-they're planning on reducing to outright reworking the number of cards/selections in the Arcade mode because it's creating longer queue times and is also affecting people achieving arcade challenges
To me this is just more evidence of OW2's impending end - a symptom of the game's failure to retain new players. ...which I think has more to do with the egregious matchmaking than the cash shop and battle pass.
And speaking of egregious matchmaking - if you know me, you know I'm gold-plat at best. Well, OW2 likes putting me up against legit top 500 DPSs, tanks and supports. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don't, and tonight I dealt with a Masters Ashe named JustGetGood.
Now on the one hand, unless there's a Widow on the field, my primary goal is usually to go for the supports - so I'm proud of and happy with the number of one-clips I landed on this Mercy. On the other hand, damn. That poor Mercy.
But she was hard-pocketing the Ashe, so she's gotta' go.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
-they're planning on reducing to outright reworking the number of cards/selections in the Arcade mode because it's creating longer queue times and is also affecting people achieving arcade challenges
To me this is just more evidence of OW2's impending end - a symptom of the game's failure to retain new players. ...which I think has more to do with the egregious matchmaking than the cash shop and battle pass.
Idk, I think it’s more a symptom of the devs (and player base) treating comp like the only true game mode.
I think they should reserve the Arcade for events, and add the decent game modes to the unranked queues (RQ + OQ), with filter functionality. Let players pick which game modes they're willing to play. I like Elimination and wouldn't mind seeing it thrown into my rotation now and then, but I never go to the Arcade. Mystery Heroes and Deathmatch could be rolled into that as well.
Zek on
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
The new arctic map is meh to me. All three locations feel the same, they want to push you to the sides more than the other KOTH maps, and more than anything just too much blue everywhere unless you look up and see steamed hams on the horizon.
I did find the blue tint irritating in that one section where it's literally everywhere. The whole map is already blue, why does it need a blue mist on top of it? And then the control point has additional mist on top of that?
i like the maps, although all 3 aren't too different, because there are so many nooks and crannies but they could have done something better with lighting. maybe have some actual dark corridors for my junk to sit in and gib people
Is the “win 3 matches in each role” weekly challenge not working for anyone else? It’s great they finally split it up and show each role, but it isn’t tracking a lot of my wins even when I make sure I stay within the same role the entire match in open queue.
Is the “win 3 matches in each role” weekly challenge not working for anyone else? It’s great they finally split it up and show each role, but it isn’t tracking a lot of my wins even when I make sure I stay within the same role the entire match in open queue.
It's bugged and actually shows the lowest win count of the 3 roles. Like if you have 5 tank wins, 2 dps wins and one support win it'll show three 1/3s.
Is the “win 3 matches in each role” weekly challenge not working for anyone else? It’s great they finally split it up and show each role, but it isn’t tracking a lot of my wins even when I make sure I stay within the same role the entire match in open queue.
It's bugged and actually shows the lowest win count of the 3 roles. Like if you have 5 tank wins, 2 dps wins and one support win it'll show three 1/3s.
That’s what I suspected was happening. At least there was an attempt to make that challenge suck less I guess.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Had a 12 game losing streak across the weekend (outside of two Gauntlet games), everything comes back to two things:
-matchmaking hasn't been fixed yet with the rank mirroring of a role from what I see, because plat/diamond tanks are going against golds, and you're just dead when that happens. Lower ranks play tanks like the beefy DPS and your team is just open season when that happens.
-Mercy is everywhere because Mercy was buffed, no matter the bitching of Mercy mains. The new changes let her pocket more so we're back to OWL season 1 Mercy, and people have found out if you put a beefy DPS on the field, she can boost most of the time but the extra heals when under 50% health makes Reaper immortal and Bastion merciless in pushing the payload or robot.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
After a week the game's matchmaking is still just horrible. It really, really feels like you will not win this match, no matter what you do. Mystery Heroes is less horrible than before but you still get three tanks on a team, even with the HP changes, you're rolling or getting stomped. Mercy is still in every game, even in QP.
The Hamzo mode was fine in terms of being just existing things in the toolbox compared to Battle For Olympus, scattershot shouldn't have been given double points because it rewards randomness compared to say a headshot which at least pretends to require more skill.
So I just had my first experience with a blatant matchmaking issue (though it worked in my favor). Title cards showed we had a grandmaster as our tank.
I am gold at best, which is to say I gave someone pocket heals all match.
Also I wish they would fix Sonbra. Something about a character that you can’t detect (barring a widow ult or Well placed Hanzo life detect arrow) being able to just take a sizable chunk of your life in the time it takes you to turn around feels broken.
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KasynI'm not saying I don't like our chances.She called me the master.Registered Userregular
edited February 2023
Yeaaaah matchmaking has rendered this game completely unplayable. Can't do it.
Just had seven consecutive games where a single DPS on the enemy team had more damage done than both of ours combined, then doubled. Colossally one-sided stomps. Had a DPS with 2.6k damage in a nearly 9 minute game. Had a Lucio teammate with 14 deaths in a game of push and less than 3k damage AND healing.
I can't heal aim. I can't save my tank when they dive and disappear 1v5 around two corners. Why on earth am I consistently in Diamond to GM SR games when I am forcefed teammates with performance that would embarrass Bronze players?
I hate the inept matchmaking in this game so intensely I can barely see straight. What an insanely frustrating thing to have singlehandedly ruined this game.
QP feels fine to me. Played 9ish games today, and every game for me on tank or support felt close. No stomps, really.
Gave up on Ranked, but hey
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
There was a patch today for bug fixes, no character fixes, kinda defeats the purpose of a hotfix. There was also an AMA on reddit that someone tried to put the answers to on the Blizzard Forum, many of them being fluff questions or have a whiff of sucking up to the developers. It seems matchmaking is just us all having a gas leak year, we just don't understand how faster and high paced the new 5v5 gameplay is and that it's other things like leavers and backfills not being balanced for the match right, or us losing spawn points on maps.
With leavers, apparently they'll be more aggressive to leavers in the future, but just for end of season comp, even though the leaving issue is felt across the board and needs serious punishments.
hotfixes specifically exist to fix easy or impactful bugs, that's literally the point, there is zero reason to expect character balance changes in a hotfix
In an AMA yesterday, a member of the balance team revealed they're looking into reworking Cassidy's magnetic grenade ability, describing it as flat as it works now, and without synergy with the rest of his kit.
wow i wonder what they could possibly change it to that would easily fix both of those problems
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Eh. McCree's stun was already annoying in OW1. It would be a nightmare in 5v5.
The only issue I have with Cass is that Fan the Hammer isn't used very often except against shields. It serves little purpose in his kit. It sounds like that's what they're planning on addressing by somehow bringing back the Nade + FTH combo. I think it should be a cooldown ability.
Overwatch 1 is probably the only game in my entire life I've ever outright quit playing because of balance issues. I honestly think it's just sort of endemic to the game they built, which seems to hold an uncomfortable place between being wacky enough to feel like a party game or being controlled enough to feel like a serious skill grind. The little I played of OW2 generally felt better, sooomewhat, but as a permanently low-tier FPS player it still felt way too hard to just get any frags or do anything cool. Always seems to come down to focus fire and team actions.
I'm not sure where the disconnect is happening between the community's perception of the matchmaker and what the devs are seeing in their data. I think both sides are misunderstanding the other somewhat. I suspect that matches are usually pretty close in MMR, but they can end up being stomps regardless - the community incorrectly attributes this to a bad matchmaker, but it's really not an issue that MMR can solve. But I think the community is correct that games more often feel frustratingly uneven in OW2 and in OW1. I suspect that there are various game design reasons for this and I wish the devs would address it more directly.
i actually think it's a super tough balance. if teams were too evenly matched, what does that even mean? No one can kill anyone, or everyone kills everyone equally? So lots of stalemates? That seems super boring also. You need it to feel close while also having a great play or plays make the difference to win a match. This probably changes a lot at different ranks.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
We made some big changes to the matchmaker this season. The primary goal was to optimize the pairing of players to minimize the MMR difference within a specific role. For example, when making matches, we put more emphasis on the DPS players on each team being closer in skill than we do for the DPS players on one team being evenly matched with tank players on the other team. This has worked, and matches have a much tighter skill delta between players of the same role.
Not buying it. That's great and all you're pairing DPS up, but DPS is the part of the game where the skill gap can be worked with/carried in the least aggravating manner as long as they aren't one step above gameplay sabotage. You're still putting gold tanks against diamond tanks, so you're dead. And when that gold tank is also playing Doomfist or JQ, you're fucked. And the answer is not to buff those two but to bring the tanks down. Hot but accurate take: if you made the tanks have the HP they have in the non-role queue modes, the game would be better.
Again, I don't what the balance really is because the matchmaking is so bad right now. I know Mercy is stronger than she was, Ball is broken AF, and Sombra feels like she's made a comeback to help make a damage boosted Sojourn/Ashe/Widow pick off the hacked enemy.
We made some big changes to the matchmaker this season. The primary goal was to optimize the pairing of players to minimize the MMR difference within a specific role. For example, when making matches, we put more emphasis on the DPS players on each team being closer in skill than we do for the DPS players on one team being evenly matched with tank players on the other team. This has worked, and matches have a much tighter skill delta between players of the same role.
Not buying it. That's great and all you're pairing DPS up, but DPS is the part of the game where the skill gap can be worked with/carried in the least aggravating manner as long as they aren't one step above gameplay sabotage. You're still putting gold tanks against diamond tanks, so you're dead. And when that gold tank is also playing Doomfist or JQ, you're fucked. And the answer is not to buff those two but to bring the tanks down. Hot but accurate take: if you made the tanks have the HP they have in the non-role queue modes, the game would be better.
Again, I don't what the balance really is because the matchmaking is so bad right now. I know Mercy is stronger than she was, Ball is broken AF, and Sombra feels like she's made a comeback to help make a damage boosted Sojourn/Ashe/Widow pick off the hacked enemy.
DPS players were just an example. They're doing it for all roles. They explained how it works earlier - each player is matched against one of the enemy players in that role.
I’ve decided my new favorite hobby as a healer is playing Zenyatta and kicking Tracers in the face when they try to flank me and pickoff our back line healers. Also Wreckingballs when they are trying to dive and run since it throws off their mobility.
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BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
Yesterday on Nepal I booted a Wrecking Ball that was trying to roll away for the nth time and it altered his trajectory enough that he dropped himself into the bottomless pit instead of onto the point lmao
About 20 seconds prior a flanking Junkrat player tried to unflank by mine-launching himself back to the mega but I managed to destroy his mine before he could actually blow it up, so he did a normal jump over the balcony to his death.
QP is more fun to me - I'm not even playing any differently, I just find that the concept of treating the game like a serious competition sucks the fun out of it. That's just not my motivation. I do want fair matchmaking though and am willing to wait a bit longer for it. I hope they aren't planning on just giving up on that for QP.
The only thing I wish for QP is that escort and hybrid maps would let you play both sides, but realistically I know that it would just lead to more leavers. That plus they can lead to some pretty damn long map times in general, which I'm sure the devs want to avoid in QP.
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To me this is just more evidence of OW2's impending end - a symptom of the game's failure to retain new players. ...which I think has more to do with the egregious matchmaking than the cash shop and battle pass.
And speaking of egregious matchmaking - if you know me, you know I'm gold-plat at best. Well, OW2 likes putting me up against legit top 500 DPSs, tanks and supports. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don't, and tonight I dealt with a Masters Ashe named JustGetGood.
This is our story.
Now on the one hand, unless there's a Widow on the field, my primary goal is usually to go for the supports - so I'm proud of and happy with the number of one-clips I landed on this Mercy. On the other hand, damn. That poor Mercy.
But she was hard-pocketing the Ashe, so she's gotta' go.
Idk, I think it’s more a symptom of the devs (and player base) treating comp like the only true game mode.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
It's bugged and actually shows the lowest win count of the 3 roles. Like if you have 5 tank wins, 2 dps wins and one support win it'll show three 1/3s.
That’s what I suspected was happening. At least there was an attempt to make that challenge suck less I guess.
-matchmaking hasn't been fixed yet with the rank mirroring of a role from what I see, because plat/diamond tanks are going against golds, and you're just dead when that happens. Lower ranks play tanks like the beefy DPS and your team is just open season when that happens.
-Mercy is everywhere because Mercy was buffed, no matter the bitching of Mercy mains. The new changes let her pocket more so we're back to OWL season 1 Mercy, and people have found out if you put a beefy DPS on the field, she can boost most of the time but the extra heals when under 50% health makes Reaper immortal and Bastion merciless in pushing the payload or robot.
And Sojourn is still dominant.
The Hamzo mode was fine in terms of being just existing things in the toolbox compared to Battle For Olympus, scattershot shouldn't have been given double points because it rewards randomness compared to say a headshot which at least pretends to require more skill.
I am gold at best, which is to say I gave someone pocket heals all match.
Also I wish they would fix Sonbra. Something about a character that you can’t detect (barring a widow ult or Well placed Hanzo life detect arrow) being able to just take a sizable chunk of your life in the time it takes you to turn around feels broken.
Just had seven consecutive games where a single DPS on the enemy team had more damage done than both of ours combined, then doubled. Colossally one-sided stomps. Had a DPS with 2.6k damage in a nearly 9 minute game. Had a Lucio teammate with 14 deaths in a game of push and less than 3k damage AND healing.
I can't heal aim. I can't save my tank when they dive and disappear 1v5 around two corners. Why on earth am I consistently in Diamond to GM SR games when I am forcefed teammates with performance that would embarrass Bronze players?
I hate the inept matchmaking in this game so intensely I can barely see straight. What an insanely frustrating thing to have singlehandedly ruined this game.
Gave up on Ranked, but hey
With leavers, apparently they'll be more aggressive to leavers in the future, but just for end of season comp, even though the leaving issue is felt across the board and needs serious punishments.
wow i wonder what they could possibly change it to that would easily fix both of those problems
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
They could always just bring back 6v6 since balancing 5v5 seems to be impossible for them.
And gonna be honest while I don't agree with a lot of OW2's decisions, balance wise this is probably the best spot the game has been in in years.
Also McCree isn't even bad rn(he's one of the top picks) just kind of boring.
Say what you will about 5v5 as a concept (I'd much prefer 6v6 in an ideal world) the balance is miles better than it was in OW1.
Like for every balance complaint in OW2 there are a dozen examples of "the same but even worse" from the original.
Those 2+ years of Brig/Goats and Sigma/Double Shield were not fun.
I'm not sure where the disconnect is happening between the community's perception of the matchmaker and what the devs are seeing in their data. I think both sides are misunderstanding the other somewhat. I suspect that matches are usually pretty close in MMR, but they can end up being stomps regardless - the community incorrectly attributes this to a bad matchmaker, but it's really not an issue that MMR can solve. But I think the community is correct that games more often feel frustratingly uneven in OW2 and in OW1. I suspect that there are various game design reasons for this and I wish the devs would address it more directly.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
Not buying it. That's great and all you're pairing DPS up, but DPS is the part of the game where the skill gap can be worked with/carried in the least aggravating manner as long as they aren't one step above gameplay sabotage. You're still putting gold tanks against diamond tanks, so you're dead. And when that gold tank is also playing Doomfist or JQ, you're fucked. And the answer is not to buff those two but to bring the tanks down. Hot but accurate take: if you made the tanks have the HP they have in the non-role queue modes, the game would be better.
Again, I don't what the balance really is because the matchmaking is so bad right now. I know Mercy is stronger than she was, Ball is broken AF, and Sombra feels like she's made a comeback to help make a damage boosted Sojourn/Ashe/Widow pick off the hacked enemy.
DPS players were just an example. They're doing it for all roles. They explained how it works earlier - each player is matched against one of the enemy players in that role.
About 20 seconds prior a flanking Junkrat player tried to unflank by mine-launching himself back to the mega but I managed to destroy his mine before he could actually blow it up, so he did a normal jump over the balcony to his death.
Great comedies of errors that game
Oh. Oh no. I forgot how fun this is.
edit - granted, I only play quickplay.