Overwatch Promotes Bad Game Design

[Zhukov]

6. *sigh*

... while a later person simply types a roleplayed *sighs*.

Alright then.

Thing is, we've been arguing about diversity in video game character on this forum for literally years now. Many of us have had this debate dozens of times. We've danced this dance many a time and we know all the steps. Hence the sighs and fuck nos and whatnot.

I only replied at all to make the soccer and chess comparison regarding stories. And I already felt like a bit of an idiot for wasting that many words on your thread. I wasn't about to get into an extended exchange with you. I've seen the incoherent shitposting nonsense you've been slinging throughout this forum. I think any debate with you is a waste of time. Which means, yes, I'm wasting my time right now typing this. Guess I'm a slow learner.

Taking into account your posting history I suspect you're only doing this to get a rise out of people. The Tumblr jab reinforces this suspicion. I could be wrong, but who the fuck cares?

So yeah, I think "*sigh*" just about sums it up.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

I didn't read the thread but based on the title I just wanted to throw these out there -

 

[Qizx]

Why not have at least one or two characters with no alternate abilities or just one? Why does every character HAVE to have an ULT?

This thread is bait, right? Am I missing something?

To elaborate, I would much prefer if there were one or two characters with straightforward actions that need no ability activation and no ULT tacked on. Like, what if Doomfist was released but only had massive punching damage and armor and in exchange had no other abilities? What if there were characters that relied purely on their core basic attributes? Or better, what if there was a mode added to the game that replaced all the abilities and ULTs with buffs to the damage, health, and armor of the characters? Rather than making the gameplay more complicated than it needs to be with alternate abilities and ULTs I would much prefer having this simplified style of gameplay. As a frame of reference, I am a HUGE fan of how Legend of the Fat Princess ensured there was varied classes of characters without making it overly complicated.

And further, this overly complex design is an issue which has resulted in some characters becoming troll picks or mustpicks aka trash and OP. It is clearly why we have to deal with Blizzard frequently raping the meta with buffs and nerfs that lack any sense of subtlety and result in destroying any previous sense of balance the game might've still had; not that there was ever much of a strong sense of balance in Overwatch.

He'd be really fucking boring.

Like.... Completely. Move to player, press left mouse until dead. Nothing else.

If you think having 5 abilities per character is "Too complicated" I have to question what mechanics aren't? I've played OW since before release, and even when it FIRST came out and I just started it all was straight forward.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Why not have at least one or two characters with no alternate abilities or just one? Why does every character HAVE to have an ULT?

This thread is bait, right? Am I missing something?

To elaborate, I would much prefer if there were one or two characters with straightforward actions that need no ability activation and no ULT tacked on. Like, what if Doomfist was released but only had massive punching damage and armor and in exchange had no other abilities? What if there were characters that relied purely on their core basic attributes? Or better, what if there was a mode added to the game that replaced all the abilities and ULTs with buffs to the damage, health, and armor of the characters? Rather than making the gameplay more complicated than it needs to be with alternate abilities and ULTs I would much prefer having this simplified style of gameplay. As a frame of reference, I am a HUGE fan of how Legend of the Fat Princess ensured there was varied classes of characters without making it overly complicated.

And further, this overly complex design is an issue which has resulted in some characters becoming troll picks or mustpicks aka trash and OP. It is clearly why we have to deal with Blizzard frequently raping the meta with buffs and nerfs that lack any sense of subtlety and result in destroying any previous sense of balance the game might've still had; not that there was ever much of a strong sense of balance in Overwatch.

He'd be really fucking boring.

Like.... Completely. Move to player, press left mouse until dead. Nothing else.

If you think having 5 abilities per character is "Too complicated" I have to question what mechanics aren't? I've played OW since before release, and even when it FIRST came out and I just started it all was straight forward.

Legend of the Fat Princess was a fantastic game and did exactly what I am promoting here.

 

[EternallyBored]

Legend of the Fat Princess was a fantastic game and did exactly what I am promoting here.

Fat princess is a 20 dollar indie game designed around casual and co-op play, all it's classes are simplistic, the strategy is in the much larger team comps. What you are suggesting would be like me suggesting they add a technical character like Genji or Symmetra to Fat Princess, it would likely not work well. what works for one game does not necessarily work for another, the design you proposed (doomfist) would be a mess and either too easy to CC and thus worthless, or have passive immunity to CC and thus neutralize too many other class tools and be poorly balanced. Overwatch already has simple noob friendly characters like Soldier 76 and Bastion, cutting down abilities further would go against how the game was designed, really how much more simple a character do you need than Bastion, it's basically shoot, self repair, and occasionally bring out an AOE weapon.

The problem seems to be that you are mistaking game design you don't like for "Bad game design", I have disliked the last few Call of Duty multiplayer titles for a number of design decisions, but they are not bad game design, it is just a design that I personally do not find as enjoyable as games like Overwatch, or Rainbow 6: siege. The fact that so many find Overwatch's complexity just fine, or even too simplistic (those used to the complexity of MOBAs) would indicate that Blizzard has found a workable combination between basic FPS and MOBA levels of complexity, that you dislike it does not make it bad. You seem to prefer simpler and more casual games, and that's not a bad thing, but it doesn't mean that more complex games with competitive balancing and the inevitable meta that results is bad game design, that it is based on literally one of the most popular and profitable games on the planet(LoL) would indicate that it is very good game design, people like the competitive meta, balancing, shifting of character tiers, and the back and forth of that style of game.

EDIT: I should add your other idea of a mode that eliminates ultimates and abilities would be equally silly, maybe it could work as a for fun thing wacky mode like Lucio ball, but not as a permanent game mode. Many of the characters are balanced around their abilities so taking them away would not do anything to fix the meta it would just make different characters top or bottom tier, mostly characters with strong abilities like tracer or sombra would become trash, it would also make the entire support class mostly worthless everyone would be picking attackers and maybe a few tanks. Characters weapons were mostly not meant to function on their own, some characters rely more on stronger default weapons and others who rely on abilities or powerful ultimates.

 

[Qizx]

Why not have at least one or two characters with no alternate abilities or just one? Why does every character HAVE to have an ULT?

This thread is bait, right? Am I missing something?

To elaborate, I would much prefer if there were one or two characters with straightforward actions that need no ability activation and no ULT tacked on. Like, what if Doomfist was released but only had massive punching damage and armor and in exchange had no other abilities? What if there were characters that relied purely on their core basic attributes? Or better, what if there was a mode added to the game that replaced all the abilities and ULTs with buffs to the damage, health, and armor of the characters? Rather than making the gameplay more complicated than it needs to be with alternate abilities and ULTs I would much prefer having this simplified style of gameplay. As a frame of reference, I am a HUGE fan of how Legend of the Fat Princess ensured there was varied classes of characters without making it overly complicated.

And further, this overly complex design is an issue which has resulted in some characters becoming troll picks or mustpicks aka trash and OP. It is clearly why we have to deal with Blizzard frequently raping the meta with buffs and nerfs that lack any sense of subtlety and result in destroying any previous sense of balance the game might've still had; not that there was ever much of a strong sense of balance in Overwatch.

He'd be really fucking boring.

Like.... Completely. Move to player, press left mouse until dead. Nothing else.

If you think having 5 abilities per character is "Too complicated" I have to question what mechanics aren't? I've played OW since before release, and even when it FIRST came out and I just started it all was straight forward.

Legend of the Fat Princess was a fantastic game and did exactly what I am promoting here.

So one game made something rather simplistic, so every game should do that? Also I'm 100% positive I literally COULD NOT put as many hours of gameplay into Fat Princess as I did into Overwatch. FP may be fun for 10,20, hell even 200 hours. But I doubt people have put thousands of hours into that game, if they have the number is probably MUCH smaller than the OW %.

 

[CaitSeith]

Except for issue 2 (which is debatable if it's free content) and issue 5 (although that kind of punishments are standard in online competitive games), these "issues" seem to be personal preferences on features rather than good/bad game design. I'm not saying Overwatch is perfect (I haven't played and, really, which game has perfect game design anyways?), but that's kinda overreacting.

And then number 6 is... highly debatable (except for being completely subjective). In my eyes, the diversity of these characters' appearance and background isn't dissimilar to Pokemon's (gameplay-wise they are unnecessary, but the choice made the game much more interesting).

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Except for issue 2 (which is debatable if it's free content) and issue 5 (although that kind of punishments are standard in online competitive games), these "issues" seem to be personal preferences on features rather than good/bad game design. I'm not saying Overwatch is perfect (I haven't played and, really, which game has perfect game design anyways?), but that's kinda overreacting.

And then number 6 is... highly debatable (except for being completely subjective). In my eyes, the diversity of these characters' appearance and background isn't dissimilar to Pokemon's (gameplay-wise they are unnecessary, but the choice made the game much more interesting).

Issue 4 didn't trigger anything with you? More often than not I notice the game's characters feel broken or imbalanced because of certain nerfs and buffs. Not to mention, if they were going to do such big changes, they should've done them BEFORE the game released. They shouldn't get away with selling a beta like a triple-A title because it sends a message that the gaming industry can half-ass a game and maybe sorta fix it later unless gamers call them out for it. Why does this game get away with that while other games don't? I understand fixing some huge bugs or glitches within the first month but this has been going on for a year now.

 

[Gizen]

Not to mention, if they were going to do such big changes, they should've done them BEFORE the game released. They shouldn't get away with selling a beta like a triple-A title because it sends a message that the gaming industry can half-ass a game and maybe sorta fix it later unless gamers call them out for it.

That only applies if you're never ever going to add anything new to the game ever and have no plans to support it in the future. Perfect balance is a goal to strive for that is impossible to ever actually attain, and ongoing support requires regular balance updates, especially when new characters or maps are introduced that complicate the balancing process because nothing is ever balanced on its own, its balanced in relation to everything else.

Why does this game get away with that while other games don't?

League of Legends. Seriously, I'm just going to start responding to every post you make with League of Legends.

I understand fixing some huge bugs or glitches within the first month but this has been going on for a year now.

And it will continue to go on forever or until Blizzard abandons the game entirely and stops supporting it because that's how game support and ongoing balance works.

 

[Zydrate]

I was interested until I saw the OP and the thread title lost any semblance of credibility.
Went with the usual racist rhetoric of "diversity for diversity's sake" bit, too. Real classy.

 

[CaitSeith]

Except for issue 2 (which is debatable if it's free content) and issue 5 (although that kind of punishments are standard in online competitive games), these "issues" seem to be personal preferences on features rather than good/bad game design. I'm not saying Overwatch is perfect (I haven't played and, really, which game has perfect game design anyways?), but that's kinda overreacting.

And then number 6 is... highly debatable (except for being completely subjective). In my eyes, the diversity of these characters' appearance and background isn't dissimilar to Pokemon's (gameplay-wise they are unnecessary, but the choice made the game much more interesting).

Issue 4 didn't trigger anything with you? More often than not I notice the game's characters feel broken or imbalanced because of certain nerfs and buffs. Not to mention, if they were going to do such big changes, they should've done them BEFORE the game released. They shouldn't get away with selling a beta like a triple-A title because it sends a message that the gaming industry can half-ass a game and maybe sorta fix it later unless gamers call them out for it. Why does this game get away with that while other games don't? I understand fixing some huge bugs or glitches within the first month but this has been going on for a year now.

Triggered? Nope, sorry. A major component from the online multiplayer games experience is the other players themselves. That's a factor very difficult to predict before releasing (even with beta testing, as the diversity of player's skills isn't comparable with such small group sample), and I heard they have been adding new characters since then, so major changes sound like something to be expected just for that alone. But take this one from me with a grain of salt. I'm not as familiar with competitive online multiplayer games as to know how frequently that kind of fixes happen (I remember how multiplayer patches in Warcraft 3 made its balance very different to the single-player, to the point of the former having a whole new armor type that didn't exist on the later).

 

[Epyc Wynn]

"That being said, that did not stop Jeff Kaplan from fundamentally changing Roadhog as a character by taking away the hook-and-kill mechanic which defined him as a scary masked bully assassin."

Context? Last time I checked Roadhog still had his hook....

This month Roadhog had the damage in his left click reduced, and his rate of fire and clip size increased. This means that while his overall dps is roughly the same, now his hook-shoot-melee combo can't instantly kill most of the heroes in roster anymore. He can still kill 5 of them, and will leave 10 or 11 others with just 2 to 15 hp left, so as long as you play with your team, his viability hasn't changed much.

The problem is that a lot of Roadhog mains don't like to play with their team. They are the ones who see the message "No Tanks!", and proceed to pick Roadhog and never stay with their team to actually tank, instead trying to flank on their own and be a dps. The team player Roadhogs will make it work just fine by focusing on damaged enemies.

ah okay, so it really doesn't have much of anything to do with his character design or core identity then

I mean, he's still a Kiwi bloke from an irradiated Australia that was a farmer turned road warrior, on an extended crime spree with his goofy friend who promised to pay him afterwards

seems like thats still holding up

He doesn't come off as the scary bully assassin he once did now that his most powerful move is so weak I won't even touch his character.

that's the thing though, he's not an assassin. He's a tank. His job is to tank. It's part of his core concept. After all, he's never appeared in anything without his buddy Junkrat, he's built from the ground up as a team character (as is everyone else)

you still haven't replied to my earlier post either

His relationship with Junkrat appears to be incredibly begrudging and I would not be surprised if he ever tried murdering Junkrat. Roadhog wears a black rubber mask akin to what you would expect from a psycho assassin. As for your post, the interesting thing is, I wasn't talking about who his character is based on some lore and videos that aren't in the game. I'm talking about who he is inside the game. When you ignore all that extra lore, what you have is a character heavily defined as a fat slow psycho assassin who begrudgingly deals with Junkrat with some sparse positive moments between them. But that does not make me think Roadhog is a team player. That makes me think Roadhog does work with people, but is used to working alone. Thanks to these new changes the meaning to his character from within the game itself, has been completely undermined. He can't kill effectively and he is not independent like he used to be. I get angry just looking at his character ever since what was done to change who he was.

 

[Gizen]

As for your post, the interesting thing is, I wasn't talking about who his character is based on some lore and videos that aren't in the game. I'm talking about who he is inside the game.

You mean 'inside the game' where he's clearly grouped up together with the rest of the tanks in the roster, and is listed as a tank, and described as a tank, and has been from the very beginning, thus classifying him as a tank character? Whereas assassins are thrown into the 'offensive' class of character and are given a variety of mobility tools to enable them to flank more easily to assassinate high priority targets? Is that the 'inside the game' you're talking about?

 

[DaCosta]

As for your post, the interesting thing is, I wasn't talking about who his character is based on some lore and videos that aren't in the game. I'm talking about who he is inside the game.

You mean 'inside the game' where he's clearly grouped up together with the rest of the tanks in the roster, and is listed as a tank, and described as a tank, and has been from the very beginning, thus classifying him as a tank character? Whereas assassins are thrown into the 'offensive' class of character and are given a variety of mobility tools to enable them to flank more easily to assassinate high priority targets? Is that the 'inside the game' you're talking about?

Maybe he just means all the stuff in the lore inside the game about how Roadhog works alone.

Like this

or this

 

[Broderick]

"That being said, that did not stop Jeff Kaplan from fundamentally changing Roadhog as a character by taking away the hook-and-kill mechanic which defined him as a scary masked bully assassin."

Context? Last time I checked Roadhog still had his hook....

This month Roadhog had the damage in his left click reduced, and his rate of fire and clip size increased. This means that while his overall dps is roughly the same, now his hook-shoot-melee combo can't instantly kill most of the heroes in roster anymore. He can still kill 5 of them, and will leave 10 or 11 others with just 2 to 15 hp left, so as long as you play with your team, his viability hasn't changed much.

The problem is that a lot of Roadhog mains don't like to play with their team. They are the ones who see the message "No Tanks!", and proceed to pick Roadhog and never stay with their team to actually tank, instead trying to flank on their own and be a dps. The team player Roadhogs will make it work just fine by focusing on damaged enemies.

ah okay, so it really doesn't have much of anything to do with his character design or core identity then

I mean, he's still a Kiwi bloke from an irradiated Australia that was a farmer turned road warrior, on an extended crime spree with his goofy friend who promised to pay him afterwards

seems like thats still holding up

He doesn't come off as the scary bully assassin he once did now that his most powerful move is so weak I won't even touch his character.

that's the thing though, he's not an assassin. He's a tank. His job is to tank. It's part of his core concept. After all, he's never appeared in anything without his buddy Junkrat, he's built from the ground up as a team character (as is everyone else)

you still haven't replied to my earlier post either

As for your post, the interesting thing is, I wasn't talking about who his character is based on some lore and videos that aren't in the game. I'm talking about who he is inside the game.

You mean 'inside the game' where he's clearly grouped up together with the rest of the tanks in the roster, and is listed as a tank, and described as a tank, and has been from the very beginning, thus classifying him as a tank character? Whereas assassins are thrown into the 'offensive' class of character and are given a variety of mobility tools to enable them to flank more easily to assassinate high priority targets? Is that the 'inside the game' you're talking about?

I think this is literally the only time when Epyc wynn has any sort of actual point. Roadhog is classified as a tank in game, however, he is really a dps character with a high health pool and a healing ability. He has no actual tanking abilities to speak of. He doesn't have a shield that can mitigate damage in any sort of capacity or negate it completely. Bodyblocking(meaning standing in front of a squishy so he gets hit) while not horrible idea, is still a bad one, because it charges enemy ults, something that every other character in the tank roster has an ability to negate. At best, having a hog in your team makes the enemy team more wary about pushing a point because they could just get killed in 2 seconds, but I wouldn't call that tanking. He disrupts the enemy team sure, but so does junkrat. He takes a lot of shots to take down, but I dont think high health alone defines a tank.

Before this patch, he had the ability to kill most non-tank characters with his wombo combo(pull the enemy, shoot them in the head, then melee them immediately afterwards) every 6(now 8) seconds(this patch just reduced the damage of his left click and increased his ammo count, the hook cooldown increase was already in place beforehand). Thats a near guaranteed kill every 6 seconds, should he hit the hook. Unlike Rein's charge, which can also kill many squishies in a single hit, Roadhog's hook has very little actual risk with using it, and is on a shorter cool down comparatively.

So really, Roadhog is just a dps character with high sustain. I am not the only one who goes by this definition either. Pretty much all of the high end competitive overwatch describe him this way as well, with one particular popular youtube channel having an entire video describing why he isn't a tank. I will link one in the spoiler below. You can watch it at your leisure if interested.

Spoiler

 

[Gizen]

I think this is literally the only time when Epyc wynn has any sort of actual point. Roadhog is classified as a tank in game, however, he is really a dps character with a high health pool and a healing ability. He has no actual tanking abilities to speak of. He doesn't have a shield that can mitigate damage in any sort of capacity or negate it completely. Bodyblocking(meaning standing in front of a squishy so he gets hit) while not horrible idea, is still a bad one, because it charges enemy ults, something that every other character in the tank roster has an ability to negate. At best, having a hog in your team makes the enemy team more wary about pushing a point because they could just get killed in 2 seconds, but I wouldn't call that tanking. He disrupts the enemy team sure, but so does junkrat. He takes a lot of shots to take down, but I dont think high health alone defines a tank.

Before this patch, he had the ability to kill most non-tank characters with his wombo combo(pull the enemy, shoot them in the head, then melee them immediately afterwards) every 6(now 8) seconds. Thats a near guaranteed kill every 6 seconds, should he hit the hook. Unlike Rein's charge, which can also kill many squishies in a single hit, Roadhog's hook has very little actual risk with using it, and is on a shorter cool down comparatively.

So really, Roadhog is just a dps character with high sustain. I am not the only one who goes by this definition either. Pretty much all of the high end competitive overwatch describe him this way as well, with many popular youtube channels having entire videos describing why he isn't a tank. I will link one in the spoiler below. You can watch it at your leisure if interested.

The fact that Roadhog is classified as a tank indicates that's clearly the intended role for him. The fact that he's had his ability to murder people reduced only reinforces that he's not supposed to be able to match an actual assassination-type character in that department. Considering Overwatch's blatant MOBA influences, to me it seems quite clear that the intended goal with him was to create a character along the lines of Blitzcrank from LoL or Patches from HotS, a tank-style character that initiates on an enemy team not by charging into them, but by catching someone who's out of position and dragging them into the middle of his team so they can shred that target and then gain an instant numbers advantage. When you take into account the nerfs that let so many people he hooks get away if his team isn't helping him, it just seems to reinforce that this was their goal with him.

The issue of course is that, as you yourself have described, Roadhog lacks the tools that essentially are mandatory on a tank and that every other tank has. So he's not capable of doing his intended role, but can't just be left in his previous state either or else it conflicts with the information the game is trying to present by classifying him as a tank, and just makes things overall more confusing for people trying to learn the game as a result.

So really, what it comes down to is that Roadhog could probably be classified as a case of bad game design. Actual bad game design. If Epic Wynn had brought up Roadhog and the way that his kit is designed in such a way as to make his role not actually doable, and listed that as one of his original points instead of the garbage that he chose to list instead, then I'd have been willing to concede the point to him. But he didn't, and instead chose to whine about the balance changes that are just trying to do what they can with a character whose kit is clearly not working well, and so he gets no credit. As far as the game is concerned, he's a tank, albeit a very poorly designed one.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

I think this is literally the only time when Epyc wynn has any sort of actual point. Roadhog is classified as a tank in game, however, he is really a dps character with a high health pool and a healing ability. He has no actual tanking abilities to speak of. He doesn't have a shield that can mitigate damage in any sort of capacity or negate it completely. Bodyblocking(meaning standing in front of a squishy so he gets hit) while not horrible idea, is still a bad one, because it charges enemy ults, something that every other character in the tank roster has an ability to negate. At best, having a hog in your team makes the enemy team more wary about pushing a point because they could just get killed in 2 seconds, but I wouldn't call that tanking. He disrupts the enemy team sure, but so does junkrat. He takes a lot of shots to take down, but I dont think high health alone defines a tank.

Before this patch, he had the ability to kill most non-tank characters with his wombo combo(pull the enemy, shoot them in the head, then melee them immediately afterwards) every 6(now 8) seconds(this patch just reduced the damage of his left click and increased his ammo count, the hook cooldown increase was already in place beforehand). Thats a near guaranteed kill every 6 seconds, should he hit the hook. Unlike Rein's charge, which can also kill many squishies in a single hit, Roadhog's hook has very little actual risk with using it, and is on a shorter cool down comparatively.

So really, Roadhog is just a dps character with high sustain. I am not the only one who goes by this definition either. Pretty much all of the high end competitive overwatch describe him this way as well, with one particular popular youtube channel having an entire video describing why he isn't a tank. I will link one in the spoiler below. You can watch it at your leisure if interested.

Spoiler

I'd say Roadhog sucks at tanking in the same way that Symmetra sucks at healing. Or "support" in her case.

Or how Winston is a bad tank if it wasn't for his shield. Personally, I'd rather they play up Roadhog's CC abilities and more him more of a controller tank, someone who can manipulate the field through pulls and stuns while being near the action. kinda like how Winston (and Dva?) is a flanking tank

but then again this is all pointless, because this entire conversation came from Wynn diverting attention from the fact that he doesn't want to continue having an actual discussion. since this whole roadhog thing started with talking about character design

I actually consider gameplay to be like any other creative attribute you can put on a character whether its bodytype or religion; only difference is you can see the pragmatic results through playing the game unlike other attributes which aren't so in-your-face. How a character plays in-game should always be considered critical to character design.

 

[Broderick]

I think this is literally the only time when Epyc wynn has any sort of actual point. Roadhog is classified as a tank in game, however, he is really a dps character with a high health pool and a healing ability. He has no actual tanking abilities to speak of. He doesn't have a shield that can mitigate damage in any sort of capacity or negate it completely. Bodyblocking(meaning standing in front of a squishy so he gets hit) while not horrible idea, is still a bad one, because it charges enemy ults, something that every other character in the tank roster has an ability to negate. At best, having a hog in your team makes the enemy team more wary about pushing a point because they could just get killed in 2 seconds, but I wouldn't call that tanking. He disrupts the enemy team sure, but so does junkrat. He takes a lot of shots to take down, but I dont think high health alone defines a tank.

Before this patch, he had the ability to kill most non-tank characters with his wombo combo(pull the enemy, shoot them in the head, then melee them immediately afterwards) every 6(now 8) seconds. Thats a near guaranteed kill every 6 seconds, should he hit the hook. Unlike Rein's charge, which can also kill many squishies in a single hit, Roadhog's hook has very little actual risk with using it, and is on a shorter cool down comparatively.

So really, Roadhog is just a dps character with high sustain. I am not the only one who goes by this definition either. Pretty much all of the high end competitive overwatch describe him this way as well, with many popular youtube channels having entire videos describing why he isn't a tank. I will link one in the spoiler below. You can watch it at your leisure if interested.

The fact that Roadhog is classified as a tank indicates that's clearly the intended role for him. The fact that he's had his ability to murder people reduced only reinforces that he's not supposed to be able to match an actual assassination-type character in that department. Considering Overwatch's blatant MOBA influences, to me it seems quite clear that the intended goal with him was to create a character along the lines of Blitzcrank from LoL or Patches from HotS, a tank-style character that initiates on an enemy team not by charging into them, but by catching someone who's out of position and dragging them into the middle of his team so they can shred that target and then gain an instant numbers advantage. When you take into account the nerfs that let so many people he hooks get away if his team isn't helping him, it just seems to reinforce that this was their goal with him.

The issue of course is that, as you yourself have described, Roadhog lacks the tools that essentially are mandatory on a tank and that every other tank has. So he's not capable of doing his intended role, but can't just be left in his previous state either or else it conflicts with the information the game is trying to present by classifying him as a tank, and just makes things overall more confusing for people trying to learn the game as a result.

So really, what it comes down to is that Roadhog could probably be classified as a case of bad game design. Actual bad game design. If Epic Wynn had brought up Roadhog and the way that his kit is designed in such a way as to make his role not actually doable, and listed that as one of his original points instead of the garbage that he chose to list instead, then I'd have been willing to concede the point to him. But he didn't, and instead chose to whine about the balance changes that are just trying to do what they can with a character whose kit is clearly not working well, and so he gets no credit. As far as the game is concerned, he's a tank, albeit a very poorly designed one.

I definitely agree with what you said. It is hard to say what they could do with him if they wanted to continue to identify him as a tank however. They would have to add some sort of mitigation or something. Or as you put it earlier, maybe he was supposed to be more of a tank in MOBA terms rather than traditional mmo(if so, that makes things weird with yet again, him being the only tank with no damage mitigation ability).

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Issue 4 didn't trigger anything with you? More often than not I notice the game's characters feel broken or imbalanced because of certain nerfs and buffs. Not to mention, if they were going to do such big changes, they should've done them BEFORE the game released. They shouldn't get away with selling a beta like a triple-A title because it sends a message that the gaming industry can half-ass a game and maybe sorta fix it later unless gamers call them out for it. Why does this game get away with that while other games don't? I understand fixing some huge bugs or glitches within the first month but this has been going on for a year now.

I'm guessing you've never made a game before.

Because here's the thing. Game design is HARD. Even in relatively simple games, there's always going to be people who push the limits of the game to find ways to create strategies that provide an unfair advantage, no matter how well you design it. Gamers are optimizers, they WILL find the most effective strategy and abuse it until it's the ONLY strategy.

And when you have an online game with many maps and characters, where the meta can change and flux at the drop of a hat, and where there's as many variables as overwatch has (to say nothing of the fact they added new characters, who can end up interacting with others in wholly unexpected ways that define the game. Hello Ana), you can't just "make all those changes before the game is released". You won't know the full impact until you have thousands (or indeed hundreds of thousands) of people playing the game and pushing the boundaries.

Here's an exercise, try making a game. Something simple, say in RPGmaker. Now try making a combat system that's engaging, fun and entertaining, while also making sure it's completely balanced and has no need to make dramatic tweaks anywhere. It's hard. It's VERY hard. Now mutliply the difficulty of the task by a couple million and you have maybe the beginnings of how hard it is to balance a game like Overwatch.

You just CAN'T have all of a game like Overwatch balanced out of the door with zero major changes needed at any point.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Issue 4 didn't trigger anything with you? More often than not I notice the game's characters feel broken or imbalanced because of certain nerfs and buffs. Not to mention, if they were going to do such big changes, they should've done them BEFORE the game released. They shouldn't get away with selling a beta like a triple-A title because it sends a message that the gaming industry can half-ass a game and maybe sorta fix it later unless gamers call them out for it. Why does this game get away with that while other games don't? I understand fixing some huge bugs or glitches within the first month but this has been going on for a year now.

I'm guessing you've never made a game before.

Because here's the thing. Game design is HARD. Even in relatively simple games, there's always going to be people who push the limits of the game to find ways to create strategies that provide an unfair advantage, no matter how well you design it. Gamers are optimizers, they WILL find the most effective strategy and abuse it until it's the ONLY strategy.

And when you have an online game with many maps and characters, where the meta can change and flux at the drop of a hat, and where there's as many variables as overwatch has (to say nothing of the fact they added new characters, who can end up interacting with others in wholly unexpected ways that define the game. Hello Ana), you can't just "make all those changes before the game is released". You won't know the full impact until you have thousands (or indeed hundreds of thousands) of people playing the game and pushing the boundaries.

Here's an exercise, try making a game. Something simple, say in RPGmaker. Now try making a combat system that's engaging, fun and entertaining, while also making sure it's completely balanced and has no need to make dramatic tweaks anywhere. It's hard. It's VERY hard. Now mutliply the difficulty of the task by a couple million and you have maybe the beginnings of how hard it is to balance a game like Overwatch.

You just CAN'T have all of a game like Overwatch balanced out of the door with zero major changes needed at any point.

Bad game design is still bad game design even if it is hard to design a good game. They chose to have too many elements. They chose to have overkill nerfs and buffs. The point at which a major change was most needed, was before the game was launched. Any major changes afterwards that aren't DLC, are an embarrassing admittance of bad game design.