I've been on record saying that's what they should do. I'd rather have balancing based on the actual mechanics vs people who lack the skill to counter particular moves and think they're op when in reality they're fine. The latter is silly because essentially you aren't balancing the game, youre balancing people being upset about nonexistent issues.
It's even more evident that's the case because none of your posts have had anything to do with actually refuting our arguments.
Except I've had a perfectly constructive discussion about my idea of balance as it refers to Roadhog with just about anyone but you, just scroll back and read my posts about why I think win rate/pick rate != balance in and of itself. I'd love to know your rank and the platform you play on, just out of curiosity.
You can't really balance around people who don't play optimally either. Games have tried it and it doesn't work.
Go tell Valve you can't do that by the way, I'm pretty sure their games have giant player bases too.
Can you give examples of games which explicitly tried that and it didn't work? I'm not saying you're wrong, and I don't think you can balance everything purely based on feedback, but I'm curious to hear about examples.
You can't balance around people not playing optimally but as I've mentioned, across most of the player spectrum Roadhog was simply seen as a nuisance and problematic. His insta-gib hook with the combo just felt unfun, unfair, and frustrating. Regardless of how many ways you theorize people could counter it effectively at higher levels of play, it simply did not happen in most Overwatch matches being played -- which are being played by mediocre to shitty players in disorganized team fights played with people that don't know each other and will not coordinate.
Not every single hero has to be viable for competitive. If nerfing roadhog means he seems virtually no pro level play but it alleviates the headache that he was for 9.998% of the playerbase, that seems like a fair trade. And Blizzard decided, quite simply, that he was problematic enough to require adjustment, and continue to stand by that decision and bringing him back in a way that ISN'T allowing him to kill someone every 10 seconds.
I'm not sure what Valve has to do with this. Anyways, to your earlier post..
I think we're on the same page now. I agree about changing heroes that are unfun to play or play against, but it is a dangerous game to play as Blizzard is trying to make Overwatch into a giant esport. Every decision they make needs to factor in pro level play first and foremost or they are making a mistake. There's also the argument that Roadhog will never work unless he has the ability to one shot heroes, but I feel like that's for the future to decide.
I think Blizzard kind of knows the messed up the Hog changes, or else they wouldn't have worked to buff him immediately. Keep in mind that in the patch notes for their decision to change him they stated that his DPS would be the same because of his increased fire rate and higher clip size. I definitely got the vibe that the Hog changes were meant to be a rework and not a nerf, but I guess that's open to interpretation.
I think making the game fun for the majority of their players comes before their eSports ambitions, but yes, they have to tread carefully. I see no evidence that the adjustments they made to Roadhog significantly affect competitive play. Not every hero has to be viable for the top 0.0001% of players, it seems more reasonable to adjust a hero that feels unfair and unbalanced to a large portion of the other 99.999% of players.
I think they definitely messed up, they took away too much without giving him anything back to redeem it. I'm glad they're reworking him, but I'm also glad they're not doing it by just making his hook a guaranteed pick again.
Roadhog was balanced, and his pick rate at all levels showed that. He was also one of the only things keeping Genji/Tracer in check. Not like dive comp has been slowly killing the game or anything.
You can argue that Hog getting nerfed contributed to dive comp coming back, but Winston's adjustments also played a big part. I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing, as tired as I am of the current dive meta.
