They keep promising support changes, but

With the move to 5v5, we’re seeing longer queue times than we’d like for both tank and damage players, and while there’s no silver bullet for this issue, the team has a LOT of ideas that we want to experiment with in the upcoming seasons.

Many of these ideas are focused on the support role and how we can make it more fun and more rewarding to play. We’re discussing targeted support hero reworks, game system updates, and even some role-wide changes to improve support quality of life.

Ahh yess, let me kick that Sojourn that keep insta-killing me from miles away.

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Do they? Mercy can self heal? Zen? Kiriko? Ana can once every 10 seconds.

Really the only support that has their full kit applying to them at all times is Lucio.

I can’t wait to see queue timers by the end of the season.

Yeah, don’t see anything about support changes in season 2. Support QoLs coming in future seasons, but not season 2 specifically.

Yep, listed as Regeneration passive. Gets more powerful in Valkyrie mode.

Shield health, plus passive Regeneration through the Support universal passive.

You can self-heal passively, or use Protection Suzu to get some healing.

Ana also has passive healing via the support universal passive.

or… instead of a delayed & gimped passive they just let supports self target and use all of their abilities. That would put supports on even footing regarding ability use vs a DPS.

Would it really be the worst thing if almost all the player-based healing was removed from the support role? The entire role could be redesigned around Zen and Sombra kits, with concomitant damage adjustments. Figure out something for Hog and give his hook to support Cassidy as a lasso, replace the sticky grenade with a flashbang that affects player visibility instead of stun (or give the stun back).

None of those specific examples are suggestions, btw. I’m just wondering what support might look like if it were very clearly and intentionally not heals-forward except in niche or uncharacteristically coordinated teams (the way Zen is now).

It’s almost like there was a recent overhaul to gameplay where this could have been considered. So complete an overhaul, in fact, that the result was presented to us as a new game.

I am going to submit this to Wikipedia for 2 different entries:

  1. The exact recipe for powercreep in a class based game.

  2. A “See as follows” example of posturing to maintain massively unreasonable tank power.

I basically view any time somebody talks about powercreep as that person being incapable of talking about specific game mechanics.

That’s because you have never been a software engineer

I’ve designed a server modification for TRIBES that ran on 40 servers, and had 2 years of Tournament play across 30 teams.

I also got about 40 changes into PlanetSide 1, including designing how all the warps and bases connect across the world map. And I wrote a miniaturized installer that pulled in 30,000 players with a community led marketing campaign, that was later copied by the devs.

You saying you got better than that?

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Give them time…

Even on the forums, people can’t agree on what to change. They mentionned they wanna change supports just with mid season patch. The timeframe between midseason and season 2 is too short to go for a full rework of a role or reworking just a hero.

We’re already getting 3 supports tweaked for season 2. We’ll see how it goes.

About Moira, they just rolled-back her, I don’t know what she needs to compensate then ???
And I take that rollback as honesty from them. Remember the Mercy rework ? Nobody wanted it and devs forced it anyway… At least for OW2 they are okay to test and rollback if it doesn’t work. I hope there will be some PTR or Experimental mode in OW2 for them to test things and make sure the changes are the best possible.

I’m a Main Support and I’m not sure if the whole role needs a rework. For now, I feel some characters need a rework cause they seem very underpowered. But some others like Ana, are still bringing something on the table.

Supports need a speed buff and I’d die happy honestly.

Yes, much, much better. I am a CTO supervising teams of software engineers, and literally make scope creep decisions on a regular basis, and have over 20 years of experience in class balance input as an on-site consultant and correspondent at the same SOE that makes the Planetside that you claim that posting things on message boards makes you a part of the team.

Make no mistake, nothing we argue on this forum has any sway in any possible way on the direction of this game. We are literally arguing to blow off hot air, and the only people who care what we say are participants andvthe small handful of people clicking the thread.

Being a bulletin board junkie or a script writer of a piece of netcode is not the premier qualification you think it is. This is why you didn’t respond with “I am a software engineer” because you aren’t one, so you’ll puff out your chest about some garage project you once did and how you are so convincing that SOE teams bent to your will without a contract or being a member ofvthe team.

That’s nice, how much of that has been related to videogame design for Class Based Shooters?

Also I was literally DMing and Emailing back and forth with the Community managers and executive producers.

And you think it’s just a “coincidence” to guess the extact configuration of all the warpgates in PlanetSide?

That’s like 20 different connections per zone, with about 4 or so connections across 14 zones each.

Blizzard also promised they would be rolling out more aggressive balance changes AND also communicating with the community more.

News flash, Blizzard lies all the time.

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They released sojourn the way they did
So no they really don’t
They had one guy that can’t properly aim play sojourn and they all agreed she was fine :rofl:

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None, my 5 years of game design was exclusively MMO based, however the concept of scope creep is a technical term, and you are the one making the claim that because I invoked the concept that it was an indication that I don’t know what it is, which I can assure you, I am eminently qualified to discuss the concept.

I’d still fall back and argue that powercreep is a very vague concept.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/i0x4q5/jeff_kaplan_on_power_creep/

And that if we’re looking at people like, the main balance guy for Warcraft 3 and League of Legends, his #1 balance thing is “Macro Calibration” before “Micro Calibration”.

GameDev.net - Techniques for Achieving Play Balance

And they have basically done hardly anything to macro-calibrate Supports in the transition to OW2. The power level that Supports “should be” at hasn’t been given a baseline yet in OW2.

Especially when compared to the gigantic direct and indirect buffs Tanks and DPS have gotten.

And that the idea that they should intentionally not fix queue times, because they gotta act like Role Limits don’t exist, makes zero sense from Corporate player retention angle.

Especially if they want to recruit people from games with 1-3 minute queue times (I.e. F2P Class Based Shooters). Or pre-Role Queue OW1 players which also had low queue times.

Heck, the entire basis for worries about powercreep is based on the opportunity cost game theory choices it makes. However DPS cannot switch to a Support midgame. The scope of choices that those DPS players cannot make is irrelevant to the most optimal choices DPS players have. They are mutually exclusive sets of choices.
(I.e. Makes no sense unless you’re saying we gotta design the game like Role Limits don’t exist)

So pray tell, how does one do such a thing? Do you want one mega support? Is that the solution? 4v4? Maybe we get some supports who don’t necessarily heal like Symmetra from long ago. No. That’s a horrible idea. Do you more reworks? (you people and your reworks) What would that even do? What even is your definition of a rework? The supports are fine, bub.

It is fun to play. I feel rewarded knowing I’m the person keeping the team alive while getting hilarious picks along the way. If you’re in some sort of support slump, sucks to be you, I suppose. I’m having the time of my life. >:]

In general I agree. The only support I can’t bring myself to play is Mercy cuz she’s boring. If I wanted to play Medic I’d go play some TF2 and spend half my time kicking bots. At least Medic has ubercharge.

All the other supports have something interesting going on that can change the outcome of a game. Moira and Kiriko have better survivability than most DPS when pressured, and arguably Baptiste does as well.