Widowmaker is without a doubt, the easiest character

General Discussion
41

I do love Pharah

Sombra also falls into that category, though the other way around where you have to swap off characters you may be on

42

Oh, I agree with that too. I think pharah, particularly paired with a pocket mercy, is part of the reason that hit scan are so strong right now.

43

Hitscan in general aren’t strong as a whole, it’s kinda just two heroes.

Last season sig poke blocked most of Ashe’s angles(and most parts of new maps make Ashe counter Pharah less hard since she can avoid Los but nobody played pharah anyways) , Cassidy isn’t great, Widow is a whole thing(someone should make a topic about her), so it’s really just Soldier and Sojourn(who’s like half hitscan)

If Mauga becomes meta all hitscan as a whole might be strong, but if it’s dive I doubt this will change.

44

Agreed to disagree. I think the hitscan heroes are this game’s biggest sin from a design perspective. That and its map philosophy

45

More like, you got a hero that

  1. Has unenjoyable Counterplay for the vast majority of the playerbase. Because the violates the core design principles of counterplay design.
  2. Dramatically reduces worthwhile hero choices, and positioning choices.

I.e. She’s one of the most broken heroes in the game when it comes to “Balance”.

What is Play Balance?

Sid Meier once said, “A game is a collection of interesting choices”. It follows that game elements being out of balance and thereby eliminating choices detracts from the gameplay. Ideally, a game should be a series of choices, ending with victory of defeat or some other end condition. Sometimes, some choices will become unquestionably the only choice, or definitely not a valid choice. If there is only one valid choice at some point, but the game hasn’t ended, there is a play balance problem. Nearly all situations commonly referred to as imbalances can be boiled down to a choice reduction.
https://archive.gamedev.net/archive/reference/articles/article1765.html

And when it comes to “Counterplay Design”, since Widow is a character with unannounced instakills, with narrow counterplay options. Most of which end up just being soft-counters.

Counterplay

The elements of counterplay:

  • Possible: Is a response possible?
  • Clear: Is the need for a response clear? For example, an invisible fireball cannot be dodged.
  • Interesting: Are responses varied and nuanced? For example, the original version of Evelynn was completely invisible, it was “too binary, no satisfaction for either player” and it “forced players to counter with stealth detection.” To increase fun counterplay, they gave Evelynn partial visibility at close range. The result is that “Evelynn actually has to sneak, find vulnerable moments,” and the opponent is “rewarded for quick reaction time.”
    https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:JAlbor/GDC_2013:_Teamplay_and_Counterplay_in_League_of_Legends

And that the Gameplay Designers from TF2, who created the Sniper, that Widow is based on, pointed out how overly frustrating Sniper “Counterplay” directly leads to reduced player retention. (Which for Blizzard, would translate to less money).

" When we started working on TF2, 22 years ago, we decided to examine the things that affected how players felt about their deaths in TFC. Our starting theory was that, for death to be a positive experience, players had to feel like they could have avoided dying if they’d done something different. We found two factors that seemed to be important in light of that theory:" “The first was whether or not you understand what killed you. If you don’t know what killed you, that death is failing in providing you the feedback it’s supposed to, and you won’t be able to figure out what you could have done differently.” "The second was whether you felt you were actually engaged with the person who killed you. Dying to someone you weren’t engaged with, especially when you were already engaged with someone else, was aggravating. Even worse was dying to someone who you couldn’t have engaged with, even if you chose to. “Unsurprisingly, we saw that these deaths were highly aggravating to players, and in sufficient number caused new players to stop playing entirely.”
https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=2477

So why should the Overwatch 2 devs violate core design principles for game design, and lose money? Instead of changing Widow?

46

More like you talk a lot about things that aren’t a problem

Widow ain’t the most picked character, not even a highly picked one

2 Likes
47

What makes your think the Quality of gameplay design doesn’t matter?

That merely making it possible to defeat something, is sufficient?

48

It does matter, and Widow is low on the list of things they need to change

5 Likes
49

Literally the opposite of that.

TBH, most of all the 5v5’s current overall problems boils down to the game trying to bend itself around the devs not fundamentally changing AntiNade, Widow or Hanzo.

If they those weren’t almost “Needed” to make stuff die fast enough, then they could easier lower defenses (i.e. Less healing, Reworking Immortalities).

It would also make it so that heroes like Mauga, Junker Queen or Roadhog are a heck of a lot easier to balance for all ELOs, rather than having to figure out his power level, with and without a Kiriko pocket.

I’d argue that the main things that are limiting the game are AntiNade, Widow and Hanzo.

  • They basically offer a gigantic amount of zoning just for existing.
  • And also nullify the positioning value from Tanks that aren’t barrier tanks.
  • And nullify the healing value from Supports.
  • And often narrow down what can be used to get kills.
    • Because of all the escalated defenses that can deal with that burst damage.

So in a game that’s could be simplified down to:

    1. Move to a Positioning location
    1. Stand at a Positioning location
    1. Prevent Kills
    1. Get Kills

Those three heroes are narrowing down ALL of those choices, a lot.

  • Limiting Tank choices
  • Limiting Support choices
  • Limiting DPS choices
  • Limiting Positioning choices

They are a textbook definition of a severe “Balance” problem.

Literally,

What is Play Balance?

Sid Meier once said, “A game is a collection of interesting choices”. It follows that game elements being out of balance and thereby eliminating choices detracts from the gameplay. Ideally, a game should be a series of choices, ending with victory of defeat or some other end condition. Sometimes, some choices will become unquestionably the only choice, or definitely not a valid choice. If there is only one valid choice at some point, but the game hasn’t ended, there is a play balance problem. Nearly all situations commonly referred to as imbalances can be boiled down to a choice reduction.
https://archive.gamedev.net/archive/reference/articles/article1765.html

50

she does in the sense some heroes should cut her los and get value if they are in her sight line. Ex: ana cass etc
Some heroes should keep engaging her tracer sombra genji they dont need to kill her they need to keep her occupied and not give her sightline.

So positioning varies depending on hero you play.

Almost all heroes affect or limit your positioning choices, tracer can take a whole flank lane.

Sombra just by existing can make people play together and thus limiting flanks.

Brawl heroes like mei brig will limit dive positioning.

Its not unique to widow.

3 Likes
51

Ok I try to do something…

ok…

oneshotted from Narnia while I was trying to reach her.

gg next.

52

Anti sure, but Widow and Hanzo each have plenty of counters in all roles

1 Like
53

Next, do it better, do it right. In essence, get good

1 Like
54

suuuuuuureeee XD dude reason, in some maps you can’t avoid her los , doesn’t matter how you spam crouch or try to stick to walls, he oneshot and that’s it.

55

You mean tracer doesn’t one clip both supports and both dps back to back? 4 clips 4 kills, ez pz.

56

And what if the problem is the Quality of Counterplay, not the Quantity of Counterplay?

Like would you run a Restaurant with statistically nutritious food, that tastes bad to the vast majority of potential customers?

57

Patently false, else I wouldn’t be here talking about how she’s really not a big deal

58

Quality of counterplay is fine. You have hyper mobile flankers, hyper mobile tanks, big barriers, breaking sightlines, the options are numerous.

If Widow’s counterplay were poor, she’d be up top in usage and winrate. She ain’t

1 Like
59

You said the Quality was fine.
And justified that because of Quantity.

Are you not aware that those aren’t the same things?

60

I put both my guy, what more do you want to deal with a sniper than a hyper mobile character that needs two or more shots to take down?