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[Jaguar Victory]

Personally I'd like to see some interactive elements in the maps. Special traps, like the ability to knock down a tree that falls on people indiscriminately along a road. Some funny stuff like that. Or the ability to activate a couple of drones to work for you necromancer style.

 

[Lulubop]

It's funny they mention something like Smite cause HiRez pushes out super unbalanced, unpolished characters all the time and it was pretty annoying, at least when I still played.


Its pretty dang balanced for the most part. Pretty much the whole cast sees use, even up to pro league.

def not

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

def not

Thoughtful rebuttal, you really swayed me.

 

[Wagram]

Probably because they're free. If they were Paid it would surely be faster.

 

[Lulubop]

Thoughtful rebuttal, you really swayed me.

ok

 

[ScatheZombie]

Its pretty dang balanced for the most part. Pretty much the whole cast sees use, even up to pro league.

What? No. That picture posted earlier is relatively accurate. There's a handful of heroes that are in the 90-50% pick range and a third of the roster is sub 5%.

Ana, Lucio and Reinhardt are consistently the top 3 in pick rate and win ratio. Bastion, Sombra and Torb are consistently the bottom 3 in pick rate and win ratio. And it's been that way for the past 3 months.

About 1/3rd of the roster is balanced. About another 1/3rd are only really used as counters in specific situations (or to goof off/show off). And another 1/3rd might as well not exist.

 

[Lulubop]

What? No. That picture posted earlier is relatively accurate. There's a handful of heroes that are in the 90-50% pick range and a third of the roster is sub 5%.

Ana, Lucio and Reinhardt are consistently the top 3 in pick rate and win ratio. Bastion, Sombra and Torb are consistently the bottom 3 in pick rate and win ratio. And it's been that way for the past 3 months.

About 1/3rd of the roster is balanced. About another 1/3rd are only really used as counters in specific situations. And another 1/3rd might as well not exist.

Additionally you can check previous usage charts for months and months and see most characters are below even C tier. Then you have a category of characters (Tanks), that have dominated the meta while another group (defense) has never been relevant (besides early Widow, but w/e).

 

[skynidas]

i don't care about slow arrival heroes. i do care about maps though

 

[Blues1990]

One thing that people have to keep in mind, is that they have to design the maps around most of the character's tool kit & gameplay mechanics. Sniping perches for Widowmaker, walls for Genji and Lucio to traverse on, choke points for Mei and Reinhardt to cover, etc.

Then there's the quirk that they will probably have to retool some of the older maps for future heroes, when they potentially have abilities that could be game breaking. And that costs money, so I'm quite content if they push pack future heroes and focus on designing more maps/refining the current roster to become more viable.

 

[Plywood]

Meh, I'm fine with that. I just want more skins.

 

[Planisphaerium]

seems like theyre having a hard enough time balancing the roster as is. more heroes is only going to make it worse.

I wish they were faster with balance updates. Too damn slow with that. Heroes stay overpowered and some are useless for months, sometimes full seasons.

Bastion is finally getting some reworking done.

The defense class pick aside from Mei is considered a troll pick.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

What? No. That picture posted earlier is relatively accurate. There's a handful of heroes that are in the 90-50% pick range and a third of the roster is sub 5%.

Ana, Lucio and Reinhardt are consistently the top 3 in pick rate and win ratio. Bastion, Sombra and Torb are consistently the bottom 3 in pick rate and win ratio. And it's been that way for the past 3 months.

About 1/3rd of the roster is balanced. About another 1/3rd are only really used as counters in specific situations (or to goof off/show off). And another 1/3rd might as well not exist.

Okay, I said they see use, not that every character has an even pick rate. I'm not arguing you can freely swap out your Reinhardt with Torbjorn.

 

[Moon Presence]

Yeah, maps are important too. Am I the only one who despises Oasis? Specially the one with the jumping platform meme.

 

[Zemm]

Half the characters are already useless in a competitive environment, would be nice if they could tweak that a bit first. It's blizzard though so lol

 

[antitrop]

Yeah, maps are important too. Am I the only one who despises Oasis? Specially the one with the jumping platform meme.

The existence of 2CP maps makes all other game modes seem godlike by comparison. I would rather play Oasis 100 times before I have to play Volskaya once.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

Okay, I said they see use, not that every character has an even pick rate. I'm not arguing you can freely swap out your Reinhardt with Torbjorn.

You're kind of implying it when you're claiming the whole cast sees use up to Pro League and attribute that to how balanced it is though.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Half the characters are already useless in a competitive environment, would be nice if they could tweak that a bit first. It's blizzard though so lol

Yeah, a lot of Overwatch's issues comes from their inability to balance the competitive meta moreso then the lack of new heroes.

 

[ScatheZombie]

Okay, I said they see use, not that every character has an even pick rate. I'm not arguing you can freely swap out your Reinhardt with Torbjorn.

You attributed any usage to balance. That's not how that works.

One hero having a pick rate over 80% and win rate of nearly 60% and another having a pick rate under 2% and a win rate around 30% isn't balanced.

The global statistics paint a very clear picture of the current meta and it works out to roughly what I said in my previous post about 1/3rds. One third is good, one third is situational at best, one third is useless garbage.

Seeing a Sombra in 1 out of every 50 matches doesn't mean she's balanced; especially when you see Ana, Lucio and Reinhardt in 40+ of them.

 

[Ocho]

Because they are free.

 

[WilsonX100]

seems like theyre having a hard enough time balancing the roster as is. more heroes is only going to make it worse.

I wish they were faster with balance updates. Too damn slow with that. Heroes stay overpowered and some are useless for months, sometimes full seasons.

Bastion is finally getting some reworking done.

The defense class pick aside from Mei is considered a troll pick.

a new defense character is badly needed. torb is hardly picked, as people would rather pick symmetra (a support). two of the 5 are snipers which really are rarely necessary, which leaves mostly mei and junkrat being viable options. most people tend to go tank/dps/support when it comes to defending, with usually only a mei from the defense section.

 

[zoukka]

Half the characters are already useless in a competitive environment, would be nice if they could tweak that a bit first. It's blizzard though so lol

Just like in any competitive fighting game/MOBA.

 

[Maximo]

Im just bored of Sombra such a overhyped looooong drawn out Hero to only be played for a few weeks then almost never touched again.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

Just like in any competitive fighting game/MOBA.

This is why you need more characters. If half are useless by design/meta, then it is better to have the pool of 40 to avoid Reinheart/Lucio/Ana in every pro game on both teams regardless of the map.

Fighting games pit 1vs1, so the champion pool for fighting games can have much fewer characters compared to 6vs6 team-based games.

 

[amardilo]

I'd rather more maps than more heroes.

 

[zoukka]

This is why you need more characters. If half are useless by design/meta, then it is better to have the pool of 40 to avoid Reinheart/Lucio/Ana in every pro game on both teams regardless of the map.

Fighting games pit 1vs1, so the champion pool for fighting games can have much fewer characters compared to 6vs6 team-based games.

I dunno, there are gazillion heroes in HOTS and bans, but still you see the same god-tier heroes in every pro match.

 

[Yukinari]

Im just bored of Sombra such a overhyped looooong drawn out Hero to only be played for a few weeks then almost never touched again.

This is what kills me. They overhyped her with a lazy ass ARG. When she finally comes out nobody plays her cause of how unviable she is.

Jeff Kaplan says she has some hidden potential and nobody is using her the way they intended. Load of crap.

 

[BlackBuzzard]

This is what kills me. They overhyped her with a lazy ass ARG. When she finally comes out nobody plays her cause of how unviable she is.

Jeff Kaplan says she has some hidden potential and nobody is using her the way they intended. Load of crap.

Kaplan has been having talks with Ben Brode, its like the good(Unicorn) priest deck before mean streets.

 

[stargateheaven]

I just want more maps.

Especially 3v3 maps. Why only use 1 map for 3v3??

 

[Goldboy]

I'd rather have more maps and more skins that aren't tied to specific events. The Oni Genji skin is neat, more like that would be great.

 

[Woo-Fu]

I don't know why people think hero usage is determined by balance.

It isn't. It is determined by utility, at least until a hero otherwise lacking in utility is overpowered.

Most of the characters not getting picked very often don't need to be re-balanced, they need to be re-tooled such that their kit actually fits how the game is played.

Case in point: Reaper. As a solo flanker whose role is to get up close and personal and blow somebody away his kit is absolutely horrible for how Overwatch is currently played. Has some of the loudest footsteps in the game, has a loud audio callout and long wind-up for his teleport, and is supposed to rely on element of surprise? WTF, Blizzard.

Post-Ana he saw some popularity due mainly to how overpowered Nano-boost was. Was picked solely for his nano-boosted ult which thanks to the speed boost present in nano-boost at the time allowed him to get into the middle of the enemy death ball very, very quickly. Nano-boost gets nerfed, Reaper disappears entirely from the meta.

The flipside of that is Ana absolutely destroys his solo flanker playstyle. Biotic grenade means you're not picking off anybody and sleep dart means you're not making it out alive in any case.

It is actually a really good argument for them to stop adding heroes or at least slow down and think about what the heroes are going to do. The introduction of Ana turned Overwatch into tank-heavy deathball simply due to how biotic grenade works. They nerfed it once, looks like they're going to have to nerf it again.

 

[kirblar]

The problem is that they have to balance for both low and high level play. And theyd rather nerf a character out of the pro meta than have a billion bad players screaming about it. This isn't just an OW problem, it's why Dhalsim is consistently not close to top tier in SF and Greymane has a low win rate in solo queue despite being picked by pro players in HOTS with consistency.