We need better Overwatch support in the Blizzard API

General Discussion
1

If I got to overbuff right now, filter to GM and then sort by win-rate, I see soldier:76 at 4th place overall and 3rd for DPS while Genji is 16th place overall and 9th for DPS.

Our available data is pure garbage.

We cannot have a good conversation without good data. We need better support from Blizzard.

Currently we can look up individuals with the Blizzard API, but only if they have their profiles set to public.

That is fine.

We need the kind of aggregated data present on Overbuff.
We need it to be correct.

We need it to come from Blizzard so that we don’t “often repeat and perpetuate” bad facts. We need to be able to disprove things so that we can make proper assumptions.

We should never see a “Dropping by with a fun fact!” thread that isn’t a dev pointing out something that we already had the ability to see, but just didn’t notice. As it stands there was no way for us to know that Soldier:76 has the 6th highest DPS win rate in the current patch because we just don’t have that data. The best data we have puts him at 3rd highest for DPS and 4th highest overall which are apparently both completely wrong.

…which means that chances are the rest of what we have is also wrong because if #3 is actually #6, then where is our #6 supposed to actually go? (our #6 gm dps is Doomfist, BTW)

We need better data. We needed it years ago.

Please put aggregated data into the Blizzard API.

*Preferably we could use aggregated hero leaderboard data cut by SR from comp only. One board per 50 SR would be great, cut every hour, containing basically everything available from the public profiles plus pick rate, win rate, etc with documented descriptions of what every stat actually means. Aggregated by hero instead of by individual player, by region, and buy platform.

If you need more API devs, I have experience building REST APIs (hint, hint…you have my resume already…several times)

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2

kinda wack that we are 4 years into this esport title and we still rely on scraping data from webpages

and even that isn’t reliable anymore with private profiles

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3

I feel the term “garbage” is a very, very accurate description of the data we have available as players. Especially for a competitive game.

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4

I can understand why they didn’t implement a public api early on. New title, stuff probably changing a lot, not in a stable state. But after 4 years, two of which the official esport league it’s touting has been active? Come on.

I’m sure they’ve got access to a limited or closed api for their use. They must. I know the overwatch league casters and analysts had access to a ton of statistics for their games being played which supported tons of data driven analysis and tools to hook into it… Monte used to talk about all sorts of interesting stuff they could do with the stats privately available to them.

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I don’t see a big issue if blizzard gave us overall stats, as they still can extract data from private profiles and give us an actuall view of pick & win rates across the ranks.
Nobody needs to be mentioned.
But i think blizzard could even go 1 step further and allow open profiles to be viewn individual, by everyone.

Basically a “show off your stats”

Where we can all search for jjonak and look at those new stats every season.
Blizzard could probably add high profile streamers alt accounts under the main ones.

I hope blizzard is working on a bigger/better leaderboard/overbuff combination, but as its blizzard, they want the database, the applications, api’s, websites, all perfectly working without a single major issue… Which will take its time.

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This would actually be something easy they could do that would completely reinvigorate my interest in the game. I love messing around with stats and using them to adjust my strategies. Right before they made everything private I was working on something to tell me my optimal hero for each situation vs everyone else.

And for those who don’t, they still generally like to see overall rankings.

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7

Yes it would be great if Blizzard added Overbuff stat like stats to the Blizzard website.

Much like they appear in the HOTS game

After you play a game of HOTS it tells you how well you did compared to players of same calibur.

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To be fair, good APIs are far from “easy”.

I spent 4 years at EA making APIs for internal dashboards. Good APIs are not easy to make.

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9

I’m assuming they have the necessary API for internal apps., it’s just not exposed to us. But who knows.

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10

I think the major downside to Overbuff is that it only pulls from Public Profiles so unfortunately the info we have would always be skewed, I’m not sure why they can’t share info with us but hopefully that’s something that can be worked on soon or in the future? Is that maybe the social feature we never got?

Also if anyone has a more accurate site please do share

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11

I like your take but I think such an API is a dangerous thing for Overwatch; it basically risks being weaponized in ways much more toxic than how even Overbuff is being used and would only worsen the ‘stale meta’ and braindead gameplay complaints.

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Well, at the end of the day people are still going to play whatever they want to play, and you cannot report someone simply for playing a hero you do not personally approve of.

So I honestly don’t think it would make things worse. The opposite, actually. It would give us something we could look at when people try to use their cults of personality to perpetuate what they feel as fact.

Take the mains who all insist that their heroes are weak and needs massive buffs right now. You could actually look at the stats to see if their arguments could possibly hold any water.

Likewise, they could bring actual numbers to the table when they make their claims. I mean, who knows? Maybe they’re actually right for once.

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14

The reason I think having official data would be bad is because, as you said, at the moment you can’t flame or report someone for using a hero you don’t like. With official data you can start digging around in whatever statistical bin you want to justify flaming or reporting someone for using a hero you don’t like, which is obviously a situation no one actually wants.

The example I’ve been using is Blitz, an app that LoL has that tells people stuff like winrate, item builds, and skill selection for a given hero in-game. Because of this app and similar data you can justify flaming or reporting someone for picking one of the heroes that is ‘off-meta’ or even for choosing an item that isn’t on the recommended build list.

As much as people complain about ‘oh my main is bad, buff my main’ ultimately we as the playerbase are free to ignore them because in the end they and we don’t have valid data other than personal bias and our own stats to inform how we play this game.

15

But this happens anyways. On literally every single OW match someone is asking all chat to report person x. I don’t see how this could possibly make it any worse. On the flip side if someone hates my Rein or especially my hamster I have nothing to counter them with, despite me knowing statistically my playstyle works (and if this was incorrect, I wouldn’t be doing it, but again no proof either way).

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16

Because someone can ask for reports on all-chat all day long but no one is getting legit banned for their hero picks.

Similarly it’s not on you to counter if someone doesn’t like your rein or Hammond because they have even less info than you do; they can’t call you out for playing badly and be taken seriously any more than you can call out a Soldier that is shooting shields for gameplay sabotage.

My point is with that sort of statistical information it becomes a lot easier for people to ‘justify’ a report to devs and even harder for devs to distinguish spurious reports from legitimate ones.

17

I’m not sure I can buy into an argument that providing more information to Blizzard will somehow result in more people incorrectly being banned.

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18

And the devs have specifically stated that you cannot report someone for simply playing a hero you do not like. While it doesn’t stop them from doing it, the fact that they say you can’t makes whining about what people play an indefensible stance at its core.

You can advocate, but cannot demand.

Nothing justifies flaming other players. It is specifically against the TOU.

Papa Jeff has told us repeatedly to play what we want, and there is a difference between discussion and flaming. One is allowed. The other is not.

And having good data wouldn’t fundamentally change that. What would change is the core conversation because instead of “don’t play [hero] because they are weak [but actually because I just don’t like them]” it would be “don’t play [hero] because they are weak [and here is justification]” which could then legitimately be responded to with “if [hero] is too weak to play, then they deserve to be buffed [insert buff suggestions]”.

This leaves the “don’t play [hero]” poster with two options: discuss possible buffs after acknowledging that [hero] is weak now and would not be if buffed a little, or arguing that they should NOT be buffed simply because they don’t like them (at which point they can be genuinely ignored).

Good data can only be a bad thing if your intention is to win invisible internet points by lying or otherwise being dishonest under the guise of honesty.

Good data is no more useful than a flashlight. You use it to illuminate the darkness, and occasionally beat things that deserve to be beaten with a mag-light (figuratively, not literally).

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Do you mean ‘providing more info from Blizzard?’ The way Blizzard’s API shares information to outsiders is currently very barebones, but the data they have internally is likely orders of magnitude better than ours.

By making that better data available to the public people can crawl through it and do things like report a player for throwing when they use a hero whose winrate on Rialto is 4% lower than some other hero or reporting their teammates because they refused to use a comp that is predicted from API stats to be 10% more effective.

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Not that kind of data.

Pre-aggregated trend data. Nothing individual we don’t already have access to. What we’re missing is sliced aggregate data across the board at points in time.

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No, what I’m not buying is that the random reporting that goes on today would somehow be made worse by someone providing details to their reporting.

They can report me for playing someone 4% lower all they want, but as Blizzard doesn’t consider that throwing it can easily be discarded. If they DID for some reason this could obviously be fully automated without any reports necessary.

I’m not saying you’re wrong that’s what they’ll do, I just don’t see any argument that that is somehow worse than current state. Also I think you might overestimate the general capacity for most people to determine this 4% lower winrate and accurately report on it.

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