In his interview he says the overwarch community said "We can’t possible have any of our precious dive heroes nerfed, you should introduce a new character that helps with dive. " and his response to peoples negative reaction to brigitte is “We did that and hindsight will show you be careful what you wish for.”
Jeff why are you blaming the community for introducing an op character and waiting so long to nerf her and claiming that no one wanted dive character to be nerfed? No one was aksing for genji or tracer to be nerfed?
People were getting sick of dive constantly being the thing. They were getting tired of it always being Genji and Tracer in a match, killing your supports, and having no ability to fight back against them without sacrificing your ability to do your job as that hero. Introducing Brigitte was their way of helping without nerfing.
He could’ve said it a better way, but fact of the matter WAS that people were complaining and demanding something be done about Dive, but anytime someone suggested nerfs to the heroes who made it up (Genji, Tracer, etc) people rushed to their defense saying they were fine and Dive wasn’t an issue.
So Blizz introduces Brigitte, who effectively answered the demands for Dive to be gone, as well as not touching any numbers on the corresponding heroes
Edit: That said, making a single hero to break apart a Meta was not a good idea, they obviously realized that because Jeff also said they didn’t make Baptiste with the mindset of destroying Goats, but rather, so that he can work with and against it. Mistakes are made at times and what important is that EVERYONE learns from them
To be fair, most people were asking them to buff dive counters. Even now, with goats, there are plenty of people asking for buffs to counters such as Bastion, Reaper getting anti-heals on his shots like the comics. And the people who did want the new hero to be counter dive did not mean on their own. Nobody asked for a tank-support hybrid to solo counter dive. Feel free to find me ANY post ANYWHERE that asserts otherwise. It does not exist, fam.
Beyond that, people are asking for Reaper nerfs right now and lying about his viability at lower ranks. It is their job to interpret that feedback. They are literally employed to do that. Actually, they are not even technically supposed to listen to feedback. They have professionals to look at the data for that. They should be listening to feedback in extreme cases where it is affecting the enjoyment of other game regardless of balance. Arguably Reaper at the hehe moment.
The point is, most people were asking for nerfs to dive heroes, buffs to counters, and a new hero that would help mitigate the problem. Nobody asked for a character archetype that is powerful enough on its own to magically counter dive by their mere existence. I could see that as a random in the forums. They should have been able to see it. They are getting paid. I am just having fun. Why are my standards of interpretation higher?
I don’t think the community is to blame for Brigitte. Yes, we did complain about dive but nowhere do I remember us asking for Blizzard to add a single hero that completly shuts down Dive.
A better solution would be of been to just add a more balanced Brigs from the starting and slightly buff those that counter Dive heroes until Dive isn’t made as strong.
Time will tell how Baptiste will play out but considering all the buffs we got and the fact that his current version on the PTR probably won’t go to live, I’m somewhat hopeful.
That is the issue though. The bend balancing around Tracer and believe Genji is okay while ignoring the ludicrous D.Va stats. That is THEIR opinion, it just happens to be shared by the community. It is not as though they actually believe Genji is busted and they are just defending him because the community likes him. Nah. They share the sentiment. So to project the blame for their own decisions onto others who vaguely share the same ideas is bonkers.
They went on the record to talk about how they thought dive was fun to watch, they had a vested interest to keep it going until the community reached a boiling point… which is literally what happened. But taking outrage posts as evidence for your decisions is startling and explains why balance is so lopsided. Instead of going, “yeah, I can see that” maybe we should make it clear that they should balance based on facts instead of feelings? Or maybe more frequent slight adjustements to make other comps more viable. Anything but listening to salty players that are fed up to the detriment of the game.
The problem is that this is not always good advice. As Jeff just discussed in his recent interview, the effectiveness of a meta depends largely on the team comp. For example right now, no individual hero in GOATS is OP or broken, so nerfing any of them is spitting in the face of people who like those heroes just to break up a team comp played by the top 1% and in pro.
Buffing heroes weak in a meta is the same problem but in reverse. If you buff certain heroes they become good counters, but then also become annoyingly OP in common scenarios with comps that aren’t designed to resist them very well.
As a result there’s only so much the dev team can get from a bunch of people yelling and screaming for buffs here and nerfs there.
It’s true though, a lot of high tier players were adamant that Tracer should not be nerfed but instead countered. Man, Jeff’s recent statements have really been validating much of what I have been saying for a while now.
I definitely agree with your sentiment. It is difficult to thread the needle. However, that is why you do it all. Slightly nerf characters without crippling them. Slightly buff characters without making them must pick. And introduce new mechanics with a new hero that helps circumvent the problem.
Obviously issues will still happen. That small change might be much larger in hindsight. Maybe the new mechanic reinforces the meta instead. But it is better than saying, “screw it, I am going than ignore the problem and create a bigger problem.” It is not an easy job. But they chose wrong, which is fine, balance is, well, a balancing act, you can try again next patch and tweak things to bring them more in line. You should never, under any circumstance, blame the players for your decision. Even if it is true. That is just a PR nightmare. People are going to take offense to it, especially the people who never asked for this… which is pretty much everyone.
Yes we complained but they are the ones who decided to make it, so technically its THEIR fault not ours. Maybe if they took responsibility for their actions the game would be better balanced.