The rework philosophy needs to change

General Discussion
1

Ive went out against the bastion rework since ive seen it, and im pretty sure everyone has already heared my arguments against the design of the rework specifically

but now, i want to take another to take another angle to the problem, in a broader look and explain the problem with the hero reworks so far in general

As someone who played many characters who got reworked such as Mercy, Symmetra, Torbjorn and now Bastion and has kept an eye on other heroes also recieving furthe reworks, i can point out one big flaw in all of these reworks

the fact that the characters were completly abandoned for years before their reworks were released.

Symmetra 2.0 (and to an extent, symmetra 1.0 too, although thats a bit of a different matter) , Current Bastion, Symmetra and Mercy were Barely adressed, if at all before their reworks were done

This is not saying that Sym 2.0, Torb 1.0, Mercy 1.0 and Bastion 1.0 was salveageble (although i belive they all were one way or another) the problem is the following

They didnt even try to fix them

or atleast they didnt communicate to us that they did, or let us try the changes ourselves,

their respective communities were filled with plenty of very competent people suggesting various reworks or tweaks in order to fix the heroes, however none of their suggestions were ever adressed

and like that they were reworked

In fact this is also true for sombra, although im a bit more hesitant about that claim since sombra wasnt reworked because of her problems and shortcomings, but rather because they just decided to blanket remove all CC in game from all non-tank characters (Except for a few, arguably a few of the worst CCs still remain in OW2) and to an extent doomfist too.

Overwatch 1 right now is completly abandoned, and you could argue that they shouldnt bother balancing overwatch 1 because OW2 is going to be awhole different game anyways, which i understand that point

but nothing stops them from removing 1 player slot and throwing an experimental with some changes to get some feedback from them, or even paying attention to the hundreds of messages from these heroes communities suggesting what they say

This is regardless of me suggesting the reworks were good or bad of the aftermentioned characters, its more about that they clearly havent done a lot to these characters before going straight for the rework.

why is this important? because reworking a character entirely isnt something thats really good, its basically admitting that this character entirely has to be scrapped and revaluated from the ground up, and this inherently affects the players of this character

Those who dont like the character might start playing them, and those who like it might stop, its a big risk and frankly its not exactly very fun to have a character which you like suddenly be completly different from one day to the other without you ever being able to play them again in their original form

thats why major reworks of this caliber should be the last option, something to do after you’ve tried several changes, both minor and major to the characters systems, and all of them have flopped.

for one i belive the best overwatch reworks were the ones that didnt focus on rebooting the entire character but rather expanding on what the character already had and modifying some of their mechanics while still keeping the abilities they had, just working differently.

Roadhog is a good example, Take a breather wasnt removed and replaced by a new ability, it just got modified in a way that made it a lot better

another example is symmetra 1.0 to symmetra 2.0, this rework expanded on the characters mechanics (+ new ult, +3 turrets) inestead of out right removing them, (her old E shield was even moved to her ultimate in a much stronger form, and she was given an ability that complimented her close range kit a lot)

Anyways, consider this a mix of a rant and feedback, mostly caused by the lastest bastion rework, but ive tried to expand the scope of the problem.

also before anyone says this, no this isnt a “bring back mass rez” thread

Edit: I remembered they are also doing this with 2cp, out right removing it inestead of trying to fix the map design,

seriously, if they added just a few more flank routes 2cp wouldnt be as bad, the problem is that every single map devolves to single chokepoint on Objective A, and on objective B its literally a stall war with the defenders respawning half a meter away from the point

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2

In other words, we are saying this is all just another sign of all the gross mismanagement that went on at Blizz…

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They didnt even try to fix them

i mean you can view the reworks themselves as “trying to fix” though…

like they can “try to fix” current bastion all they want…im not sure theyre ever going to get current bastion to a place where everyone is happy with him…a rework is probably not a bad option…

reworks are only done if something presents a fundamental challenge that isnt going to be fixed with numbers tweaking…at least not in their eyes (and youre right we dont get to see what they consider internally)

sombras hack presents a fundamental issue (especially in a 122-less cc world)
bastions lack of mobility presents a fundamental issue
syms super clunky/ultra niche original design presented fundamental issues
mass rez presented fundamental issues
etc etc…

from a devs perspective a rework, and all the additional changes that entails (visuals, audio, testing, etc etc) is probably the LAST thing they want to do…its a ton of work…

they dont just do them willy nilly…sometimes the designs are just problematic and need rethinking altogether

also im not so sure id say they never tried fixing him…hes gotten several buffs over the years Bastion - Overwatch Wiki - (bottom of page)

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4

about 1 or 2 changes every year

one of them was a nerf even, but then again, they didnt try anything…big? they just tweak a few numbers and called it a day, they never attempted to adress his issues

all these characters had issues that couldnt really be fixed by tweaking a few numbers, but they didnt need to go all the way and just…reboot everything either

look at what they did with roadhog, they managed to adress the issues he had without removing any abilities and soley changing the mechanics on how it works

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5

The thing you’re ignoring is 3 of 4 heroes you mentioned are remnants of OW1’s design philosophy.

They were all (Torb, Sym, Bastion) initially defense heroes, made for defending maps primarily.

OW1 was a game where players were encouraged to swap heroes based on the map/mode/enemy line-up. Some heroes were made to ‘defend’ some were better for ‘attacking.’

…but no, people wanted to ‘one-trick’ so yes, they had to be reworked and it is a good thing because it’s not a problem with the character’s design, but the way the playerbase played the game in an unintended way

…because they fundementally didn’t work in the way that the players were playing the game. :rofl: :upside_down_face: :thinking:

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6

You seem to mostly play heroes that are effective when stationary.
That way of gameplay is the opposite of where the devs want to take OW int he future.
OW is best when its faster paced and exciting rather than slow paced.

I like the way the heroes are being tweaked for OW2. To be more effective in engagements versus the enemy players vs. hiding around corners or behind barriers depending on turrets, or anything else so they dont have to engage face to face.

The way the game is headed, speed of the gameplay (especially in OW2), there is no point to having “stationary” heroes anymore. That rely on holding a certain area for long periods of time. And reworks that gets theses stationary heroes away from just holding areas are good for the overall health of the game.

Also they did try several things on the heroes you play to make them work, and it didn’t work.
You mention Roadhogs take a breather. They tried something similar with Bastion. Bastion wasn’t able to move while healing before. They added movement while healing to this. Along with many other tweaks that have never worked.

The way they are tweaking heroes is way more promising as far as making these heroes useful to many players not just a small niche of players that like stationary gameplay heroes.

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7

There are easily more ways to make these heroes a lot more mobile without a rework of this caliber.

Hell, we can even take a page out of the devs themselves

Look at the rework they made on OW2 for bastion, ok?

Now grab their new form of sentry mode, and put it on current bastion…boom bastions issue fixed without needing to add the tactical grenade, nor the configuration artillery, nor removing self repair, and thats like 75% of bastions issues fixed in one fell swoop

old Torbjorn too stationary with his turret? allright, add a way for him to recall his turret back to him, essentially picking it up from range,

Boom now hes a lot more mobile

and these are VERY simple but super effective changes that i came up in 5 minutes without much thought that would very easily solve problems like that.

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8

Rework bastion looks fun

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Well, this is the time to be spamming out well formatted design ideas, with conservation of attention spans built into that formatting.

Just complaining, writing 9 paragraphs without getting to the point, posting a design buried 200 replies deep in an irrelevant post, or saying “well I posted 2 years ago”, isn’t good enough.

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i mean ive posted several threads on the matters throught the games life,

for bastion, in my opinion its as simple as putting wheels on current sentry mode, a few minor changes added, and problem solved without ruining the hero.

but if i want to keep some of the devs changes, i have a few other ideas

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I still think sym should be able to stick her turrets onto teammates. Makes her damage mobile and stick it to their head it works as a defense to widow headshots.

Besides, tracer or Genji running around with turrets on them would be hilarious.

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That would probably be a bit overpowered honestly lol

although you could simply give the turrets little legs and they can use to detatch from one wall and move to another so you dont have to wait for their CDs to finish up if you have a few left

or just make em quickly hover arround and thats it

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Meh, Sym is constantly called underpowered, it’d be a nice buff and a whole lot of fun. Plus you get a widow defense for your 3 sqishi teammates. I’d be interested to see the creative ways one would use it.

14

Bandaid solutions (like you’ve just suggested) don’t remedy the core issue of the hero (being overly defensive and poor on the offensive).

People have shown in OW1 that they are willing to one-trick even if they know their hero isn’t ideal for the map/mode.

To solve this, the devs are moving to make all heroes viable on most maps and modes (attack and defense) and yes, this requires more thorough re-works beyond ‘just recall his turret’ or ‘jus let bastion move a bit’ :slight_smile: :thinking: :upside_down_face:

15

At some point you (we) have to come to terms with the fact that the developers are not our servants, kneeling at our feet and awaiting the pearls of wisdom we utter from our lips. Nor do they have the time to read every forum topic ever written, or the manpower to manage the ****show of false expectations if they show us every work-in-progress iteration and experiment they work on.

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Personally. I think all the current reworks could work if Blizzard understood what the characters and players both need

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bandaid solution??

i literally used the exact same change the developers did

is that a bandaid solution?
or does somehow removing self healing & turning his ult form a moving one to a stationary one somehow make him less defensive?

i quite literally recicled one of their changes back to them

no one expects them to do this, you are exagerating

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18

When you apply the change to the old, problematic hero in an attempt to fix it yes, that is the very definition of a bandaid solution.

I suggest you google what bandaid solution means rather than reply to me clearly demonstrating that you don’t. :wink:

This is why I said they don’t “remedy the core issue of the hero” :rofl: :upside_down_face: :thinking:

19

From google

"a bandaid solution is a temporary solution that does not deal with the cause of a problem"

So…the problem is him being stationary in sentry…and overall just overly defensive

and letting him move in sentry…does not fix the cause of the problem???

you arent making sense here, if anything this version of bastion is more mobile than the one the developers have, because the OW2 bastion has an inmobile ult and a mobile sentry, while this one has both a mobile ult and a mobile sentry

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It’s okay, you look at things very literally. I’m happy to chat but not when someone can’t look beyond the literal meaning of words.

Have a nice day :slight_smile: :upside_down_face: :rofl: