Why can't Overwatch be balanced

General Discussion
1

The most common type of thread talked about on the General Discussion is the balance of Overwatch.

“This is not a game that can be balanced due to its current design” is something that you will hear very commonly. But it is rare to see that person explain what about the design of the game is wrong and how to fix it.

Some things I hear are: 2-2-2 role lock, the immense burst DPS and lack of passive healing and bad health back placement which forces the support role to be more “healers”, the map designs, the fact that hard countering is so important, role popularity, the fact that there are different Elos which have common weaknesses, etc. Maybe even a combination of many.

In your opinion, what are the MAIN PROBLEMS with this game and offer a potential solution so the balance state has a higher chance of being 10/10. I understand that balance is a very difficult thing to achieve, but the community seems to be obsessed with it so here is a thread.

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I just think there are to many differences between the different levels of play that achieving a balanced state for the game is almost impossible. Something can be weak in GM but dominating bronze. Not to mention balancing for OWL.

3 Likes
3

OW is a type of game that can never be perfectly balanced due to how many comp synergies and counters that exist. As well as how hero viability scales sharply between ranks, and how we have two different environments (coordinated play and ladder play). But it can always be better, which is what the devs should shoot for. For example a few months back, it was really good and diverse for a few weeks. It wasn’t balanced, but it was probably the best it was this year outside of Rein-dva meta

4

Yes, I agree. This game can’t be balanced but we can get close to it.

Anyways I saw a video where Jeff was talking about how ungrateful the community is about their changes (on stream with Fran, talking about meta). The reason people are always complaining is because they aren’t aiming for balance, they are trying to spice up the meta for the whopping 62 people who watch OWL and enjoy it.

1 Like
5

Well yeah people will always complain about meta (because different metas appeal to different people). I think they should just aim for as many map-specific metas as possible to encourage the most hero diversity. Sure, some will be picked more than others but it is literally not possible to have all heroes maintain equal pick rates and win rates anyway

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It was built on a game and engine that was badly designed from the beginning, causing issues later on.

Anyone remember the Defense role?

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The biggest problems are: Balancing for the pro game, balancing for what looks good, and balance favoritism.

Basically, a lot of heroes are just not intended to be good. This means the game lacks variety because a lot of heroes are just not used, or they’re just used in like one niche composition in GM.

3 Likes
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Only 90’s kids remember. Damn I’m old!

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Do y’all wanna hear a joke?

Tracer getting nerfed outside of a pulse bomb nerf that gets mostly reverted!

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The most logical way to balance that is fair to the players would be to ask these questions:

  1. Is the character able to do its job? Yes? Don’t buff.
  2. Is the character unable to do its intended job? If so then buff.
  3. Is the character doing things its NOT SUPPOSED TO? If so then nerf.
1 Like
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Back in mah day we used to have coin flips for comps.

12

makes Zen do 1 hps

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It’s hard to meet the wants of every player. That’s why I think.

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It doesn’t have to be perfectly balanced, it just needs to be fun and feel fair. As long as people feel there is decent counter play and a chance to make a play yourself then it’s fine.

then in defense of the dev team, a whole lot of balance issues at average ranks is just the player base being very bad at core team work or game fundamentals.

No shields and Genji/Sombra on Point A of a CP2 defense. No hitscan vs Echo in KOTH. No main healer but a heavy tank comp. Playing too fast with a poke comp, playing too slow with a rush comp.
The bulk of lower ranks unable to play as a team and even doing a basic group up to take a true 6vs6 fight.

I don’t know how you balance that with top 1% GM ladder play and a pro league.

15

This is 100% wrong.

The reason OW can’t be balanced is because OW doesn’t have a team that can do it.

We need to go to the pre-school down the street from me to get someone to do it.

1 Like
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I think the best idea is to try to make heroes have the same ‘growth curve’. Right now, some heroes start out strong and stay about the same (Reinhardt) and some start out weak and get better normally (McCree) and some start out terrible and get way better (Widow). This is why heroes are impossible to balance.

They need to make all heroes approximate the same curve. You can do this! For example, Ashe is kinda sniper-y but isn’t incredibly hard to play like widow because she gets easy value in dynamite. This is good, and makes her balanced across the ranks. She’s well designed whereas a hero like Widowmaker is badly designed because a bad player gets zero value. And Reinhardt is badly designed because a bad players gets way too much value, but a good player doesn’t get enough more because there’s so little he actually can do. Sigma is a much better tank design because it grows with skill.

17

There are a bunch of cursed problems in the game design. Like things the people who make it, can’t get around.

I’m not saying the game is wrong here, but it means the game has issues the devs can not work around.

Lets take the list of things the

  • a wide cast of heroes.
  • the games to feel fair.
  • the games to be fair.
  • people to be able to switch to solve issues.
  • the players want to be able to one trick

And like, there is a lot of things in that list you CAN’T do at the same time.

You can MAKE a fair matchup between a low moving hero, vs one which is fast and has a small hitbox, but, that would mean the weapon will be easy to land hits with.

It will make it a fair fight, but you will never make it FEEL like a fair fight. Or you can make it feel fair, but then it won’t BE fair.

People expect to win 70% of the time for an asymmetric game to “feel fair” (lots of studies on that, also, that number shows up all of the time, in other related places. Like, 70% of drivers think they are above average.

I think the main problems with overwatch, from a balance point of view basically solvable, IF you ignore the “feels fair” part, which as a game designer, you can’t.

Another problem is the more your balance for switches, the more one tricks become a problem, but, you NEED to balance for that, if you are going to have a diverse selection of heroes.

  • players hate to have supports have impactful abilities.
  • players don’t want healing to be super strong.
  • supports shouldn’t be DPS with a slight skin change.
  • all roles should have impact.

You can’t have all 4, and I think there is a real struggle in how to make that happen.

  • people want to be able to play their heroes to high ranks
  • heroes are going to have different curves of difficulity
  • and what LOOKS difficult isn’t what is difficult

And these combine in a really nasty way. Moira is a classic example, she LOOKS easy to get value out of, but, her win rate is awful at all ranks. So, obviously she is super hard, but people don’t understand that she IS super hard, because there is nothing in her kit which looks difficult.

But like, doing the basics with her isn’t enough to win games with her, since if it was people would win.

This is a variant of the the games to feel fair not matching with the the games should be fair - but don’t on particular heros.

The player base doesn’t like it when she is meta, or strong in GM, but, if the game WAS fair, then she would have just as much GM time as any other hero. Mei / Sombra etc would be the same.

2 Likes
18

I mean battlerite and paladins kinda ignored the 1st and 3rd point and it worked out great imo. :^)

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can’t get mad at a free game with daily updates :slight_smile:

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looks at sea of complaints about paladins’s bugs and how it’s pretty much a meme now
suuuure :eyes: