Well, here’s two very detailed explainations for that.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/12wi53y/hottake_snipers_are_strangling_playerbase_growth/
- https://reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/18eqmal/what_changed_the_community_perception_towards_ana/kcqhps4/
But the short of it
- A. “Games” at a fundamental level are about Choices.
- B. “Balance” is making sure those choices are Worth Your Time (enjoyable+viable), but also have Novelty (unique, varied, interesting), and increasing as many simultaneous “Worthwhile Novelty Choices” as possible. For a given ELO.
- C. “Counterplay” guidelines dictate that you have to
- #1 Possible, to make a Choice of how to deal with it.
- #2 The Awareness+Time that a Choice is Available
- #3 There’s enough Choices that are Worthwhile+Novelty to deal with it.
Sniper Rifles in videogames fundamentally break #2 and #3, so you need some sort of “widely availible mechanic”, to provide a lot more Counterplay against that Sniper players.
Other FPS games have a “widely availible mechanic” to bypass those concerns, and provide an additional layer of counterplay. For example
- Near instakill assault rifles (CounterStrike, CoD)
- Players aren’t instantly killed, go into a downed state, and can usually crawl to cover, and get rezzed by any teammate. (Apex Legends).
- The lowest health of character in the game, and is almost dead to rights for any sort of enemy gets into close range (Team Fortress 2)
Overwatch does not have a “widely availible mechanic” to deal with Snipers.
That’s the problem.