Why not just make Virus the new Hack?

General Discussion
21

And they did a terrible job at that. Unless their goal was to increase the frequency of vocal detraction.

1 Like
22

I dont personally think she was that frustrating to play against, and from my own experience playing probably a good 1000+ hours of sombra in OW1, I never really got that much complaining about her. I think most complaints were just on the forums.

My personal opinion was that her original design was not an issue, and I suspect the only reason she really got changed in OW2 was because of solo tanking, and 5s hack being too strong. The way they went about reworking her shifted too much power into her more annoying mechanics – For example, being able to hack while invis (and not break invis) was probably one of the absolute dumbest ideas I can even imagine, and I dont think it’s even remotely shocking that she ended up so much worse and keeps requiring reworks. They just keep trading one annoyance for a much worse one.

23

Let’s say that we ENTIRELY ignore Sombra players in this regard.

Are you saying that Sombra is more frustrating to play-against, on this patch, than the previous patch?

And if so, which Roles are we talking about there?
How about specifically Tank players?

24

Well, do you think it’s possible to rework Sombra, so that none of her attacks feel like “Sucker Punches”.

And that if they are, that that “Emotional Damage” is paid for in reduced Lethality or increased Mortality.

25

I have no idea as I have yet to test her myself. I was playing the skill tree Halloween mode. It’s actually quite good.

I assume she is still going to be a menace to South Central while drinking juice in the hood to squishy targets given they buffed her lethality; however, I also heard the optimal way to play her was to harass the tank. Neither seem particularly ideal to me.

That’s why the solution is relatively obvious. Make her a freaking support. It’s what they originally intended and they have demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not competent enough to create a fun OR balanced version of assassin Sombra. They are struggling. Let’s just start over.

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26

Probably not, but I also dont really feel like its a big deal. Most heroes in the game have abilities that can feel like that at times, so unless you just want to homogenize the cast into a generic shooter, those are concessions you have to live with for a more interesting game.

27

I personally never liked the idea of support sombra, but tbh at this point its starting to sound better than what they’re giving us.

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28

I mean that “Avoiding Sucker Punches” thing is literally kinda the definition of Counterplay.

Are people even trying to counter widow? - #10 by GreyFalcon-11737

And by definition, not having that, is by definition, a Counterplay issue.

29

Honestly, I’m kinda surprised they didn’t do this:

  • Sombra from the start of OW2
  • Cast time on Tanks, increased from 0.65sec, to 1.3sec
  • Without the damage amp
  • And then just make it so that AFTER hacking a target, it gives you a Virus coodown on the same button, half a second after the hack. Which does increased damage on hacked targets.

Dunno, then maybe have it where Virus is something that only gets used during her Ult, as a replacement for Hack.
And she has like a 1sec cooldown on it.

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30

Maybe I dont really understand the way you’re using the term “sucker punch”

I interpreted this as, for example, a ball getting hacked feels really bad and there’s not a whole lot they couldve done about it, and thus it feels a bit like a sucker punch.

If that’s what you meant, then my opinion on that is that that:

  1. This will happen to at least some degree for many heroes. There’s always going to be counterplay that feels a bit unfair for the receiving end. As long as there are so many permutations of interesting and unique abilities in the game, there are bound to be some that feel unstoppably strong in certain situations.
  2. I would call this a flaw in the other heroe’s design, more than sombras. If being hacked has that hefty of an impact on the player, then that player’s hero design is the problem. Sombra can successfully hack 90% of the roster without it being that big a deal, so if there are a couple heroes like ball or doom that just get insanely shut down and become entirely useless, that’s a problem with those heroes, not hack. Those heroes should be reworked to not so heavily depend on their abilities to function, or be given ways to more reliably provide counterplay to being hacked.
31

Counterplay is basically the difference between “Sucker Punch”, and “Not Sucker Punch”.

But perhaps the below stuff can explain a bit more in detail:

Well, here’s my interpretation of Cadwell/Walker’s work. (I.e. Riot and Valve)

“After you make your Choice, your Opponent should have the capability, to respond with their Choice, which includes the awareness that a Choice exists, and enough time to understand and react with their Choice”.

But you can take your pick:

Like are we violating Tom Cadwell’s principle that counterplay should not just have the capability to counter, but the time and obviousness that a counter should be used.

  • https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:JAlbor/GDC_2013:_Teamplay_and_Counterplay_in_League_of_Legends
  • https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1018273/Counterplay-and-Teamplay-in-Multiplayer

Or are we violating the Sid Meier and Soren Johnson, style “Optimizing Fun out of Games” design issue? Where “Technically possible to defeat” was absolutely not sufficient by itself.

Or Robin Walker’s “We literally designed the character Widow is based on, and we empirically measured that onesided counterplay lost significant amounts of players”

And, my post, where I detail how every other modern PVP FPS game in existence follows the above rules.
But not Overwatch.

Oddly, that one is simple. Just make it less frustrating, then lower Ball HP and/or lower the value from Defensive Cooldowns.

32

That is actually a decent idea. A higher reward hack with a higher risk. And it would solve the problem of shield flicking her doing absolutely nothing.

Oh, wow, that’s actually a palatable idea to keep virus. I hate that thing if you have not noticed. I earned the title of “the AKJ of Sombra” strictly because of virus. I ain’t even complain about nothing else realistically. But this, this is a good idea.

It baffles me why the forums hate your contributions. You always find pragmatic solutions that allow the character to remain fun despite opening up new counterplay options that address the root of the problem. I was particularly impressed by the Widowmaker heal reduction idea. Well done.

1 Like
33

Eh, it is what it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/1g4jgj4/comment/ls3z3aw/

34

Can you clarify what you’d propose by this? That’s kind of a vague statement. Are you making it less frustrating by simply reducing the silence duration? Reducing the impact of how hack affects ball (e.g. not preventing him from using ball form?)

Like, I agree with this statement, but my take is that the way its made less frustrating is by changing ball’s design, not sombras. If you have 40 heroes in the game and there is a hugely problematic interaction with 2 of them, and not that big of a deal for everyone else, then the issue is with those two heroes, not the one that is impacting them.

35

That.

Followed by whatever outside adjustments are needed, like Ball and Doom nerfs.

36

Okay but then that gets to my other point - why are you reducing the frustration by reworking the hero with one problematic interaction? Why not rework ball, who is clearly just over-dependent on his abilities?

37

Because this isn’t really about those two heroes, and just how Sombra is frustrating to Tanks in general.

But also the mechanic I’m explaining with

  1. Hack
  2. Get Mega Virus Death Ball Attack

Is that it doesn’t feel like a Sucker Punch.
Instead, this is more like getting pulled into a Duel.

Oh and if they want to. They could make it so the Virus does either a percentage damage on remaining health, or percentage of true damage on max health. If they want it extra spicy.

38

Virus is a DoT ability, nothing like what hack is.

39

Well this is largely just due to solo tanking, because hack’s impact on tanks is magnified by the fact that they’re intentionally stronger. And I think that’s an entirely other discussion about 5v5 vs 6v6 and RQ vs OQ.

In a scenario where the tanks were more balanced around the power of other roles (e.g. OW1) I dont think this was necessarily a big issue – the same “ball vs sombra” style interaction showed up on DPS in the form of doomfist, who was shut down equally as hard. He was also just a bad design where his ability to function relied to heavily on having his abilities.

Just my 2c, but OW1 sombra with a 5s hack felt much more like being pulled into a duel. 1v1 primary fire only is more of a duel than “quick burst of damage and if that doesnt work i skedaddle because I’m not really a match for the enemy with all of their abilities”

40

Well. Yeah. Could have told you 4 years ago.

You’re not wrong. But the catch is that it varied WILDLY on which heroes were equipped to deal with that duel.

Where as every hero is equipped to basically “Dodge a 3x damage Symm Orb”

Also when the Tank gets hacked in the frontline, it’s not like they got that much of a “Duel” going on there. As there’s barely enough time to react. Much less react while focusing on the frontline, and questioning whether to drop your guard.

Like I think I measured it, and we’re talking about 24 frames in fighting game terms (60 frames per second), with top 10% human reaction speed, where actual decision making could happen about hack.
Which also doesn’t include the time needed to turn around, acquire the target, then aim at it.

And that’s keeping in mind, Sombra can be up to 15m away. Which is 3/4ths of an Objective. Or 3/4th’s of a Roadhog Hook.