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Hey there, I'm Aci and let's talk about the problem with Overwatch. Well.. one of them xD

Overwatch has always had some complaints about balance, but lately it's been increasingly obvious that alot of people aren't happy with the game.

I have heard alot more people complaining about the balance or saying to remove Echo, or remove Hanzo or Brig in the past few months than.. ever before.

Not only that, but Overwatch is of course also losing alot of players who are moving onto games like Apex Legends.

Now that's also because the game isnt getting any big updates or new heroes, but that's a whole other topic im not gonna get into here.

Okay, but why are there suddenly so many complaints and where are they coming from?

Now I'll first explain what the problems are and where they're coming from and then move onto some solutions i came up with.

I think the biggest problem for the balance of Overwatch are the upper and lower bracket.

The upper and lower brackets are just ways of describing player skill; the upper bracket are usually players with alot of experience and skill,

the lower bracket usually newer players with less experience and skill.

And that's the problem. While a hero may be super strong in the lower bracket and basically a must pick,

in the upper bracket with way better team coordination, callouts and aim that same hero could even be considered a throw pick.

A great example here is Bastion. In the lower bracket he's picked very often because of his high damage output, and if you pair him with a shield

it can be very difficult for uncoordinated teams to kill him.

Basically the opposite is true for Brigitte. For the top 0.5% of playes, she's a valid support character to pick, but her value goes down

exponentially with sr. For the lower brackets, she's one of the least picked characters and the least picked support.

Another huge problem for the game is that some heroes are just generally disliked. I can't tell you exactly why, but some heroes like Brigitte would

probably still get hate if they had literally 1 HP and couldn't do any damage. I think this group is the same group that calls for heroes to be

removed from the game entirel, which is always a bad idea, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is just a very vocal minority.

Another big complaint of corse is the meta. The Meta is whatever combination of heroes is currently considered the strongest in the game.

And unless everything is exactly balanced, there will always be a meta. 

But, Meta is mostly just a thing in the upper brackets, in the lower brackets people tend to just play whatever they currently want to.

But in those upper brackets, it gets very boring if a meta stays for longer than a few months. One meta in particular, GOATS, was so powerful,

that Blizzard had to rework the entire team system to get rid of it. GOATS consisted of three tanks and three supports, so to get rid of it they

enforced a role lock with 2 tanks, 2 dps and 2 supports.

These three roles are also part of the problem, because each of these roles attracts a very different kind of player.

DPS want something different for the game than for example Supports, and tanks want something different from both of those again.

This was very obvious in the 40 something changes Blizzard just added to the experimental card, where they let people from the community come up*

with balance changes.

One change in particular, the one for Mercy, is very obviously made by a DPS player who doesn't know what Mercy is about and shows how differently

DPS, Tanks and supports think.

Blizzards reaction to the community feedback is also another problem. They tend to either overreact, or not react at all when they should.

For example, when a small amount of people complained about Brig after she had already been nerfed several times, they continued nerfing her again and again,

but they have ignored feedback about Bastion asking for a rework for YEARS. 

Or, when people were complaining about Mercy's mass rez, instead of working with the ability and trying to balance it, they removed it entirely and gave her a new ultimate.

But, when Mercy mains asked for a rework after *14* consecutive nerfs to the character, Blizzard ignored multiple megathreads on the forums, suggestions and feedback about Mercy for YEARS!

And last but not least, Blizzard doesn't test alot of things, at least not publicly. 

They have a PTR, where they release new characters for players to test out before they go live.

But 90% of changes on the PTR get pushed to live without any further adjustments. 

They have since added the experimental card, which was a good idea, but.. you can't test everything in experimental. 

The only thing you can change there are numbers, but if you want new abilities or reworks, you HAVE to do that on the PTR.

But instead of testing new abilities, reworks, or changing the way heroes work entirely on the PTR, blizzard either does that internally

without any feedback, or not at all.

Now what can we do about that?

Well first, the balance problem. 

While I would argue that you should balance a game around most players, not the top 0.5%, there are also other ways to balance for all brackets.

Blizzard just needs to find ways to make heroes stronger with skill besides aiming.

A good example is Mcree. He could get a new passive that lets him deal more damage with consecutive headshots. That way, people that are reliably able to get multiple headshots in a row, will be able to

deal alot more damage. Of course you might have to adjust his base damage or some other stats for this to work.

If you find something like this for every hero, alot of the balance problems would probably be fixed.

Of course you still have the vocal minority complaining, but Blizzards needs to learn to differentiate actual feedback from those kinds of people. 

Another solution a few other games have used, is herobans. Sadly, Blizzard already tried that and it didn't work out. Overwatch just doens't have enough heroes and ability overlap for this.

So if you for example voted out zarya, there's no other hero with a clensing ability for your team.

The probably most difficult problem to fix is all the different roles having different wishes for the game. Here you you have to find some 

common ground and I think that's what blizzard has been trying to do as well.

They just generally need to test more things publicly and on the PTR, give bastion a rework and see how people like it.

Or bring back mass rez with some changes. Just don't necessaarily push these changes to the live version, but let people see you're testing stuff and let them give feedback.

And just because this is my video, here are some of my opinions. And if you don't agree, make sure to let me know what YOU think in the comments down below!

I want stronger shields, more healing, more rezzes, blocked ultimates, stuns and so on. I want longer, more drawn out fights, because quick fights are.. kinda boring.

I'd also like mass rez to come back, because it itself wasn't op. It's the invulnerability buff they gave it after a while that made it op. 

Before that, Mercy was even considered a troll pick by some people because she would so often die while using her ult.

If a quintruple kill by pressing Q is ok, then a quintruple rez should also be okay. 

Of course they would have to make some changes like a Line of sight requirement or cast time, but I think it could definetly work. 

Alot of people were complaining about Mercy's hiding and letting their teammates die to get a cool rez, but most good mercys never did that. 

Speed and two- to three-man rezzes were much better and way more common.

Also, PLEASE don't turn all the tanks into bruisers. If i play tank, i want to tank, not deal damage. Give us more barriers and ways to prevent damage instead.

And last but not least, make sure every hero has a clear weakness. 

For example, Zenyatta has a great ult, decent healing and damage, but can't escape at all.

Hanzo on the other hand, has great damage close, mid and long range, a great ult, good escape abilities and can oneshot most heroes, but no real weakness.

And those were my throughts on the current Overwatch Balance and what you could do to improve it.

If there's anthing YOU guys thought of, make sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Huge shoutout to my aci cult leaders on youtube and patreon: Blink, Ripe Cucumber, TonyHouse and Wynog, thank you SO much for your support, I hope you enjoy your special perks!

But for now, thank you VERY much for watching, and as always, I'll SEA you next time!

Gooood BYYYEEEEEEE!