Why should we give feedback?

Kaedi-11739 · January 10, 2022, 2:01am

To me 100% is when it is acknowledged by Blizzard. I have seen game changes that I could have sworn were bugs and were declared not bugs, and I was like “whaaaaaaaa?” So I don’t like confirming anything without an official source.

オムニ-2199 · January 10, 2022, 2:03am

They still haven’t acknowledged they’re a huge failure when it comes to balancing and that they implemented role Q cuz they couldn’t balance brig kekekekekekekek

tamramx-1258 · January 10, 2022, 2:03am

you said hanzo is weak, I stopped listening

Hige-1101 · January 10, 2022, 2:03am

not true really but gauging majority is always tricky, specially around here, feedback from the community is taken in account as well as the pros and the data that devs have, back in the day Jeff explained this and it seems to still be true to this day

if you feel like you shouldn’t be giving feedback then… well, stop but just like voting, when a candidate you didn’t support ends up winning you can’t really complain since you didn’t vote, now if you vote but the candidate you chose loses then you simply have to understand that sometimes you’re in the minority

could the system be rigged? it could but unlike the government blizz can do whatever they want with their product and it’s up to you to keep playing or not

I’d wager that these changes didn’t drive away anyone from the game, quite the opposite actually

Kaedi-11739 · January 10, 2022, 2:06am

Let’s bring up that massive post shall we? Note, I don’t have this archived on the online archive yet so I have to pull from my direct text source. This is from July 7th, 2017.

Game Director Jeff Kaplan:

I’ve been reading the feedback regarding the current metagame and a general desire for “radical” balance changes to mix things up. I’ll offer some of my personal perspective but I’m a little nervous doing that for a few reasons. Even though I am the Game Director and a spokesperson for OW, I don’t make decisions in a vacuum and I am only one part of a very awesome team. Not everyone on my team agrees with me and we have different opinions on the state of game and balance overall. We do have a lot of alignment, but we talk things through – a lot. And we don’t always agree. So I know this will become the “official” response on the subject but I am really offering this from a very strong personal viewpoint first and foremost.

The most controversial thing I’ll say here (hopefully) is that I believe the game is currently balanced. What I mean is that I don’t feel like there are any heroes who are way too strong to the point of breaking balance. That doesn’t mean that I personally don’t think there are some problems with heroes. While I believe moving Roadhog away from a 1 shot combo was a necessary thing we had to do, I’m not entirely satisfied with where he’s at right now. I also think we need to do some brainstorming when it comes to Mercy’s resurrect, for example. The ability is extremely powerful in a very unfun way for both Mercy and everyone playing against that Mercy. But it’s not doomsday. These aren’t game breaking issues. They are better fixed slowly and carefully as the overall game is not ruined by them. I’m just using these as examples.

But I think the game is balanced. Statistically, the things that are most unbalanced aren’t what you think they are. Symmetra and Torbjorn win rates are not balanced. They are too good. But this is why we don’t balance on statistics alone. I don’t sense a great community uproar over the fact that Torb and Symmetra are “overpowered” right now (at least, statistically).

As I said last week, the perception of balance is more powerful than balance itself.

I really do not like summarizing the feedback from a large community because I think it’s unfair to so many people. But in general, I am getting the sense that the real issue people are feeling is that the “meta” does not shift as frequently as they would like. My sense is that players start with the pro scene and work their way down and base this feedback mostly on pick rates. In the pro scene, it’s true that the teams settle into using a subset of the hero pool. We tend to see high level (let’s just say the top 3rd of all players) competitive slowly catch up to the pro scene with some considerable lag of weeks if not months. The rest of us – the vast majority of us – don’t really play this meta at all but we’re aware of it either through community discussion or because we enjoy watching the pro scene.

There are a lot of ways the meta can change but if I had to boil it down to three main ways (that we see in video games at least) I would point to 1) something changes with the balance 2) players innovate new strategies 3) the game forces meta change through mechanics.

To comment on all 3…

I like when the meta changes on balance only when the game is not balanced and something was adjusted to make the game more balanced. Another way of putting this is, I do not agree with the philosophy that we should just make balance changes solely to shift people off the meta. The game team should be constantly evaluating balance and making changes that are actually needed because a hero is unbalanced. But making changes to a hero because their pick rate is too high or too low is not my idea of responsible game balance. Symmetra’s pick rate is very low right now. We could make changes to make her a “must pick” in the meta (and thus shifting the meta) but I feel like, if anything, I am concerned about Symmetra’s balance and worried that when she does eventually make her way back into the meta she is not balanced properly. So to summarize: balancing heroes who are unbalanced is good, balancing heroes just to make them picked more or picked less is not good (in my humble opinion).

Regarding the meta changing because players have innovated a new strategy – well – this is the best-case scenario. We’ve seen this happen time and time again. This usually happens in a pro tournament where a team pulls out a new strategy and performs well. This was how triple tank rose into fashion. Innovating out of a meta is extremely hard. All players are very different. Some are highly creative and some are excellent at executing. Some at both. Having the time and freedom to innovate on strategy is difficult no matter what level of play you’re at. Pros have busy schedules and it’s not always easy for them to practice new, out of the box things – especially if their tournament schedule is hectic. But when all is said and done, to me personally, the meta shifting because players innovate is the best possible outcome.

Lastly, a game can force a meta shift through mechanics. The MOBA genre has huge hero pools yet without pick and ban systems teams would inevitably play the same comps over and over. The game – through the mechanics of picking and banning – is forcing variety. We could do this in Overwatch. We could prevent certain heroes from being played some or all of the time or we could let your opponent prevent you from playing your desired hero. We could also force you or allow your opponent to force you to play a hero you don’t want to play. Personally, I am not a believer in these systems for OW (while I understand and respect why they use them in MOBA). I prefer to think that OW allows you to be creative which is different than forces you to be creative. I don’t want to watch the best Genji player in the world play Zarya – I want to see him/her play Genji. And also, seeing how many of you “main” heroes because you love them, I don’t want the game – or your opponent – telling you you’re not allowed to play that hero.

We recently added 6v6 Elimination to the Arcade and I think the mode is strong enough to exist in Quick Play and Competitive. That mode is a good example of a mechanical “forcing function” where the game causes shifts to happen in pick rates and team comps. The winning team is forced to play 18 diverse heroes. I would be willing to bet that if that mode was considered competitive, eventually a meta would settle in where 18 heroes were mostly picked and 7 would be rather neglected. Again, I don’t think this is horrible or the end of the world – I think it’s reality.

There are games with a set meta that evolve very slowly or remain stable for long periods of time and this doesn’t mean the game isn’t balanced or fun or fun to watch. Most of the pro sports fall into this category. TF2 was largely played Demo/Medic/Scout/Scout/Solider/Soldier and that was sort of just… accepted. It was fun to play and fun to watch. Baseball isn’t terrible or broken because every team puts their strongest batter 4th in the lineup.

But maybe I am off on what the expectation is from players here? I know the desire – and mine too – is that during every match of Overwatch all 25 heroes are viable at any time. The reality of gamers and video games is that any perceived (whether real or not) advantage is going to cause players to assume that they must play hero x over hero y. A professional Overwatch player will not player hero x if he/she thinks hero y is even 1% stronger. We can balance the heroes to equality but if there is the slightest perception of advantage, it won’t matter.

Looking at the perception of the meta, it’s obvious that “dive” is the predominant strategy. Correction. It is the predominant strategy being used in the professional scene. The majority of Overwatch players play Quick Play as their primary mode. The top 6 picked heroes (over the last month) in Quick Play are Genji, 76, Hanzo, McCree, Mercy and Junkrat. For the statistical majority of Overwatch players who are not pros and don’t play Competitive, this is your meta.

It drives players crazy when I post stats like that because they want to know about Competitive and not Quick Play. The point I am trying to make by posting Quick Play is that the numbers show that that is what the majority of players are actually experiencing which is different from perceiving. But looking at Competitive only… here are the top 6 picked heroes: Mercy (by a long shot), 76, D.Va, Lucio, Ana and Genji. Interestingly, number 7 is Reinhardt. Next tank after that is… Wi… no Roadhog. So in the past month in Comp, that’s what you’ve been actually playing.

But let’s talk about the elite players… maybe the top 3rd of all MMR. Their top picked hero over the past month was…. Ana. Yes, Ana.

I don’t mean to discount your fatigue with the “dive” meta but I also want us looking at from a realistic standpoint. Dive itself is an interesting comp. It’s fun to play and watch. It features super high skill heroes doing very OW things. Watching top Genji’s and Tracers is fantastic. I don’t think dive comp is bad but I think what players want is to see more comps in addition to dive comp. I too would love for this to happen. But in a non-forced, non-damaging way. I don’t think we should just throw a balance grenade at the heroes to change pick rates. And I don’t think long-term for the game it’s good to start imposing restrictions on you as to what hero you’re allowed or not allowed to play. I think we also need to be careful about demanding drastic change. A few months ago we nerfed D.Va and we faced the ire of many very upset players who thought we “ruined” the hero and she would never be played again. There was mega thread after mega thread demanding she be buffed. We held our ground because we believed she was fine. We did not touch her. And now she is one of the dominant heroes in the dive meta – clearly not in need of a buff.

Players think that every change we make to hero has the intent of buffing or nerfing that hero. Changes to heroes are usually made to make the game better. That’s what we were trying to do with Roadhog. Our goal wasn’t a nerf – our intent wasn’t a nerf. Our intent was to try to remove a behavior that had become “not ok” with our player base – the one-shot combo. Maybe he needs to be adjusted again? Probably. I am just using this as an example that not everything is super black and white. There is a gray area in making the game feel good. Sometimes we need to hold our ground and not make dramatic swings to the game.

I know this post will be met with a lot of disagreement. The desire for dive comp to go away will not be satisfied from some of you until Winston and D.Va are nerfed into the ground. But we’re not going to do that. We are going to make balance changes to heroes when they need it – and we do this more frequently than you give us credit for. 3 months from now there will be a new meta. If you’re the type of person who feels like the meta should shift every 2 weeks, then you’ll probably be sick of that meta and wishing it was back in the good ol’ dive comp days… I just caution against wanting change for the sake of change. The meta will shift soon enough.

DVS-11435 · January 10, 2022, 2:41am

Is it the devs that are not listening or is it the couple hundred people that frequent these forums that are not getting it or not listening?

Basically what I always say but people in here dismiss it, just because they think they represent the overall player base.
As far as their opinions and what they think the game needs

tamramx-1258 · January 10, 2022, 2:45am

you will find the same complaints on streamer twitter and reddit

DVS-11435 · January 10, 2022, 2:47am

I don’t go to Reddit but in the recent poll, which the majority of voters were from Reddit further backed up my way of thinking as far as the game direction goes.

And what streamers are you talking about, the ones that play the heroes you like and have a similar opinion as yourself?
Because I would imagine you don’t watch streamers that play the heroes you hate and have an opposite opinion of what you have.

Because most of those past OW streamers that overall were some of the biggest streamers on twitch have moved on to other games.

tamramx-1258 · January 10, 2022, 2:50am

litterally go find a streamer that thinks the cassidy and hanzo buffs were needed. can you guys stop bending over backwards to defend the devs and admit they made a mistake, can you do that

DVS-11435 · January 10, 2022, 2:52am

How is it a mistake if McCree has had the worst win rate of all 32 heroes in the past 6 months.
I’m pretty sure that blizzards own internal stats made them aware of this and is the reason why they have been trying to push any type of tweak to help McCree out in the last few patches and XP cards.
I don’t like the Hanzo buff but again Hanzo is on the bottom tier of heroes that have bad win rates as well.
Only in these forums does that not matter at all and only if you see a hero frequently in your games is the final determining Factor if a hero is overpowered.

tamramx-1258 · January 10, 2022, 2:53am

LOL you think hanzo and cassidy are bad heroes nothing you say is valid hanzo and cassidy are both s tier heroes

DVS-11435 · January 10, 2022, 2:55am

It’s not what I think or say, it’s what’s Blizzards own internal statistics are showing them.
No wonder Blizzard pretty much ignores the vast majority of nonsense that people saying here.
As they should to be honest.

Xorkrath-1442 · January 10, 2022, 2:57am

The question should be, “Why should we endow this company with our money?”

When customers buy into a video game experience, it is with the understanding and expectation that a decent, fun, and well-managed will be the product delivered. It isn’t. So vote with your wallets and uninstall. They’ve had enough chances to prove they were worthy of our money and leisure time and they failed.

When we hand our money over, the expectation is that a suitable group of adults is able to shape and direct the game. That hasn’t materialized. In fact, what information we do get is that rabid 14-year olds on Youtube are the predominant driving force behind the decisions here. The devs, during their admission of guilt over fumbling the whole “Echo” thing, admitted that they could not even convince the team to focus on established work priorities. The goal was create a new support asset. What happened is that someone focused on a piece of concept art and couldn’t let go, then they came up with a really bad idea for an ultimate and just couldn’t let it go. And instead of having the discipline to say “no” to the bad idea, or even just move it to the backburner for some future development and release later so that in the meantime they can focus on the goal they were given, they just succumbed to the idea of working on anything else except the task at hand, and just ran with it and released yet another DPS into the game starving for literally any other content except that.

Where was the adult in the room to very politely thank the person for the work but then politely remind them of the project goals and ask that they redirect their efforts towards that? You don’t need to be mean about it or be a slavedriver, but there needed to be an adult to lead the team and give them the structure they needed to focus on the good health of the game. That didn’t happen.

Imagine if you worked for Toyota and they asked you to engineer a better diesel outboard boat motor, but you came to your boss 6 months later with plans for a slick new dune buggy with a big spoiler on the back because all the kids on Youtube won’t stop talking about how cool they are. Would you keep your job after that? Methinks not.

It boggles my mind that this game was supposedly one of the hottest thing in gaming news 5 years ago. Today the game is in shambles, the balancing is a meme unto itself, the playerbase is dwindling, the devs don’t even think the original property is a viable entity anymore and plan on nuking it from orbit just to be sure. There’s a long-term gamble on trying to resurrect the game Great Phoenix style by holding back all the content that would have kept the game viable in the first place, but it’s years out and comes at the cost of the aforementioned nuking of the original product and nothing in the relaunch actually addresses the series of problems and bad decision-making that led to the previous title going from top of the world to trash heap in 5 years’ time.

But don’t worry! Because they’re just going to make sure tanks die even faster in the next phase because it wouldn’t be Blizz balancing ™ without doubling-down on the problems. Then they plan on blaming supports for all this despite the fact that there’s video evidence that proves otherwise, and then using that blame to nerf supports too all while wondering why their big gamble never resulted in better DPS times. Brilliant.

OurVerwatch-1301 · January 10, 2022, 3:06am

Sure. Show me evidence that there are more people that like the patch. But oh wait! You can’t because even on twitter there are posts with THOUSANDS of likes saying this patch is terrible. The truth is that this patch is disliked significantly more.

Here’s a fact for you: (From OWL Feb 2021)
Cassidys winrate when picked for partial match: 44%
When picked for whole match: 60%

Dasaries-11327 · January 10, 2022, 3:20am

The Ball fix is okay. and it is fair to return scatter arrow in some way.

But Match maker needs repairs the most , followed by the Competitive Match rating system.

As long as smurffs are clogging the proverbial drain. The folks that should be falling in rank never will and the those that actually WORK to win, will always be stuck in the drain.

Match maker is a dumpsterfire and for all intents and purposes. If Blizzard cannot get a handle on it now. They are in no way, shape, or form ready to Launch a Sequel.

This whole “saving it for #2” isn’t going to work. Folks see that they cannot get a Grip now. They won’t get it then. That is what ROASTED World of Warcraft back then.

I couldn’t even hold a guild together at that point. Because people were so irate with the company for not addressing Match makers for battlegrounds and Arena play then, and then handling the game’s balance of giving fair leaway to Raiders. They needed the extra healing in dungeons. While battlegrounds they needed LESS.

Electro71-1835 · January 10, 2022, 3:21am

Yeah I’m not writing more posts about balance because they’re about bastion and therefore ignored by everyone anyways

Esoterica-1106 · January 10, 2022, 3:24am

You can almost feel the disdain in those words.

Also notable is putting forward incorrect personal takes as near-official gospel, getting it conclusively disproved then on to the spluttering, backpedaling, and deflection.

Xorkrath-1442 · January 10, 2022, 3:25am

I’d read them. I read the ones that people posted after the proposed rework got posted to Twitter. I know someone with your same icon had a lengthy write-up on the issue, but I’m guessing that wasn’t you then?

Electro71-1835 · January 10, 2022, 3:26am

Eh, it may have been me…

If ya find them on my profile you’re welcome to read them lol.

Poytheon-1466 · January 10, 2022, 3:26am

You should give feedback because it’s valuable to the dev team, as long as it’s valuable feedback.

This is not the type of feedback they are looking for. This is what will get ignored.

What point are you trying to make citing those stats?

What that tells me is that players swap off Cassidy when they aren’t having success with him… as they should. What do you take from those stats?

Thanks for the quotes Wyoming

It’s been made clear that constructive feedback is helpful & taken into consideration. Just complaining isn’t