What are you saying? Please reword, I’m having difficulties understanding
If anything - that doesn’t help the point of that they don’t cater to OWL and GM only.
We’re hero pools a factor cause I’m not exactly sure when your are talking about…but it’s worth mentioning if they were
Moving goalposts and metas is not balancing. Metas are NOT balancing, and I cant help but see through blizz with OWL and the latest genji nonsense. Sick pro nanoblade 6ks make them the most money.
If the game was to actually be “balanced” we wouldnt have a million new heroes and broken reworks, the OG cast would have stayed relatively the same, and all picks would be extremely balanced from that point. Every hero after ana was a mistake, and almost every rework was a HUGE embarassment.
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To balance primarily for the players with aptitude and can push the boundaries of how the game works… that being equated to favoritism is wrong in every measure. Imagine it this way. It’s good for the lower ranks to be able to break down certain complex aspects and SKILL UP, it gives a purpose to being good or not when you start to click on how to push that boundary yourself.
It’s good for them too. It gives purpose to their actions, because success being easy to attain is going to be used as a cudgel against lower ranked players and form a literal elo hell of players who can abuse this up till a certain point, which still has the majority of players in it, and that stifles the opportunity to be the one pushing that boundary, and creates toxicity of X HERO IS NO SKILL etc etc…
Balancing top down is the only way to ensure you get paired with ranks closer to your level without vast variance per game, and they already balanced for the casual crowd. The casual crowd used only these heroes in meta off meta good or bad, guaranteed value is the tool of plat and down. Reins been meta forever down there, doesn’t matter what you do, that was a casual tool, easy to hit damage and a relatively easy to conceptualize shield mechanic, and even when he isn’t good, he is PLAYED TO DEATH.
The cudgel comes in the form of a literal hammer. And obviously those tools are continually being tuned down, and when they reach reasonably balanced the community that played them ALOT dissipates - the only one this hasn’t properly happened to is Rein, because of how razors edge his balance is in terms of combat, but how much time he needs to cross given map layouts to take the fights in his range is stopping him from being tuned further down, (not a hard wall it can be done) - but he will still be intensely meta at low ranks REGARDLESS. Another example is moira. Another hero who gets used plat and below REGARDLESS IF THEY’RE GOOD.
The perception that blizzard only balances for OWL GM masters is formed on a game built to cater for the casual playerbase, and those tools were wildly used to romp out the competitively charged players who aren’t that great - THE CASUALS WHO WANT TO PLAY MORE. The casual balance screwed the lower tiers and the top end just formed plans that ignored the power picks strengths because they are far more flexible by merit of mechanical skill - plat and below runs suboptimal into the power picks that GM players can play around or avoid or focus, the powerhouses aren’t always backed by pickrate at GM because they’re being metad against, the meta is to stop them from being able to make use of the power picks. I call those sleeper OP, and the forums will miss it until it is prominent then demand it should have never been like this and that it is broken. Like this the wrong heroes get buffed and nerfed because the meta is working against which hides the power from a statistical standpoint, if you balanced off of pick/winrates alone you would be very out of touch. The REASONS for a meta are often not on the field.
It is balanced top down for a reason, it’s not favoritism that is MERIT BASED. The people who can actually push the boundaries of the given balance expose the problem encounters, what happens in plat has almost nothing to do with balance, and therefore SHOULD NOT BE BALANCED AROUND. It can only be gauged for what it is, that the players feel a certain way about X interaction - that’s usable information on how to build the games future components - not very usable to balance upon. And that’s not favoritism, to do it the other way or balance on the middle would just be dumb period, and the ones that think it will benefit the casual playerbase, I’ve only got one thing to say about that …
“The Road to hell is paved with good intentions”
And I’m not about paving that road because I quite like this game, and you casuals are the lifeblood, and hopefully my future opponents within overwatch. I’d hate to see the casuals get upset because of casual balancing because it hurts them and them only, because that literally is poor balance. At most you’ll annoy the GM players with the casual tools, but they’ll just pick comps that avoid dealing with the problems those things pose, casual balance kills casuals the most, and makes for truly broken interactions that legitimately are BS and the casual playerbase will be triggered they run into all these problems and almost no one cares enough about the game at that point to not make the game a coin flip because teamwork makes the dreamwork, and when you won’t build against it it rolls you, and only GM (and rarer but still true of masters) will swap to play properly against these tools. Tell me who that drives away first. A playable game, vs a game that’s more luck based on the RNG of the amount of Fs they’re gunna give with conceptualizing a team against over performers born of casual balance. It’s a bad plan, and equating that to:
Let me tell ya this : If the child wants to drink battery acid and you don’t let him, that ain’t neglect.
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I’m ok with GM/top 500 balance…actually I think that’s what’s best. Balancing ladder around OWL makes zero sense.
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A factor to what? DB?
If so, then not necessarily. It was a general experiment after the community kept pestering them for a ban system. But they said it was an attempt at keeping the meta fresh.
This reply should honestly be stickied
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Hate to break it to you, but thier has been dozens of changes that came from the lower tiers influence.
Like how they changed hog back in the day, They hesitance to touch Sym and Torb because of how they can cheese out lower tiers.
The time their putting into changing 2CP
(Something that the pro’s never had an issue with)
The resources their putting into LFG, the Workshop, and arcade modes are definitely not for the OWL.
Random things like genji’s old ledge grab tech was removed do to the fact it wasn’t something that everyone could do.
Etc Etc. The heigher tiers are definitely a starting point, and the trickle down balancing does have it’s issues.
but the fact that we are not being ignored in most cases, it’s that you can’t expect that everything be tuned to your liking.
Problem with that is OWL exists, and GM tries to replicate it’s strats. Balancing around all 3 is still probably the meta for balance.
The strats don’t have to be pulled off with finesse on ladder, but they are much much more used after appearing in OWL - it should be balanced FOR ladder, while using OWL as a useful tool in crushing overly potent strategies. So still balance around OWL to an extent, but FOR the ladder primarily.
I’m just one guy, could be wrong yet still. But Theeenks c:
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Except like someone else pointed out
The game could be perfectly balanced and perception will play into it a huge amount. That literally is why hero pools was born. But they didn’t stick with or execute this Structure change at all for no reason.
You have one child who demands sweets all the time because that makes them feel good. Child two is like, I wanna drink battery acid. I’m tired of coke.
You as the one in power needs to say
… Hmmm battery acid is a no. But maybe coke hasn’t been all that great either.
You won’t get a perfect balance ever. But if meta is 90% perception, you’ll never see where you really are. So by confirming that owl is top and perfect, you’re handicapping what should be the goal: the growth of both kids. And one is leading you to give both cavities.
Owl balancing isn’t going to work because no prioritization works when social factors are so major in the execution of play.
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I don’t mind that the game is primarily balanced around top play to ensure a fair game. I am concerned that they appear to be balancing the game around what’s flashy or looks good on stream. That’s not a good sign.
I don’t think it can work. Take Sombra for example. She’s meta in OWL rn and terrible at every single rank on ladder…even GM. So what is to be done with her? OWL games are designed around a handful of players who all know each other and scrim for like 8 hours per day. Ladder is balanced around random people who play for fun mostly. These things are too different to be balanced together.
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All heroes should be equally skilled and have the same impact but these forced metas or star skill systems have made it impossible to balance because they have to appease every criteria.
I also think PC and consoles should be balanced seperately, people like Dodo will claim they are the same game when in reality they are not, its much slower, especially at higher ELO play. And because of that certain heroes that do incredibly well on console underperform on PC, which leads to the question of what to balance and what not to.
OW balancing is a huge mess, and I think it goes further than making OWL money and forcing metas.
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Sorry bud but that’s NEVER going to happen…that’s a very ideological way of looking at balance and ultimately unrealistic
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Oh im aware, and its sad, but forcing metas through new heroes, bad reworks, OWL pandering, console vs PC, and e-celeb crying is not true balance, and never will be
I wasn’t going to read this, because I was confused with your title.
But I agree, many people can have selective hearing when it suits their narrative.
That’s corporate speak. It’s like when they say that they care about diversity, inclusion, world peace, and other nonsense like that while using slave labor overseas. Or in the case of Blizzard, being shills for China. “Yes. Your voice is important. We just don’t listen to it.”
Overwatch was created not knowing what it wanted to be, I know it was originally going to be an MMO but ultimately was released as a casual FPS game with a blend of other genre elements… and then they decided they wanted it to be a competitive game.
This is a major issue with the game; there is two significantly different aspects of play going on, casual and comp. Focusing on only one aspect of play more than the other is always going to cause major issues regardless of the skill level of play they are focusing on.
The OWL is an echochamber of gameplay information, I know people think they should be the ultimate arbiters of balance but that kind of thinking perpetuates the very apparent turmoil in the overall community.
OWL probably gives them significant profits and they need to focus on what makes eyeballs stay on the screen, that doesn’t necessarily make the decisions right it just means the decisions are profitable.
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Yeah I totally agree with that - that’s where this bit comes in.
So I’m fully onboard with what they said, that is the only accurate take on what we should be following on with. They generate a sentiment which is important to develop around (not balance around) because it directly affects the enjoyment of most of the games inhabitants. Use the sentiment, but do not balance around it is basically how I read that.
Yeah that’s kinda where I’m at, coke was the casual balancing they dove into in development, but it backfired, so battery acid bad, coke also not good - we’ve been in freefall balancing away from it and the concepts responsible for a lot of the games worst elements for casual players are being reworked out of the game pretty much, almost none of these heroes developed along these lines have stayed as they were originally. That’s the coke, I suggest whats good for you but not immediately going to give you the satisfaction of bubbling away on your tongue, but makes you overall healthier because we let the nature of players aptitude define the state of the game - natural sugars if you will, it’s bloody sweet when you get a taste for its effects. The coke is mixing up the aptitude with baseline GV - and this exacts wildly inconsistent gameplay no matter your own level until you basically get out of there, if your leap in skill is massive you can pull it up on your own, if your leap in skill is above, but not by much ( the coke fed casuals ) you will not see your input matter on what basically feels like a coinflip because of the nature of the casual gamer, they care less, and will tank your experience for you.
Truuuuuuuue.
That’s true to an extent, it is mostly perception that X heroes are trash, but the meta is what causes the perceptions to build because within that gamestate, they are often locked out of garnering proper value against X team comp. The meta is more perception in ladder, but at OWL level, the meta is deeply tried and tested - their meta is generally the most effective tactic available - but then we flip around to what’s good or bad, this is where the perception kicks back up, and then the perception of the meta heroes being too strong because of outside conditions that put them in a heavily needed position - example, burst damage is forcing shield gameplay no matter how weak they get - but the burst heroes responsible for forcing shield play aren’t always around, like widow or hanzo for example. The meta is usually the response to whats good if you look at everything with our very capable hindsight.
My stance is balance on note of OWL - FOR THE LADDER - but top down. The words are specific so that the equation is correct. Don’t balance ladder FOR OWL, balance with OWL pointing out problem outliers that could be used on ladder, balance the game PRIMARILY FOR LADDER, but the balance must exist top down, as that is the only path the growth - the balancing for casuals is the coke, and the coke is stifiling the growth of casual players and discouraging them, while actively working against the mindsets of the players themselves, casuals are there to play, not compete, and when met with the choice of do what they want vs do whats good for everyone but it’s not what I enjoy, they pick the former, and the casual tools are turning that into relentless feeding and most are not willing to swap, and to ask them that is the greatest offense ever for some reason - but overall, this is what happens when you give them what they want rather than what they need to get what they ACTUALLY want but don’t understand what they think that they want is actually what they despise about the game, leading to all the things consistently complained about since overwatches inception.
You’re right, it won’t. I mean just look at what OWL does to the devs, they made release brig man trust me I get it I am with you and I hate that the ladder is being shaken violently to spam change a meta because of OWL engagement, and that IS what happened, the OWL wasn’t being balanced around, they just wanted to see meaningful reflected change because the viewers were tired of watching almost indistinguishable games from eachother. But I’d hardly say this game suffers of OWL balancing, it suffers from PANIK I HAFF TO CHANGE THE WHOLE META IN A SINGLE PATCH, GET THE BOX OF SLEDGEHAMMERS AND JUST START TOSSING THEM AT EVERYONE INVOLVED - this completely misses the mark and we spend 6+ months dealing with whatever that was “this years OWL panik.”
Outside of those poor OWL based changes, it’s not entirely balanced around poorly, and has been a working solution - so long as you ignore the BS that happens every year when they panik about viewer counts near the end of the season and shake it up for stage 3-4.
We are almost completely in agreement. But merit is the only way MMR and SR systems can function as intended, and the casual tools force counters that casuals aren’t willing to do. Jeff once said we need to develop the game around the habits of players. That was a moment of faith restored in Jeff Kaplans outward view for overwatches future development.
I hope you like this FRUITY beverage 
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