Todays devs response to powercreep is Heartbreaking

General Discussion
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Hey, thanks for trying to clarify this! I’m definitely hearing a ton of feedback over the last day and am learning a bunch from this experience.

I came to share my personal viewpoint, listen to the community, and try to make the game better together. I’m truly not attempting to callously disregard anyone’s concerns and say everything is fine.

I’m aware there are distinct increases in power across several aspects of the game such as raw healing output, the introduction of new heroes and mechanics, or things like Wrecking Ball’s extreme mobility. I don’t think this is inherently negative as balance is relative across a large number of factors. There have also been losses of power such as the recent barrier changes.

The idea I was trying to express (and failed to, clearly…) is that I don’t personally feel like there is an unreasonable amount of excessive power creep that makes the core gameplay not feel like Overwatch anymore.
For example, GOATS comp was getting in that space for me, not necessarily due to individual hero power increases but from the combined synergy of the comp moving away from feeling like a shooter.

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Reminds me of the time I thought we had powdered crepes but we didn’t. Sad day. :expressionless:

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If the conditions are right Genji has a team fight winning ult, IF the conditions are right. Mei on the other hand can be consistent throughout an entire game thus giving her more value for output, which means across the board shes play more by both sides which means her winrate would be more towards the middle. Genji on the other hand would likely look like he has higher winrates but that’s a trade off from a lack of consistent play. Current OW is built around high burst high sustain, neither of which genji has(and most of the damage roster for that matter) when he’s not blading.

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Wow, more comments :slight_smile:

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But most of us came and continued to play overwatch because we didn’t want just another shooter. There is plenty of that out there.

But appreciate your response.

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GOATS turned Overwatch in a sorta wrestling match instead of anything resembling a shooter.

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Here here! I agree with that one. It’s nice to get plenty of responses for a change but it’s certainly not how I imagine many of us wanted to see Overwatch be… yet another shooter. With a good number of messy reworks and odd balancing decisions you’re much better off just picking ‘damage’ role if you still want to play, not tank or support, these days. Heroes like Hanzo have been left overpowered for a long time and that’s just one problem among a number of problems right now.

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no, there really isn’t. unless you consider battle royale to be a shooter, i dont.

the rest of the FPS space is tired old games that refuse to die.

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Did the feedback change your perspective at all?

You might be right, but even then I think we can make significant improvements to the ‘core gameplay’.

For example, how much design space do you think is reasonably available to keep buffing McCree’s damage until he reaches the middle of the pack for winrate in literally any rank? I’m of the opinion little to none. This is where Hanzo is at right now and it seems like he’s about to catch a nerf, so clearly there are underlying problems we’re looking to you to solve/address. No pressure.

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And thats how you solve a dispute or misunderstanding

Clarifying it

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do you think something like paladins’ assembly of champions is possible?

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Yeah, when Jeff said recently that he felt Symmetra was massively overpowered hence her 7 nerfs in a row… that was a real gut punch…

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Would you say its a fair assessment to make, if i said the balance philosophy moved away from being statistically balanced and the heroes should be fun to play as more torwards whether or not something is fun to play against and if the community becomes very vocal about something, it might get nerfs or buffs regardless if its actually necessary based on your data?

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Thank so much for clarifying.

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Again, you are implying that Mei has a higher pickrate, which in turn leaves Genji at a higher winrate.

Objectively speaking, neither are true. I’m not really sure how many more times I need to repeat this.

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It’s negative when the release of balance updates and new heroes are so super incredibly slow. If we had 50 or 60 heroes then balancing and power creep wouldn’t be much of a problem because counter-play would be more of a thing, but at the rate we’re going it’ll take 10 years to hit that many heroes…seeing as how we’re either not getting any more heroes, or only one, until 2021 and OW2…that’s insane!

You’re only now thinking to give D.va a fraction of the rodent’s mobility and it still won’t be enough if you refuse to address her survivability with either more armor or something else, meanwhile every new hero keeps getting INSANE abilities or damage/healing output. You gave sigma a BETTER DM…he gets to eat things AND gain shields from it, PLUS have a shield, PLUS have a CC ability, PLUS put out great damage, PLUS have a massively smaller critbox…you power crept a better D.va into the game man lol.

Seriously though, so many ppl here on the forum misuse the term power creep thanks to youtubers, but that doesn’t change the fact that there IS power creep!

Having an ability that needs to be on a cooldown that’s 20 seconds or higher probably shouldn’t be put in the game on new heroes. Now Rez, Rez is a huge part of who Mercy is and used to be an ult so there should be an exception there, but to give a NEW champion like Baptise such a long-lasting anti-fun cringe ability to play against and put it on such a steep cooldown it’s like NO…if something is so strong it needs to be on such a huge cooldown, MAYBE don’t put it into the game on a new hero because it’ll be too darn powerful! That, plus the raw damage and healing from these newer heroes, is power creep.

Then we have brainless easy heroes that are simply getting WAY too much value for next to no effort, while other heroes that require skill are left to get stepped on by the newer power crept, or easier over-buffed from GOATS, heroes.
I hear you’re nerfing Mei, cool, but what about Reaper? My Grandma could play Reaper blindfolded and still get value. Him, and Doomfist, are too simple to get the value they do at all elos - but especially Reaper. You say you care about how a balance change effects all elos, but do you? Because Reaper is great at high levels and the literal incarnation of brainless cancer in plat and below - yet still nothing!

An easy place to start with not only Reaper and Doom, but other heroes, is looking at all the buffs and nerfs that happened during or because of GOATS. That meta is gone now, the balance changes that happened largely because of it should seriously be revisited.

I’m just super frustrated at you guys, but I still love the game and I know the dev team cares, it’s just frustrating when I play other games that have new cosmetics, modes, balance patches, and events 2-3 times IN ONE MONTH, and we wait months for like 4 legendaries for the same heores, we have to suffer MONTHS of heroes clearly needing nerfs or buffs, and it’s like - come on. This is Blizzard, this is a HUGELY powerful company, I just want to see some faster content and balance cycles man - this is awful atm!

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I know this is off topic, but will you be looking at changes to bastion? Even if it’s a rework, anything at this point is needed.
He’s currently been sitting at 0.01% for a while, I think it’s due to the barrier changes.

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Josh, your team make change because of “meta”. And because of word “Meta” is ruin someone days. if your team stop/destroy that word and let player decide they own way to play or against it. it would be blast at last.

Players tired to keep up, We just want a good time in the game. Don’t your team tired for this? Re-balancing every days/months to satisfy someone or some player group?

And please stop saying OW is the shooter, it’s not. It’s MOBA in FPS mode. We play ow because it’s not generic shooter game.

PS. And please stop dedicate development to the ESPORT, just for good cause.

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I’m happy that some of the response has not scared you away from the forums!

I agree with you that powercreep is not in that space, and that goats was. People are panicking a bit, but I think the only things that are a little overtuned are reaper, mei, hanzo, and doom. But they only need a touch, nothing major, like hanzo having a second more cd on his lung, mei maybe not multifreezing, reaper having a little less lifesteal, and doom having a little less shield gain.

In terms of tanks, I really think the approach of buffing underperforming tanks in unique ways that are not flat damage buffs is a good approach. I like the D.va buff if only because it will make the hero feel more fun without making her op, though I do think a little more armour or something else that makes her less fragile personally would help.

We’re all quite sad players on these forums (myself included), we love the game and feel a lot of anguish over it, please don’t let our wild emotions scare you off!

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Once again, Genji has a team fight winning ability but gives up consistency for. He’s a fan favorite across all ranks so that would explain his pickrate. But Mei is far more consistent hence her better winrate that looks more balanced compared to her pickrate. Now translate that to the highest level of play where everyone claims balance should come from and you’ll see genji completely drop off and rightly so. He’s not as consistent in the current version of the game, far too squishy. You could swap out Genji for Mercy or DVa and your statement would sound the same. People like those heroes so they are going to play them and stats across ALL ranks with them demonstrate that, but their winrates will likely be lower since if people want to win CONSISTENTLY they will play heroes that are objectively better.