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[Chao]

This is the kind of stuff that makes me hate competitive gaming.

Changes that nobody asked for can turn your favorite game into a shitshow.

Of course people is going to be pissed when the character they wasted their time with is now useless.

That's what nobody likes New Smash or Starcraft 2, people want to keep playing the same game they learned and got good at, spending another 500+ hours learning a new game is too much!

 

[Alucrid]

Don't think thats really fair. 1 hit kills with no counter play are never fun when they happen to you, and so i think there's merit to the nerf. They just need to improve Roadhog elsewhere if they're going to remove his 1 shot ability.

There are tons of counters to his hook.

 

[Doctor Ironic]

The changes to hook LOS made is less free, and given the number of direct counters to his hook means we weren't exactly talking about a skill free character. Plenty of other characters maintain their one-button one shots (Doomfist/Rein Charges, Hanzo scatters) while much of the cast has ways of comboing into insta-kills when you're caught out of position (boops, sleep darts, walls). If they don't want Roadhog in that club of one-shotters they need to give him something else, like variable stun on hooks based on how far away you were, or fixed spread, or something done to make him less of a sitting duck during heal, etc. Right now all they're doing is making sure nobody picks Hog.

I'm not referring to the changes to hook LOS, those changes are fine. I'm referring to the fact that Hog doesn't have the damage to one-shot <250 HP heroes anymore.

People are pointing out other "free kill" scenarios but the truth is most of those aren't okay either. Mei has been a problem since launch (her entire design is focused around making people unable to play the game for a few seconds at a time, which is Not Good), Hanzo should not be able to get a kill by aiming at the ground (which is a much larger target than someone's head), etc. I don't know about Doomfist's problems, I haven't been able to get many games in as him.

The point I'm making is that the Roadhog nerf points out a fundamental problem with Overwatch as a game, where there are several characters that by no means are OP - or are even quite underpowered - but have the ability to get an easy kill just because enough time has passed. While one pick every now and then won't completely turn the tide of a match, it does mean you have characters that are just ludicrously unfun to play against. Team Fortress 2 actually died from this very problem - items like the Force-A-Nature, Crit-A-Cola, Backburner, etcetera are hypothetically balanced or even outright underpowered, but they're designed around making sure the other player doesn't have a situation they can actually respond to correctly.

Yeah, that's totes how it used to play out.

Nice comeback I guess? What kind of discussion does this help?

 

[Kuro]

This is the kind of stuff that makes me hate competitive gaming.

Changes that nobody asked for can turn your favorite game into a shitshow.

Of course people is going to be pissed when the character they wasted their time with is now useless.

That's what nobody likes New Smash or Starcraft 2, people want to keep playing the same game they learned and got good at, spending another 500+ hours learning a new game is too much!

I think its good to make one tricks angry. I feel good about it. They should learn more than just one hero. I would throw a rage fit if they nerfed scatter arrow tho.

 

[Yukinari]

The Valve philosophy of nerfing something into the ground because its not fun to fight against is not something anybody wants but its a problem when theres no real easy way to fix it.

Hog's original hook is the Puff N Sting of OW.

Just like the Pyro it defined the character and made him viable but the simple fact is that on the receiving end it was not fun.

Symmetra got a rework and Hog needs one too. (And Pyro)

 

[The Greek Freak]

There are tons of counters to his hook.

Not if you're bronze or silver tier and just bumble into hog nonstop though! Checkmate Hogtheists

 

[Kysen]

Good riddance, he had the dumbest play style for a tank. He protects no one and is a psuedo dps.

 

[overcast]

I think its good to make one tricks angry. I feel good about it. They should learn more than just one hero. I would throw a rage fit if they nerfed scatter arrow tho.

What? You can't say that and immediately contradict it lol. I can still play Road and other characters but the simple fact is the outrage is justified and Blizzard clearly should fix it.

 

[Snoopycat]

I sympathize with Roadhog players. I remember the total rage I experienced when Blizzard decided to destroy Symmetra on consoles for absolutely no reason at all. She was already underpowered when they arbitrarily nerfed her turrets into total uselessness. It was months before they buffed her back to a point where she became playable.

 

[blankempathy]

This is the kind of stuff that makes me hate competitive gaming.

Changes that nobody asked for can turn your favorite game into a shitshow.

Of course people is going to be pissed when the character they wasted their time with is now useless.

That's what nobody likes New Smash or Starcraft 2, people want to keep playing the same game they learned and got good at, spending another 500+ hours learning a new game is too much!

Heres the issue I have with this sentiment. If this were Overwatch 2 and they changed up characters of flat out removed them itd be different. The reason I'm upset about the roadhog nerf is that i trusted blizzard enough to invest my time and money into Roadhog because the model they presented for Overwatch wasn't that it was the first game in a yearly cycle like most of the other AAA shooters out there. For that reason alone I never buy microtransactions in those yearly or every other year games. Yet here we are a year later and it feels like I drew the short straw because of all the heroes Blizzard decided to continuously change until hes in a broken state is roadhog.

I think its good to make one tricks angry. I feel good about it. They should learn more than just one hero. I would throw a rage fit if they nerfed scatter arrow tho.

You can enjoy playing a character and still branch out into others you know? People are always going to have a favorite though.

 

[Trickster]

Not if you're bronze or silver tier and just bumble into hog nonstop though! Checkmate Hogtheists

Any hog in that skill level is not gonna be able to hook worth a damn though

I get it's sarcasm though

 

[xviper]

RoadHog without the hook is nothing, his Ult is the worst without Zarya's,

he used to be my second favorite after Reinhardt, they fixed Reinhardt in Doomfist update, took them 2 months, but Reinhardt wasn't a nerf, it was a glitch, so it was going to be fixed

but Roadhog got nerfed to shit and i doubt we will see him in his glory days again

 

[Papercuts]

Heres the issue I have with this sentiment. If this were Overwatch 2 and they changed up characters of flat out removed them itd be different. The reason I'm upset about the roadhog nerf is that i trusted blizzard enough to invest my time and money into Roadhog because the model they presented for Overwatch wasn't that it was the first game in a yearly cycle like most of the other AAA shooters out there. For that reason alone I never buy microtransactions in those yearly or every other year games. Yet here we are a year later and it feels like I drew the short straw because of all the heroes Blizzard decided to continuously change until hes in a broken state is roadhog.


You can enjoy playing a character and still branch out into others you know? People are always going to have a favorite though.

Pretty much.

Meanwhile people who do nothing but play Tracer get a consistently great character who never gets changes and gets legendaries for days. In a game with loot crates and a ton of cosmetics it's natural and expected to grow towards certain characters, the mininuke they dropped on roadhog is unlike anything that has happened since OW came out. There's been buffs and nerfs but not an outright slaughtering of a character.

 

[E92 M3]

People should be pissed when they spent money trying to get skins for their favorite characters. And bad players shouldn't be deciding what is op or not.

 

[blankempathy]

Pretty much.

Meanwhile people who do nothing but play Tracer get a consistently great character who never gets changes and gets legendaries for days. In a game with loot crates and a ton of cosmetics it's natural and expected to grow towards certain characters, the mininuke they dropped on roadhog is unlike anything that has happened since OW came out. There's been buffs and nerfs but not an outright slaughtering of a character.

Don't even get me started on the blatant preferential treatment of Tracer by the Overwatch team. I get that shes the poster girl for the franchise but when other characters are being neglected in cosmetics while she's gotten one in almost every event except for one is kinda bullshit. Theres something wrong when it takes a year for characters to get a legendary skin and its still only one. Not to mention the skins themselves are uninspired. I think more thought went into soldiers halloween epic skin. I still think he should have gotten an ugly sweater skin for Christmas. Hopefully they improve on that in the future.

 

[ItalianJoe83]

I have zero interest in this kind of games and for this one in particular (aside female cosplayers )

 

[Zemm]

Baiting out the hogs hook was part of the fun, saving shield with Zarya and saving a teammate was one of the best feelings in the game, reflect with Genji, and so on. There were ways you could play around Roadhog.

 

[gunslikewhoa]

A vocal minority who got punished for being out of position by Roadhog's hook got Blizz to destroy him. Congrats.

 

[overcast]

I have zero interest in this kind of games and for this one in particular (aside female cosplayers )

Peculiar &#129300;

 

[Psyrgery ES]

Don't think thats really fair. 1 hit kills with no counter play are never fun when they happen to you, and so i think there's merit to the nerf. They just need to improve Roadhog elsewhere if they're going to remove his 1 shot ability.

Yeah, I was just joking.

But many people did not seem to think he was broken.

When I or our team spotted him we prioritized him as much as possible and tried to deal with him as quick as possible or stay our of his reach. I mean, it wasn't much of a dealbreaker to me, when one of them hooked me it was because of my fault or because he was *extremely* sneaky, and then he usually got killed after that.

That's my more serious thought.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Hog used to be super fun to play but now?
Unplayable. Too bad, really had some fun time with him.

I have zero interest in this kind of games and for this one in particular (aside female cosplayers )

Thanks for your input

 

[Mutombo]

I agree with Roadhog's Nerf. It was way too easy to die against him and it always felt cheap. Even his secondary shot could instakill you even if you did manage to survive his scatter shot.

I quite like playing with him now; relying on your team to dish out damage to hooked targets instead of hiding in corners on your own. I expect the extra survivability will work fine enough.

 

[gunslikewhoa]

Good riddance, he had the dumbest play style for a tank. He protects no one and is a psuedo dps.

So play him that way. Nobody is forcing him to be played like Reinhardt.

 

[gunslikewhoa]

I have zero interest in this kind of games and for this one in particular (aside female cosplayers )

I like tacos.

 

[Syf]

This is the kind of stuff that makes me hate competitive gaming.

Changes that nobody asked for can turn your favorite game into a shitshow.

I've been thinking about this lately and increasingly feel the same way. Unless something is broken, and not in the way forums exaggerate balance problems but actually broken, I would rather the devs kept their hands off their heroes/units/classes and forced players to adapt instead of catering to the whining that happens as soon as anything looks OP.

As an example I look at Brood War, which had its final balance patch over 16 years ago; yet the evolution of its pro scene was fantastic to watch and is still shifting today. It wasn't done through dev adjustments but through player innovation as they thought up new strategies and tricks and forced the other races to adapt. There were times when things looked OP, but then the players would work to discover new counters themselves. Seeing guys like BoxeR and Bisu revolutionize their races by showing you something you'd never seen before, using tools that had been there all along, that's the real cool stuff to watch. Map design played an important role too (and I would rather Blizzard put more thought into the Overwatch maps and how they can help balance that way), but the main thing is the races themselves didn't change as the pro scene flourished. If you were a fan of a race you didn't have to worry about it changing, only learning new techniques to play it. I know things are different for a hero shooter but you get the idea; unless something in a game is absolutely broken I'd rather see the players shift the meta by learning than the devs by changing the game.

Getting back to Overwatch, I don't play the game actively enough anymore to really comment on the state of things. But Roadhog was my go-to hero for months in the beta and early release. Really sucks to hear he's apparently useless now as I think he filled a hole the game needed filled and was one of the heroes I enjoyed the most. Blizzard has proven pretty inept at balance and esports in general throughout the years no matter how much cash they throw at it.

 

[MKIL65]

Goodbye, Hog... Press F to pay respects.

https://youtu.be/HjLMq0P8uyY?t=64

 

[DevilDog]

This is the kind of stuff that makes me hate competitive gaming.

Changes that nobody asked for can turn your favorite game into a shitshow.

Of course people is going to be pissed when the character they wasted their time with is now useless.

Sorry to say this man, but you're completely delusional

 

[Deleted member 325805]

This is the kind of stuff that makes me hate competitive gaming.

Changes that nobody asked for can turn your favorite game into a shitshow.

Of course people is going to be pissed when the character they wasted their time with is now useless.

That's what nobody likes New Smash or Starcraft 2, people want to keep playing the same game they learned and got good at, spending another 500+ hours learning a new game is too much!

To be fair everyone asked for this, the only people who thought Roadhog was fine was Roadhog mains, when the only counter to a hero is someone better at that hero you know there's a problem. I had friends quit the game entirely because they were sick of playing against him every match, as I said before he was anti-fun to play against and that's not good for the game.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I've been thinking about this lately and increasingly feel the same way. Unless something is broken, and not in the way forums exaggerate balance problems but actually broken, I would rather the devs kept their hands off their heroes/units/classes and forced players to adapt instead of catering to the whining that happens as soon as anything looks OP.

As an example I look at Brood War, which had its final balance patch over 16 years ago; yet the evolution of its pro scene was fantastic to watch and is still shifting today. It wasn't done through dev adjustments but through player innovation as they thought up new strategies and tricks and forced the other races to adapt. There were times when things looked OP, but then the players would work to discover new counters themselves. Seeing guys like BoxeR and Bisu revolutionize their races by showing you something you'd never seen before, using tools that had been there all along, that's the real cool stuff to watch. Map design played an important role too (and I would rather Blizzard put more thought into the Overwatch maps and how they can help balance that way), but the main thing is the races themselves didn't change as the pro scene flourished. If you were a fan of a race you didn't have to worry about it changing, only learning new techniques to play it. I know things are different for a hero shooter but you get the idea; unless something in a game is absolutely broken I'd rather see the players shift the meta by learning than the devs by changing the game.

Getting back to Overwatch, I don't play the game actively enough anymore to really comment on the state of things. But Roadhog was my go-to hero for months in the beta and early release. Really sucks to hear he's apparently useless now as I think he filled a hole the game needed filled and was one of the heroes I enjoyed the most. Blizzard has proven pretty inept at balance and esports in general throughout the years no matter how much cash they throw at it.

There's a bit more nuance to this:

1) Brood Wars races received de facto buffs and nerfs in the form of maps designed specifically to cater to weak ones. The whole "Legend of the Fall" meme came about because every September KESPA would add a bunch of Protoss-favored maps and suddenly Protoss underdogs would start winning championships. Eventually it got to the point where there were so many Protoss-favored maps that they were absolutely dominating, so they dropped most of them and Protoss winrates plummeted.

2) Brood Wars had a very, very high skill ceiling, which generally meant that race imbalance didn't matter much outside of the absolute highest levels of play. Overwatch has a very compressed skill ceiling and a huge emphasis on hard counters and overspecialization, which means that metas where more than 8-10 characters see lots of play at high levels will always remain a pipe dream.

This isn't to say that taking a laissez-faire approach is bad or that Blizzard sledgehammer nerfing random heroes is good, but simply ignoring glaring balance issues isn't a great option.

 

[E92 M3]

I agree with Roadhog's Nerf. It was way too easy to die against him and it always felt cheap. Even his secondary shot could instakill you even if you did manage to survive his scatter shot.

I quite like playing with him now; relying on your team to dish out damage to hooked targets instead of hiding in corners on your own. I expect the extra survivability will work fine enough.

Any good player knew how to fight him. People need to get better instead of blaming their shortcomings on something else.

 

[Mr Swine]

Doesn't surprise me one bit about this. Blizzard has always been terrible at balancing their games units/heroes. Just look at Starcraft 2 and now Overwatch. Only games they where good at balancing was/is Warcraft 3 and Starcraft1/BW

 

[Syf]

There's a bit more nuance to this:

1) Brood Wars races received de facto buffs and nerfs in the form of maps designed specifically to cater to weak ones. The whole "Legend of the Fall" meme came about because every September KESPA would add a bunch of Protoss-favored maps and suddenly Protoss underdogs would start winning championships. Eventually it got to the point where there were so many Protoss-favored maps that they were absolutely dominating, so they dropped most of them and Protoss winrates plummeted.

2) Brood Wars had a very, very high skill ceiling, which generally meant that race imbalance didn't matter much outside of the absolute highest levels of play. Overwatch has a very compressed skill ceiling and a huge emphasis on hard counters and overspecialization, which means that metas where more than 8-10 characters see lots of play at high levels will always remain a pipe dream.

This isn't to say that taking a laissez-faire approach is bad or that Blizzard sledgehammer nerfing random heroes is good, but simply ignoring glaring balance issues isn't a great option.

I mentioned the map influence on balance, said hands off aside from the glaring issues, and that I know hero shooters are different but that the example was to describe a general idea.

 

[UPRGTCTZN]

Imagine of League did that. They have 100+ heroes now ? Why would 25 be to much for Overwatch.
There are only 8 viable anyway.

Never played league of legends, it doesnt appeal to me at all, so I cant really comment in the comparison. However, I wouldnt be playing overwatch if I had to learn 150 characters ults, quirks and counters. Overwatch is not league of legends. Maybe Im alone thinking like this.

 

[Angel_DvA]

Doesn't surprise me one bit about this. Blizzard has always been terrible at balancing their games units/heroes. Just look at Starcraft 2 and now Overwatch. Only games they where good at balancing was/is Warcraft 3 and Starcraft1/BW

and WOW too, their biggest problem is the fact that they're killing what's make their games fun, they're balancing their games for low and high players, it's impossible, trying to appeal to everyone ends up to appealing to noone...

 

[Stone Ocean]

Welcome to a game with constant balance updates. Get used to it.

People should be pissed when they spent money trying to get skins for their favorite characters. And bad players shouldn't be deciding what is op or not.

No they shouldn't. It's a hero game with constant balancing, people should never expect characters to not be gutted just because they spent money.

 

[veloxStrix]

I'm pretty bitter about Overwatch in general. Probably the most fun I've ever had in a game for the first year or so and then it just got progressively less fun with each new update. Maybe it was me and not her. ;-;

This is coming from someone with literally not even a second of Roadhog play outside of Mystery Heroes. He kept a lot of characters in check and added a bit of diversity to the meta. Now I'm basically forced on to Genji and Tracer whenever I play - which wouldn't be bad except I always end up playing the same mirror match every game.

 

[PMS341]

Roadhog was the easiest tank to play outside of D.va, especially with his OHKO combo. Having a split second to escape that combo (a Tracer Recall, Mei Freeze, etc) is not a bad thing. Don't forget this is a character that can tank the majority of damage with a quick self-heal. He's still fun to play, just not as 1-2, which I think is perfectly fine.

 

[Bisnic]

If anything, if they want to buff him without touching the damage of his gun or making him a one hit kill hero, they should just reduce his hook cooldown by something like 2 secs.
Make it so that his strength is to pull enemies toward your group as often as possible so that you & your grouped up team can take care of them.

I mean, it's not normal that I feel so useless when his hook is on cooldown and that I have to hide while waiting for it to be available again. If I would be able to use it more often, that would be a nice start at least.

 

[TatteredHat]

Anyone even somewhat familiar with Blizzard should know that whenever there is balancing involved they just can't help themselves. Eventually they WILL throw their hands up and just completely gut a class / character / race and leave it like that for months until the community has forgotten and they can bring in their mediocre redesign.

They even designed Diablo 3 like that with the way sets basically dictate how people play the game.

 

[Mman235]

To be fair everyone asked for this, the only people who thought Roadhog was fine was Roadhog mains, when the only counter to a hero is someone better at that hero you know there's a problem.

To name just a few examples, a good Dva (post DM fix) or Zarya could make Roadhog's life a living hell, and he was also a free pulse bomb station for good Tracers (hell, these all still apply, they just aren't needed because Roadhog's life is inherently a living hell now).

After they fixed his hook so it couldn't get people through walls, and did less jank shit in general, pretty much no-one outside of bronze was asking for nerfs.

 

[Hektor]

thank FUCK lmao get fucking wrecked roadhog players

sincerely,
pharah

Please never pick pharah again in your life

 

[E92 M3]

Welcome to a game with constant balance updates. Get used to it.

No they shouldn't. It's a hero game with constant balancing, people should never expect characters to not be gutted just because they spent money.

Characters shouldn't be fucking gutted. That's dumb logic - it's BAD balancing to ruin a character.

BLIZZARD DID A HORRIBLE JOB WITH ROADHOG

The statistics support that.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I mentioned the map influence on balance, said hands off aside from the glaring issues, and that I know hero shooters are different but that the example was to describe a general idea.

I know you did, I but I wanted to make it clear that a lot of, if not most, of the meta changes (at least regarding which race was best) didn't come about because of clever players, but because of which race happened to be favored by the most maps at the time.

The point which I meant to make but forgot is that "The meta will sort itself out" doesn't necessarily hold true, especially in shooters. Team Fortress 2, the most immediately comparable game to Overwatch, has had more or less the same meta for almost a decade. Granted, it has different balance philosophies than Overwatch, but the point still stands.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Characters shouldn't be fucking gutted. That's dumb logic - it's BAD balancing to ruin a character.

BLIZZARD DID A HORRIBLE JOB WITH ROADHOG

The statistics support that.

They should be gutted when they can't be balanced and still be healthy for the game. If Hog is ruining people's games for whatever reason and they can't find a way to keep him good and fair, do you just expect the balance team to take half measures?

 

[Confused Cheeseburger]

I shed no tears for Roadhog

 

[Zemm]

They should be gutted when they can't be balanced and still be healthy for the game. If Hog is ruining people's games for whatever reason and they can't find a way to keep him good and fair, do you just expect the balance team to take half measures?

If they can't find a solution that makes him more "fair" and balanced and instead just destroy him then they are doing a horrible job.

They are in fact, doing a horrible job when it comes to character balance in OW.

 

[jasminlovesyoux]

Blizzard has never been good at balancing. They always take things to far and I really don't understand why, it's blatantly obvious.

 

[Syf]

I know you did, I but I wanted to make it clear that a lot of, if not most, of the meta changes (at least regarding which race was best) didn't come about because of clever players, but because of which race happened to be favored by the most maps at the time.

That is not true at all, and the two I mentioned were clear examples of players innovating to change the meta. It's outright foolish to say otherwise and now I'd actually question if you followed Brood War very closely.

The point which I meant to make but forgot is that "The meta will sort itself out" doesn't necessarily hold true, especially in shooters. Team Fortress 2, the most immediately comparable game to Overwatch, has had more or less the same meta for almost a decade. Granted, it has different balance philosophies than Overwatch, but the point still stands.

Again, I pointed out hero shooters are different and I thought that made it clear this wasn't a one-for-one comparison. If I need to spell out my point it's that I find games more interesting when players are trying to solve problems instead of relying on devs to make things easier for them, aside from when things are clearly broken like a hero having a 0% pick rate. Would it happen to the extent it did in Brood War? Almost certainly not, but that doesn't change what I'm saying here. I can't really go any further than that because like I also said, I haven't played Overwatch enough lately to comment on how things are right now, but I will say two things: 1) I don't think Overwatch was given enough time to breathe before Blizzard started making significant changes, and a large part of the community started getting dependent on those changes. I see people everywhere whining about stuff that I know isn't actually hard to deal with, including plenty in this thread, instead of just logging in and figuring it out. They're the ones who made this shit happen and the game would be better if Blizzard hadn't listened. 2) I don't think it's fair to say things would go the same way because TF2 and OW differ in significant ways. There's a lot more diversity in character selection in OW than in TF2 and it's still being added to.

 

[Blam]

Of all people he didn't need such a huge nerf.

 

[E92 M3]

They should be gutted when they can't be balanced and still be healthy for the game. If Hog is ruining people's games for whatever reason and they can't find a way to keep him good and fair, do you just expect the balance team to take half measures?

So Blizzard should worry about horrible players that don't want to think about improving? Not everyone is a winner and I hate that the essence of that mentality is propagated. Some people suck and they need deal with it, not complain.