The game director in a direct response to the question of who they listen to with regards to balance not 2 weeks ago:
Super’s interpretation of what he heard in a discord regarding this one experimental patch:
we want to make a meta thats exciting and fun to watch for playoffs, we have to see how it plays out
The community:
YOU SEE THEY ONLY BALANCE FOR OWL!!!
im no expert…but for those of you who wonder why they dont communicate more often with the “community”…its probably because of things like this…
they give you the most access theyve probably given in 3 years 12 DAYS ago and already you dont care about what they had to say
jeff didnt shy away from the question…he gave you a direct response the question…very bluntly said (and confirmed)…yes we mostly balance the game around the top levels of play…but all feedback is important…
super gives his take…
and we’re right back to “they dont care about us”…(even though we’ve been clamouring for changes to this particular meta how long now?)
Yeah, it’s ridiculous.
I am not a fan of the balance either, but when I see comments like “they solely balance around OWL” … like… no, they focus on balancing high level, as they should, but still take low ranks into consideration.
Ya I mean one of the reasons their so affraid of touching torb and sym is that they know how easy it is to cheese games down in the lower ranks with their turrets.
I’m really tired of “they balance only for OWL” bs. If they actually balanced this game only for OWL right now we would have 50% lifesteal reaper, ironclad bastion, all-destroying hanzo and more. Too bad it’s easier to believe in conspiracy than to actually think.
Don’t care too much what the developers say at Blizzard now a days, they’re not exactly the most trustworthy bunch of developers out there. That they are saying that they listen, sounds more like a rehearsed PR document than actuality.
What it all boils down to is that the game is a pile of mess in the aspects that are important to the casual players, mainly QP and Competitive. This mess has been around since the game was released. They’ve tried a few patchwork patches here and there but the core game is today as it was in 2016.
Blizzard is a multi million dollar company, they care first about the money and second about their shareholders. Their players isn’t even a consideration for them. And it’s extremely evident in Overwatch that the 400 million marketvalue on E-Sports has enticed the suits at Blizzard to such a degree that they are pushing the actual direction of Overwatch.
I don’t think anyone wants to hear that their experiences is less valuable or that they should agree with the decided approach of the devs. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they don’t care when balance choices made only have major impact in higher and almost never in lower tiers.
Lower tiers are mostly affected by qol changes, and those are rare and far between. And yet, the obvious answer even by admission for higher tier play is general qol/ structural changes much more than lower ranks ever could.
If you prioritize one child, they get all the sweets, and all the goods, and sometimes the other child gets to choose the flavor of dessert the other child already picked out for everyone… Yeah. You’re the neglected child. It’s not a stretch.
And usually it’s the ones who are unhappy with tiny things or are casual and not full pros that make up the overall experience. But that’s my view on all things.
College basketball is more exciting than the NBA for me. My favorite cooking episodes are ones where pros have to cater to kids or the general public. Or fashion episodes centered on normal people. That’s what grounds any form of media or product meant for more than five people.
No one is reading my personal project about the forms of thought found in the pentateuch and how it compares and contrasts to the forms of thought found in southwestern native American philosophy. That’s super niche and not meant for the general consumption of normal, not - pretentious, average person living life.
But that’s literally not overwatch and especially any blizzard game. Wow was literally formed to be a more inclusive EverQuest. Ow is literally a shooter for the masses. Appealing to any one demographic just reads super wrong to me.
Balancing around OWL is absolutely biggest problem with balancing in this game. Its not even balancing around high tier, its balancing from the best of the best. Like this isn’t even the top 1% of players in high ranks, its more like 0.5%.
Im fine with them balancing around Gm/Masters thats completely fine [they should anyways]. But OWL??? No. Its not fair to the low ranks and its not fair to ladder.
I mean most of what the community demands is usually misguided (remember all the people calling for ana to have wall climb)
Even then the stuff that is used by the devs takes weeks to recode and playstest. Most of which can be summed up to a waist of time, as five other solutions go through the works.
And that’s not even mentioning the stuff that would require new animations, sound effects, models, and rigs.
Like give them credit they do listen, however this stuff does take time.
I mean it’s a bit biased, but he really isn’t wrong. Either way, I have given up on balance and don’t care about it anymore. It’s a waste of time for everyone to express and It’s shown.
As a developer you shouldn’t take things literally, you gather all the feedback and find the common idea behind that feedback. You might have a dozen people saying that Ana should wallclimb but you can interpret that as “we want Ana to be able to position easier”.
You also might have vague criticisms like healing is OP and barriers suck, it’s generally their job to boil down those issues to get to the essence of the complaint.
There will always be the edges of good suggestions, always. That doesn’t invalidate that there are good suggestions from the community that are never tested or even tried out.
And then we have the dismal MM system, which have been a joke since the game was released, and been constantly brought to the attention of the developers, yet they haven’t done anything. The reason they probably haven’t done anything about it, is because it doesn’t affect the pro players at all, and hence isn’t prioritised.
This “meta” isn’t here because shields are that great. Double barrier is here because of the power creep within the game and instead of admitting that the damage across the board is too high - the devs doubled down and said that they want to increase the damage even more.
They’re not trying to make the game actually be balanced but to target the META - that’s not balancing because you are isolating an issue in a particular environment and not focusing on the bigger picture.