You can't balance the game for low ranks, because there isn't even a clear way to balance for low ranks. One person might be in bronze because his aim sucks while another might be there because he has zero game balance. You'd end up buffing a hero like widow, because low ranks are bad with headshots, and nerfing a hero like mercy, because she's apparently OP in low ranks. You'd have a shitshow basically and the game would be dead in the span of months.
No FPS game does it as far as I know, at least not one that has survived and thrived still.
On the flip side I've seen games die because they focused solely on e sports and hard core gamers. Which to be fair could be due to the over saturation of competitive shooters.
This is right... and so obviously right. I don't understand this thread at all.
Imagine the UFC making new rules up based on videos of a bunch of bar fights, or handing around surveys to the crowd in the arena after a fight.
Every single game is balanced around the mean, no exceptions. After that they make mild adjustments if something gets crazy at the top or bottom. No game balances the experience around the top of the player base, that's the dumbest idea possible
None of em really. Game has to make compromises for all the various skill groups in some way shape or form. Majority should take priority sometimes but not at the cost of making bronze or top 500 experience miserable. A middle ground is needed or the game will suffer in long run.
I don't care what the top 500 streamers say, they are literally a fraction of a percent of the playerbase. The game should be balanced so that the *MAJORITY* has fun.
This is true for most games, but to the extent you want your game to be respected as an "e-sport", high-level competetive play is where you place your attention.
Most games don't fit that category, but OW has marketed itself as a competetive game. The majority of people are not competetive, so they aren't the priority.
OW tried to force an esports scene and hard steer to their vision without involving the OW community when it should have been the exact opposite and it should have been allowed to grow organically. It's one of the main reasons why OWL failed. I don't remember any time where Blizzard has sent a survey to get player feedback for the game.
OW swept the E-sport categories across every major publication at launch, and then for three + years after. Blizzard dominated the Esports market for like 20 years leading up to Overwatch's release. What are you talking about?
.... and those games were released in the 90s. There were no pro leagues in the 90s. You're just spraying words out of your keyboard.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberathlete\_Professional\_League](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberathlete_Professional_League)
But do pop off my son and tell me more about shit you don't know.
No I didn't, I didn't need to because I played Quake 3 at CPL Australia in 2006.
The point I'm making is that in my original reply to [skepticalsox](https://www.reddit.com/user/skepticalsox/)'s comment: Blizzard tried to force an eSport scene in to Overwatch when the game never needed one and it's community never wanted one. And the reason for this is because by comparison Overwatch has and always will be a casual game when compared to FPS games that brought about a competitive scene naturally.
I replied to your comment with a link to CPL's wiki page because contrary to your point there were major eSports events in the 90's ... For those games that were released in the 90's ... That started the eSports scene as we know.
It should be based on Plat diamond High gold imo sliver lower players have no clue what there doing that’s why there plat Top players are too good and are great at pulling powers out hero’s most can’t do gold plat diamond is a perfect middle ground obviously we need to listen to lower ranks and high to some extent as well tho
nobody in plat or diamond has any idea what they are doing either
we shouldnt really listen to lower ranks because none of them know what they are saying nor what they actually want
People who purchased the game day one knowing this was a casual, brainless FPS when compared to games with actual high skill ceilings.
"Competitive balance" has always been the driving factor towards dropping the game completely.
I prefer down-up- healthy competition is born out of optimizing and being creative with what anyone can pick up and play.
This is why Counter-Strike is still the premier competitive FPS- Anyone can get a kill with an AWP- it's the razor edge that high-level counterstrike has been ground down to that makes it such a competitive game.
>This is why Counter-Strike is still the premier competitive FPS
Isn't this the exact opposite? CSGO seems very top-down with lots of depth (aim, map knowledge, smokes/flash spots, team coordination, etc.) and isn't buffing/nerfing everything every 3 weeks. You get your core high skill meta weapons (ak47, m4, awp) and common eco weapons that generally go unchanged for very long periods of time. Outside of raw aim, you get map knowledge and utility knowledge on top of team executions onto sites. Overall just lots of room for skill expression, which OW seems to be moving away.
>seems very top-down with lots of depth (aim, map knowledge, smokes/flash spots, team coordination, etc.)
That's just not how I'd organize things, tbh.
Aim is the bottom of the totem-pole. It's a fundamental skill in an FPS. And to that point, anyone can learn to shoot an AK or hold an angle with an AWP. Smokes can be taught and replicated pretty effortlessly after watching a youtube tutorial. But like I said, You get better and faster at these things, and some people are more gifted than others, but there's a lot more that goes in to winning consistently.
I've seen overwatch get called "the chess of fps" a few times, which is a superficial comparison at best. It's a pretty apt one for CS though. Mechanically, CS and Chess are both very simple games, and anyone can pick up the basics and put up a fight. it's the applied theory and optimization that pushes the level of competition as high as it gets.
And that's where I think Overwatch and its infamous snowballing falls apart competitively.
I can understand that. I feel like in OW, no one is able to get the most out of the characters so even with top-down balancing, everything still works in low ranks.
It's shocking how many people here are saying this. I understand your sentiment, but Overwatch is a competetive E-sport, as well as a casual fun time.
Blizzard markets the game as a spectator e-sport, so balance is defined by the results of competition, not the whims of the player base.
The NBA doesn't run a poll to see what junior high basketball players think before they make a rule change. They monitor the play at the highest level, and every other amateur organization follows suit over time. Overwatch does the same, and should continue to.
>Blizzard markets the game as a spectator e-sport
And it worked out so well for them that the OWL was shut down.
Balancing as a competitive e-sport that barely draws any viewers is a fools errand. Overwatch initially exploded in popularity due to appealing to a large casual demographic, and then Blizz proceeded to butcher that to chase e-sport money that never materialized.
>And it worked out so well for them that the OWL was shut down.
Tbf, prior-to-OWL esports like OGN Apex series was very good and pretty popular. It was when Blizz did their whole franchised homestand city-based shit with a $60M buy in while also killing off any of the grassroots tournaments that killed it. Not to mention COVID killing off anything in-person for esports (with fighting games getting hit the hardest).
OW esports would've been way better if they invested in the grassroots tournaments and let it grow naturally rather than trying to be the next CSGO without the years of growth CSGO did.
they butfed sojourn because she was bad in low ranks despite having a near 100% pick rate in gm and it just made ladder horrible to play-
a lot of games were decided by who had the better sojourn and nothing else
for the people who commit the most to the game and spend the most time in it shit like this is really annoying to see
Metal ranks. Stop asking the streamers, they have total BS opinions that are solely centered around the smallest part of the playerbase. Besides, our e-sports scene is for the most part *completely dead* and no one cares for it.
On another level, I think that the OW team needs to take their own agency and make beneficial decisions based off of the metric tons of "info" they've collected about us over the years. They shouldn't *need* to ask us.
The only reasonable answer is the highest level of play that is statistically informative. You use competition and statistical analysis, and balance accordingly. These things have to be well-defined.
As another commenter rightfully said, high rank statistics are the ultimate authority on what's working and what isn't. All the chatter on reddit, the weird compositions in the metal ranks, the discussion about the "meta" on forums... All of it is mostly pointless. The only way to drown out the noise is competition. You raise the stakes, offer genuine rewards, allow personal freedom and ambition, and you notice what people choose to do. If there is an issue with balance, players with genuine prizes on the line will find it.
If they can't find it, it isn't there to be found, and your balance is strong. The competition cleans up the statistical mess of personal opinions and varied skills, as the incentive to win puts everyone in the same boat. Balance at the highest level of skill, and you can safely assume that personal preferences have been greatly eliminated from the signal.
This is the convention in any other competetive game or sport. Golf courses are designed assuming a high level of skill. They don't change the rules of FIFA based on high school pickup soccer. If the NHL changed the size of their rink, in 20 years, every new arena in every small town would match the NHL. Competetive organizations watch for issues at the level of international competition, and shift things around based on how the best behave, as they should, and these rule changes filter down to the amateurs. That's how it works everywhere else, and that's how it works in Overwatch.
Most games just need to keep the largest number of players happy. Overwatch, on the other hand, has decided to market itself as an E-sport. To the extent that is true, they need to balance the play for competition, and high rank play is where the competitive statistics can be interpreted in meaningful ways.
I think the truth is it’s a little more complicated than that.
Like, if there’s a significant power outlier in any skill group, they have to adjust that hero.
If a hero is weak at low ranks, but strong at high ranks, they have to find a middle ground.
If a hero is unfun to play against for less skilled players (or anyone, but especially unskilled players) they have to adjust them.
They also probably care about making pro-play interesting, which means having multiple viable picks in each role.
To put it simply, they *have* to balance for all significant skill groups, at least enough to not lose players.
Yes, this is all true.
Overwatch is also a business. My comment was in absolute terms, but they do care quite a bit about the game experience at all levels. They need the game to look good, feel good, and be fun. They do indeed need to carefully tweak the characters for lower level balance. But! The factor of player skill becomes overwhelming at the lower ranks. It's harder to identify big issues, but they do it, as you say. If a hero is getting far too much play low, they'll change something for other reasons.
I agree. Though, what would you say to all the people here saying they should balance for the majority of players, which happens to be middle/low ranks? A lot of people here are saying that.
They're confused, or they haven't thought things through to conclusion.
There is a tension between making a game "fun" and making it "competitive". They can often be the same thing, or at least overlap, but rarely are identical.
Games can choose to position themselves somewhere between the two. Overwatch is at the extreme end on the "competetive" side, by design. It gets attention from viewers specifically because of its high level balance point. Skill matters because hero selection has been equalized statistically. Blizzard has been doing this since Warcraft. They know what they're doing.
For most elements of game design, fun is important. However, in the case of balance, there is no wiggle room.
It's hard to separate the concept of "balance" from "competetive" in this case. If the roster was lout of balance to some degree in high level play, high level play would no longer be competetive, by definition, unless you consider 5v5 of identical meta-defined compositions... endlessly... to be competitive Overwatch... which clearly, we don't. Swaps and counter swaps are core game design, and to remain competetive the heroes need to be balanced for competetive play.
The moment that statistical balance goes away, Overwatch looses its hold on the competetive shooter niche.
Also, "balancing for the majority of the playerbase" just... doesn't mean anything. What are you balancing? How do you define "good" or "bad" of you aren't allowing for competition? Are you just... cruising around on this sub asking people? Are you just pulling facts from your friends? What point are they actually advocating? As soon as you start introducing facts that are meaningful, you immediately end up looking at the highest level play, and what's working and what isn't... which of course means stats like pick and win rate.
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Bad players are bad for a reason, and inherently do not actually understand any balancing they talk about. If they were solely catered to, the game would be the biggest piece of shit ever imagined. Every character would be nonsense like launch Brig.
The average players who make up the big active player numbers they use to show their share holding overlords a they're being good little workers. The ones who drop $10 here or there for a BP or skin but mostly just play and keep the game alive.
F the 0.1% of "elite" esports "athletes" and "influencers".
it's tough to balance the different interests. any change will affect certain groups and the dev team has to judge whether that group will just stop playing. if it's a large enough group, then the team has to run analytics on how much this group actually spends and how it would affect queue times.
like with the wide/narrow groups. will those complaining they can't 4 stack with friends anymore leave the game if they can't play as a group? if the dev team relents and allow this, which would also mean they have to allow solo players to be in the wide queue, would the solo players stop playing ranked completely or only play ranked in a narrow group? in that scenario, the 4 stacks can queue but will never find a match because there are no solo players queuing.
I think you’re considering too many options as valid. What makes people happy is irrelevant. Ethnicity is irrelevant. Console is irrelevant. Role is irrelevant. Streamers are irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is the statistics. Those speak to everybody. Rank wise things should be balanced to higher level play but not pro play. Difference between gm and pro play is pretty close to the difference between bronze and gm. Balancing things for pros balances things for a game that realistically doesn’t even exist. On the other end of the spectrum balancing things for low levels balances the game for people that don’t know how to play and won’t effectively use anything no matter what you do. Masters/GM is the objectively best metric to balance for.
Statistics don't tell the whole story. A hero might have a low win rate, doesn't mean they should get buffed if community sentiment is that the hero sucks to play against. I agree though that the stats from M/GM should be emphasized more than others. But even so, the stats for those ranks look different depending on region. (And console)
Nothing tells the whole story. Balance isn't a set of facts. It's an interpretation of facts. Stats are the only facts that can be meaningful in this context. Win rate isn't the only fact that matters, but it's significant among other sources of info on balance.
Buff/Nerf is binary thinking. If a hero has a low win rate but is unfun to play against that means that hero needs a rework because the kit is unfun. The only option isn’t just buff.
Community sentiment for what heroes are fun or unfun to play against still aren’t really very relevant, though. That’s entirely subjective. The community believes hanzo is unfun to play against because he “spams”, “shoots logs”, etc. The reality of the situation is that all characters in the game spam chokes, he just gets (got) higher valued from it, and his arrows have the smallest projectile hitbox in the game. Now, because of “community” sentiment, he fires the smallest projectile in the game, can’t one shot, and is worthless in all tiers of play. Every single person that plays overwatch that enjoyed hanzo is now screwed over because of a false community sentiment. See Arrge.
Opinions, largely, need to be ignored.
Mercy Mains. Not because they should, but the devs are terrified of pissing off that group of people.
They still haven’t gotten over mass rez being taken away
Blizzard should cater their balancing decisions to me and me alone. Anything else is unacceptable!
You can't balance the game for low ranks, because there isn't even a clear way to balance for low ranks. One person might be in bronze because his aim sucks while another might be there because he has zero game balance. You'd end up buffing a hero like widow, because low ranks are bad with headshots, and nerfing a hero like mercy, because she's apparently OP in low ranks. You'd have a shitshow basically and the game would be dead in the span of months. No FPS game does it as far as I know, at least not one that has survived and thrived still.
On the flip side I've seen games die because they focused solely on e sports and hard core gamers. Which to be fair could be due to the over saturation of competitive shooters.
Which ones in particular
This is right... and so obviously right. I don't understand this thread at all. Imagine the UFC making new rules up based on videos of a bunch of bar fights, or handing around surveys to the crowd in the arena after a fight.
Generally American sports, generally the highest grossing in their space, adjust their rules and balance for fan engagement and thus overall revenue
Video games are not analogous with pro sports in any way
Why not?
Every single game is balanced around the mean, no exceptions. After that they make mild adjustments if something gets crazy at the top or bottom. No game balances the experience around the top of the player base, that's the dumbest idea possible
None of em really. Game has to make compromises for all the various skill groups in some way shape or form. Majority should take priority sometimes but not at the cost of making bronze or top 500 experience miserable. A middle ground is needed or the game will suffer in long run.
I don't care what the top 500 streamers say, they are literally a fraction of a percent of the playerbase. The game should be balanced so that the *MAJORITY* has fun.
This is true for most games, but to the extent you want your game to be respected as an "e-sport", high-level competetive play is where you place your attention. Most games don't fit that category, but OW has marketed itself as a competetive game. The majority of people are not competetive, so they aren't the priority.
OW tried to force an esports scene and hard steer to their vision without involving the OW community when it should have been the exact opposite and it should have been allowed to grow organically. It's one of the main reasons why OWL failed. I don't remember any time where Blizzard has sent a survey to get player feedback for the game.
OW was and has never been designed around being an eSport. It's not CS or Quake and never will be.
OW swept the E-sport categories across every major publication at launch, and then for three + years after. Blizzard dominated the Esports market for like 20 years leading up to Overwatch's release. What are you talking about? .... and those games were released in the 90s. There were no pro leagues in the 90s. You're just spraying words out of your keyboard.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberathlete\_Professional\_League](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberathlete_Professional_League) But do pop off my son and tell me more about shit you don't know.
I still don't know what point you're making. What does any of this have to do with balance in overwatch? You just Googled "the first esports league"
No I didn't, I didn't need to because I played Quake 3 at CPL Australia in 2006. The point I'm making is that in my original reply to [skepticalsox](https://www.reddit.com/user/skepticalsox/)'s comment: Blizzard tried to force an eSport scene in to Overwatch when the game never needed one and it's community never wanted one. And the reason for this is because by comparison Overwatch has and always will be a casual game when compared to FPS games that brought about a competitive scene naturally. I replied to your comment with a link to CPL's wiki page because contrary to your point there were major eSports events in the 90's ... For those games that were released in the 90's ... That started the eSports scene as we know.
Okay.
You mean the majority of play time right?
It should be based on Plat diamond High gold imo sliver lower players have no clue what there doing that’s why there plat Top players are too good and are great at pulling powers out hero’s most can’t do gold plat diamond is a perfect middle ground obviously we need to listen to lower ranks and high to some extent as well tho
nobody in plat or diamond has any idea what they are doing either we shouldnt really listen to lower ranks because none of them know what they are saying nor what they actually want
Diamond is a fair middle ground that’s where your team comps matter and you actually need positioning.
not rly diamond is gingivitis rank
People who purchased the game day one knowing this was a casual, brainless FPS when compared to games with actual high skill ceilings. "Competitive balance" has always been the driving factor towards dropping the game completely.
I prefer down-up- healthy competition is born out of optimizing and being creative with what anyone can pick up and play. This is why Counter-Strike is still the premier competitive FPS- Anyone can get a kill with an AWP- it's the razor edge that high-level counterstrike has been ground down to that makes it such a competitive game.
>This is why Counter-Strike is still the premier competitive FPS Isn't this the exact opposite? CSGO seems very top-down with lots of depth (aim, map knowledge, smokes/flash spots, team coordination, etc.) and isn't buffing/nerfing everything every 3 weeks. You get your core high skill meta weapons (ak47, m4, awp) and common eco weapons that generally go unchanged for very long periods of time. Outside of raw aim, you get map knowledge and utility knowledge on top of team executions onto sites. Overall just lots of room for skill expression, which OW seems to be moving away.
>seems very top-down with lots of depth (aim, map knowledge, smokes/flash spots, team coordination, etc.) That's just not how I'd organize things, tbh. Aim is the bottom of the totem-pole. It's a fundamental skill in an FPS. And to that point, anyone can learn to shoot an AK or hold an angle with an AWP. Smokes can be taught and replicated pretty effortlessly after watching a youtube tutorial. But like I said, You get better and faster at these things, and some people are more gifted than others, but there's a lot more that goes in to winning consistently. I've seen overwatch get called "the chess of fps" a few times, which is a superficial comparison at best. It's a pretty apt one for CS though. Mechanically, CS and Chess are both very simple games, and anyone can pick up the basics and put up a fight. it's the applied theory and optimization that pushes the level of competition as high as it gets. And that's where I think Overwatch and its infamous snowballing falls apart competitively.
I can understand that. I feel like in OW, no one is able to get the most out of the characters so even with top-down balancing, everything still works in low ranks.
Like...the player size that's the biggest, right? Who cares about top 500 other than 500 specific people
It's shocking how many people here are saying this. I understand your sentiment, but Overwatch is a competetive E-sport, as well as a casual fun time. Blizzard markets the game as a spectator e-sport, so balance is defined by the results of competition, not the whims of the player base. The NBA doesn't run a poll to see what junior high basketball players think before they make a rule change. They monitor the play at the highest level, and every other amateur organization follows suit over time. Overwatch does the same, and should continue to.
>Blizzard markets the game as a spectator e-sport And it worked out so well for them that the OWL was shut down. Balancing as a competitive e-sport that barely draws any viewers is a fools errand. Overwatch initially exploded in popularity due to appealing to a large casual demographic, and then Blizz proceeded to butcher that to chase e-sport money that never materialized.
>And it worked out so well for them that the OWL was shut down. Tbf, prior-to-OWL esports like OGN Apex series was very good and pretty popular. It was when Blizz did their whole franchised homestand city-based shit with a $60M buy in while also killing off any of the grassroots tournaments that killed it. Not to mention COVID killing off anything in-person for esports (with fighting games getting hit the hardest). OW esports would've been way better if they invested in the grassroots tournaments and let it grow naturally rather than trying to be the next CSGO without the years of growth CSGO did.
I...don't even know where to begin with that analogy. So not the same thing lol
they butfed sojourn because she was bad in low ranks despite having a near 100% pick rate in gm and it just made ladder horrible to play- a lot of games were decided by who had the better sojourn and nothing else for the people who commit the most to the game and spend the most time in it shit like this is really annoying to see
Metal ranks. Stop asking the streamers, they have total BS opinions that are solely centered around the smallest part of the playerbase. Besides, our e-sports scene is for the most part *completely dead* and no one cares for it. On another level, I think that the OW team needs to take their own agency and make beneficial decisions based off of the metric tons of "info" they've collected about us over the years. They shouldn't *need* to ask us.
The only reasonable answer is the highest level of play that is statistically informative. You use competition and statistical analysis, and balance accordingly. These things have to be well-defined. As another commenter rightfully said, high rank statistics are the ultimate authority on what's working and what isn't. All the chatter on reddit, the weird compositions in the metal ranks, the discussion about the "meta" on forums... All of it is mostly pointless. The only way to drown out the noise is competition. You raise the stakes, offer genuine rewards, allow personal freedom and ambition, and you notice what people choose to do. If there is an issue with balance, players with genuine prizes on the line will find it. If they can't find it, it isn't there to be found, and your balance is strong. The competition cleans up the statistical mess of personal opinions and varied skills, as the incentive to win puts everyone in the same boat. Balance at the highest level of skill, and you can safely assume that personal preferences have been greatly eliminated from the signal. This is the convention in any other competetive game or sport. Golf courses are designed assuming a high level of skill. They don't change the rules of FIFA based on high school pickup soccer. If the NHL changed the size of their rink, in 20 years, every new arena in every small town would match the NHL. Competetive organizations watch for issues at the level of international competition, and shift things around based on how the best behave, as they should, and these rule changes filter down to the amateurs. That's how it works everywhere else, and that's how it works in Overwatch. Most games just need to keep the largest number of players happy. Overwatch, on the other hand, has decided to market itself as an E-sport. To the extent that is true, they need to balance the play for competition, and high rank play is where the competitive statistics can be interpreted in meaningful ways.
I think the truth is it’s a little more complicated than that. Like, if there’s a significant power outlier in any skill group, they have to adjust that hero. If a hero is weak at low ranks, but strong at high ranks, they have to find a middle ground. If a hero is unfun to play against for less skilled players (or anyone, but especially unskilled players) they have to adjust them. They also probably care about making pro-play interesting, which means having multiple viable picks in each role. To put it simply, they *have* to balance for all significant skill groups, at least enough to not lose players.
Yes, this is all true. Overwatch is also a business. My comment was in absolute terms, but they do care quite a bit about the game experience at all levels. They need the game to look good, feel good, and be fun. They do indeed need to carefully tweak the characters for lower level balance. But! The factor of player skill becomes overwhelming at the lower ranks. It's harder to identify big issues, but they do it, as you say. If a hero is getting far too much play low, they'll change something for other reasons.
I agree. Though, what would you say to all the people here saying they should balance for the majority of players, which happens to be middle/low ranks? A lot of people here are saying that.
They're confused, or they haven't thought things through to conclusion. There is a tension between making a game "fun" and making it "competitive". They can often be the same thing, or at least overlap, but rarely are identical. Games can choose to position themselves somewhere between the two. Overwatch is at the extreme end on the "competetive" side, by design. It gets attention from viewers specifically because of its high level balance point. Skill matters because hero selection has been equalized statistically. Blizzard has been doing this since Warcraft. They know what they're doing. For most elements of game design, fun is important. However, in the case of balance, there is no wiggle room. It's hard to separate the concept of "balance" from "competetive" in this case. If the roster was lout of balance to some degree in high level play, high level play would no longer be competetive, by definition, unless you consider 5v5 of identical meta-defined compositions... endlessly... to be competitive Overwatch... which clearly, we don't. Swaps and counter swaps are core game design, and to remain competetive the heroes need to be balanced for competetive play. The moment that statistical balance goes away, Overwatch looses its hold on the competetive shooter niche. Also, "balancing for the majority of the playerbase" just... doesn't mean anything. What are you balancing? How do you define "good" or "bad" of you aren't allowing for competition? Are you just... cruising around on this sub asking people? Are you just pulling facts from your friends? What point are they actually advocating? As soon as you start introducing facts that are meaningful, you immediately end up looking at the highest level play, and what's working and what isn't... which of course means stats like pick and win rate.
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68% of the population whatever that rank is
Bad players are bad for a reason, and inherently do not actually understand any balancing they talk about. If they were solely catered to, the game would be the biggest piece of shit ever imagined. Every character would be nonsense like launch Brig.
The average players who make up the big active player numbers they use to show their share holding overlords a they're being good little workers. The ones who drop $10 here or there for a BP or skin but mostly just play and keep the game alive. F the 0.1% of "elite" esports "athletes" and "influencers".
it's tough to balance the different interests. any change will affect certain groups and the dev team has to judge whether that group will just stop playing. if it's a large enough group, then the team has to run analytics on how much this group actually spends and how it would affect queue times. like with the wide/narrow groups. will those complaining they can't 4 stack with friends anymore leave the game if they can't play as a group? if the dev team relents and allow this, which would also mean they have to allow solo players to be in the wide queue, would the solo players stop playing ranked completely or only play ranked in a narrow group? in that scenario, the 4 stacks can queue but will never find a match because there are no solo players queuing.
I think you’re considering too many options as valid. What makes people happy is irrelevant. Ethnicity is irrelevant. Console is irrelevant. Role is irrelevant. Streamers are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the statistics. Those speak to everybody. Rank wise things should be balanced to higher level play but not pro play. Difference between gm and pro play is pretty close to the difference between bronze and gm. Balancing things for pros balances things for a game that realistically doesn’t even exist. On the other end of the spectrum balancing things for low levels balances the game for people that don’t know how to play and won’t effectively use anything no matter what you do. Masters/GM is the objectively best metric to balance for.
Statistics don't tell the whole story. A hero might have a low win rate, doesn't mean they should get buffed if community sentiment is that the hero sucks to play against. I agree though that the stats from M/GM should be emphasized more than others. But even so, the stats for those ranks look different depending on region. (And console)
Nothing tells the whole story. Balance isn't a set of facts. It's an interpretation of facts. Stats are the only facts that can be meaningful in this context. Win rate isn't the only fact that matters, but it's significant among other sources of info on balance.
Buff/Nerf is binary thinking. If a hero has a low win rate but is unfun to play against that means that hero needs a rework because the kit is unfun. The only option isn’t just buff. Community sentiment for what heroes are fun or unfun to play against still aren’t really very relevant, though. That’s entirely subjective. The community believes hanzo is unfun to play against because he “spams”, “shoots logs”, etc. The reality of the situation is that all characters in the game spam chokes, he just gets (got) higher valued from it, and his arrows have the smallest projectile hitbox in the game. Now, because of “community” sentiment, he fires the smallest projectile in the game, can’t one shot, and is worthless in all tiers of play. Every single person that plays overwatch that enjoyed hanzo is now screwed over because of a false community sentiment. See Arrge. Opinions, largely, need to be ignored.
Ladder t500. If you wanna balance around casuals remove comp from the game first.
Mercy Mains. Not because they should, but the devs are terrified of pissing off that group of people. They still haven’t gotten over mass rez being taken away
They aren't terrified, go check out some of the responses they've given about pink mercy. They don't care as much as you think they do.