This used to be my favorite game but now there is nothing that keeps me playing and i can’t even enjoy owl anymore. Why ruin this game with bad decisions over and over ?
A series of bad balance decisions.
Why was brig not fixed sooner ? Why did you waste almost 1 entire year to nerf her ? How can you release a hero that is so powerfull and requires no mechanical skill that you have to nerf her 20 times over ? This is not fun for people playing brig or for people playing against her or for any ranks for nobody.
What was the purpose of the reaper buff ? Above diamond i’ve almost never seen reaper played. The higher you climb the less you see him because higher ranked players know how to avoid him and he is complelete useless against 3 tanks or 1 tank as well. This does not help higher ranked players or make any difference at all for them, so it’s only a big dissatvantage for lower skilled tank players.
So let’s assume the idea with reaper would be to buff a character to stop goats or 3 tanks. Then why would you buff a hero that is strong against low tier and useless in higher tier ? If only there was a hero that requires a lot of skill and is very hard to play and had an ability that can punish teams playing shoulder to shoulder like the goats comp. Remember tracer’s pulse bomb ? yeah it got nerfed to the point you might as well shoot headshots and do more damage than use it. Low tier tracer players were not dominating lower tiers and tracer should be one viable dps pick at higher ranks. Exept now every dps is useless because brig exists and we can pick anything and goats have the best ults in the game.
The state of ranked is ignored completely.
What are players supposed to play ? quickplay and arcade ? If you were mad that it took 1 year to balance brig (who is still pretty strong in goats btw). Well ranked has not received any changes whatsoever since they changed the sr base adjustment. Lfg was a complete failure and then nobody cared about it anymore so we pretend it didn’t happen ? They just gave up on the feature without trying to change anything.
There is so role queue. There is no hero ban. There is no map veto. There is not even a way for me to know who am i playing with in a competitive mode or have any control over what roles my teammates play because hidden profiles exist. This feature should not be existent in a competitive mode if you have no option to choose something. Anything. At this point i would just want a change no matter what. Playing with 5 dps insta locks (who might not even play dps at all but 3 people already picked dps so who not make it 5) is not fun. Playing solo support is not fun. Solo tanks get fed up after trying for 1-2 mins and pick dps as well.
There is no punishment for soft throwing. Sure there is a report system but nobody ever get’s banned for soft throwing. I’m glad it punishes people for being toxic and insulting and abusing chat (at least that feature seems to work). But nobody will have any kind of consequnces for picking torb and hammering mid game because they gave up or picking 5 dps even though they never played dps before and have no idea what they are doing or care at all for that matter. There are no consequences for your endorsement level. What was the point of creating it in the first place then ? it makes absolutely no difference what endorsement level you are.
It seems that not only ranked is ignored but also OWL.
I honestly expected them to fix the meta at least for owl. This is so dissapointing. Sure they had around 100 K viewers congrats to them. But for how long ? and it that really a big number when other games have that on a daily basis ? Why even keep watching owl if every single game is going to be goats over and over. The only way for anything to die in this meta is to combo ult shatter grav dva bomb, whoever has support ults wins rinse and repeat. Even the op mercy meta was more fun that this.
I’m done waiting months for balance changes. Waiting for moths for the game to be fixed and what do we get ? a few more skins. Oh yeah right they changed the order of health armor and shields. MASSIVE change. I want this game to do well i want it to be fun and entertaining to watch again but right now there is nothing interesting about it.
I saw the video and i saw many other youtubers and streamers and pros share their opinion on the current state of overwatch. And it makes me sad to see how no changes are made. Just like the release of brig 1 year ago when everyone was asking and begging for brig nerfs and nothing happened. Now it’s too late. Many people stopped playing because balance changes take months to happen and when they do it feels like it’s either not enought or making another hero op. At this point i am tired of waiting and lost all my interest. What’s the point ?
If the devs would claim we have this ingenious new aproach that will change the game and we need to make it perfect that’s why it takes so long. I would not believe them anymore. Because if that was the case then what happened to lfg ? why wait so much time and then completely ignore a feature you created and pretend it never happened ? The truth is they probably don’t care at this point or have given up. I’ve seen such good suggestions about how to implement a role queue for example and nothing has been done. They should try anything now before everyone stops playing.
I hate to say it, but you can’t hold everyone’s hand in a game. Being low skill doesn’t mean you’re incapable of figuring out how to counter something. Working on your awareness and sound cues is vital.
The problem with lower ranks is that they don’t work together. Having decent team communication is almost 0. And that’s something not even Blizzard can fix. Some heroes are melted higher up because it’s group work to tell your team mate that “_______ is trying to flank” or “_______ has ult”.
If goats wasn’t a thing.
When it comes to OWL or goats in general, Brigitte isn’t the problem. It’s the aoe heal stacking that enables it along with the high HP tanks have.
It’s another reason why heroes like Reaper and even Junkrat have issues going against tank heavy comps, when they’re usually there to bust shields and damage them. At this point, not even Hanzo, who allegedly counters everything, can go against that.
My point about reaper was that the hero change did not help anyone. Saying lower ranks should improve and play better against him doesn’t change that the decision was bad. If they want to make reaper better they should aproach it differently.
And yes i completely agree with you on the second part. Goats need more than just nerfing brig to get fixed. Honestly i think that is harder to achieve without a hero ban but balancing the top tier for the owl is something different. Brig was by far too powerful as a hero at every ranks. There have been people climbing from gold to gm and she should have been nerfed sooner. Leaving her overpowered for months ruined the fun part of the game a lot.
While I agree to a point, I don’t think there was much else they could change about him without completely re-working his kit. Changing Shadow Step won’t completely fix his issues against being instantly deleted in higher ranks and unkillable is lower ranks.
I think there are so many options for the devs to pick at least one. If they don’t like the role queue idea (which i doubt because it’s a great idea and i think i even heard an interview or something like that saying that they like the idea but need to perfect it more). It’s so dissapointing how they choose to wait and wait and this can’t go on forever. They need to act.
I’m not sure maybe give him slightly more mobility or a better second ability that teleport but why give him so much damage that is basically useless at higher ranks and too good at lower ranks ? how does that help anyone ? Overwatch used to require more skill to play a few seasons back and playing heroes that require higher mechanical skill used to be rewarding now even owl pros are forced to play tanks and supports. I just wish we had better balance changes that the reaper incident, hoping that it might increase the interest of players to try harder and have fun playing this game again.
My favorite game mode in this game was “Competitive” Mode. It’s nearly unplayable at this point. For several seasons now, I simply do my placement matches and then invest my time into other games until the next season rolls around. Rinse, repeat.
Everything you mentioned should have been implemented into “Competitive” Mode seasons ago. Instead, the Devs have continued to attempt to have their cake and eat it too, by trying (and failing) to have the mode be both casual friendly and actually competitive, (hint: it’s not working).
I would even take a “Hardcore” Competitive Mode at this stage with everything you mentioned. Role Que, Hero pick-n-ban and Map Veto.
The problem with OW right now is both how anemic Blizzard is when it comes to balancing, how severe buffs and nerfs are, and because people are still pinning the blame on one hero despite how nothing changed when said hero gets nerfed repeatedly.
GOATS is not hard meta on the back of brigitte, it’s hard meta due to the synergies of most of its members and how the comp itself is the sole reliable answer to beat it. Zarya and Lucio needs nerfs, since those are the least interchangeable parts of GOATS. Junkrat, Doomfist, and Mercy needs buffs due to how the two DPS heroes I mentioned have traditionally manhandled tank heavy lineups before, and because Mercy is for all intent and purposes a keystone hero, aka a hero that allows for diversity and variety. Reaper needs to be reworked so that he is less of a curb stomper and actually USABLE at higher elos.
Blizzard can’t take their time with OW, we have long standing issues that need to be resolved quickly. There is progress, in the first week every hero was used, but the fact that GOATS, easily the most formulaic meta in existence, is seen as unstoppable at a pro level to the point that more experimental teams such as the Houston Outlaws will drop their plan and go GOATS even when they AREN’T pressured to switch is a serious issue.
I know role queue is hard to implement and it comes with problems like you mentioned of it’s own. However I’ve read some incredible posts about how you could implement this system and make it better. There are still a lot of options for the devs to aproach this and at this point nothing could go worse than it is right now. I would prefer trying my luck with 2 / 2 / 2 knowing that i have 2 people who play support a lot and know what they are doing and tanks and dps. I’m tired of playing games that are lost in the hero select screen. How can you even blame your team if the matchmaker pairs you with 3-6 dps mains ? People should be allowed to at least play the role they want. Not everyone can flex from support to dps or tank over and over and still be as efficient as someone who is a tank main or a support main and so on.
Doing nothing is still worse than trying to fix ranked.
Good intentions but it won’t solve anything, there’s too much that can happen in 4 seconds. You have other teammates too, and you dont always play close together.
She’s pretty easily countered with ranged damage but only when you switch heroes to counter her, they even pulled off some Pharah Mercy in Overwatch League but i just saw this twice in like 8 Matches i’ve watched.
But there you see the Problem is, when you play the normal Game you can’t rely on your Team switching Heroes, because sometimes they won’t and then you can literally not play your role anymore.
(1 example last week on dorado where the enemy team had pharah & widow and our brig never got time to trigger her passive aura. Just useless i never got any heals as Zarya or Rein …and she did not care to switch)
