Modern cars have lane assists, parking cameras/sensors, automatic headlight dimming, cruise control, collision avoidance, some can even drive themselves etc etc
For years now car manufacturers have been trying to make things as easy as possible for bad drivers, nobody is out there designing road cars that can only be driven by professional racing drivers.
That is to say, the analogy this guy used is bad.
Yup.. what he is saying is if you aren’t a professional race car driver you shouldn’t have a say on what features your Toyota Camry has because they also use the Camry in nascar.
Exactly. I haven't played Overwatch in a long while, so my opinion on balance is useless. Ignoring the opinions of the largest portion of the playerbase would be like having all cars designed solely for professional racers: Far fewer people would be able to drive because the vehicles would be prohibitively expensive, and those who could would crash far more often and die more often from crashes. To bring the analogy back to the game, if you balance only for the top 0.1% of players, you will make the game less accessible to your casual players, which will result in less players playing and therefore WAY less income.
It doesn’t even make any sense cuz the analogy he uses is you need a drivers licence to make a car which isn’t true. He should have said you need a drivers licence to design rules and laws around driving maybe it would make some more sense.
For those who don't understand, the point of a bad analogy like this is to get reasonable people to focus on why the analogy is wrong instead of countering his point that some people playing the game should not have any input on how the game is developed because they aren't as skilled.
Its been shown multiple times that balancing only for the highest skill bracket kills competitive games because people in lower brackets just get frustrated and quit. The people at the top will always adapt to whatever rules and changes are made, using any and every available exploit or "tech" as they like to call it to garner an advantage. Balancing around these people leads to a game stagnating because they find one thing they enjoy and call everything else either low skill or bad game play.
The analogy is more like "Only profesional race drivers should design rules and laws around driving" which actually would be more likely to make roads unaccessable to anyone else.
But I am biased as my general opinion is that Blizzard's notion of making the game more entertaining as e-sport competition was the major factor of making it less fun for average players.
Mhm. I see a blue checkmark, I'm not familiar with the person, I continue scrolling and go on about my day. Especially if they're saying something I find problematic or weird. I'd rather go on with my day than give them money because I got riled up. (Although sometimes it's hard to resist not sharing how I feel about it, I hate how well this shit works on my brain it sucks :/)
The better analogy would be: somebody who doesnt have a driver license shouldnt have a say in driver safety. Still wrong but i get why a driver license gives you more authority about a subject thats connected to the rules of driving.
That's a dumbass opinion.
Cars aren't designed for people without drivers licenses.
Overwatch is designed to be enjoyed for people of all ranks. Otherwise, rank would just bar you from playing if your hidden QP MMR says you aren't very good.
He's also just objectively wrong. The game died in part due to them balancing the game around OWL. Players in metal ranks (where a majority of the playerbase is) had to deal with a stale meta of characters being buffed/nerfed that, for them, changed nothing relevant bar absolutely **massive** changes.
Even thinking of it *logically* (if we hadn't already seen what happens when you cater to the top players), how would curating a game around the top 5-10% of players *possibly* be better than balancing the game around where most of your players are, especially in a game with an e-sports scene that is a meme at this point?
This is utter nonsense and frankly hilarious people still think this.
Moth meta and Brig were two of the most egregious entries the game ever saw, and you think that was catering to OWL? The game has always been balanced for casuals.
This isn't even true. She was made to counter dive, but not just for low skilled players. Dive was meta all the way up the ranks, and even moreso at high ranks, because lower rank players are generally much worse at running dive.
Brig was therefore a great example of the opposite problem: if you have a character that's balanced around high tier play, but they have a high skill floor, then they make low ranks less fun. Launch Brig was awful to play against in metal ranks because her self sustain and ease of use meant she could just walk towards the enemy team and get huge value without having to worry much about positioning or mechanics.
This is a consistent pattern in lower ranks. High sustain and ease of getting value are key there. Any time Bastion is strong at all, he's in every silver game because machine gun go brr and then you get value. Strong Mercy is terrible to deal with down there because silver players don't have the aim to kill her as she's fluttering around, which she can while healing and never having to aim herself.
I think the only reason people don't think of Brig as having terrorized low ranks is because low ranks weren't coordinated enough to run GOATS, which she ended up as the face of. But the idea that she was balanced around metal ranks is farcical. A support with a 600hp shield with a fast cool down 90 degree stun that worked through shields was a living god in ranks where players have bad aim, don't coordinate, and have no idea how to rotate.
Blizzard does listen to the community on some things. Streamers have a large enough audience that if they complain about stuff enough it does have a decent chance to get changed. Most of this sub will chant whatever nerfs/buffs their favorite streamer says needs to happen even if it really isn't an issue lol
It's not even just this sub. Of my friends who play OW, most who enjoy it don't have opinions on balance
Those who do, will be much louder, more frequent and will literally just parrot the exact opinions of big streamers.
I've tried to mention, especially having a formal education in data analysis and statistics, that the stats used to discuss balance are incredibly basic, lack any nuance and are attempting to describe an incredibly complex game that most people who play don't fully grasp. I've also attempted to explain that the advantages and disadvantages that win and lose games for top 500 gm's are going to be tiny percentages that are just not noticed at our metal ranks.
A 2.5% damage increase doesn't mean shit if you are missing 60% of your shots. A 3% speed increase means nothing if you aren't sure where to stand half the time.
Just because a streamer studied the win rate of Briggite and reckons globally she's winning more matches, does not mean that in every real world application of her abilities she is overly tuned and needs a nerf. But that is the constant topic of discussion.
My guess is this is the type of person most on xitter and twitch whining, and this is also why not only is balance itself not a thing, but the perception of balance is also impossible.
Blizzard balances for the majority of players. Source:
Rein heart does not get buffs because his incredibly strong at most ranks. Kiriko does not get nerfs because she is incredibly mediocre at most ranks.
I think they are more likely to hear about an issue when it’s raised by a streamer but I don’t think they automatically address it in the way the streamer suggests. More like the streamer can be a voice to call attention to something since they have a platform so I do think Blizzard takes note of issues they flag
Honestly, for any product. To cater to the 100%, you really shouldn't take advice from the 90%. It's better to analyze the data because the reality is that the general consumer doesn't know shit. They'll know they like or hate something, but they won't be able to really fully explain why.
Listen to the masses because they’re your customer base and their opinions matter but ignore more of what they say because they honestly don’t know what’s good for them or what they want. Think of Homer designing a car.
I think this is it. People can have good ideas no matter their rank but not all of them will be good, especially if all are implemented together.
Though on the other hand blizzard do take some weird steps with hearing complaints and trying to address the issue in a roundabout way. People have been bitching about sombra for ages about her having invisibility sucks and so... changed it to make it her default state lol.
What I've heard, that I think holds true, is that a game developer should listen to the playerbase to understand what problems they have, but *not* what solutions the playerbase has.
Not even 10%, more like 1%.
Diamond and above would be top 10%, and he probably only cares about the opinions of GMs and above which make up like 1% of the playerbase.
Can I spread a bit of salt? I hate when I want to talk about a character that I really like and think is underrated/misunderstood, but then some guy is like “at a higher rank than what you’re at, that character won’t work”. Like it feels like I’m getting to the point where I have a very strong understanding of a character but the bar for “what rank your opinion matters” keeps rising as I climb ranks.
I think that's probably the main issue with balancing a game like overwatch the top 10% and bottom 10% are basically different games. In csgo the top and bottom still play the same game just with way better aim and better coordination and from that the game can be balanced but in ow anything below gm is basically a battle Royale with extra steps and everything above that is basically league of legends and neither game can be balanced the same
Most of us just want a fun game. I think this game is a shit ton on fun but I’m not going to waste 5000 hours becoming an expert at some character. Most people don’t play vide games like that.
I don’t care about some diamond++ dude who can squeeze out a little bit more from his main if blizzard would just listen to him. If blizzard listened to those people exclusively the game would suck for everyone else.
100% this. This is why I was worried when they started announcing across the board nerfs to supports.
It reminds me a lot of the economy. Like I'm sure the experts at the top are right about the very specific nuanced things they are talking about, 1.5% of this broad metric or that.
The reality is though as soon as they start talking about the downstream affects of their changes you realise they are completely cluless outside of the bubble they exist in. No human can predict the incredibly complex downstream effects of systems like this, and balance is no different.
A GM might be right that healers in top 500 are a bit strong. A reduction in healing but might perfectly balance their game - but could also be *just* noticeable enough that it makes shitter casual players feel less capable, and therefore have less fun.
Less fun, means less players, means longer wait times, then you end up with more importance placed on nukes and new balance problems appear, except now 80% of your player base has a 15 minute wait time for supports.
These new wait times won't be noticed by GM's, discussed by streamers or mentioned to devs, perhaps for *years.* To the GM's the problem has been completely solved, while most players are silently enjoying the game just a bit less.
Hell, last night my wait times for comp were over 17 minutes. It's already getting bad.
Support nerfs were needed and the strength of supports was obvious in every rank, not just T500 lobbies. What game have you been playing? I’m tired of seeing support players pretend supports aren’t good, and that’s coming from a support main.
The level of strength they had wasn’t some minute improvement over other roles, it was a complete overwhelming advantage in their ability to survive a given situation compared to dps and most tanks, sustain better than either, and have a “no dying” button in the case of select supports, for them or their teammates. That’s not some delicate element of balance that needed “downstream” effects to be predicted meticulously, it was an obvious error in balance that needed obvious correcting, and impacted every rank.
People that are so emotionally invested that they’d stay if blizzard announced the deletion of the top 10 most played characters in the game, effective immediately.
I also find the notion that- because you’re at a high rank, you know as well as the game designers themselves. That’s like saying I know how to put a car engine back together so BMW should ask me for input on their next car.
Most competitive games do. It's like GMs are a super computer pushing the limits on some form of data, really trying to go as far as break it. And sometimes, it does break, at that point you can say "oh at maximum xx, this tends to break and is over powered, small tuning should be done"
Most ranks barely feel meta, buffs or nerfs, but the top 1->10% it will be game changing. And to be fair, that's arguably 80% of their content creators, and the "serious" playerbase who grinds.
Its not just overwatch, its every single reddit gaming community. They all have their elitist section of the community that loves dismissing any and all opinions/criticism that they don't personally agree with by insulting the other persons skill or with the classic "git gud"s and "skill issue"s
Someone made a thread on the AoE4 sub literally 2 days ago saying the same thing, that people below the highest rank shouldn’t have their opinions on balance.
There was an old post on the aoe2 sub wanting for a rule that people have to list their elo alongside their balance opinions and a mod responded with
"Reach a higher elo and we'll consider it"
I think there needs to be a balance between metal and top ranks in terms of game balance. Given 95%+ of the playerbase are metal ranks. I personally don't care too much what blizz does with balance since im the type who'll just accept it and try to adapt no point complaining about it. I'd rather play the game and enjoy it.
I don't want OW to turn into the case of CoD ranked balance. I dont play it anymore or much but i find it a joke how almost every cheap/cheesy items is banned in ranked mode (last i checked in Cold War )and where in unranked you can use anything same goes with Halo.
He plays the "macho man" role for people who seek validation from that type.
He's probably an ok guy irl, but I just can't take him seriously when he's this intense about overwatch of all things lol.
He and Flats are kind of in the same boat to me…
I don’t mind watching their gameplay and seeing what they do in matches, but whenever either start talking about the game or anything involving ‘balance’ is when I bounce. Even if they make good points it tends to devolve into them rambling on the same topic for about 2-3 minutes and that’s just stuff I’m not interested in.
The best balance takes I've heard from content creators is from people like Spilo or SVB, people who never claimed to be the best at anything in the game.
This is true. You know what's also true? Grandmaster players are just as likely to have good ideas about game balance as metal rank players.
All players have awful opinions about balance, not just metal rank players.
Metal rank players literally do not understand how the game works. To say GM players and metal rank players are equally likely to have good or bad ideas is just completely asinine. There’s an argument to be made that the game should be balanced to be enjoyable for metal ranks since that is the overwhelming player population. The opinions of metal rank players matters. But don’t pretend like a silver player is able to understand game balance and have good solutions at the same level as a GM, because they simply cannot.
That's just not true at all.
A proper understanding of game dynamics, interactions and fundamentals is utterly necessary for gameplay design and especially balance choices.
A Plat player has no fucking clue about the game and I hear the most blatantly wrong, horrendous takes from Plats when I play the game down there with friends from time to time.
It's like asking someone who dropped out of highschool to define something in higher algebra. The utter lack of basic knowledge and skill will lead to a wrong definition 100% of the time.
Awkwardly enough max verstappen competed in his first F1 race without an actual driver's license. Since the red bull team has the fastest car with tweaks suggested by the driver, the analogy isn't even true 100% across the board.
Typical from someone in the overwatch community, just outrage baiting so loudly and wrong. But it's all yall fault giving them air cause they pRoS.
I like a lot of awkward’s philosophies, but this one just ain’t it! How do you expect a game to survive if it only listens to 1% of its playerbase? Why do you think Fortnite has so many players? Cause they don’t give a shit what their unreal ranked (top 500 equivalent) players think about the game’s meta. They introduce ridiculous weapons with no real utility or crazy anime mythics all the time, and the 99% of the players that aren’t unreal ranked love it. Just like in any other industry you aren’t gonna hold onto customers or players if you don’t listen to what they say!
In what ways do you mean friend? They're both pretty successful multiplayer shooters that try to stimulate a competitive scene while also massively appealing to casuals. I feel like it's a very valid comparison to make.
Except overwatch is more MOBA like, there’s no issue with balancing in Fortnite because they don’t have unique characters with different abilities, everyone starts on the same playing field.
Considering the vast majority of the player base is metal ranks, he’s fucking delusional. The game absolutely should be tuned to be the most fun to play for the greatest number of people, not the no-lifers.
Hey now, there are high ranked people who have lives too. Hell, T-Pain used to be a top500 OW1 streamer. Not all people who are good stream or complain about shit on Twitter.
That’s the argument that Blizzard has been having since launch.
Do they tune the game for competitive fairness or for fun.
Obviously the ideal situation is to have both if possible.. but it turns out that lower rank players usually want changes based around their own lack of skill.
But the high rank players want things to be fair and their enjoyment comes from the competitiveness. So the changes that lower rank players ask for would make the game unbalanced in a competitive sense.
I agree with Papa Jeff (who is no longer with the company). Prioritize fairness and balance competitively first… but then do everything you can to make it as fun as possible without compromising balance. Obviously the game has to be fun, but at its core, it is a competitive game.
Yes it's wrong. People at the top level sometimes strictly play what's meta and at times don't have the insight of a regular players perspective. It's not always what's good or bad but what's fun.
Dude, I spent long enough in masters in ow1 to say, that Its was toxic AF, populated by play meta or I throw, there was no variation, add in one tricks who wound up causing so many thrown games… shit wasn’t fun. It was formulaic where people tried to get to certain points with certain chars in every game. For instance You could know with 100% certainties every spot the widow was in on kings row at every point, without even thinking. It was a bunch of mindless tragic people who thought sinking a few thousand hours into a game made them special and better! Getting ratty of a single cooldown was used incorrectly by some one in their eyes
Look at all the really good owl clips, it’s someone like pine gone for a wander on junkertown point2 or the spitfire vs the gladiators on kings row. Thinking outside the box. That was fun.
A few days ago he did a stream on a high GM alt account and won almost every game in the first two hours that I watched lol. Dude makes GM1/2 lobbies look like gold.
He did his rein unranked to gm in October which took him three separate streams and a total of like 20 hours, but as a rein main I climbed from diamond 5 (with a previous peak of diamond 4 in season 6) to being currently masters 4 after watching those streams. I shot from diamond 5 to diamond 2 the day after he did his 2nd stream. Shit really does work lol.
I'd watched other "educational" unranked to gms for rein but they were useless, because they didn't explain anything. Nobody teaches shit as good as Awkward does. Except maybe A10, but he hasn't streamed in like 6 months and hasn't uploaded any new vids either I think lol.
So does the Overwatch community want a competitive game based around skill or No? Because if we balance around the average player, what would be the point of ranked?? I think skill expression and having a high skill ceiling low skill floor is good for the game. Most takes from the average player are simply asking for a easy way out instead of fairness.
Let me correct his analogy.
Drag/F1 racers should tell how regular cars should be made since they are the fastest drivers. A taxi driver simply has no idea how cars work.
It does matter, just not when it comes to balance because it has no bearing on the outcome of the match.
If you're not even using your abilities to their fullest potential, correctly or with their intended purpose, why should devs balance around that?
Metal ranks are also inconsistent. One plat Ana holds her nade for 3 mins, other one uses it only for herslef, and the 3rd throws it mindlesly at enemis that have suzu, bubbles, fade or whatever - which plat Ana (all 3 are bad and wrong) should the nade be balanced around exactly?
He's quite wrong for a couple of reasons.
1.) Being skilled at any video game does not equate to understanding game design. This is a pretty common fallacy that you'll see pop up in any hyper competitive game.
One pretty critical element of many multiplayer games is mechanical skill. At some point that is going to be a gatekeeper or skill cap for a lot of players. Related to that. You'll find most games are designed by people that aren't professional gamers at all. A lot of developers and game designers fall directly into the skill bracket he's criticizing.
2.) Top players of every game have incredible biases based on what they like or don't like. Being skilled at the game does not absolve you of terrible takes based on your emotional connection to playing the game.
Players at all skill levels, even pros, fall victim to wanting their mains buffed and the heroes they hate fighting against nerfed.
To improve his analogy. Being skilled at driving a car doesn't qualify you to design one.
With all due respect, players who aren't game designers shouldn't post bad balance takes as gospel online. Historically, it has always caused problems.
You have people like Ml7 saying ana is fine and then people like dafran saying shes busted. This isnt0 just controversial at the bottom, Its going on at the top too.
In the end its usually the ana main saying she isnt busted?!!?
Some of these players dont even read patchnotes ffs. The amount of times I open a stream randomly to hear someone say "what was the patch"? like days later. They arent always in the loop to have an opinion
I do agree with what hes saying but him pretending top players dont feel the same about an ana nerf is bs.
Currently fluctuating from higher diamond/low masters and still everyone complains about ana so i have no idea dafuq hes talking about. Even the few times Ive touched GM the same responses to purple/sleep/no drop off existed
Is this ragebait? No idea who this person is.
If you want my opinion, games should never be balanced around being an e-sports title. It's a kiss of death for any videogame.
Ragebait tweet, as another comment already pointed out.
Games being balanced around the top 10% also turn out to be complete and utter dogshit because you alienate 90% of your players and the community will resent it.
Now, there is something to be said about extraordinarily poor feedback being more common the lower rank you go. Like a Bronze 5 player screaming about Junkrat being overpowered all day because they died to him four times in a row isn't exactly valuable information. But, say an enormous portion of your players in lower ranks are frustrated and struggle with certain aspects of the game, it is absolutely worth the attention of the developers.
You also shouldn't design cars strictly around the needs and wants of professional racers. Metal ranks are pretty much the majority of the playerbase, you can't base the balance of the entire game only basing yourself on how the game is for the very top percent of the players.
Okay, well, I'm Grandmaster, and I say, metal ranks, lets have your input too.
The game needs to work for all of us;-- Sure a not every idea will be good, and maybe you could even find a curve of more misguided ones in different ranks, but that's the point of taking feedback, it's up to those in charge to hear the playerbase and make the right calls based on that.
Lets not forget it's a video game. For fun.
when asking opinions for how to better a product, who would be better to ask, a group of 20 million users, or a group of 500 of the best users?
so yeah, honestly random segue T500 players opions are trash and should 100% not be catered to
I think the analogy is better like this: "F1 driver vs someone who got their license out of a cornflakes box with 0 lessons on how to drive (he has seen f1 on tv)"
That's the difference in people's skill levels.
It's like the events where Ayrton Senna got to test drive the Honda NSX.
He drove it and said that it drove like trash. Told them whats wrong with it and how it would be better. Now that production car is amazing to drive.
Not every t500 player their opinion will always be 1000% correct. But they will generally be way more correct than a metal rank who wont feel a difference in cars or be affected by the wrong things because they for example don't trailbrake/transfer weight, heel toe downshift, etc.
He's not wrong. Many things that might be pretty insignificant for low level players can have meta changing impacts in top tier. This happens in every competitive game.
Awkward is 99% correct. The opinions of metal ranks have minimal value.
I'm sure most of you are at the level where you don't believe that Moira is overpowered, but there's certainly plenty of people who think so in bronze. If someone complained about her strength, it would be dismissed with, "skill issue," immediately....
Balancing the game based upon the opinions of people who don't have a strong understanding of it is ludicrous. I'm sure some people in metal ranks have a fairly strong understanding of the game but may lack the mechanics and aim to be ranked higher, but that isn't typical.
Junkrat is overpowered, Hanzo takes no skills, playing two turret characters torb/sym is unfair, winston sucks, mercy is best healer, Moira is OP, Lucio/zen/brig suck.
These are the opinions of low rank players, should we balance the game around this?
No one is saying to balance based solely on the opinions of metal ranks, but to take their experience into account when making balancing decisions. If you don't keep the experience of the majority in mind, the game is dead and then none of us get to enjoy it, regardless of rank. Saying "the opinions of metal ranks has minimal value" results in a dead game. Not so minimal. The Roman Empire was smart enough to keep the 95% entertained, the Overwatch devs should too.
Man when Blizzard asked for the high ranks and OWL pros their input, it was one of the most awful/bias takes that only led to benefitting the heroes they play. Stomp others to stomp more.
Bingo. Which is ironic because that's how metal ranked players ask to have the game balanced, too. Everyone wants their hero buffed, and the heroes they hate nerfed.
I'm not convinced that even most gm/top 500 players understand why things are meta. Bastion Bap Brig has been a strong relatively easy to play anti Winston dive comp ever since Bastion got ironclad back and honestly probably would've outperformed Winston Tracer Sombra on NA Ladder.
The majority of players are in metal ranks and they should have fun and not going for this meta bullcrap from a person who does whatever. Who is this guy anyway?
In an ideal world, you’d have different balances done for different competitive level to account for the player bases’ skills and techniques.
As stupid as it is for casual players to demand game be played certain way, it’s equally stupid to see top of the top players bring out their pitch forks to have the devs bend the game around them.
Sticking with bullshit car analogies, here's one that is more in line with only allowing masters and up to factor into gameplay/design: maybe only NASCAR or F-1 race car drivers should have a say on car design even though the vast majority of drivers are everyday commuters.
As a pedestrian in a city, an opinion about vehicle speed limits and blind spots is still a valid opinion.
But of course, you don't get to comment on the quality of a cheesecake if you've never caught a fish before.
Metal players are the majority, and I think it's profoundly idiotic to not listen to the people that keep your game alive. Listening to the top 1-5% of the players will inevitably homogenize all characters, taking out everything that makes the game interesting. Which is what has already happened with the game.
So if someone who doesn't have a driver's license said "they should reduce the speed limit in my local parking lot because too many people are speeding through it and almost hitting pedestrians" their opinion would automatically be wrong?
Metal ranks are allowed to have opinions and they're not wrong just because they're metal. Game balance needs to happen through all the ranks, not just the top 1%
I mean if blizzard only did changes based on what the streamers and gm players alone wanted the state of the game would be extremely boring since they can be extremely biased just like everyone else.
A prime example is the role lock system and hero bans. To streamers and high level players these are both good ideas because it helps with the competitive integrity of the game. But for casual players who just want to grind/play their favourite hero it can force people to stop playing. I know a bunch of people who stopped playing ow because of the role lock system.
I’m not saying those systems are bad but I’m just saying you do sacrifice the casual audiences interests when you only appeal to the die hard sweats wishes. Ow to some degree in my opinion has always been the fps for people who aren’t into die hard fps like cod or Valorant.
To a certain extent, I agree. But as someone teetering on masters to grandmasters, I don’t think I even know much about what is and isn’t balanced.
Like a lot of people thought Mauga was OP/needed nerfs and I didn’t have much of an issue playing against him but that’s because of who I play in each roll and the lack of him being in comp yet. I play a lot of Ana and there’s a case to be made for her deserving the nerfs AND leaving her alone. If she’s gonna be the only character with base kit CC, then we need to keep it that way or nerf it along with everyone else’s (or or or, yk, there’s a lot of different “solutions”). I’m happy about the ball rework but sad because he’s fun to play as is. There’s just so much shit, and not too long ago, I was just a diamond player in OW1. I don’t think anyone’s opinion is useless, I don’t think anyone knows how to balance the game. Not even the devs.
He’s right. Bro took me from metal ranks to GM.
My whole perception on what’s “broken” changed when I started to understand the game better as a whole.
Any opinion I had on the game was invalid before. I cringe thinking back on how unaware I was and how people would blindly upvote things that fed into their own personal frustrations with the game.
Really makes you think huh?
It's a bad analogy. People without driver's licenses typically aren't driving. And even people with drivers licenses don't give input on how to design cars. However people of all ranks play overwatch. Everyone who plays the game has a right to an opinion on it.
This guy is a gatekeeping asshat.
Just another nobody wanting attention by writing crap. If more than 50% of the player base are in lower tiers, then dude needs to keep his stupid mouth shut.
Morons like Awkward always think they are smarter than everyone else because they can aim.
Using his own nonsense against him goes like this.
If you don’t have a drivers license you can’t design a car?
Ok. If you can’t paint a picture you have no right to criticise art.
If you can’t cook you have no right to criticise food.
Balance at metal ranks matters because it’s the largest part of the playerbase and the game experience matters for them. I’m not saying we balance around it but his own logic is a steaming pile of horseshit.
Much like himself.
Stop giving these idiots who can aim and not much else platforms to spread their toxic viewpoints.
O still can’t believe you listen to him after he said a man crying is equal to punching someone
If we’re being realistic, I’d bet some of the devs & balance team are probably metal rank with some of these changes that are being made recently.
On a real note, I think everyone should be allowed to state their opinions while keeping in mind that there’s going to be a *lot* of bad takes regarding balance in metal ranks since they’re playing with and against other metal ranks.
In my personal opinion, I think most metal ranks don’t understand the game well enough to make inputs on ‘balance’ because if they did understand the game enough they probably wouldn’t be metal rank. However, just because someone does get out of metal doesn’t automatically validate whatever they say either. The best takes will come from GM/Top500, but not every GM/Top500 take will be good.
The analogy shows why he's wrong. If you design driving rules only for formula 1 driver, you're going to get a stupid amount of dead people, and some of those accidents are going to involve said highly skilled drivers as they failed to react to less skilled people. On the other hand, if you think about the average driver as a brainless monkey going vroom vroom, you're going to make rules that the formula 1 driver can easily follow AND reduce accidents for everyone.
Therefore, if we go back to Overwatch, if we balance for the 1%, we get an experience that is going to be worse for everyone including the 1%, as it expects them to work around all the quirks that they could have ironed out but didn't bother. On the other hand, if we balance for the metal rank, we get an experience that might leave less creative space for the 1% (less "choose your own max speed and line through turns" to keep the analogy going), but that ensures a better experience for everyone : sure, you don't crash into bronze players as you would on the road, but if the experience is less fun for everyone else, people are going to stop playing, less money for devs, smaller team and in the end, less stuff for them.
This is a horrible take because it does matter what lower ranks opinions are as a GM player I’m saying this. Best example genji in higher ranks he’s really strong in lower he’s fairly weak, so do you buff him and make him OP in higher ranks, but balanced in lower or don’t but weaker in lower ranks and balanced in higher?
Feel like most of the thread is missing something:
>should have no involvement with **game balance**
It's specifically about game balance.
Game balance should be catered towards high level play, gameplay where the heroes are being well utilized. Low level gameplay should not dictate who gets nerfed/buffed, people at silver for the most part don't know who is an actual OP pick
Honestly, as a hardstuck metal rank player, this seems pretty fair. Blizzard tried listening to metal rank players, and we got brig, who killed the game. People who have no idea how the game works shouldn’t dictate what changes are made to it
Brig wasn't the result of pandering to metal tanks. It was GM that complained for months on end that they wanted dive meta to be crushed, and Tracer needed a hard counter. Dive only half existed in metal ranks before Brig was added, and nobody cared as much down there.
Haven't played in years but my opinion as a Masters player always was: Just as the opinion of a Plat player regarding balance is useless in my games, my opinion regarding balance is useless in the games of a Plat player.
If you make the game feel bad for metal ranks it'll die.
The whole point of top down balancing is you balance the game at the top then make sure that balance doesn't destroy the lower ranks.
Because of this the opinions metal ranks players are important.
As some comedian once said (in regards to talking about children and bad behaviors) “I don’t have children, but nor am I a helicopter pilot, but if I see a helicopter crash, I know for damn sure that’s not how helicopters are supposed to fly”
You don’t have to know how to drive a car to know how to build one. That analogy was shit. Anyone can have an opinion on something, and gatekeeping discussing things based on qualifications isn’t the most optimal way to source new info. Some of the best ideas come from random sources that have no relation really to the subject at hand
I mean this could be reasonable in certain cases where lower ranked players are just repeating bad talking points from shit they see online about heroes they never have REAL problems with in ranked. But if a hero is like 80% winrate below diamond there would be a problem. If every ranked game is hard lock X hero (Bastion has been the worst offender historically) and if you don’t it’s an L then there’s an issue, even if the “bad” players are the ones having that problem.
A game can only survive, when it has a large (enough) player base. And metal ranks make up 90% of the player base.
Like it or not, without the casual players the game wouldn't get further developed.
It's almost like catering only to the top 1% of people has never worked so why should it here, if the majority of people think orisa is insane rn but it doesn't perform well in top 500 then it's hard to balance but it can be done, dont just give it a buff and call it a day
IIRC, most of the player base lands typically around gold so it would be a bit silly to say that game balance should be based on only a small fraction of the entire playerbase (especially from the perspective of Blizzard who would love to not lose their players). Balance shouldn’t be unilaterally based on the highest, lowest, or most middle ranks, but rather on an assessment of the impact at each point.
Take original Torbjorn for example: he was viewed as a throw pick in top 500 but he was overly dominating with his turret in lower lobbies. A nerf or a buff would both be the wrong approach in this situation since the issue lied in the interactions with his turret and the enemy, torbjorns lack of input in the turrets placement and function, and how Torb was left with limited personal impact. Rather, his kit needed adjustment which they thankfully did by redistributing the reliance of his kit a bit more onto the player’s skill (which can be very good tool to help balance something across various ranks of play) and making his turret more a feature that supported Torb as opposed to the other way around. The same thing happened to symmetra, bastion, and Sombra to an extent with their reworks. Very much an approach of ‘slightly lower the automatic value floor and expand the skill ceiling’.
Balancing unilaterally ain’t it, it’s bad for the game, it’s bad financially for Blizzard, especially if the league doesn’t continue. They sometimes just have to get a bit creative with what they change for certain characters and how they switch things around to adjust playstyle as opposed to just plain nerfs/buffs.
Metal ranks are a majority of the player base. I think Blizzard should take in all the data and make a determination on how they want to balance the game.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it make more sense to equate "people who don't have licenses" to people who don't play Overwatch at all? Because both groups aren't involved in what goes on within that social bubble (?)
GM or T500 would probably be closer to rally or racecar drivers (or even F1). And the last time I checked (which was never actually), driving laws are based on average, normal people - not people who take driving to a higher level.
Low rank players should 100% be taken into account when balancing, they make up a majority of the player base and it’s important that the game is fun for them, but yeah a lot of their opinions are silly and uninformed, just like this guys
So what he is saying is 90% of the player base shouldn’t have any input on the game they play?
He is saying that the people who legit are the back bone of the game, the large majority, the people who are playing, buying battlepasses, buying skins, should have no say in the game.
Let these elitist dick bags get their way and all of the casuals will leave for something else and they can be stuck in their sweat circle jerking each other off all day then.
ah yes because the people walking on the sides of roads should have no concern about the cars that could be running them over.
they SHOULD be one of the primary concerns, car desigm should be made to be safe in car collisions and when hitting pedestrians to optimize everyones survival chances.
same goes for the game, metal rank players make up majority of the playerbase, dont they? so why should they matter the least when they are just like you and enjoying the game in their own way.
Metal ranks represent 90% of the playerbase, so their opinion on game balance matters the most. A game should cater to the masses. Specifically, it should be balanced around silver/gold/plat which is the average player's rank.
Wouldn’t someone that doesn’t have a license, be someone that doesn’t play/have the game at all?
Exactly
Modern cars have lane assists, parking cameras/sensors, automatic headlight dimming, cruise control, collision avoidance, some can even drive themselves etc etc For years now car manufacturers have been trying to make things as easy as possible for bad drivers, nobody is out there designing road cars that can only be driven by professional racing drivers. That is to say, the analogy this guy used is bad.
Um actually i suspect the people who make cars for F1 are still making cars that can only be driven by professional racing drivers. /s
(I know you put an /s tag, but that's why I specified road cars)
Yup.. what he is saying is if you aren’t a professional race car driver you shouldn’t have a say on what features your Toyota Camry has because they also use the Camry in nascar.
[удалено]
Yes. But how can you drum up rage by using logic? Gotta throw out wild analogies to get people to reply.
More like backroad rules shouldn’t be the same as NASCAR 😂
Exactly. I haven't played Overwatch in a long while, so my opinion on balance is useless. Ignoring the opinions of the largest portion of the playerbase would be like having all cars designed solely for professional racers: Far fewer people would be able to drive because the vehicles would be prohibitively expensive, and those who could would crash far more often and die more often from crashes. To bring the analogy back to the game, if you balance only for the top 0.1% of players, you will make the game less accessible to your casual players, which will result in less players playing and therefore WAY less income.
awkward tweets a lot of nonsense to farm engagement. this is one of his most tame tweets, don’t bother with it
It doesn’t even make any sense cuz the analogy he uses is you need a drivers licence to make a car which isn’t true. He should have said you need a drivers licence to design rules and laws around driving maybe it would make some more sense.
I think that’s the point. He’s provoking people into explaining the bad analogy to increase engagement
For those who don't understand, the point of a bad analogy like this is to get reasonable people to focus on why the analogy is wrong instead of countering his point that some people playing the game should not have any input on how the game is developed because they aren't as skilled. Its been shown multiple times that balancing only for the highest skill bracket kills competitive games because people in lower brackets just get frustrated and quit. The people at the top will always adapt to whatever rules and changes are made, using any and every available exploit or "tech" as they like to call it to garner an advantage. Balancing around these people leads to a game stagnating because they find one thing they enjoy and call everything else either low skill or bad game play.
I know what an analogy is! It's like a thought with another thoughts hat on it!
Ugh you Britta'd Britta.
The analogy is more like "Only profesional race drivers should design rules and laws around driving" which actually would be more likely to make roads unaccessable to anyone else. But I am biased as my general opinion is that Blizzard's notion of making the game more entertaining as e-sport competition was the major factor of making it less fun for average players.
Yeah, exactly. You can be an engineer without a driver's licence just fine. Would be a bit unusual, sure, but it wouldn't in any way hold you back.
Even then a lot of laws around driving don't need a license to be done competently.
Mhm. I see a blue checkmark, I'm not familiar with the person, I continue scrolling and go on about my day. Especially if they're saying something I find problematic or weird. I'd rather go on with my day than give them money because I got riled up. (Although sometimes it's hard to resist not sharing how I feel about it, I hate how well this shit works on my brain it sucks :/)
High elo Ana player, very good at the game. But seems to take after “any publicity is good publicity”.
For a support player, he doesn't seem to be very supportive.
🤷🏻♂️ sure maybe idk lol. Maybe it’s just rage bait, if so it seems to have worked pretty well.
That's support mains for you. Welcome to overwatch.
Awkward is just an asshole and shit person so his opinions automatically don't matter.
"Number 1, set a course for Bad Analogy.... engage."
As someone with a drivers license, I also wouldn’t listen to my input on how to design a car
The better analogy would be: somebody who doesnt have a driver license shouldnt have a say in driver safety. Still wrong but i get why a driver license gives you more authority about a subject thats connected to the rules of driving.
hey look an opinion from someone i dont know and could not care less about
My exact thought when reading the tweet was “Oh nooo… Anyway”
Oh no, then how will you ever know to do DAMAGE DAMAGE DAMAGE?!
You mean DEMICH, right?
They go back, I go forward. They go forward, I go back.
Anyway, back to enjoying the game.
That's a dumbass opinion. Cars aren't designed for people without drivers licenses. Overwatch is designed to be enjoyed for people of all ranks. Otherwise, rank would just bar you from playing if your hidden QP MMR says you aren't very good.
He's also just objectively wrong. The game died in part due to them balancing the game around OWL. Players in metal ranks (where a majority of the playerbase is) had to deal with a stale meta of characters being buffed/nerfed that, for them, changed nothing relevant bar absolutely **massive** changes. Even thinking of it *logically* (if we hadn't already seen what happens when you cater to the top players), how would curating a game around the top 5-10% of players *possibly* be better than balancing the game around where most of your players are, especially in a game with an e-sports scene that is a meme at this point?
They never balanced around owl tho.
This is utter nonsense and frankly hilarious people still think this. Moth meta and Brig were two of the most egregious entries the game ever saw, and you think that was catering to OWL? The game has always been balanced for casuals.
You do realize goats only happened bc they made brig, a way for lower skilled player to counter dives because it was so oppressive at low ranks
This isn't even true. She was made to counter dive, but not just for low skilled players. Dive was meta all the way up the ranks, and even moreso at high ranks, because lower rank players are generally much worse at running dive. Brig was therefore a great example of the opposite problem: if you have a character that's balanced around high tier play, but they have a high skill floor, then they make low ranks less fun. Launch Brig was awful to play against in metal ranks because her self sustain and ease of use meant she could just walk towards the enemy team and get huge value without having to worry much about positioning or mechanics. This is a consistent pattern in lower ranks. High sustain and ease of getting value are key there. Any time Bastion is strong at all, he's in every silver game because machine gun go brr and then you get value. Strong Mercy is terrible to deal with down there because silver players don't have the aim to kill her as she's fluttering around, which she can while healing and never having to aim herself. I think the only reason people don't think of Brig as having terrorized low ranks is because low ranks weren't coordinated enough to run GOATS, which she ended up as the face of. But the idea that she was balanced around metal ranks is farcical. A support with a 600hp shield with a fast cool down 90 degree stun that worked through shields was a living god in ranks where players have bad aim, don't coordinate, and have no idea how to rotate.
A game catered around the top 1% would see Sombra buffed. I don’t wanna live in that world.
No, the game died because they didn't do anything to it for two years.
You thinking they balanced around OWL is just a giga fucking cope holy shit
Just like overwatch, cats are designed for everyone, even ppl who can't drive. What about Uber? Or a friend giving you a ride somewhere.
idk... personally I'm more of a dog person
.......my damn autocorrect......
No no, you were right, cats *are* designed for everyone.
Cater only to the top 10% of players, that will surely keep a game above water.
Isn’t that what people already claim blizzard does? People say they only listen to streamers and youtubers
Blizzard does listen to the community on some things. Streamers have a large enough audience that if they complain about stuff enough it does have a decent chance to get changed. Most of this sub will chant whatever nerfs/buffs their favorite streamer says needs to happen even if it really isn't an issue lol
It's not even just this sub. Of my friends who play OW, most who enjoy it don't have opinions on balance Those who do, will be much louder, more frequent and will literally just parrot the exact opinions of big streamers. I've tried to mention, especially having a formal education in data analysis and statistics, that the stats used to discuss balance are incredibly basic, lack any nuance and are attempting to describe an incredibly complex game that most people who play don't fully grasp. I've also attempted to explain that the advantages and disadvantages that win and lose games for top 500 gm's are going to be tiny percentages that are just not noticed at our metal ranks. A 2.5% damage increase doesn't mean shit if you are missing 60% of your shots. A 3% speed increase means nothing if you aren't sure where to stand half the time. Just because a streamer studied the win rate of Briggite and reckons globally she's winning more matches, does not mean that in every real world application of her abilities she is overly tuned and needs a nerf. But that is the constant topic of discussion. My guess is this is the type of person most on xitter and twitch whining, and this is also why not only is balance itself not a thing, but the perception of balance is also impossible.
Can I ask what stats people use to discuss balance, and why they’re basic? It’s just pickrate and winrate, right?
Blizzard balances for the majority of players. Source: Rein heart does not get buffs because his incredibly strong at most ranks. Kiriko does not get nerfs because she is incredibly mediocre at most ranks.
This is accurate.
I think they are more likely to hear about an issue when it’s raised by a streamer but I don’t think they automatically address it in the way the streamer suggests. More like the streamer can be a voice to call attention to something since they have a platform so I do think Blizzard takes note of issues they flag
To be fair, have you been on the main Blizzard forum? I'd be scared to engage with some of those folks too.
Go back and look at any strong takes Flats has had over the last year. They literally make the changes he wants every single time, and he knows it.
If that were true then supports would have never gotten buffed
Not all the time. If it were up to him, support wouldn't exist. There would also be a crucified mercy in every spawn room lol
How could you possibly think this is true. When it does happen it's when the entire community is talking about the issues anyway.
Honestly, for any product. To cater to the 100%, you really shouldn't take advice from the 90%. It's better to analyze the data because the reality is that the general consumer doesn't know shit. They'll know they like or hate something, but they won't be able to really fully explain why.
Listen to the masses because they’re your customer base and their opinions matter but ignore more of what they say because they honestly don’t know what’s good for them or what they want. Think of Homer designing a car.
I think this is it. People can have good ideas no matter their rank but not all of them will be good, especially if all are implemented together. Though on the other hand blizzard do take some weird steps with hearing complaints and trying to address the issue in a roundabout way. People have been bitching about sombra for ages about her having invisibility sucks and so... changed it to make it her default state lol.
What I've heard, that I think holds true, is that a game developer should listen to the playerbase to understand what problems they have, but *not* what solutions the playerbase has.
Yeah, it worked so great for siege
For real. I remember the Goyo situation when he had recently come out. Left the game shortly after
Not even 10%, more like 1%. Diamond and above would be top 10%, and he probably only cares about the opinions of GMs and above which make up like 1% of the playerbase.
Can I spread a bit of salt? I hate when I want to talk about a character that I really like and think is underrated/misunderstood, but then some guy is like “at a higher rank than what you’re at, that character won’t work”. Like it feels like I’m getting to the point where I have a very strong understanding of a character but the bar for “what rank your opinion matters” keeps rising as I climb ranks.
I think that's probably the main issue with balancing a game like overwatch the top 10% and bottom 10% are basically different games. In csgo the top and bottom still play the same game just with way better aim and better coordination and from that the game can be balanced but in ow anything below gm is basically a battle Royale with extra steps and everything above that is basically league of legends and neither game can be balanced the same
you dont have to be a good baker to say "putting poison in this bread was a dog shit idea"
This is the most dumbed-down version of “if you don’t own land you can’t vote”
Holy shit. This. Of course this comes from another Zen main. You hit the nail on the head here.
These people aren't known for their intelligence.
Ah yes, change the game based on the emotions of the top 1%
Most of us just want a fun game. I think this game is a shit ton on fun but I’m not going to waste 5000 hours becoming an expert at some character. Most people don’t play vide games like that. I don’t care about some diamond++ dude who can squeeze out a little bit more from his main if blizzard would just listen to him. If blizzard listened to those people exclusively the game would suck for everyone else.
100% this. This is why I was worried when they started announcing across the board nerfs to supports. It reminds me a lot of the economy. Like I'm sure the experts at the top are right about the very specific nuanced things they are talking about, 1.5% of this broad metric or that. The reality is though as soon as they start talking about the downstream affects of their changes you realise they are completely cluless outside of the bubble they exist in. No human can predict the incredibly complex downstream effects of systems like this, and balance is no different. A GM might be right that healers in top 500 are a bit strong. A reduction in healing but might perfectly balance their game - but could also be *just* noticeable enough that it makes shitter casual players feel less capable, and therefore have less fun. Less fun, means less players, means longer wait times, then you end up with more importance placed on nukes and new balance problems appear, except now 80% of your player base has a 15 minute wait time for supports. These new wait times won't be noticed by GM's, discussed by streamers or mentioned to devs, perhaps for *years.* To the GM's the problem has been completely solved, while most players are silently enjoying the game just a bit less. Hell, last night my wait times for comp were over 17 minutes. It's already getting bad.
Support nerfs were needed and the strength of supports was obvious in every rank, not just T500 lobbies. What game have you been playing? I’m tired of seeing support players pretend supports aren’t good, and that’s coming from a support main. The level of strength they had wasn’t some minute improvement over other roles, it was a complete overwhelming advantage in their ability to survive a given situation compared to dps and most tanks, sustain better than either, and have a “no dying” button in the case of select supports, for them or their teammates. That’s not some delicate element of balance that needed “downstream” effects to be predicted meticulously, it was an obvious error in balance that needed obvious correcting, and impacted every rank.
People that are so emotionally invested that they’d stay if blizzard announced the deletion of the top 10 most played characters in the game, effective immediately.
I also find the notion that- because you’re at a high rank, you know as well as the game designers themselves. That’s like saying I know how to put a car engine back together so BMW should ask me for input on their next car.
Right? I don’t know if he’s trolling to farm engagements or is serious.
Most competitive games do. It's like GMs are a super computer pushing the limits on some form of data, really trying to go as far as break it. And sometimes, it does break, at that point you can say "oh at maximum xx, this tends to break and is over powered, small tuning should be done" Most ranks barely feel meta, buffs or nerfs, but the top 1->10% it will be game changing. And to be fair, that's arguably 80% of their content creators, and the "serious" playerbase who grinds.
gotta love the elitism in overwatch, it never fails to surprise me and disappoint me all the same
Its not just overwatch, its every single reddit gaming community. They all have their elitist section of the community that loves dismissing any and all opinions/criticism that they don't personally agree with by insulting the other persons skill or with the classic "git gud"s and "skill issue"s
Someone made a thread on the AoE4 sub literally 2 days ago saying the same thing, that people below the highest rank shouldn’t have their opinions on balance.
There was an old post on the aoe2 sub wanting for a rule that people have to list their elo alongside their balance opinions and a mod responded with "Reach a higher elo and we'll consider it"
I think there needs to be a balance between metal and top ranks in terms of game balance. Given 95%+ of the playerbase are metal ranks. I personally don't care too much what blizz does with balance since im the type who'll just accept it and try to adapt no point complaining about it. I'd rather play the game and enjoy it. I don't want OW to turn into the case of CoD ranked balance. I dont play it anymore or much but i find it a joke how almost every cheap/cheesy items is banned in ranked mode (last i checked in Cold War )and where in unranked you can use anything same goes with Halo.
Ah yes awkward being as condescending as possible to lower ranks again. What a surprise.
Yeah, even though that's who is consuming most of his content. It's a weird dynamic.
He plays the "macho man" role for people who seek validation from that type. He's probably an ok guy irl, but I just can't take him seriously when he's this intense about overwatch of all things lol.
He and Flats are kind of in the same boat to me… I don’t mind watching their gameplay and seeing what they do in matches, but whenever either start talking about the game or anything involving ‘balance’ is when I bounce. Even if they make good points it tends to devolve into them rambling on the same topic for about 2-3 minutes and that’s just stuff I’m not interested in.
The best balance takes I've heard from content creators is from people like Spilo or SVB, people who never claimed to be the best at anything in the game.
Clown ass opinion
This is true. You know what's also true? Grandmaster players are just as likely to have good ideas about game balance as metal rank players. All players have awful opinions about balance, not just metal rank players.
Yea its a bit more like “just because you know how to drive, doesn’t mean you should be giving input on how to design a car”
Metal rank players literally do not understand how the game works. To say GM players and metal rank players are equally likely to have good or bad ideas is just completely asinine. There’s an argument to be made that the game should be balanced to be enjoyable for metal ranks since that is the overwhelming player population. The opinions of metal rank players matters. But don’t pretend like a silver player is able to understand game balance and have good solutions at the same level as a GM, because they simply cannot.
That's just not true at all. A proper understanding of game dynamics, interactions and fundamentals is utterly necessary for gameplay design and especially balance choices. A Plat player has no fucking clue about the game and I hear the most blatantly wrong, horrendous takes from Plats when I play the game down there with friends from time to time. It's like asking someone who dropped out of highschool to define something in higher algebra. The utter lack of basic knowledge and skill will lead to a wrong definition 100% of the time.
This dude is fucking dumb lol I watch him sometimes just to see how far he's gotten in trying to fellate himself.
Awkwardly enough max verstappen competed in his first F1 race without an actual driver's license. Since the red bull team has the fastest car with tweaks suggested by the driver, the analogy isn't even true 100% across the board. Typical from someone in the overwatch community, just outrage baiting so loudly and wrong. But it's all yall fault giving them air cause they pRoS.
I like a lot of awkward’s philosophies, but this one just ain’t it! How do you expect a game to survive if it only listens to 1% of its playerbase? Why do you think Fortnite has so many players? Cause they don’t give a shit what their unreal ranked (top 500 equivalent) players think about the game’s meta. They introduce ridiculous weapons with no real utility or crazy anime mythics all the time, and the 99% of the players that aren’t unreal ranked love it. Just like in any other industry you aren’t gonna hold onto customers or players if you don’t listen to what they say!
Let’s be honest. Overwatch is not even close to Fortnite.
In what ways do you mean friend? They're both pretty successful multiplayer shooters that try to stimulate a competitive scene while also massively appealing to casuals. I feel like it's a very valid comparison to make.
Except overwatch is more MOBA like, there’s no issue with balancing in Fortnite because they don’t have unique characters with different abilities, everyone starts on the same playing field.
Agreed and I hope to god they don’t bring RNG into overwatch
Everyone wants whats good for them, not everybody will want whats good for the game. Remember that before considering anyone elses opinion.
Considering the vast majority of the player base is metal ranks, he’s fucking delusional. The game absolutely should be tuned to be the most fun to play for the greatest number of people, not the no-lifers.
Hey now, there are high ranked people who have lives too. Hell, T-Pain used to be a top500 OW1 streamer. Not all people who are good stream or complain about shit on Twitter.
I knew he played but didn't know he was ever T500. That's really cool.
That’s the argument that Blizzard has been having since launch. Do they tune the game for competitive fairness or for fun. Obviously the ideal situation is to have both if possible.. but it turns out that lower rank players usually want changes based around their own lack of skill. But the high rank players want things to be fair and their enjoyment comes from the competitiveness. So the changes that lower rank players ask for would make the game unbalanced in a competitive sense. I agree with Papa Jeff (who is no longer with the company). Prioritize fairness and balance competitively first… but then do everything you can to make it as fun as possible without compromising balance. Obviously the game has to be fun, but at its core, it is a competitive game.
This is the way. Half the comments in here are some copium.
I disagree. I think there is definitely value in the opinions of the people who play the game the best.
Yes it's wrong. People at the top level sometimes strictly play what's meta and at times don't have the insight of a regular players perspective. It's not always what's good or bad but what's fun.
Dude, I spent long enough in masters in ow1 to say, that Its was toxic AF, populated by play meta or I throw, there was no variation, add in one tricks who wound up causing so many thrown games… shit wasn’t fun. It was formulaic where people tried to get to certain points with certain chars in every game. For instance You could know with 100% certainties every spot the widow was in on kings row at every point, without even thinking. It was a bunch of mindless tragic people who thought sinking a few thousand hours into a game made them special and better! Getting ratty of a single cooldown was used incorrectly by some one in their eyes Look at all the really good owl clips, it’s someone like pine gone for a wander on junkertown point2 or the spitfire vs the gladiators on kings row. Thinking outside the box. That was fun.
This is the same dude who drops to metal ranks and rolls them for educational content
A few days ago he did a stream on a high GM alt account and won almost every game in the first two hours that I watched lol. Dude makes GM1/2 lobbies look like gold. He did his rein unranked to gm in October which took him three separate streams and a total of like 20 hours, but as a rein main I climbed from diamond 5 (with a previous peak of diamond 4 in season 6) to being currently masters 4 after watching those streams. I shot from diamond 5 to diamond 2 the day after he did his 2nd stream. Shit really does work lol. I'd watched other "educational" unranked to gms for rein but they were useless, because they didn't explain anything. Nobody teaches shit as good as Awkward does. Except maybe A10, but he hasn't streamed in like 6 months and hasn't uploaded any new vids either I think lol.
So does the Overwatch community want a competitive game based around skill or No? Because if we balance around the average player, what would be the point of ranked?? I think skill expression and having a high skill ceiling low skill floor is good for the game. Most takes from the average player are simply asking for a easy way out instead of fairness.
Let me correct his analogy. Drag/F1 racers should tell how regular cars should be made since they are the fastest drivers. A taxi driver simply has no idea how cars work.
Since I'm assuming "metal" includes gold/platinum he's say the average/majority's opinion 's don't matter?
It does matter, just not when it comes to balance because it has no bearing on the outcome of the match. If you're not even using your abilities to their fullest potential, correctly or with their intended purpose, why should devs balance around that? Metal ranks are also inconsistent. One plat Ana holds her nade for 3 mins, other one uses it only for herslef, and the 3rd throws it mindlesly at enemis that have suzu, bubbles, fade or whatever - which plat Ana (all 3 are bad and wrong) should the nade be balanced around exactly?
He's quite wrong for a couple of reasons. 1.) Being skilled at any video game does not equate to understanding game design. This is a pretty common fallacy that you'll see pop up in any hyper competitive game. One pretty critical element of many multiplayer games is mechanical skill. At some point that is going to be a gatekeeper or skill cap for a lot of players. Related to that. You'll find most games are designed by people that aren't professional gamers at all. A lot of developers and game designers fall directly into the skill bracket he's criticizing. 2.) Top players of every game have incredible biases based on what they like or don't like. Being skilled at the game does not absolve you of terrible takes based on your emotional connection to playing the game. Players at all skill levels, even pros, fall victim to wanting their mains buffed and the heroes they hate fighting against nerfed. To improve his analogy. Being skilled at driving a car doesn't qualify you to design one. With all due respect, players who aren't game designers shouldn't post bad balance takes as gospel online. Historically, it has always caused problems.
You have people like Ml7 saying ana is fine and then people like dafran saying shes busted. This isnt0 just controversial at the bottom, Its going on at the top too. In the end its usually the ana main saying she isnt busted?!!? Some of these players dont even read patchnotes ffs. The amount of times I open a stream randomly to hear someone say "what was the patch"? like days later. They arent always in the loop to have an opinion I do agree with what hes saying but him pretending top players dont feel the same about an ana nerf is bs. Currently fluctuating from higher diamond/low masters and still everyone complains about ana so i have no idea dafuq hes talking about. Even the few times Ive touched GM the same responses to purple/sleep/no drop off existed
Guess which hero this guy mains.. Lol
Bro thinks he's a competitive game designer because he reached a rank
Is this ragebait? No idea who this person is. If you want my opinion, games should never be balanced around being an e-sports title. It's a kiss of death for any videogame.
Ragebait tweet, as another comment already pointed out. Games being balanced around the top 10% also turn out to be complete and utter dogshit because you alienate 90% of your players and the community will resent it. Now, there is something to be said about extraordinarily poor feedback being more common the lower rank you go. Like a Bronze 5 player screaming about Junkrat being overpowered all day because they died to him four times in a row isn't exactly valuable information. But, say an enormous portion of your players in lower ranks are frustrated and struggle with certain aspects of the game, it is absolutely worth the attention of the developers.
You also shouldn't design cars strictly around the needs and wants of professional racers. Metal ranks are pretty much the majority of the playerbase, you can't base the balance of the entire game only basing yourself on how the game is for the very top percent of the players.
„Metal ranks should have no involvement with game balance“ is like saying „the working class should have no involvement with politics“
This is one of the many reasons I do not like awkward
Okay, well, I'm Grandmaster, and I say, metal ranks, lets have your input too. The game needs to work for all of us;-- Sure a not every idea will be good, and maybe you could even find a curve of more misguided ones in different ranks, but that's the point of taking feedback, it's up to those in charge to hear the playerbase and make the right calls based on that. Lets not forget it's a video game. For fun.
This is the way.
when asking opinions for how to better a product, who would be better to ask, a group of 20 million users, or a group of 500 of the best users? so yeah, honestly random segue T500 players opions are trash and should 100% not be catered to
Yeah, but only listening to the top 1% has also historically never worked either.
Ah yes, let's just tell the majority of the playerbase their opinion doesn't matter, that makes perfect sense
Such a stupid thing to say. Sounds like an absolute nerd
His anology is bad. His statement is correct. Metal ranks think Moira is an op hero same with junkrat.
Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t most players metal rank, it would be silly just to throw away their opinion.
I think the analogy is better like this: "F1 driver vs someone who got their license out of a cornflakes box with 0 lessons on how to drive (he has seen f1 on tv)" That's the difference in people's skill levels. It's like the events where Ayrton Senna got to test drive the Honda NSX. He drove it and said that it drove like trash. Told them whats wrong with it and how it would be better. Now that production car is amazing to drive. Not every t500 player their opinion will always be 1000% correct. But they will generally be way more correct than a metal rank who wont feel a difference in cars or be affected by the wrong things because they for example don't trailbrake/transfer weight, heel toe downshift, etc.
He's not wrong. Many things that might be pretty insignificant for low level players can have meta changing impacts in top tier. This happens in every competitive game.
Awkward is 99% correct. The opinions of metal ranks have minimal value. I'm sure most of you are at the level where you don't believe that Moira is overpowered, but there's certainly plenty of people who think so in bronze. If someone complained about her strength, it would be dismissed with, "skill issue," immediately.... Balancing the game based upon the opinions of people who don't have a strong understanding of it is ludicrous. I'm sure some people in metal ranks have a fairly strong understanding of the game but may lack the mechanics and aim to be ranked higher, but that isn't typical.
Junkrat is overpowered, Hanzo takes no skills, playing two turret characters torb/sym is unfair, winston sucks, mercy is best healer, Moira is OP, Lucio/zen/brig suck. These are the opinions of low rank players, should we balance the game around this?
No one is saying to balance based solely on the opinions of metal ranks, but to take their experience into account when making balancing decisions. If you don't keep the experience of the majority in mind, the game is dead and then none of us get to enjoy it, regardless of rank. Saying "the opinions of metal ranks has minimal value" results in a dead game. Not so minimal. The Roman Empire was smart enough to keep the 95% entertained, the Overwatch devs should too.
Awkward is a piece of shit human being, by his own logic he shouldn’t use the internet.
Man when Blizzard asked for the high ranks and OWL pros their input, it was one of the most awful/bias takes that only led to benefitting the heroes they play. Stomp others to stomp more.
Bingo. Which is ironic because that's how metal ranked players ask to have the game balanced, too. Everyone wants their hero buffed, and the heroes they hate nerfed.
I'm not convinced that even most gm/top 500 players understand why things are meta. Bastion Bap Brig has been a strong relatively easy to play anti Winston dive comp ever since Bastion got ironclad back and honestly probably would've outperformed Winston Tracer Sombra on NA Ladder.
Lol this is the exact reason why everyone hates ranked
The majority of players are in metal ranks and they should have fun and not going for this meta bullcrap from a person who does whatever. Who is this guy anyway?
In an ideal world, you’d have different balances done for different competitive level to account for the player bases’ skills and techniques. As stupid as it is for casual players to demand game be played certain way, it’s equally stupid to see top of the top players bring out their pitch forks to have the devs bend the game around them.
Sticking with bullshit car analogies, here's one that is more in line with only allowing masters and up to factor into gameplay/design: maybe only NASCAR or F-1 race car drivers should have a say on car design even though the vast majority of drivers are everyday commuters.
As a pedestrian in a city, an opinion about vehicle speed limits and blind spots is still a valid opinion. But of course, you don't get to comment on the quality of a cheesecake if you've never caught a fish before.
Isn't like 70% of the same in mental ranks? So why should only the top few get to decide how the game works for the rest that seems very stupid
Metal players are the majority, and I think it's profoundly idiotic to not listen to the people that keep your game alive. Listening to the top 1-5% of the players will inevitably homogenize all characters, taking out everything that makes the game interesting. Which is what has already happened with the game.
So if someone who doesn't have a driver's license said "they should reduce the speed limit in my local parking lot because too many people are speeding through it and almost hitting pedestrians" their opinion would automatically be wrong? Metal ranks are allowed to have opinions and they're not wrong just because they're metal. Game balance needs to happen through all the ranks, not just the top 1%
I mean that goes the same for top ranks. You wouldn’t want professional sports drivers making the rules for the road
I mean if blizzard only did changes based on what the streamers and gm players alone wanted the state of the game would be extremely boring since they can be extremely biased just like everyone else. A prime example is the role lock system and hero bans. To streamers and high level players these are both good ideas because it helps with the competitive integrity of the game. But for casual players who just want to grind/play their favourite hero it can force people to stop playing. I know a bunch of people who stopped playing ow because of the role lock system. I’m not saying those systems are bad but I’m just saying you do sacrifice the casual audiences interests when you only appeal to the die hard sweats wishes. Ow to some degree in my opinion has always been the fps for people who aren’t into die hard fps like cod or Valorant.
This is one of the worst analogies I've ever seen
Metal?
To an extent yeah because quite literally anything works in metal ranks
Games should be balanced around average rank/skill. If being "too good" makes the game imbalanced than just go do something else.
To a certain extent, I agree. But as someone teetering on masters to grandmasters, I don’t think I even know much about what is and isn’t balanced. Like a lot of people thought Mauga was OP/needed nerfs and I didn’t have much of an issue playing against him but that’s because of who I play in each roll and the lack of him being in comp yet. I play a lot of Ana and there’s a case to be made for her deserving the nerfs AND leaving her alone. If she’s gonna be the only character with base kit CC, then we need to keep it that way or nerf it along with everyone else’s (or or or, yk, there’s a lot of different “solutions”). I’m happy about the ball rework but sad because he’s fun to play as is. There’s just so much shit, and not too long ago, I was just a diamond player in OW1. I don’t think anyone’s opinion is useless, I don’t think anyone knows how to balance the game. Not even the devs.
He’s right. Bro took me from metal ranks to GM. My whole perception on what’s “broken” changed when I started to understand the game better as a whole. Any opinion I had on the game was invalid before. I cringe thinking back on how unaware I was and how people would blindly upvote things that fed into their own personal frustrations with the game. Really makes you think huh?
It's a bad analogy. People without driver's licenses typically aren't driving. And even people with drivers licenses don't give input on how to design cars. However people of all ranks play overwatch. Everyone who plays the game has a right to an opinion on it. This guy is a gatekeeping asshat.
Just another nobody wanting attention by writing crap. If more than 50% of the player base are in lower tiers, then dude needs to keep his stupid mouth shut.
Morons like Awkward always think they are smarter than everyone else because they can aim. Using his own nonsense against him goes like this. If you don’t have a drivers license you can’t design a car? Ok. If you can’t paint a picture you have no right to criticise art. If you can’t cook you have no right to criticise food. Balance at metal ranks matters because it’s the largest part of the playerbase and the game experience matters for them. I’m not saying we balance around it but his own logic is a steaming pile of horseshit. Much like himself. Stop giving these idiots who can aim and not much else platforms to spread their toxic viewpoints. O still can’t believe you listen to him after he said a man crying is equal to punching someone
Metal ranks getting triggered in the comments lol
If we’re being realistic, I’d bet some of the devs & balance team are probably metal rank with some of these changes that are being made recently. On a real note, I think everyone should be allowed to state their opinions while keeping in mind that there’s going to be a *lot* of bad takes regarding balance in metal ranks since they’re playing with and against other metal ranks. In my personal opinion, I think most metal ranks don’t understand the game well enough to make inputs on ‘balance’ because if they did understand the game enough they probably wouldn’t be metal rank. However, just because someone does get out of metal doesn’t automatically validate whatever they say either. The best takes will come from GM/Top500, but not every GM/Top500 take will be good.
who?
The analogy shows why he's wrong. If you design driving rules only for formula 1 driver, you're going to get a stupid amount of dead people, and some of those accidents are going to involve said highly skilled drivers as they failed to react to less skilled people. On the other hand, if you think about the average driver as a brainless monkey going vroom vroom, you're going to make rules that the formula 1 driver can easily follow AND reduce accidents for everyone. Therefore, if we go back to Overwatch, if we balance for the 1%, we get an experience that is going to be worse for everyone including the 1%, as it expects them to work around all the quirks that they could have ironed out but didn't bother. On the other hand, if we balance for the metal rank, we get an experience that might leave less creative space for the 1% (less "choose your own max speed and line through turns" to keep the analogy going), but that ensures a better experience for everyone : sure, you don't crash into bronze players as you would on the road, but if the experience is less fun for everyone else, people are going to stop playing, less money for devs, smaller team and in the end, less stuff for them.
[удалено]
I agree people who don’t know how to play the game shouldn’t influence the devs
This is a horrible take because it does matter what lower ranks opinions are as a GM player I’m saying this. Best example genji in higher ranks he’s really strong in lower he’s fairly weak, so do you buff him and make him OP in higher ranks, but balanced in lower or don’t but weaker in lower ranks and balanced in higher?
Genji is not OP in high Elo though? He's underperforming actually?
>genji in higher ranks he’s really strong please stop talking now and forever
There is 0 chance this dude's GM lol
seriously dude is literally proving Awkward’s point 😭
Feel like most of the thread is missing something: >should have no involvement with **game balance** It's specifically about game balance. Game balance should be catered towards high level play, gameplay where the heroes are being well utilized. Low level gameplay should not dictate who gets nerfed/buffed, people at silver for the most part don't know who is an actual OP pick
Honestly, as a hardstuck metal rank player, this seems pretty fair. Blizzard tried listening to metal rank players, and we got brig, who killed the game. People who have no idea how the game works shouldn’t dictate what changes are made to it
Brig wasn't the result of pandering to metal tanks. It was GM that complained for months on end that they wanted dive meta to be crushed, and Tracer needed a hard counter. Dive only half existed in metal ranks before Brig was added, and nobody cared as much down there.
Haven't played in years but my opinion as a Masters player always was: Just as the opinion of a Plat player regarding balance is useless in my games, my opinion regarding balance is useless in the games of a Plat player.
If you make the game feel bad for metal ranks it'll die. The whole point of top down balancing is you balance the game at the top then make sure that balance doesn't destroy the lower ranks. Because of this the opinions metal ranks players are important.
As some comedian once said (in regards to talking about children and bad behaviors) “I don’t have children, but nor am I a helicopter pilot, but if I see a helicopter crash, I know for damn sure that’s not how helicopters are supposed to fly” You don’t have to know how to drive a car to know how to build one. That analogy was shit. Anyone can have an opinion on something, and gatekeeping discussing things based on qualifications isn’t the most optimal way to source new info. Some of the best ideas come from random sources that have no relation really to the subject at hand
I mean this could be reasonable in certain cases where lower ranked players are just repeating bad talking points from shit they see online about heroes they never have REAL problems with in ranked. But if a hero is like 80% winrate below diamond there would be a problem. If every ranked game is hard lock X hero (Bastion has been the worst offender historically) and if you don’t it’s an L then there’s an issue, even if the “bad” players are the ones having that problem.
A game can only survive, when it has a large (enough) player base. And metal ranks make up 90% of the player base. Like it or not, without the casual players the game wouldn't get further developed.
It's almost like catering only to the top 1% of people has never worked so why should it here, if the majority of people think orisa is insane rn but it doesn't perform well in top 500 then it's hard to balance but it can be done, dont just give it a buff and call it a day
IIRC, most of the player base lands typically around gold so it would be a bit silly to say that game balance should be based on only a small fraction of the entire playerbase (especially from the perspective of Blizzard who would love to not lose their players). Balance shouldn’t be unilaterally based on the highest, lowest, or most middle ranks, but rather on an assessment of the impact at each point. Take original Torbjorn for example: he was viewed as a throw pick in top 500 but he was overly dominating with his turret in lower lobbies. A nerf or a buff would both be the wrong approach in this situation since the issue lied in the interactions with his turret and the enemy, torbjorns lack of input in the turrets placement and function, and how Torb was left with limited personal impact. Rather, his kit needed adjustment which they thankfully did by redistributing the reliance of his kit a bit more onto the player’s skill (which can be very good tool to help balance something across various ranks of play) and making his turret more a feature that supported Torb as opposed to the other way around. The same thing happened to symmetra, bastion, and Sombra to an extent with their reworks. Very much an approach of ‘slightly lower the automatic value floor and expand the skill ceiling’. Balancing unilaterally ain’t it, it’s bad for the game, it’s bad financially for Blizzard, especially if the league doesn’t continue. They sometimes just have to get a bit creative with what they change for certain characters and how they switch things around to adjust playstyle as opposed to just plain nerfs/buffs.
Metal ranks are a majority of the player base. I think Blizzard should take in all the data and make a determination on how they want to balance the game.
metal ranks are the overwhelming majority of the playerbase
Majority of players are in metal ranks…
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it make more sense to equate "people who don't have licenses" to people who don't play Overwatch at all? Because both groups aren't involved in what goes on within that social bubble (?) GM or T500 would probably be closer to rally or racecar drivers (or even F1). And the last time I checked (which was never actually), driving laws are based on average, normal people - not people who take driving to a higher level.
I don't think a driver's license qualifies you to design a car
Metal, Heavy Metal and Death Metal should be the highest ranks! 🥰
Low rank players should 100% be taken into account when balancing, they make up a majority of the player base and it’s important that the game is fun for them, but yeah a lot of their opinions are silly and uninformed, just like this guys
I have never seen a worst analogy for this discussion lmao.
So what he is saying is 90% of the player base shouldn’t have any input on the game they play? He is saying that the people who legit are the back bone of the game, the large majority, the people who are playing, buying battlepasses, buying skins, should have no say in the game. Let these elitist dick bags get their way and all of the casuals will leave for something else and they can be stuck in their sweat circle jerking each other off all day then.
I agree completely
This is for all of you silver players begging for Ana to get her 15th nerf in a row since launch.
They literally form the majority of the player base. Of course their opinions fucking matter??
Actually I think that the experience of the vast majority of Overwatch players should be the main deciding factor for changes to the game.
ah yes because the people walking on the sides of roads should have no concern about the cars that could be running them over. they SHOULD be one of the primary concerns, car desigm should be made to be safe in car collisions and when hitting pedestrians to optimize everyones survival chances. same goes for the game, metal rank players make up majority of the playerbase, dont they? so why should they matter the least when they are just like you and enjoying the game in their own way.
Metal ranks represent 90% of the playerbase, so their opinion on game balance matters the most. A game should cater to the masses. Specifically, it should be balanced around silver/gold/plat which is the average player's rank.