervene; the tactic will die out on its own, so long as the ranking system isn’t feeding it.

Ironically, the rework ended up only replacing one tactic of hiding with another. This time, however, the is no drawback to it, making the tactic beneficial. Valkyrie is best used by pressing Q and then flying the hell away, barely staying within beam range of the team. Doing this minimizes risk, but compromises no rewards. A Mercy playing closer to her team in Valkyrie is not helping her team any more than a Mercy 29 meters from her team, and is only exposing herself to enemy fire. Consequently, staying as far as possible from the fight for Valkyrie’s full duration is the way to go.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

Saying shes not fun to play now after her base kit is hardly changed, and only her ultimate is, is quite bad, since youre effectively saying you never loved the main kit she has, but only the overpowered ability of mass rez,

I’m sorry, but I just find this utterly hilarious.

Yes. Resurrect totally was overpowered. This is why Mercy never surpassed D-tier prior to the rework.

Nah, I like Mercy’s base kit. The problem is that Valkyrie and Resurrect actively detract from and contradict that base kit. A kit plagued by contradictions, and that has been furthermore nerfed to force those contradictions into the kit, stops being fun real quick.

If Mercy’s Resurrect and Valkyrie were removed entirely, I would play her. I won’t play her while they still exist in their current state.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

its the same as me saying “oh i want hook 1.0 back, even though it was broken,

*D-Tier.

Attempting to change history to suit your narrative doesn’t make you look credible.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

and everyone else but my community hated it,

Objectively incorrect.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

i want it back because it was the only reason i liked this hero.”

Also incorrect.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

But that is what most heroes are in the game. just viable, theyre not op, theyre not strong, nor weak, theyre viable, theyre not fun, nor boring, theyre just there. Such as symmetra, or lucio, or winston, or mccree. They can be useful and used well, if you know how to, but theyre not op to everyone else, and can be easily learnt and climbed with from a low rank to a high rank with not much experience.
Bastion is in a bad position, and always has been, blizzard doesnt care about him, at all, he hasnt been buffed for too long and the current metas just make him an outright throw pick. id rather have a bit of fun factor taken away from him, and have a better more rounded character, than this mess we have right now.

All heroes are fun to someone.

The difference here is that the hero we found fun got removed.

As for Bastion… I wouldn’t sacrifice any of his fun factor for a buff. The worst feeling possible in relation to game balance is to see your hero buffed into god-tier but have no desire to play them anymore because the engagement and fun was torn from them. Speaking from experience.

At least when your hero is nerfed into oblivion and is no longer fun, you know they have nowhere to go but up, and that there is a very high chance of them becoming fun again… provided their nerf wasn’t a full-blown rework.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

But what about the new mercy mains? Who like valk ,and want it to be a viable ult, and would hate a new rework, do you not think about them? Do you not care about the other mercy mains except for the people who hate valk? Do you only want mercy to be fun for you people?

Funny. We were never given this consideration.

Similar to how we aren’t “mass-Resurrect or nothing”, I would imagine that those who like Valkyrie aren’t “Valkyrie or nothing”. It is very unlikely that this is a matter of choosing one or the other.

We want Mercy to be fun for ourselves. That is our goal. Mercy being fun for ourselves is not mutually exclusive with Mercy being fun for those who currently play her, and balanced in the grant scheme of things.

But let’s suppose that everyone who is okay with Valkyrie wants nothing other than Valkyrie, dammit. What then?

What would do the most to please the majority of the Mercy playerbase? How about the larger playerbase? According to that Mercy survey, according to the values we’re seeing on these forums, and according to those Quickplay pickrates, reworking Mercy, in spite of those who are against it, would please a lot more people than it would anger.

@LFBoyfriendǃ-2185

Remember. They have more than 1 job at the overwatch offices. They create new heroes, new maps, new lore ,new skins, events, fix up old events, make up better graphics, make buffs, nerfs, and changes to more than mercy. They cant spend an entire month, or even more just listening to people who want 1 hero, out of the soon 29 heroes, just so a part of the community would be happy.

Hello? We have Tom Powers. His job title is literally “Community Manager”.

There is no need to re-allocate resources just to get a clue as to what the community wants. We have someone who should be relaying that information to the developers already.