Balancing is Awful

[Troysdownfall]

Every week or two there's a new OP hero. Super strong abilities/heroes take forever to be addressed. Like why does Wraith's ult come back almost instantly and track multiple people? Even with debuff reducer if she can point and click (even without full auto) its a free kill.

[Haethei]

I think the only character you could argue is OP at all is Paradox, considering she got hit with multiple significant nerfs and didn't move an inch from being the #1 best character for high level play

wraith is not one of the 3-4 characters that are performing better than others in the higher levels of play (paradox,mirage,yamato,viscous) but she is great overall. you have to keep in mind that people have different opinions on this based on their skill level and the current MMR/rank that they're playing around, and especially the character you are currently playing against her.

wraith is gonna seem unreasonably powerful to players who don't know how to play around her ult yet. there are many characters that can simply ignore her ult with one of their own abilities (pocket, dynamo, kelvin, ivy, viscous, yamato, mirage) or have good enough mobility to run faster than it follows them until they reach a safe position (paradox, abrams if he charges, pocket again, seven, lash, infernus). even your own basic mobility buttons can move you faster than her ult travels if you get some simple items like enduring speed, extra stamina, warp stone, kinetic dash, fleetfoot

the real counters to her are things like Metal Skin and Ethereal Shift. wraith literally has a voice line in the game where she says something about the enemies buying metal skin because its such a counter to her. its almost always useful against one or two other characters on the enemy team as well, pretty much all of the characters use gun damage in some meaningful way

tldr: wraith ult is countered by like two dozen different things and she is weak as dirt if you try to kill her when its not available anymore

[Jimmy9003]

Nah, to be real Wraith ult is not even cosidered strong one. Its good 1vs1 tool, but only If you don't pay attention. It can be countered by number of skills or items, or even by simply running from it, its really slow while chasing, If You didn't get ulted pointblank, on middle range it will take forever to get You.

[Novostranger]

deadlock now has the same problem that overwatch has

[Troysdownfall]

Originally posted by Jimmy9003:

Nah, to be real Wraith ult is not even cosidered strong one. Its good 1vs1 tool, but only If you don't pay attention. It can be countered by number of skills or items, or even by simply running from it, its really slow while chasing, If You didn't get ulted pointblank, on middle range it will take forever to get You.

I play lash so I’ve literally gotta be kissing people to kill them which definitely makes it easier for wraith. I always buy movement stuff (enduring speed and the upgraded extra stamina). But it’s still ridiculous that it comes back so fast and targets multiple people. I literally couldn’t win a lane fight after she got it. And there shouldn’t be an ult that chases you across the map that’s stupid. At least it seems like card trick isn’t a homing missile anymore I’ve seen that turn 90 degrees around my cover before lol.

[Krispy]

Originally posted by Haethei:

I think the only character you could argue is OP at all is Paradox, considering she got hit with multiple significant nerfs and didn't move an inch from being the #1 best character for high level play

wraith is not one of the 3-4 characters that are performing better than others in the higher levels of play (paradox,mirage,yamato,viscous) but she is great overall. you have to keep in mind that people have different opinions on this based on their skill level and the current MMR/rank that they're playing around, and especially the character you are currently playing against her.

wraith is gonna seem unreasonably powerful to players who don't know how to play around her ult yet. there are many characters that can simply ignore her ult with one of their own abilities (pocket, dynamo, kelvin, ivy, viscous, yamato, mirage) or have good enough mobility to run faster than it follows them until they reach a safe position (paradox, abrams if he charges, pocket again, seven, lash, infernus). even your own basic mobility buttons can move you faster than her ult travels if you get some simple items like enduring speed, extra stamina, warp stone, kinetic dash, fleetfoot

the real counters to her are things like Metal Skin and Ethereal Shift. wraith literally has a voice line in the game where she says something about the enemies buying metal skin because its such a counter to her. its almost always useful against one or two other characters on the enemy team as well, pretty much all of the characters use gun damage in some meaningful way

tldr: wraith ult is countered by like two dozen different things and she is weak as dirt if you try to kill her when its not available anymore

who cares about the top 5% of high level players, in the casual and low ranks where most people are a fed haze +unstobbable ruins a lobby, same with abrams same with wraith. The game should not be balanced around the top 5-10% at all

[Haethei]

Originally posted by Krispy:

who cares about the top 5% of high level players, in the casual and low ranks where most people are a fed haze +unstobbable ruins a lobby, same with abrams same with wraith. The game should not be balanced around the top 5-10% at all

unfortunately those lower skill players can only blame themselves. the game allows them to win against that strategy, but they have to learn how to do it first. there are basically no games that are ever decided on which characters are involved on each team, they are all so similar in strength compared to other games in this genre.

the only outliers for balance show up in high rank play. i mentioned the top 4 earlier, but Haze is also considered to be the weakest character in the game, just slightly below everyone else who are all hanging out together in A tier. this is also important context: when I say "high skill" players, I'm not talking about 5-10% like you are. I'm talking top 1%. You can easily have a good time playing as/against any characters in the game up until that point

also: your own characters has plenty of strengths to abuse, just like the enemy. every character in this game gets called overpowered every day

[Troysdownfall]

Originally posted by Haethei:

Originally posted by Krispy:

who cares about the top 5% of high level players, in the casual and low ranks where most people are a fed haze +unstobbable ruins a lobby, same with abrams same with wraith. The game should not be balanced around the top 5-10% at all

unfortunately those lower skill players can only blame themselves. the game allows them to win against that strategy, but they have to learn how to do it first. there are basically no games that are ever decided on which characters are involved on each team, they are all so similar in strength compared to other games in this genre.

the only outliers for balance show up in high rank play. i mentioned the top 4 earlier, but Haze is also considered to be the weakest character in the game, just slightly below everyone else who are all hanging out together in A tier. this is also important context: when I say "high skill" players, I'm not talking about 5-10% like you are. I'm talking top 1%. You can easily have a good time playing as/against any characters in the game up until that point

also: your own characters has plenty of strengths to abuse, just like the enemy. every character in this game gets called overpowered every day

That's a huge cop out answer. If only one percent of the player base can make someone ridiculously strong then a) they're not that strong they're probably just really good, and b) balancing them can't be that hard. I don't think anyone has every complained about Ivy, Lash, GT, Mirage, Infernus, Dynamo, Vindicta, Viscous, Mo & Krill, or Kelvin in serious numbers for an extended period of time. And even if here and there are some complaints, it doesn't take away the fact that some abilities are just flat out bs.

[{disaster} Take]

Originally posted by Troysdownfall:

That's a huge cop out answer. If only one percent of the player base can make someone ridiculously strong then a) they're not that strong they're probably just really good

Think. If ALL of the one percent agree that one character sits at the top spot, how likely is it that the character in question is indeed in the top spot?
The top of the top players are THE stress testers for what works and what works well. If there's anyone who's going to be able to find out which character is the best, it will be the pros.

Originally posted by Krispy:

The game should not be balanced around the top 5-10% at all

It 100% should always be, for any competitive game.
If you balance around the average player, you end up with League of Legends balance, where only the 10 most recently released Champions are viable, with space for the eternal skin selling Ahri and Lee Sin.
For a literal decade, Garen had exactly zero match wins in any tournament ever hosted. He's one of the few characters that's always on the free rotation, and Riot Reds did make it known that this was intentional, with easy and older released champs taking priority for who goes on the free rotation. This essentially means that new players are tricked into liking Garen, who is so strictly inferior to other characters that it bleeds into casual play, and puts an even thicker barrier between those who paid money for the new champ and those who spent that money on a Garen skin, only to go up against the new hotness and auto lose.

If you don't balance the game around the top players, you end up creating skill pitfalls and dead end habits for players to succumb to, where they learn inferior characters and inferior skills. This ironically makes it harder for new players to learn, not easier.
Even worse, it dilutes the pro scene and the depth of the game at all skill levels significantly. If most of the character picks are balanced for skill level, a bunch of characters are now just bad on purpose, resulting in only a few valid picks for a comp game about teamwork and strategy.
Think about it this way, would you want to pick the statistically inferior character?

Originally posted by Novostranger:

deadlock now has the same problem that overwatch has

You've played this game for 3 hours total, you don't even know what this game is. You even compared it to Overwatch, when it's actually the Super Mario 64 MOBA.

[SANDMAN CLEAVER PATRIOT]

Originally posted by Krispy:

Originally posted by Haethei:

I think the only character you could argue is OP at all is Paradox, considering she got hit with multiple significant nerfs and didn't move an inch from being the #1 best character for high level play

wraith is not one of the 3-4 characters that are performing better than others in the higher levels of play (paradox,mirage,yamato,viscous) but she is great overall. you have to keep in mind that people have different opinions on this based on their skill level and the current MMR/rank that they're playing around, and especially the character you are currently playing against her.

wraith is gonna seem unreasonably powerful to players who don't know how to play around her ult yet. there are many characters that can simply ignore her ult with one of their own abilities (pocket, dynamo, kelvin, ivy, viscous, yamato, mirage) or have good enough mobility to run faster than it follows them until they reach a safe position (paradox, abrams if he charges, pocket again, seven, lash, infernus). even your own basic mobility buttons can move you faster than her ult travels if you get some simple items like enduring speed, extra stamina, warp stone, kinetic dash, fleetfoot

the real counters to her are things like Metal Skin and Ethereal Shift. wraith literally has a voice line in the game where she says something about the enemies buying metal skin because its such a counter to her. its almost always useful against one or two other characters on the enemy team as well, pretty much all of the characters use gun damage in some meaningful way

tldr: wraith ult is countered by like two dozen different things and she is weak as dirt if you try to kill her when its not available anymore

who cares about the top 5% of high level players, in the casual and low ranks where most people are a fed haze +unstobbable ruins a lobby, same with abrams same with wraith. The game should not be balanced around the top 5-10% at all

maybe you should get better at the game, lil bro