Played a HL match a few nights ago where we did the accepted scrub-tier first bans of Li-Ming and Xul. Enemy team had first pick and went for Illidan, so I picked Medic.
Teammate: “Uh, I’m not sure that’s a great pick into Illidan.”
Me: “What, you’d rather THEY get medic on their next pick? Your job is to kill him before he kills me.”
Did I mention that I’ve got a master-skin Morales? I call her “My Little Medic” because I also have the Wonder Billie mount - I go with the bubblegum master skin and the pink pony.
Anyway, we ended up winning. I do know my way around a displacement grenade.
In other news, I got in a couple matches last night with the new Johanna Falling Sword damage. They should just replace the animation with a dump trunk landing in the AoE. I had a LOT of fun. Falling Sword has always been underrated in my opinion, and the extra damage means that even hardier backline folks like Nazeebo have to scatter when Jojo comes callin’.
Aside: Just what is the difference between the different kinds of skins? Like, what makes Azmodunk a “legendary skin”, as opposed to just a skin? And I think I’ve seen another sort called out, too.
Oh, and what ability is he using in that video where the hoop-with-backboard appears and he dunks it? Azmodan is one of my most-used, and I can’t think of anything he does that could look like that.
It’s not a strict delineation because it’s borrowed from WoW, but if a skin is legendary you can be certain that it’s going to have completely reskinned abilities and a brand new voiceover. Epic skins won’t get new voiceovers though they will sometimes have a filter on the voice to match the skin design.
All of the legendary skins thus far have gotten an awful lot of love. They’re pretty cool.
Pretty sure the Azmo dunk is just a video thing, though.
…And skins which are neither epic nor legendary leave the abilities unchanged? OK, that makes sense.
Do any other than the one-per-hero Master Skin have prerequisites, or are the rest all available to anyone who wants to buy them? I’m guessing the latter, given that most skins end up bundled with their hero.
There may be some non-epic skins with reskinned abilities. I’m not sure. Like I aside, there are no hard and fast delineations. If you look at the skins in the shop they’re all tagged with what changes they have, if any. Voiceovers, custom abilities, etc.
To get a master skin you must have the hero at level 10 and you must spent 10k gold. Master skins are prestige rewards and have to be ‘earned’ through playtime. All other skins are purchased with real money and have no prerequisites.
For reference, the other “Legendary” skins are Infested Tychus, Mecha-Tassadar and Space Lord Leoric. It means there’s a new model, new ability graphics for everything and a completely new voice set, instead of just filter variations.
Queen Nightshade: Your terror is starting to wilt. I’d hurry, if I were you.
Gazlowe: Don’t get that, Cho. I’ll get it.
…
Queen Nightshade: Your terror has wilted.
Gazlowe: WTF? Why didn’t you get that, Syl?
Gazlowe: Wasted.
We earned three terrors that game, and only actually ended up using one.
So I’ve been playing pretty well this month. I’ve gone 94-72 over 166 games, a winrate of 56.6%. In all that time, my MMR has gone from 1015 to 1261. A gain of 246 MMR. Over 166 games.
Which means that I’m gaining MMR at a rate of 1.48 MMR per game. Which means to get from 1000 just back to where I started, at 1500, would take 337 games. 337 games where I was playing like a significantly above-average player just to grind back up to being back to the starting MMR.
At that point it’s not really trying to place me where I belong on the ladder, it’s just forcing me to grind. Other games using an ELO-style system aren’t like that. If I suddenly became significantly better or worse at rocket league, my division would change within 15-20 games, not 300+.
Or, to think of it another way, I would have a much faster time starting a new account to get up to where I should be. And that shouldn’t be the case, it’s just that blizzard increases its confidence value way too quickly. After 100 games or so, it’s decided what you are, and to change its mind you’re going to have to play a fuckload of games. Those first 100 games matter more than your last 300. Which is dumb, because not only does it massively overshadow them, but it’s outdated information - your more recent games are more strongly indicative of your skill.
If I’ve improved (or was unfairly assumed to be really awful), and I’ve been playing at a 1700 level, it’s going to take me 472 games to prove it - to get to where I’ve been playing at all along.
Tracer is easily the worst hero they’ve ever released for this game. And it’s not just a matter of tweaking some stats to balance her - the whole hero design is irritating to play against and makes the game less fun for everyone who’s not playing her. She can hunt you down without having to do anything but move besides you, never aiming anything, never choosing when to stop to shoot, she can dodge all skill shots, and she can pretty much escape from everything very easily.
They can make her less powerful by tweaking the numbers, but the fundamental class design is annoying and will make the game shittier indefinitely.
I don’t think so - I think she definitely has some of the same problems as pre-rework Nova. That is, if she doesn’t have a counter on the enemy team she is almost impossible to play around. The difference is that Nova had very few counters whereas Tracer can be shut down by both blinds and point-n-click stuns.
She’ll definitely be getting a nerf once the requisite “pay real cash for an overpowered hero” period is over, but probably not a full rework. Somebody commented that she’s basically Valla except with unlimited rolls and that’s definitely true. Her mobility needs tweaking.
Of course, with two teleport abilities and her trait, mobility is kind of everything for her.
Any guesses how long before we start seeing a “two games as an Overwatch hero” daily quest? Obviously not with just Tracer-- That puts her in the same boat as the Lost Vikings. But will they do it when there are two, or four, or seven?
And the AI definitely likes her: I’ve seen her three times in the past two games. Haven’t really been able to get a feel for her yet, though.
She’s over 57% win rate now, which as high as overpowered Li-ming ever got.
It’s hard not to be cynical about their release cycle now. 3 of the last 4 heroes had 2 weeks in which they ran wild and dominated every game, coinciding with their high cost period. Then after 2 weeks they got nerfed into something sane - although still overpowered.
If the cycle is to release an overpowered hero every 3-4 weeks, and then let them run amok for 2 weeks each time, that means the game is basically ruined 50% of the time. If they’re doing this on purpose, out of greed, it’s going to kill their game.
My problem with her (I have her but don’t like the character. I just plain don’t like assassins) is that they said they wanted a high skill cap hero. Ok, which makes sense. But they said the same thing with Li Ming then they go and give them escapes for days.
Blizzard said Tracer would have “practically no health,” but, by the numbers, she has just as much, if no more than, Valla, who doesn’t have that great of an escape. Tracer’s problem is she has a high skill ceiling, but is way too forgiving to people who suck at her.
I don’t think they understand the difference between a high skill cap and a high skill floor. It would explain how they explain their designs in totally the wrong way.
I don’t think they’re deliberately releasing overpowered heroes. I think that what they’re doing is trying to be innovative, coming up with crazy new ideas for every hero. The problem is, it’s hard to balance a crazy new idea until you’ve seen it in actual live play, and so about half of them end up being overpowered, and half end up being underpowered. Once they’ve been out for a bit, the overpowered ones end up nerfed, and the underpowered ones end up forgotten.
This would also account for, for instance, their complete redesign of Tychus. The problem they had with him was, basically, that he was too vanilla. Except that, really, you need a few heroes who are vanilla, to set the baseline that everyone else is deviating from.
Eh, it’s all cyclical. I’m assuming you’re saying the 3 of the 4 were Tracer, Xul and Li Ming, with Dehaka being the balanced one. But before that you had 3 of 4 releases which were underpowered - Greymane (balanced), Lunara (underpowered), Cho’gall (underpowered), Artanis (underpowered). Basically, it’s just hard to properly tune new heroes.
I admittedly haven’t had much of a problem with Tracer, but I’ve also pretty much just been spamming Tychus in QM to get him up to 10 recently. He’s meant to be a tank killer but seems to do well against Tracer (being mostly auto-attacks and targeted Q, and his W isn’t easy to dodge), so maybe he’s just been a good counterpick. I dunno… while I can certainly see someone like Leoric feeling helpless against Tracer, the game is still a heavy stun meta, and that’s something that wipes Tracer dead. I think people just need to stop expecting they can keep dominating with their skillshot mages like Li Ming or Kael’thas.
The thing is - underpowered heroes disappoint you, they don’t break the game. Overpowered heroes break the game for everyone. They should aim to undertune and buff, it’s far less disruptive
After breaking the game with Li-Ming, they should’ve been extremely cautious with Xul - but instead he got past Li-ming, to the tune of a 64% win rate, which is the highest I’ve ever seen. Dehaka they got right, but then with Tracer they’re back to a Li-Ming win rate, and she’s incredibly annoying to play against in a way that Li-Ming and Xul weren’t. Her whole point is to be annoying, and not in a fun way like Murky, just in a frustrating way.
There’s also no counter to her. Every single hero has a <50% winrate against her. So you can’t even say “heroes with ____ own her”, at best a few heroes can almost hold their own.
So, just how many games do you guys play a day? It seems like having multiple level 10 heroes is the norm, but my highest are only level 8, and further progress on them is glacially slow. But then, I’ll usually only play about three games a day, maybe an hour before I go do something else.
Blizzard actually deliberately aims to overtune. I know on one developer blog or something they said that releasing an undertuned hero and buffing them tends to make them not see much play, and their kit will often feel underwhelming and less fun even if, strictly, it’s competitive. They said that they’ve found that even if it messes things up in the short term, in the long-term it results in more fun heroes if they try and make the hero as great as possible and then tune it into place.