Another argument that is founded upon a total lack of understanding of what a shooter is and the numerous different versions of this that have been tried over decades of game design.
Ever hear of Tribes? Team fortress? Day of Defeat?
Yeah, didn’t think so.
Having heroes/classes with abilities does not make a game NOT a shooter.
ah yes , insults and pettiness. I’ve played shooters since I was born. overwatch is completely unique from almost any other game out there. they have room to make choices for the health of this game and stray off the beaten path of traditional shooters. which this game was never intended to be
Being a posterchild isn’t the protection you might think it is.
Mercy is literally the game’s posterchild for the support category, but that didn’t stop the devs from reworking her back in 2017.
It was so poorly recieved (especially among Mercy players) there was a mass exodus of players quitting the game.
The ‘support main’ population at the time freaking cratered because of how unpopular the new Mercy rework was, which had a disasterous a domino effect of burnout on many of the players that stayed. Especially on tank mains. The “Support Main Exodus” after Mercy’s rework made the later “Tank Main Exodus” a lot worse.
The game’s player numbers never really recovered from that.
Tracer, Widow and Genji trancend mere “poster child” status - They’ve basically been cast as the “main characters” of the Overwatch League.
To the OWL flunkies, everyone else is a “side character” at best. At worst, everyone else is a glorified gadget/weapon mod for the “main characters” to use.
Couldnt have wrote it better myself. People need to understand that Overwatch is a game that HAS FPS ASPECTS! It however is MORE about ABILITY USAGE.
The DPS role should be a mix of abilities and aim combined with positioning. It would be unfair to only require aim out of the DPS players.
I completely agree personally but unfortunately the dev team for Overwatch seems to have the opposite opinion as of late, which might explain a lot of the more recent balance changes and lack there of on certain hero’s. This was from the last AMA just a few months back when asked about the Power Creep discussion. The last part in particular strikes a chord with this conversation though:
Courtesy of Wyoming for putting together a thread with all the devs answers together.
Take from it what you will. Less Moba doesn’t necessarily mean getting rid of Moba elements all together. But more FPS is definitely concerning in respect to a hero like Widow who’s character design thrives in an FPS setting, but can be oppressive to the Moba aspects and hero’s of the game.
I agree with this but I don’t think barriers are the solution either. I think we can find a way to make: Brig, doom, winston, rein, genji and all other none typical fps chars viable without having a barrier meta.
We had dive and rein zarya meta without hitscan dominating the whole field. It was a place where everyone just kinda did their own thing (before brig was added).
I think we can find this direction again if we just nerf ashe and widow a bit more. Their chars are very clearly not something that should have such high impact in damage just due to aim.
Season 4, yeah. I remember it well. Post Ana 100% heal boost nade nerf, but then they completely crippled triple tank after they nerfed her damage which sent us into nothing but dive. I still say that’s the most balanced the game ever was for the few weeks it lasted.
I started season 6 so im not really sure what it was like. But i do know people told me thats why brig got released in the first place.
I think the game is in a decent place right now, but widow and ashe nerfs pls. its not a new issue either. Its just become more apparent as double shield and goats is gone.
Because its gone widow and ashe with the buffs (no her two nerfs isnt enough) become broken…
Widow might be OP, however I do think something requiring aim is what what makes it balanced; what gives it inconsistency that lowers the value.
For example, McCree would be broken if he landed every shot for 140 damage. But because he has to aim for headshots, it lowers the value way more from its inconsistency, making it balanced.
Aim is a skill and I acknowledge that, but Widow gets way too much value even for how inconsistent she may be
It doesn’t justify her but the problem is not her in this case.
She is a preferred pick because:
-less shield are picked
-the healing rate is abysmal + a lot of the other dps got hit with a nerf hammer
I mean we have Rein/Winston in most games right now. If it requires two shields to stop her, that’s an issue. We have a very healthy tank meta of Winston/D.Va and Rein/Zarya and the occasional Orisa/Hog, how it should be. If you get punished for not running double shield, then she is OP
Soldier over here ofc its needed. but widow is different from mccree, soldier and tracer. you understand what i mean theres no need to explain it.
indeed.
I’d like to see a version of Widow and Hanzo with no one-shot headshots. Give them new and reworked abilities that give them more utility and like residual damage that paired with a like 150 HS could secure kills in about the same amount of time they do now with 1 HS.
The difference would be that it gives more ability to play around them without always having to cower behind cover and/or shields 24/7. And it would give players the ability to better play around Widow/Hanzo since they’d have to be “trapped” in their utility/new abilities to be in considerable danger of a “one shot” rather than it taking at least 2 shots to be killed.
Then you wouldnt have every game with a Widow in even mid to low Plat and up feel like a Widow determined game or the better Widow wins.
I rememebr the days where people SUCKED as Widow/Hanzon even in Plat and would be considered throw picks…now it feels like anyone who plays these heroes is “god tier” for their rank (if they arent a smurf).
Edit: I play in plat and diamond on CONSOLE and no joke its not fun with Widow especially. At least Hanzo is more along the lines of a high speed projectile so unless you are spamming to hit the 1 shot that wins for your team eventually, you dont get many hard carry Hanzo’s compared to Widow.
Its not enjoyable playing in plat/low diamond games or like QP games and then seeing that the Widow is like gold or low plat peak when they play comp (and not even on Widow!), yet anytime i peaked out, a shot either killed me very very very quickly OR whizzed by my head because they were a millisecond too early/late.
Aaaaaaaaaaand McCree also gets one of the easiest stuns in the game, which directly leads into an easy kill-combo, and whereas Widowmaker has a support-only ultimate, McCree’s ult has team wipe capabilities that consistently zones out entire segments of maps.
It’s almost as if – crazily – these characters are balanced around different capabilities. Whereas one hero has slightly better mobility and long-ranged lethality, the other has a powerful stun, shoots faster, and has a stronger ultimate. Both these heroes are meant to excel and be rewarded for different situations, they’re balanced accordingly to what they actually do.
Widowmaker can only get kills when she wants to provide for the team, and beyond that, she only offers the threat of her lethality. If she’s missing shots, or shooting barriers, or being knocked out of position, then she’s bringing nothing to her team except just the threat that she might get that headshot kill eventually. This is why Widow is so lethal, because there are many obstacles between her getting that one thing that she does. This is in comparison to McCree, someone who is far more consistent with his damage, has mobility/utility on a lower cooldown, and comes packed with a stun, which can ward off flankers, verify kills, interrupt abilities, open up Rein’s shield, etc.
I don’t know what else to tell people who are having this much trouble wrapping their head around the balance of the most conventional sniper Overwatch has. Snipers are meant to be lethal at long-ranges, and there is naturally a challenge to sniping because it requires such pinpoint accuracy at any given moment. Widow is allowed to be this lethal because her kit provides almost nothing else, especially when compared to other abilities on other heroes. Like, it breaks my mind that people here will say “Grapple is a free escape” when we literally have Translocate, Recall, Cryo Freeze, and Wraith Form in the game – literally free escapes, but Widowmaker clunkily wooshing off in one-direction without any invulnerabiity? Ohhh that’s too much, even though it’s also on a lengthy cooldown, preventing Widow from abusing it and leaving plenty of windows for her to get out-mobilized by the enemy.
I don’t think anyone realistically defends Widow when she’s genuinely OP and dominating the meta, I think people can clearly point out and call out when she’s too strong in a meta and needs to be taken down a notch. However, threads like this pretty consistently leave me with a taste in my mouth that suggests this isn’t about meta balance at all, but rather a frustration that one hero is “allowed” to do something, even though that one thing they’re “allowed” to do is virtually the only thing that hero is able to do that’s meaningful. It doesn’t matter if Widow is actually OP or not, people just aren’t happy to get sniped.
And listen, I get it, I’ve even made threads about this before discussing long and hard about the balance of snipers in video games, even beyond Overwatch. I don’t like getting sniped either, Widow is definitely not very fun for me. That being said, I have to admit that there’s plenty of ways to counter her, and there’s nothing in her kit that feels “free,” everything she does is generally something she worked for and was challenged in order to accomplish. People aren’t going to understand that though when they’re on the receiving end of her headshots, because all they think is that one frame where they died, they slam their keyboard and think, “I didn’t deserve that.” The thinking stops there and it manifests further as just anger.
Widowmaker has no pressing balance concerns, as far as I can tell. The falloff nerf they hit her with most recently addressed the biggest problem I had with her design, which was that she had limitless lethality which in turn applied a humungous pressure on the entire roster of heroes. Tuning that down has greatly reeled in her potential and allows for more opportunities for other heroes to play into her, and I currently don’t see anything else glaring with her kit. She has strengths, she has a whole list of weaknesses, the same could be sad about almost any hero, so that sounds pretty balanced to me, as much so as any sniper can be balanced in an FPS game really.
For clarification, Mei’s right click projectile size is bigger than Junkrat’s grenades. Please don’t say it “takes more aim.” You’re not supposed to be trying to snipe with her anyway.
You’re actually saying McCree’s ult is stronger than literally knowing where the enemy team is? Well that says… something.
McCree also gets to know where the enemy is, which is handy for him, and his ultimate zones out entire areas with guaranteed death as the punishment. Widowmaker’s ult is very good, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t going to clear a point, it isn’t going to combo with another ultimate, it isn’t going to force a stall, it isn’t going to confirm a kill, it isn’t going to interrupt other ultimates, etc.
Both ultimates are strong, but one has actual damaging and threatening capabilities in itself, whereas the other only offers a passive advantage that requires other factors to capitalize on.
So again, crazily, it’s almost as if these heroes were balanced for different purposes and to do different things.
They don’t balance the game around the low ranks.
Where does this argument come from? I’ve not at all talked about ranks and the aspect of balancing around them.
because skill is a type of balance. There is no reason to pick a hero that takes skill if it does no better than others.
She’s not OP. Stop winging about it and go monkey. You will find that there aren’t many widows who want to play anymore.
Exactly! It’s a very weird double standard that even I already pointed out.