What an interesting hypothesis: Creator Experimental Card and Creator Cup

Yeah but they are the ones pulling the strings currently not the ppl who watch it.

in the case of flats im one of the ppl who watch it and i think this patch is a fun novelty

this is due to enjoying most of the changes and also knowing he is responsible

I think it’s genuinely just a timing thing. If we were getting semi-frequent balance updates, and like, the low end of acceptable content for a live-service game from a “AAA” developer (we’re far below that), I don’t think we would have even a fraction of the complaints.

The timing, to me, shows how out-of-touch y’all are with the fanbase sometimes. I know it’s not malicious but it’s kind of not excusable anymore.

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I won’t hide the fact that we have a different kind of relationship with content creators that we have with the forums. Both Jodie and I spend an equal amount of time managing relationships with current and former OW content creators as I (and soon Jodie) do here on the forums (oftentimes more here, depending on the week).

Each part of the community has different needs, and those needs are addressed in different ways. When it comes to creators, we treat and view them as valued partners in community building. They’re player advocates (to a surprising degree), community evangelists, and some of our most stringent critics. In some cases, their platform is significantly larger than the average player. In the case of the vast majority of creators, they have less notoriety and recognition within our community than you, HANA (I’ve quoted, responded to, and interacted with you more than once in the last few months, something that the majority of creators don’t have the same opportunity for).

On a personal level, I’d love to see a world where the forums understand that Twitch, Youtube, whatever social platform, are all a part of the broader OW community. I believe you all have much more in common than otherwise.

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i think its worth noting that reddit and youtube audiences seem to have taken the news astronomically better than forums

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I get it.

The community team goals include hosting regular, consistent, community events. It’s a bit too early to wave the flag of success (we’ll be measuring overall impact in an internal retro), but early indicators about this ExC have been positive, with a significant amount of feedback from creators and core players alike feel that it’s a welcome update that makes the game feel more vibrant than it has in awhile.

We’re going to continue to push forward with community events, without significantly impacting dev work.

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The forums are always much more critical of us than the broader community. This likely has to do with the profile of player who tends to be more engaged on a platform like fora (hyper engaged, core fans), whereas the other platforms tend to be a bit less serious in nature.

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And I appreciate that very much.

I think most of us do. It is just the amount of attention that we get for the past years is not as it used to be. There was hardly any communication from the dev’s side for years before you showed up.

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This does breathe fresh air into the game but I think at this point everyone just wants the pvp updates that are going to be free anyways.

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This is discriminatory community management.

You’re literally word-for-word discriminating based on content produced, fame, clout, elitism. If you don’t produce content, aren’t efamous, you have a different “set of needs”. Basically, needs the dev team doesn’t care about. You won’t be whitelisted, your opinion will count for less, and you won’t receive the same preferential treatment.

You won’t get a ladder reset. You won’t get smurf management. You won’t get anti-rigging guarantees. You’ll just get…Flats, making fun of neurodiversity…again, for clicks. Him and the same discord echo chamber are all getting beta keys and the 99% rest of us aren’t.

What a joke. These people don’t live/deal/interact with the live service like the rest of us. I know for a fact I have more hours logged in this GaaS than Flats, and while he was parked away in the clouts seeing 1% of the game, myself and others were trying to improve things with boots on the ground, using official channels (forums), being advocates for change, and using objective, opinion-free language to quantify integrity objectives and balance breakpoints for the GaaS ecosystem.

Still nothing managed. Managing 1% of the community with perks isn’t community management. Next?

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this reads like parody

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Let me preface this by thanking you and Jodie for the engagement. It was long overdue and it is much appreciated.

That said, many of the creators are not player advocates. Community evangelists? Maybe, in the sense that they can whip up their followers into a frenzy, as we saw when one of the most vocal members of the community decided to mock forum posters on stream, which then led to a dog pile from his community on members of the forum he publicized, leading to some people leaving this community…and they never acknowledged their responsibility.

But that’s a valued content creator, and someone who could get now THREE iterations of his ideas for a cleanse for Moira into ExC’s, even while he engages on Twitch and YouTube in literal screaming tirades against the developers.

I myself asked Flats on his stream about his proposed Orisa changes, because what he wanted to do to Orisa wasn’t “fun”, and I asked if he wanted to do something fun or if he wanted to dumpster her, and he replied that he was going to continue going down the path he had chosen.

Like in the first pro ExC, it became less about giving all the heroes something cool and fun to do and instead became an exercise in favoritism. We notice that Mei didn’t get anything in either ExC. Echo didn’t get anything either. Some of the heroes got very minor number based changes that weren’t fun or novel, and some like Orisa, Sigma, and Roadhog just got nerfed. Give everyone something fun, even if it takes bringing in a couple more people to advocate for the non meta heroes or the unpopular heroes and a couple extra weeks.

It was legit sad to me to watch Eviltoaster come back to try the card, try and play Orisa, and finally swap off to Hammond in frustration. I get he’s not one of the in crowd or the cool kids, but yeah, I doubt he’ll be back or a number of faceless folks like me will be back before OW2 if this is what we have to look forward to.

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What can Brig players do to make themselves heard, now that DeleteBrig streamers are using their platforms and fanbases to try and ruin the hero for players?

As predicted after her cc getting removed, they have moved on to target inspire.

Because now it feels Brig players always have to worry more is gonna be taken away or changed into something boring, based on the pressure from those with bigger platforms and louder voices.

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It dosnt have to be that way tho. There are hundreds if not thousands of players out here on the forums that have a better grasp on things than them. Dosnt even have to look very hard for that.

Just an example check out Titanium for any kind of real feedback on the state of Mercy. You can find him pretty much in every thread regarding Mercy-s current state of balance. The amount of work he did trying to get some attention from devs is insane, very detailed and very much accurate.
Meanwhile what we see, is the devs inviting streamers to direct channels to developers.
Streamers who throw temper tantrums on their streams regularly (and one in particular has an unhealthy obsession to get rid of Brigitte).

I think the community still agrees on major things. Que times for example are becoming a bigger problem each day. And the reasoning for that, is that tank gameplay experience is just bad. Both burst damage and burst healing is running rampart.
Plenty of people on different platforms explained that, yet we are not even seeing attempts that try to address this. All we saw in the previous months are changes that not only dont try to solve this issue, but doubles down on it (aka the last experimental for example with mega Junkrat). That reminds me, what was the response to that feedback?

I would like to see a world as well, where twitch streamers and youtube content creators understand how the average and the majority of the players feel, when they are advocating for a game that is not fun to play, but flashy to watch.

I do want to believe that, but the problem is that the last 2 experimental card, that the content creators and pro-s managed to get together says otherwise and it reinforces the perception we average players have of them.
Which is clear bias and an agenda because their whole livelihood is depending on it.
What they see as a healthy game balance is just bad experience for anyone that wants to enjoy this game in a more casual way and anytime someone points this out is just branded as someone who just dosnt understand anything about balance. Someone saying that an aim based hero is not necessarily more skillful than a non aim based one is,god forbid the latter counters the former is downright blashphemy to them.

If i still have your attention, try to get in contact with Titanium to ask for feedback what you guys should do with Mercy on OW2 (because what we saw on those test matches are a disaster in every single way). Im sure he will be more than happy to send those essays about concrete issues over and explain how he would approach fixing it.

Meanwhile i spent like the last 4 hours with this list for you:
This list is “probably” going to resonate with more people from the playerbase while still trying to solve core issues in the game to some degree like burst damage and healing while trying to provide something fun for every single one:

Ana: -Biotic Grenade:

Enemy effect: Instead of denying healing completely, it only caps every source of healing to 25 per second,
so it reduces the value of huge burst heals, but leaves low but steady healing relatively unaffected.

Teammate effect: Instead of increasing healing, it creates a layer of protection which caps the next incoming damage at 50.

The healing and damage on impact is still happening

Ashe: -Bob:As long as Bob is active, you can use your ultimate button to tag targets for him.

-Dynamite: Dynamite creates a knockback when exploding.
You can use this knockback on your own Bob as well.

Baptiste: -Regenerative burst disabled

-Immortality field reworked to damage reduction field

Now indestructible

Effect changed into a field which caps every incoming source of damage to 25.

(For example a D.va bomb or a Widow headshot deals only 25 damage,
but in exchange heroes with sustained damage are relatively unaffected by it, since they can still deal 25 damage for each bullet)

-Secondary fire now leaves healing puddle behind for 5 second instead of healing upon impact.
The puddles regenerate 10 health per second

Bastion: -New Passive: His turret mode now makes him slide while firing.

For example to avoid a Reinhardt charge, he can start shooting the ground to fly up or start shooting to the side to move away.

It also make you slide backwards everytime, so make sure you have a wall behind you if you want to stay stationary.

Brigitte: -Repair pack reworked to the old Torbjörn Repair pack system with the scrap mechanic with the exact same effect.

-Shieldbash stun removed, deals 50 damage instead.

-Health increased to 250 (200health 50 Armor)

-Inspire: Now instead of healing, it generates scrap with each successful hit on the enemy, so you can produce repair packs faster when fighting.

(Which also helps your ability to duel better than current inspire, because you can just throw the repair packs for yourself without aoe healing everyone around you)

Cassidy: -Flashbang: Works like Ashe Dynamite, you can throw it far away. It explodes after a while, stunning everyone around it, but you can also shoot it from far away.

Good for setting up potential traps while also removing the flashbang + fan the hammer combo.

D.va: Primary fire: Weapons can now overheat, but they are more accurate. Which means you can use it without worrying about range.

Defense matrix: Now regenerates energy with damage absorbed, but drains faster if used without absorbing much or anything.

Doomfist: Moved to Tank role

Rocket Punch: Damage capped at 100

Slam: Creates a wall of earth at the place of impact as a cover.
(Similar to an ice wall but 25% smaller)

Echo: Moved to Support role

Sticky bombs changed to healing effect

Focusing beam changed to healing beam (healing effect increasing the lower the target health is)

Ultimate: No longer has ridiculous ult charge generation, but you copy the ult charge of the selected hero.

Meaning you can end up with an instant ultimate or 0% as well,depending how well you chose your target.

Genji: Deflect is now a resource meter, probably around the same stats as current Defense matrix.
Hanzo: Storm arrow changed to a single shot zipline.

(Visuals not neccessary for an experimental card, it would simply move Hanzo to the arrow you shot at a certain speed or use Widowmakers grapple animation.
If it works out, visuals can be added later)

Junkrat: -Projectile size reverted back to normal.

-Riptire: Junkrat now rides the Riptire and eject from it when exploding, meaning he will continue the fight by falling down from the sky where the riptire exploded.

Lucio: -Sound barrier: Creates a knockback when used

-Boop now has a similar effect to Doomfist Rocket Punch. Meaning if the target hits the wall with the boop, it receives either extra damage or a slow effect for 1 second.

Mei: Freeze removed from primary fire.

Range increased by 200%.

Primary Fire additional new effect: If shot on the ground, it leaves ice behind for 5 seconds.
If a teammate or the user step on this layer of ice, it increases the movement speed for them.

Enemies who step on it, will be unable to stop or change directions momentarily.

Mercy: -Valkyrie changed to "E" ability for a 5 second duration 15 second cooldown.

Resurrect returns to being an ultimate.

-Ultimate is now not instant. It starts expanding in range the longer you hold down the button. During expanding, you are unable to move and it requires Line of sight to the bodies.

You can still use it for single instant resurrect if you just hit the button normally,but it still eats your whole ultimate charge.

Moira: -Fade now works both Horizontally and vertically.

-You can now use your right click to reclaim your orbs remaining energy by aiming at them if they are within range.

Orisa: -Her shield is now works as a wall, meaning enemies cannot pass them unless its destroyed.

(Orisa was created because of Doomfist lore wise, so it makes sense that her shield is able to stop his charge for example)

Pharah: Ultimate: Now you are able to move while using the ultimate, exactly like it was in the april fools patch.

Hitting crouch now slams Pharah on the ground, dealing 100 damage around the impact radius.

Reaper: -Wraith form now works like a Moira fade

-Lifesteal removed

-Secondary fire added similar to a junkrat primary fire but weaker. (Again,visuals not necessary for an experimental only)

Reinhardt: -Charge: Rein now able to charge with his Shield up
Roadhog: -Hook: Now can be used on teammates to rescue them from danger.
Sigma: Shield disabled

Kinetic grasp: The damage absorbed by the ability will be released back with the next primary fire.

Meaning if it absorbed like a thousand damage, be prepared for a nuke the next time he shoots at you.

Soldier76: Now able to reload and using melee while sprinting.

If you melee someone during sprint, the target falls on the ground for 1 second. But sprint goes on a 5 second CD in exchange.

Sombra: Hack: 1 Teammate can be hacked permanently,as long as Sombra stays within range and line of sight. Hacked teammate receives 25% CD reduction.
Symmetra: -Teleporter: Teleport now has the old shield generator effect but weaker. Meaning as long as you are close to one of them (dosnt matter which end), you receive 25 shield health.

-Primary fire changed from: 60/120/180 to 80/120/160

Torbjörn: -Molten Core: If Torb is standing in his own ultimate, he lights up like he did with his own ult and makes his hammer hit 200 for a 10 second duration.
Tracer: -Blink: Now works Horizontally and vertically

-Recall: affects the blink charges, meaning if you used 2 blinks during the time recall covers, you get those back. (not a complete refresh)

Widowmaker: -Venom Mine: can be shot by Widow herself to trigger instant damage instead of overtime.

-Grapple: If someone gets in your way while you are grappling, Widow knocks them down the ground for 1 second and they receive a melee damage.

Winston: -Secondary fire from OW2 added

-Shield: When there are enemies inside the bubble when it gets destroyed, those players suffer 100 damage.

Hammond: Grappling claw. Hammond can now transport teammates or objects by attaching a grappling claw on them, for example a D.va bomb, a Bob, a Torb Turret, one of his own Mines...or even an ulting Reaper.
Zarya: 2 charge of bubble on the same cooldown, exactly like it was during april fools.
Zenyatta: Transcendence: Enemies within the aura,get discord effects applied to them. The second they leave the aura the effect is gone.

Now i am not saying that everything is perfect with this one,some might be broken, some might be underwhelming but at least i tried to make every hero more FUN to play or give them certain gimmicks with already existing assets and mechanics, instead of just making a GigaReinhardt and a Santahat Orisa.

Have a nice day.

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The game is MUCH MUCH better now with the changes! This should go live!!

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Well you know when you F up and blue ball your community for years on end… You’re bound to be criticized for it lmao

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Not sure if this should go here, but I figured it would be faster than creating my own topic. So there is a bug with console Mercy regarding the rez cancel. I guess it got overlooked that rez is the secondary fire on console so anytime we go for a rez it auto cancels because they are on the same button. Could you please relay this information to the devs so it can get fixed?

I finally got to play a few matches of the experimental, so here’s some feedback, mainly for Brig:

  • Unfortunately, every match where I played Brig, my co-support ended up being a very aggressive Lúcio. We never lost, but I was under a huge amount of stress and pressure, and had to switch off on a couple of occasions (despite the enemy running no major Brig counters, and in fact actually running heroes that she’s supposed to be good against). It was extremely difficult to get an actual sense of Brig’s experimental playstyle under those conditions, since I hardly had room to think, so bear with me. It probably skewed my experience to a more negative outlook
  • I’m still getting used to just using packs to heal teammates, but I seem to be getting at least acceptable healing numbers with them. Not as much as I’m healing with live Brig, but I imagine that’s to be expected. I would probably heal more if I managed the packs better
  • I imagine that being right in the thick of everything and hitting enemies with primary is ideal, since it would regenerate the packs faster. I was not usually in range to do that safely, but I really wished I was. This is coming from someone who does NOT play "frontline Brig"
  • Landing Whip Shots from afar felt in general much less rewarding than usual
  • Despite the stats and the outcomes of the matches, I felt kind of unhelpful and weak. I didn’t feel like I was much of an active participant, more of an onlooking assistant most of the time. Considering I actually really enjoy playing live Brig the responsible way, and don’t frontline with her, I found this very strange
  • Personally, I really REALLY don’t think Brig should be enabling Dive heroes, since she’s supposed to counter them. This patch just makes her even better at enabling them, centering around that one specific oddball part of her kit that caused the rest of her to be nerfed over and over

Anyway. When I wasn’t playing Brig, I was playing Moira. I don’t know if it’s just because I felt so weak on Brig this time, but Moira felt much more powerful to me than usual. She was really fun

IDK, I should probably have my sister queue support with me next time so I don’t get stuck with constant YOLO Lúcios again. Maybe I can judge Brig’s changes more reasonably then

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My thoughts on the changes are less than great, taking away Brig’s Inspire really hurt her ability to effectively heal allies and changes how she is played, making her much less fun, the extra healing packs are appreciated but not necessary, however a boost in her shield capacity and/or a faster cooldown with her lunge would be appreciated.

Increasing Sigma’s health by 100 points to offset his lack of a barrier is a mistake, he should keep the experimental barrier as he originally did, its part of what really defines the character.

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I’ve been loving the ExC since it came out, and I’m super into the community event that goes along with it but I have to wonder that, clearly a lot of thought and work went into making this ‘for fun’ ExC card…which feels better to play than the game. I just hope the dev team is aware of how much more people seem to be enjoying themselves on ExC specifically because of how much better it feels to play, and not because they think it’s super wacky or out there…because it does not feel that way, as a whole. Some heros have a bit of a stink of meme to them, but as a whole a lot of these changes could go Live and just make the game feel better, if not just fresher.

For someone like me, who plays the game several hours a day, every day, since beta…the last ~year has been an especially rough draught. I’m cool and understanding of ‘extra’ content being pushed for OW2 like heros and maps and modes…but the general balance of the game went from ‘glacially Blizzard slow’ to just flat out non-existent. Even if there are no clear outlying ‘far overpowered’ heros or anything…if nothing is done for months to shake up a game balance-wise…it really starts to feel just bad, if not boring. I think that is one of the main reasons that this EXP has been so wildly popular; it’s like all the changes people have been asking for, at once…after practically nothing for what feels like a year.

I hope that, besides the feedback of interesting ExC cards for fun things you’re taking back from this, the dev team also realizes that the OW fans who are still playing are just dying of thirst for any real update beyond season events…even if it doesn’t pan out, at least try engaging things out to shake up the game here and there -and put it on live servers, so people can play competitive with it. The turnaround for actual Live balance is just outrageously slow, if we get anything at all, and even then it is usually the tiniest smidge of balance…but at this point, I don’t think that’s enough to keep the people still playing fully invested until the TBA date of OW2.

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