Why do people think balance isn't good right now?

I’m not talking about that at all. I’m talking about how it’s an ability people thought was terrible until they realized it was awesome. Time had to pass before people caught on to that.

Reaper is in a similar place, but opposite. People think the lifesteal change is terrible, but now that some time has passed he’s not as OP because people have started to learn how to fight him again.

Most buffs/nerfs are like this. There’s almost always outrage about something until it’s been out for a while and people learn how to deal with it.

Even though every off-meta hero has a niche, many people are still stuck on the meta heroes and will think people who won’t play said meta heroes are trolls and will report them (But only if they lose)

I believe people still haven’t adapted to each hero’s niche yet, but I can see every hero having some sort of team comp that works in their favor…

It’s because the strict meta is only tanks and supports. Within main tanks Reinhardt is just plain better than the other main tanks and the only time you play the other tanks is when Reinhardt has a bad map or when Orisa gets excessive value from anchoring (Ilios: Well). Within off tanks D.va and Zarya are the staple while Roadhog has been stale ever since they decided to decimate him. Within main healers Ana is just outhealing Mercy with a better kit and Moira is only played in one niche GOATS comp. Within off-healers Lucio and Zen are outshining Brigitte because they keep bashing Brigitte off from high tier gameplay little by little.

Now the messy part is DPS. They’re all relatively weaker than the other 2 roles we have. Within that role there’s Genji, Widow, Hanzo and Ashe outperforming the rest with only dedicated Tracer and McCree mains barely hanging in there while the rest keep getting either almost no love, no love or terrible changes (aside from Torb and Sym changes which have helped them).

A lot of the heroes seem balanced, but they aren’t and the subjective changes the devs have made during last few patches have been pretty bad for the game overall.

You’re joking right?

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Overwatch Contenders, goats, goats and more goats. GM in Overwatch competative, goats goats and more goats. Watching Overwatch streams, if they don’t pick a goat comp character they get accused of throwing. I was watching Surefour play a bit ago, and his teammates were accusing him of throwing because he was picking damage characters. Same with Iddqd. Watching Overwatch Contenders, a team comes out not in Goat comp and the commentators question if they’re intentionally throwing the match. The only balance is in the chaos of people choosing not to play the op composition, which apparently is what you’re experiencing. It only works if both teams so choose. It’s like saying it’s not hot outside because you’ve all chosen to stay inside, where it’s nice and air conditioned. The heat is still there, no matter how you feel. The people who put the most hours into the game, who try to make a living off of winning, who look for the optimal compositions, they play goats, and have played goats for quite some months now. The game is not balanced when one composition with few variations, is so dominant.

Because the best indicator of balance is that everyone is equally annoyed by everything.

A lot of heroes are techincally balanced… but only after getting nerfed into the ground (sometimes after a horribly botched rework). The result is a hero who’s clunky as hell and generally underwhelming to play.

Sure, they’re balanced and viable. But now no one wants to play them.

Seriously? Dang comrade. Why they do you like that?

Not a balance issue.
That’s a toxicity issue.

Mostly because lately the balance is resorting to use a hammer instead of a scalpel.

They have been adjusting skills in brutal percentages. To put some examples, Brig got a 90% damage reduction on Shield Bash damage and Doomfist had Seismic slam chopped off his damage/range, besides the uppercut being a joke.

I thought the 30% nerf in damage to Roadhog was going to be a one time thing but lately, the Brig/DF fiasco, the brutal uncalled buff to Reaper and the massive nerf of armour (a basic game mechanic) are making a lot of players uncomfortable and scared of any possible Hamme… i mean “balance” that may come next.

Just my 2 cents.

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There’s only power creep because a couple heroes have always been absurdly OP and blizzard won’t nerf them. So they’re buffing other heroes to try and bring them up to that level.

A large portion of the player base is not happy with the game balance because A: There are still heroes which are way worse of than others and B: Game balance is done without thinking about the player experience.
That started slightly with empowering Dive to much, hit it’s peak with Mercy’s rework (And a few other reworks as well) and since then never really stoped.

Everyone always like’s to say that fun is subjective… Then again, that was the only reason why the game was so successful at the start.

Rein and ana with highest pickrates across the board with rein and orisa being the only real tanks.

Why?

  • GOATS is still a thing in high elo and Blizzard can’t do anything to it
  • 3 sniper meta in mid/low elo because hurrdurr mah skill mah aim, easy smurfing easy stomping
  • completely wtf Reaper buff, making him a pubstomper in low elo and still trash in high, not even acknowledging how bad shadow step is
  • there are only two main tanks, Rein and Orisa, but Orisa was already pretty situational, then they just nerfed armor without any compensation, making Rein a 100% must pick in every game except for a few cheese comps
  • Mercy, Symmetra, Torbjörn, Sombra are still throw picks in certain ratings, especially in solo queue
  • the game plays completely different in solo queue and 6-stacks yet Blizzard refuses to acknowledge this, and the only thing they should do is separate solo queue competitive, flex queue and 6-stacks (probably clans, idk) because “hurrdurr queue times”.

Oh and this. Literally haven’t seen a game where they only adjust numbers by at least 20%. Like how hard would it be to raise 76’s clip size by 5 or damage per bullet by 1, or Mercy’s heal to 53 from 50 and say “let’s see where it goes, if it sucks we’ll revert it next patch or buff more if still not enough”?

It’s both.

  • Sym and torb reworks, while good in paper, have just as many problems as the pre-rework

  • Reaper is borderline OP in the low ranks, and not good in the high ranks, the polar oposite of what we wanted: him beeing better in high lvl play

  • Hanzos state is…questionable at best

  • Mccree needs buffs, but they buff FTH, Which is EXACTLY what he doesnt need

  • only 7+ heroes are viable at a time in the meta

  • the metas in this games are always the same , always 1 meta that has no counters

Etc etc

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its not only the hero balance. Comp is a lottery. Loot boxes are disappointing. Almost no new content other than slow hero releases and new maps which aren’t that exciting.

Now Apex came, and NO, it won’t kill overwatch. That’s a stupid argument since both are different genre of games.

Apex highlighted overwatch’s flaws. Overwatch is heavy team dependent, yet Apex has a far more superior communication system. Apex nailed the pining system. That’s the system overwatch needed to perfact. We thought voicelines were good, but they aren’t enough.

That’s imo why people think OW is in a bad state rn.

What tanks are not viable? They all get played in ranked.

It’s a fundamental disconnect between how the game is intended to be played and how it’s actually played. People want their “main” hero to be good across the board in all scenarios but simply put this won’t happen. Widow is weak versus lots of barriers and tanks. Tracer is weak versus lots of armor. etc etc.

Some people are also incapable of understanding their own lack of skill, and instead blame it on their hero being weak or certain enemy heroes being too strong (when in fact those heroes are just strong versus you and have their own weaknesses).

Until we have a good set of 50+ heroes that have more overlapping abilities, there will also be certain combinations of heroes that will form a meta and can be deemed “OP.”

Playing niche heroes is fine as long as the rest of your team is ok with it.

One tricking niche heroes, on the other hand, IMO should count as gameplay sabotage in comp.