Read the whole thing, as it’s a little more complicated then what the first line.
So look ow2 is still in it’s content phase in development, as in it’s new content such as new heroes, maps, and reworks are still being developed (be it that it appears to be most the reworks at the moment)
Meaning that they still need to finish up the planed release content till they can attempt to balance anything. Even heroes that are not being reworked at the moment such as d.va, mercy, or soldier. (at least that we know of) are in a place holder state, as in outside of large sweeping changes shuch as the role passive. they individually probably wont see any attention till near the release of the game. Were all launch content is finalized.
Balancing can only effectively be done at the end, as they need all the pieces to know how they fit in the big balance puzzle.
Only more evidence that the sequel was announced far too early in it’s development cycle for it to be a thing that A) they should be telling us about B) trying to use as a deflector shield for judgment of the current game, and C) a feather in their cap as something great we should be applauding them for.
If they’re that far from finished, they shouldn’t be using it in all these ways. Yet here we are.
I’m not concerned about the games unbalanced state. Adjustments can be made. I’m concerned about the direction of where they appear to be heading with balance.
A. Covid most likely put their dev shedule back a good year.
B. They more or less have to talk about it to keep the partially independent OWL from collapsing.
C. To you know keep us talking about the thing
D.Also they kind of have to announce it at that point in time otherwise they would have just stop updating ow without any info as to why.
It is not really about being far behind, they probably just did not give the PvP more resources than required to finish on time. Why give the PvP enough resources to be done for instance right now when the PvE will not be done and now we are suddenly now waiting longer for that as the PvE is core and the game will not launch without it.
Balancing itself is a process that we will have a months long beta for. Right now is the time for them to iron out the baselines and, as I am sure they were doing before, getting all the maps working properly. Once the baselines are established, the maps are roughly tested, and nothing is egregiously broken then they can turn to actually balancing specific heroes once the overall beta phase starts (which should last between 3-5 months depending on how much they are adding).
It seems to me they are trying to significantly lower the time to kill and flatten the differences between the heroes within a role and make every role about elims.
Now I could be wrong about these goals, I’m just basing it off of what they have said or shown. But that is how I perceive their direction based on their communication. None of it sounds good to me.
An Internal beta/open beta are two different phases. Their will a be a few month beta period internally to test things under specific conditions (Comps/counter/maps/points) before it’s open to the public were sheer raw data can be collected.
The ttk in it’s self (as in individual duels) will roughly stay the same. it’s just that people are a tad more exposed then they are now.
Allowing more openings to engage, while making the engagers more open to counter attacks/getting caught out.
Also Tanks still create space while supports still have the best utilities in the game. Be it that is no longer the end all be all of their kits.
You don’t know this. Neither do I. But based on what they have said or shown, it is how it looks to me. Maybe they are communicating it poorly. Idk, but I don’t like the direction so far.
The role passives is very telling about what they are doing. I like the idea of all heroes having passives. All heroes is a role having the same passive is both dumb and lazy.
They would need to turn every Tank into a buffed Main/Off-Tank hybrid for all of this to come together (basically like day 1 Sigma).
Right now the TTK on Tanks is decreased unproportionally much.
The Main Tank dies much faster if the Off-Tank can’t rotate defensive abilities with him (Rein Shield/Zarya Bubble etc.) and the Off-Tank can’t engage without being blown up in split seconds if there is no Main Tank creating space that the Off-Tank can utilize.
So far they don’t seem to have a real plan to address this issue, which kind of leaves the Tank Role in an identity crisis when it comes to what purpose they are supposed to serve in OW2.
TTK isn’t drastically different than what is currently in the game.
And between rien and Winston who seem to be closer to their final designs, then ya tanks will still make space.
Tanks more or less have to wait for the fine tuning phase, as their ability to tank more or less is determined by how affective the enemy is.
Even they kind of want tanks to brawl more, as in they want more effective offense then defense. But in turn still making space via making a small area extremely dangerous to be in
It most certainly is. Idk if it’ll remain as bad as it looks right now, in fact I doubt it, but the difference is quite significant. Teamfights we’re over in a faction of the time they take now. TTK isn’t the same if that happens.
But it does seem to be the direction they want to take the game. More, faster teamfights. Which is the exact opposite of what I would prefer. Fewer, longer teamfights would be more appealing. It is actually what drew me to this game over all the other FPS PvP games.
A few leaks would suggest that the Pve or the thing their actually selling is in fact finished, so are the maps and new heroes.
All that’s really left is the reworks and balancing.
TTK is traditionally measured in 1v1 scenarios, Not say team fights or interactions.
as a single tank vs a dps is still roughly the same as it is now, same goes for two squishes.
However team fights themselves would be a bit faster all together. Keep in mind the current stats be it damage, cooldowns, or even hp are still in flux as balancing has more or less not even started yet. And everything we currently have is a place holder status.
So something like Sombra specifically might (as in most likely) be tuned down, or alternatively might have more ways to play against then what a first glance might suggest.
That and their mentions by the devs that armor might reduce a flat amount of damage instead of just the 5 points on everything above 10 points.
Call it whatever you want then. But the game showed more respawning, grouping up, running back from spawn, etc … then actually fighting and playing. Looked more like a chore than something fun to do. Very boring, very tedious.
I mean, they’ve already announced that the most bs hero in the game, you know, miss “I get to be invisible as long as I want”, gets to get super powered now. Bad enough you can’t see her until she attacks now, she takes your attack after sneaking around free of any consequence, and she gets a free escape… now she gets to revert right back to her invisibility and her attack is worse.
Leaves me with little hope that this game will have any balance, we already see how bad the current game is, and they’re already making it worse for the next one.