As we build new heroes and balance the existing cast for our new 5v5 PvP experience, we have shifted our hero design approach to allow you to have an impact on your matches with a range of different heroes and strategies. This means reducing the presence of specific hard counters to heroes.
For example, in the original Overwatch—especially at higher skill levels—the strongest way to shut down a great enemy Tracer diving into your support line was to swap over to Cassidy. If that Cassidy player was effective enough, the Tracer could even feel a need to switch themselves to avoid that hard counter. While Overwatch 2 heroes will each have their own clear strengths and weaknesses, and some heroes will be more effective against others, we believe our game plays better and is more fun with fewer hard counters and a broader range of effective hero picks. A further benefit is having your personal favorite heroes be viable more often. That philosophy will be guiding us moving forward.
Source: Overwatch 2 Explained: Battle Pass, Shop, Hero Unlocks, and more - News - Overwatch
Yeah, I don’t think you all have nearly as much water as you all think you do.
I wish I was the one that found this, but I actually grabbed this from a different poster. I felt like nobody read it tho cuz it was a comment, so I’m just gonna make it the main topic of a post and see all the copium unfold.
Also don’t expect responses cuz I know I’m right lol. My mind cannot be changed.
I honestly wanna try a change to Comp rules, where there’s no Ult charge retention, however for 2 minutes after an Attack/Defend objective is captured.
You can’t see what the enemy teams heroes are on the Tab menu
Ult charge is reset to zero.
Which makes it so that everybody can swap, without an Ult Economy disadvantage.
Okay, but they clearly lied. Or let’s be reasonable, here. They… Changed their minds without disclosing that there was a direction change. Yeah, let us go with that.
I think this is the meat of what you’re saying summed up. Yeah?
One might think it was worded vaguely enough that they can say “Yeah, we did that. We nerfed Widow” and that wouldn’t be a lie in “reducing the presence of a specific hard counter to heroes”.
Not to mention this was posted a year ago. There’s been a lot of changes.
I don’t think they lied. I just think if they changed specific things too much they would completely alter a character to achieve that in too many cases. So this is as good as we could get.
But at the end of the day, it was vague.
Which specific hard counters? Which heroes are being affected?
It’s probably why I ignored it when Blizz said it originally. A statement that wanted to sound like they were going places, but they had nothing.
Edit: How do you take out one or two hard counters and have it not affect the rest of the kits that were unchanged? You don’t. That’s why I knew it was funny when They™ were saying it…
This is always hilarious because the forums just over a year ago is “I’M SO SICK AND TIRED OF ONE TRICKS” and now it’s “I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY EXPECT US TO SWAP!!”
idk what the big deal is, swapping has been the meta for months, its just balanced out by losing the ult or never getting an ult if you’re consta-swapping
Its even a valid strategy:
Start with Orisa, the tankiest tank that ever did tank
Swap to Anything at 2+mins, that positioning they just did for the tankiest tank that ever did tank, which is now wrong
^^ this exactly. Blizz didn’t understand that people don’t exactly like certain playstyles. At all. I’d rather sell my left kidney than play junkrat, sym, current mei, soldier, or sojourn.
Actually. I’d rather sell all my organs if I can’t play Pharah or Widow. I’d say sombra, but I hate the rework.
Well looking at the above example; they did adjust this match-up. Cassidy is less effective against Tracer thanks to his new grenade ability, being on a longer cooldown.
On the other hand, it’s still a pretty big counter against her, too.
Moreover, they haven’t really adjusted other match-ups within the Damage-role yet. Many of the same match-ups still have quite a few “hard counters” (in their view) within that role. Supports feel even (more) effective now. And many Tank players are now more aggressive, but the Damage-role still feels pretty superfluous, other than maybe Solder and Bastion - currently the most two complained Supports.
Blizzard is slowly removing those hard counters over time. It wasn’t going to be all fixed the moment OW2 came out, but over time its being adjusted.
Sombra 1.5sec hack is no where nearly as oppressive to ball as it once was or to other heroes.
Mei lacking freeze is not as much of a huge middle finger to tanks now when at most you have to deal with wall that is half the health it used to have per pillar.
Cass nade is gone.
Knockbacks are reduced for tanks.
Hog hook is neutered.
Brig stun is gone.
Roadhog now has less punishing play to CC effects that gut his breather ability or his old whole hog.
There are more changes coming over time. Pharah has been slated as well as a hero getting an adjustment to possibly not be in the air as long which means she might not be counted by hitscan as fiercely, but not as untouchable to projectile heroes as she is for many of them.
“We have implemented ultimate refund cost to encourage people to swap rather than holding onto their ult even though their hero isn’t right for the current situation”
That doesn’t say that they don’t want swapping to be a thing though?
It just means there should be more than one solution to a problem - you should have multiple options to switch to rather than just one, super obvious hard-counter.
Swapping to counter is core to class-based shooter gameplay. If you don’t like it, you really are playing the wrong game.
I’ve been avoiding swapping for years and it’s never ruined my experience (the only one that matters to me). What DID ruin my experience is OP supports, but that’s the wrong topic.
