Things are things and stuff

General Discussion
1

Here’s a list of ideas I’ve been working on.
Hopefully devs can consider some of these before the upcoming BlizCon in the next 5 weeks.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

  • Smaller balance patches. Published faster.
  • Give us hints, and vague ideas where development is headed, instead of radio silence.
    • Players in this game love to speculate.
    • And we love hearing from you guys.
  • Find a way to solve DPS queue times in Ranked, especially for Diamond through Grandmasters.
  • Find a way to make Orisa+Sigma not be the meta. Even if that means moving to Reinhardt+Sigma.

Balance Changes: TANKS

Reinhardt:

Barrier Field

  • Self-Slowing effect reduced to 30%, down from 50%

Steadfast

  • Reduces enemy Slow effects by 30%.

Comments: The goal of these changes are to make it so that Reinhardt has a much easier time gap-closing onto DoubleBarrier compositions. And once in close range, Reinhardt is uniquely suited to do attacks that ignore barriers entirely; While providing the sustained firepower needed to kill a Tank. Overall, a very small portion of the playerbase is good at Dive compositions; When compared to Bunker compositions, Reinhardt compositions involve more movement, and less time waiting for barriers to break before gunplay can begin.

Orisa:

Halt!

  • Slow effect reduced to 30%, down from 50%.

Fortify

  • Damage reduction reduced to 40%, down from 50%.
  • Prevents piercing attacks from hitting teammates behind you

Comments: Makes Orisa more vulnerable to enemies advancing on her. However it removes one of her biggest flaws. Currently she’s powerless to save her team, if an enemy throws and ultimate past a newly placed barrier.

Sigma:

Experimental Barrier

  • Cannot travel through enemy barriers.

Accretion

  • The rock thrown by Accretion can be destroyed by D.va’ Defense Matrix

Comments: This makes it more difficult for Sigma to throw barriers into enemy backlines, to prevent healing from Ana and other healers. And by making the Accretion rock vulnerable to Defense Matrix. It makes Sigma much more vulnerable to Dive. As well as makes Sigma vulnerable to Reinhardt+Dva.

D.va

Defense Matrix

  • Can absorb Sigma’s Accretion rock.
  • Resource regeneration increased by some amount

Comments: Makes Dive a bit stronger, and especially makes it so that Sigma compositions are vulnerable to close range attacks.

Winston:

(OPTIONAL) Leap cooldown reduced by 1
(OPTIONAL) Barrier increased by 100 health

Comments: Not sure if this is needed, if Dva could block Accretion rocks, Tracer pulse bomb is stronger, Lucio speedboost is back, and discord damage is back. But if Dive needs an extra bump up, here’s some ideas.

Balance Changes: HEALERS

Lucio:

Cross Fade

  • Speed Boost’s effect increased from 20% to 30%

Amp It Up

  • Speed Boost’s amplification increased from 50% to 70%

Comments: The idea here is to bring back some speed that made Deathball and Dive powerful. As well as makes Lucio a lot of fun and value for his team.

Brigitte

Whip Shot

  • Can whip shot through enemy barriers, for half damage and no knockback.
    • Or technically any damage would be enough, even 15 damage.
    • Maybe a really tiny knockback, so it still feels like it’s got impact.
  • Credit: lordzygos on Reddit

Comments: In previous patch notes, developers have mentioned they wanted Brig to be more of a “Main Healer”, but she can’t do that if she has to be simultaneously in the frontlines hitting stuff, and in the backlines where she has a clear sightline to throw out repair packs.
This change allows Brig to sit in the backlines, and reliably trigger her main source of healing.
This also allows her to combo with Lucio, as a duo. Which compensates for one of her biggest weaknesses.
Brig+Lucio would also be a natural pairing to help out Reinhardt compositions. And Brig+Rein with Lucio speed, would also be a threat to be reckoned with against DoubleBarrier.

Moira

(NO CHANGES) Biotic Orb: (Purple,Damage)

  • Can be blocked by DvaMatrix,GenjiReflect,SigmaGrasp

(OPTIONAL) Biotic Orb: (Yellow,Healing)

  • Can not be blocked by DvaMatrix,GenjiReflect,SigmaGrasp

Comments: If Dva ever gets back to prominence by all the Dive buffs listed above, Moira is going to have a hard time being viable. Since the ease at which her only ranged source of healing is blocked, is pretty laughable. This change would allow Moira to be viable, even if the enemy team has a D.va.

Mercy:

  • Blaster swap speed changed to 0.2sec, down from 1.2sec

Rejuvenation

  • Using Resurrection on a living teammate Full Heals them.
  • Cast time of 1.75sec, 30% self-slow.
  • Additionally, the teammate targeted is healed at 50hps or 60hps depending on Ultimate usage.
  • (Optional) Cooldown on living teammates is only be 15sec, instead of 30sec.

Comments: These changes provide a way for Mercy to be more of a Main Healer, and she can heal Tanks quickly, but in a limited fashion. This is a much better user experience than waiting for the Tank to die, before Resurrecting them. Previously, healing a D.va from 5HP to full, would take 12 seconds. Where as now it can be achieved in 1.75seconds.
Making the Blaster swap speed faster allows Mercy to have a bit more fun, while not fundamentally changing her gameplay balance. Since “Fun” is primarily what she’s lacking.
By having a heal still active during Rejuvenation, it removes the dilemma of healing a teammate versus Full Healing a teammate. And prevents teammates from getting unnecessarily upset at the Mercy player.

Balance Changes: DAMAGE

Sombra:

  • Movement speed increased to 6.0m/s, up from 5.5m/s. (i.e. Like Tracer)

Stealth

  • Movement speed increased to 9.0m/s, up from 8.25m/s.

Machine Pistol

  • Bullet spread pattern made more accurate

Hack and EMP

  • When an enemy is hacked, teammates can see enemies through walls using a similar visual to Sombra’s Opportunist passive.
  • Purple sugar skull featured above the enemy’s head when hacked.
  • Teamwide voice line given, sound isn’t directional similar to Ultimates voice lines.
  • Zarya Projected Barrier can prevent Hack status from EMP on “bubbled” players.
  • (OPTIONAL) Zarya Projected Barrier can cleanse Hack status on “bubbled” players.
  • (OPTIONAL) Increase ultimate charge requirement, comparable to the increased firepower from better accuracy.

Comments: These changes deemphasize Sombra’s EMP usage and promote a more active Assassin type gameplay. There’s an optional nerf at the bottom of the list, if these changes are too strong.

Bastion

Recon Mode & IronClad

Sentry Mode:

  • Bullets sounds are “rougher” when ammo is getting low. (Similar to Orisa). (KolorBlind asked for this)

Ultimate: Configuration: Tank

  • Beginning and ending Transformation speed reduced to 0.5sec, down from 1.5sec.
  • No attack delay after healing.

Brick skin

  • Muzzle flash size reduced to match other skins

Comments: Bastion’s hitbox is massive for a DPS. Apex Legends solved a similar issue by giving them damage resistance. It works, do it.
Just a variety of simple changes to make Bastion users happy. Also it makes his Ultimate actually worthwhile, instead of a self inflicted death sentence.

Hanzo

Storm Bow & Storm Arrows

  • Arrows damage to Barriers reduced by 50%.

Comments: The goal here is to de-emphasize the power of DoubleSniper compositions. By removing Hanzo’s barrier breaking capability, it makes it very risky to run DoubleSniper. Which means that the meta won’t need to revolve around running counter-compositions to DoubleSniper. Especially at Masters/GrandMasters/OWL skill tiers.
This change also encourages the usage of other “barrier breaking” heroes, such as Pharah and Junkrat, who are far outside the meta right now. Because Hanzo does it almost as effectively.

Widowmaker

(OPTIONAL) Grappling Hook

  • Reduced deployment and pull speeds, possibly with slight delay.

(OPTIONAL) Widow’s Kiss
Currently:

  • The damage charge scales linearly from 12 to 120.
  • Minimum damage is always 12.
  • Each percent increases by 1.08 points of damage.
    Change:
  • Make it nonlinear, where it’s more heavily weighted towards a full charge.
  • Also maybe make the charge rate faster directly after using Grapple, because that stuff is hype.

Comments: The goal here is to de-emphasize the power of DoubleSniper compositions. A large reason why high tier compositions are all covered in excessive amounts of barriers is the threat of DoubleSniper. (Or just one really good Widowmaker).

Junkrat:

Grenade Launcher:

  • Trigger radius increased to 0.3m radius before bounce and 0.2m after bounce.

Concussion Mine:

  • Minimum 80 damage
  • Damage decreases faster from center of explosion
  • No falloff against enemies in a Steel Trap

RIPTire

  • Regain control instantly after explosion, instead of 2.5sec later.
  • Junkrat can briefly see the bodies of enemies through walls who were killed by the explosion.
    • Maybe overlayed with an orange explosion graphic.
    • Also a “Kaboom!” message, similar to the “Triggered!” message from the Steel Trap.

Comments: Grenade Launcher changes are to reward aimed Junkrat shots, while still penalizing “spammed” Junkrat shots.
Concussion Mine changes are to improve followup damage after landing one grenade launcher shot. However this weaken’s Junkrat’s ability to “spam” the enemy with two Concussion Mines to get a “cheap” kill. These two changes make Junkrat more effective at higher skill tiers, while making him somewhat weaker at lower skill tiers. (Which is perfect considering his pickrate is quite large at low skils tiers, and quite small at higher skill tiers).
Additionally, it seems rather excessive to paralyze Junkrat for 2.5 seconds after his Ultimate has been used. However I understand it’s nice to see the carnage wrought by the explosion, so I figure seeing it happen through the wall is good enough.

Tracer

Pulse Bomb

  • Damage increased to 350, up from 400.
  • Cast time reduced to 0.3sec, down from 0.5sec.
    • Attack speed is not increased.

Comments: One of the most iconic heroes in the game, hasn’t been meta for a long time. Also if Dive is intended to kill Tanks, then Tracer is how it’s going to happen, and she needs a bit more oomph, especially with things like 30sec Rez, immortality field, slower ultimate charge, and burst healing. And just in general the dominance of “high durability” heroes.
The cast time changes are to make it so that Pulse Bombs don’t disappear midair due to lag.

Mei

Ultimate: Blizzard

  • Cast time reduced to 0.3sec, down from 0.5sec.
    • Attack speed is not increased.

Comments: Mostly this just compensates for lag. By reducing the window of time the ultimate can be disappeared by an enemy stun.

Symmetra

Just go look at NotMuda’s videos

Comments: Seriously. He’s really good at figuring out all the small details about Symmetra. Just do it.

Doomfist

The Best Defense…

  • Temporary shieldhealth gained reduced to 30, down from 25.

Seismic Slam

  • Increase the audio volume of the attack while it is airborne.

Rocket Punch

  • (OPTIONAL) Dynamically reduce the damage enemies receive from wall impact, based on the distance from the wall.

Comments: I actually don’t understand Doom that well, but I know a character that feels “unfun”, should at least feel “fair”.
And I think he’s a necessary evil with the current doubleshield meta, but if those issues are solved, then maybe tone him down a bit. That said, I think Chipsa/Samito have been saying similar about just toning down the shieldhealth just a bit.
Increasing the audio volume of Seismic Slam, also makes it so that people feel like they had the opportunity to respond/counterplay to the attack. Rather than instantly dying before you even knew a threat was there.

Pharah

Swap 50 health, for 50 armor.

Ultimate: Rocket Barrage

  • Can be canceled with the Reload button. (Maybe need to hold it for a half-second)

_Comments: There’s a lot of bullets flying around nowadays that make Pharah’s viability weaker. This would help.

All channeled Ultimates

  • Can be canceled with the Reload button. (Maybe need to hold it for a half-second)

Quality of Life

✅ Backfill for Comp = Match Reset
✅ Good Tanking = Express DPS Queue
✅ What would fix Overwatch the most
✅ [Concept] Radial Waypoint System
💵 Huge Sales boost for Switch idea
✅ [Sept 1] QoL needed for this patch
🚩 Banner Flag emote for OWL teams
Communication Wheel Change Idea
Gemstone weapon skins, Do this rarely, but gives a good reason for people to behave in Comp.
Profiles set to default as “Private for enemies, Public for teammates”
VGS System
MainTank bans for Masters/GM, 1 ban per team, 4 votes needed to choose a ban, defaults to No ban
Access to the Battlenet Friends “Notes” field, in game. Also have a clickable interface to select their best heroes.
Skirmish = FFA
“Avoid as Teammate” If you avoid someone and your list is full, that it prompts you if your want to replace the oldest avoid with the most recent avoid.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ActiveNiftyIrukandjijellyfish-size_restricted.gif
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1YIkDsBrPg
I like the gallery for videos and comics, maybe from the hero gallery below the Highlight intros and stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwhgv59hDJs

Map Changes

Paris

Objective A

  • On Attack, put a doorway on the left side of choke.
  • Put a window on that room so defenders can see the attackers coming.
  • Remove or move the car on the left that provides cover.

Objective B

  • Put wide stairs that lead up to the platform behind the statue, near the enemy spawn.

Comments: A lot of people don’t like Paris. I feel like these changes would make the map flow better.

Horizon Lunar Colony

Objective A

  • On Attack, Provide more cover ob the left side
  • Put a doorway in the left side healthpack room.
  • Maybe make that room have a bunch of windows, like a science room of some sort. So it’s obvious that’s an attack route.

Objective B
Put a vehicle or something in the middle of the objective

Comments: A lot of people don’t like HLC. I feel like these changes would make the map flow better.

Controversial Mechanisms:

All Healers:

  • Can heal through barriers

Comments: This may solve the issue of Sigma blocking healing really easily.

Zenyatta:

Discord

  • Damage boost increased to 30%, up from 25%.
  • Discord can go through barriers.

Comments: Similar to the above concept, if heals can go through barriers, then increased damage can go through too. Also helps Dive a lot.

Healing Ramp, to solve Sustained Damage vs Instant Kills:

  • Possibly consider applying reduced healing from all sources, if any damage has been received within # of seconds.
  • This would solve the dominance of instant kills, over sustained damage.
  • Team Fortress 2

Improved KolorBlind support

Comments: Looks like some colorblind players see OWL games perfectly fine, but the visuals in the actual game, could be a lot better. Kolorblind has a very detailed video on how to improve things.

Also what’s this about?

P.S. If I didn’t credit someone for an idea, let me know.

2 Likes
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No. No, because that’s not how supply and demand works. No, because you shouldn’t punish someone for playing a certain role. And no, because they might actually listen if nobody says no fast enough.

7 Likes
3

Also raising the supply of bad tanks and healers because some just play those roles to get on the fast track for dps next time and dont actually care about their SR on the other roles.

How can that possibly be balanced. You put a lot of mid ranked healers and tanks together with much more demanding damage dealers simply to keep the rate of high rank dps low so they find matches faster and other people get slaughtered by better dps.

And exactly the opposite here. That would raise the amount of “bad” tanks and healers in higher ranks making them unhappy to play with people under their capabilitys.

The system was created to stabilise the fairness on each rank and from match to match. You cant just propose to unbalance that system to adress longer queue times thus defeating the whole purpose.

1 Like
4

Not for long it wouldn’t.

roleSR would have its very wicked way with them.

1 Like
5

That would defeat the whole purpose of what OP is asking for here. He was asking for a higher supply of tanks and heals in higher ranks by rewarding lower ranked tanks more. Thats the unbalance.

6

Supply and Demand doesn’t work by making things “cost more” of there is a scarcity?

Cause that’s pretty much exactly what supply and demand does.

7

But how do you achieve that without making the game 2-3-2?

8

By shifting a chunk of DPS down gradually, and having equally skilled DPS on both sides.

Something like shifting a chunk of DPS across Diamond through GM down by 100SR. Although that probably needs to be scaled a bit relative to how difficult it is to gain those SR.

Since 100SR in high Masters isn’t the same as 100SR in low Diamond.

9

Why would DPS queues need to be balanced the same way as Tank/Healer queues, when they now permanently separated from each other?

10

I’d argue the higher the skill tier goes for Tanks/Healers, it’s less about major differences in skill tiers, and more about minor refinements.

11

So the solution is flood the low rank dps with more high ranked dps increasing their search time and then getting stomped on by people who actually belong to a different tier.

Its not about balancing queue times. Doing what you proposed would greatly imbalance the ranking system. You cant just slide peoples skill tiers around for equal distribution. People need to be ranked by skill. By shifting some obviously higher or lower ranked players around you are imbalancing the game when they play against people who actually belong to that tier.

12

If both sides have equivalent MMR DPS, that’s balanced enough.

Especially since we’re not talking drastic skill differences in the Tanks/Healers compared to what the DPS are used to.

13

If both sides need exactly right skilled DPS the queue times go way up, even judged by current standards. If you throw them in the pool they can compete agianst a lower ranked player and render the match unbalanced.

There is no problem with the ranking system. All we are experiencing is the majority of people liking to play dps. There is no quick and easy sliding them around fix for something like that.

14

I’d make a slight change - give the priority token to someone who queued up for a role that grants a reward. Occasionally, supports don’t get the loot box/credits bribe, and they shouldn’t be allowed to jump the queue if they’re not fulfilling a role that’s not so heavily in demand.

15

Once you start manipulating SR, you start getting unfair matchups, as we end up with either mid-tier games being dominated by whichever team gets the top tier DPS, or the top tier game getting decided by who doesn’t have the mid-tier Heal or Tank.

Eventually the tanks and healers will get tired of getting absolutely slaughtered by people objectively better than them, so they’ll stop playing, make the “supply” of their respective roles drop, and we’re back at square one.

3 Likes
16

Thing is, Diamond and above is much smaller than Plat+Gold.

And you’re moving only a fraction of DPS down. And the matchmaker has an excess supply of DPS to work with. So finding a match should be easy.

Especially since getting kills and doing damage is a very straightforward thing to measure.

17

Regardless of anything how do you think this balance decision will impact the playerbase you want to affect. Just tell them “sorry you cant be here anymore this rank has too many dps already”. They would want to climb back (or quit alltogether) so soon after they are back to where they actually belong. You cant just lock the ranks until there is room for the next in line.

18

So if the SR rewards for DPS in Diamond and above went down by 1 SR, would that cause a massive amount of players to quit?

And if not, how big could that number be, without being a problem?

19

Cutting down wins and losses no that would not be a big problem but

that would not go so well.

20

Well that’s kind of exactly what I’m talking about.

Even changing the SR for wins by 1-to-5 points and SR for losses by 1-to-5 points, would be enough to do the job.

Eventually.