Overwatch Promotes Bad Game Design

[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.

 

[Gizen]

Bad game design is still bad game design even if it is hard to design a good game.

Turns out that seeing you try to pretend you have even the slightest clue what is and is not bad game design is just as painful as seeing you try to talk about diversity. Just accept that you're terrible at Overwatch, that you are not the intended audience of every game ever made, that you don't have a goddamned clue how to develop a game, and move on.

 

[laggyteabag]

Issue 1: No Story Line
I have to admit that I do find it kinda funny that a game like Star Wars Battlefront can get lambasted from left, right and centre for not having a story mode and charging full price, but then Overwatch can do the same and get a free pass.

There isn't anything wrong with being multiplayer exclusive, though. So long as your game is good at what it does. Which is exactly what Overwatch is.

I certainly wouldn't mind a singleplayer story, mind you.

Issue 2: Giving but then Taking away Content

This is... kinda bullshit.

Adding skins, then taking them away. Adding modes, then taking them away. It makes the game feel a lot more static, outside of the occasional hero or map release.

Sure, its always exciting when a new event is available, but other than that, if you jump into Overwatch right now, it is mostly the same game it was a year ago in terms of content, other than a couple of extra heroes and maps. I don't know why they don't keep these skins around (albeit at a much lower drop rate), or the cool modes as a rotating tavern brawl.

Issue 3: Convoluted Character Abilities

No.

Maybe there is a reason that nobody is complaining about this?

What is is about any of these abilities that is confusing or convoluted to you?

Issue 4: Buffing and Nerfing the Game Too Strongly Too Often

Its not like Overwatch's sandbox is static forever. They add new heroes, they add new maps. Each hero has a lot more going on that just a gun and a healthpool, a la TF2.

Overwatch, I'd argue, has more in common with a MOBA than a regular shooter, and as such, the approach to balance is altered accordingly.

Can it be frustrating to play D.Va one week, only to find out that she has been completely overhauled the next? Sure, but at the same time, its not like these changes are unfounded, and the meta is shifting all of the time. It would be irresponsible of Blizzard to just ignore it.

Besides, balance changes keep the game fresh.

Issue 5: Developers Breaking Overwatch if you don't use it how they want you to

These are reasonable things and if we were dealing with a normal online game or even just a normal game, you would not be punished for these things.

But... you do? I don't really play competitive modes, but I can't remember the last time I played one where you would not get punished for leaving. If you're in the middle of a game, and you suddenly abandon the rest of your team - intentional or not -, that puts them at a severe disadvantage, and is generally pretty shitty for everyone involved, because 9 times out of 10, it will probably throw the game.

I understand that life can get in the way sometimes, but if that is a regular occurrence, maybe don't play the mode where you get punished for leaving?

Issue 6: Diversity for Diversity's Sake

This is the kicker.

Overwatch isn't diverse because diversity's sake. Overwatch is diverse because it was set up as a world organisation, and as such it represents multiple different countries and cultures.

From a gameplay standpoint, it is useful because each character looks and sounds different, so it can be easy to distinguish, say, a Mercy from a Zarya just by listening or at a glance.

Besides, how would no diversity be better? What if everyone was the same Mr Soldier Man? Do you expect Blizzard to write a paragraph about each character about why they were born in their individual countries, or why they are their gender, or why they are old or young?

Im genuinely stuck as to why you think this is an issue.

EDIT: Wow, this thread certainly blew up, and I only noticed after commenting. It has also proven to be absolutely hilarious. Props to Gizen for giving me one hell of a laugh.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

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.

There isn't too many elements, though. Most people agree that every character has just enough abilities. Each one has just enough options to be able to make an impact on their own, and few enough abilities that you can tell at a glance what every character is capable of.

This is like saying "Dark Souls is bad game design because there are too many weapons and spells and styles and the shoulder button controls and d-pad to switch weapons is too much at once, why didn't they just have like 3 weapons and spells so it's not so overwhelming", which would be wrong, as Dark Souls has some of the best and careful design in the biz.

If you feel overwhelmed by Overwatch's abilities, then it's not for you. I'd recommend you stick to stuff like the new Unreal Tournament. Because everyone else enjoys the depth that Overwatch provides while maintaining just the right level of simplicity that almost anyone can jump in and understand how to play.

And again, the game shifts a lot. No matter how good you are a designing, when you have that many characters and hundreds of thousands of people playing your game, the players will find a way to break your game. Even Nintendo, reigning kings of fun games, had to intervene with smash 4 because some characters (lookin' at you Diddy) were untouchable.

So no, I don't think the buffs and nerfs were overkill. They helped make the game more fun. They've reached a point where every character is viable and useful, depending on the map you're on. If anything, Blizzard is showing fantastic game design sense.

Just because the game isn't for you doesn't mean you should claim it has "bad design".

 

[Dalsyne]

Lol, "bad game design". More like "game design I don't agree with and since this is popular I'm hella concerned now".

Calm thyself. None of these issues are particularly new nor are they particularly worrisome.

1. Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament were in the same situation. Games don't need elaborate storylines to grab you, especially if they are designed as sports and not single player story experiences. No story is better than shit story, and a good, polished multiplayer experience is better than a mediocre multiplayer coupled with a mediocre single-player. This is arguably smart game design.

2. I take it you've never played MMOs before. World of Warcraft among most others has the same types of events. Seasonal content is not new nor is it any kind of problem.

And the game has indeed added content since you bought it, so please don't be dishonest like that.

3. Whenever you make a character more simple than the entire roster it becomes more boring by comparison. Mercy has this problem. Since Overwatch is a tightly balanced game where no class is supposed to be crap tier or underused, this is a concern. Having inconsistent characters that are all over the place with their ease of use is a balance problem and can definitely constitute "bad game design".

4. Some of the most egregious examples you present are actually half-truths. You're being dishonest again. Ana suffered a 50% nerf to the bonus heal rate of a certain ability that granted bonus healing rate for a short time. Dva recieved a damage nerf that was balanced by an increase in pellet count, leaving her overall damage quite similar. Armor was taken away but replaced with health. But you know all these already, you're just deliberately choosing to artificially inflate your argument's worth. Which is otherwise not a big deal.

5. Competitive is a special game mode that takes itself very seriously. That is how it should be. Leaver penalties exist because they should exist. None of this is depriving you of any of your rights, they are limitations and rules that you should be fully aware of once you enter the game.

You bought the game knowing you're not gonna get to play it in absolutely any way you want. Something MMO players have been doing since MMOs have existed. Welcome to the online community.

 

[DoPo]

I can see it's pretty useless to try and engage TC in any way, so, I'll just have a discourse with other people instead.

I'd first like to preface this by saying I don't actually play Overwatch and I'm not familiar with the intricacies of characters and abilities. Still, since this is about game design, I can definitely talk in broad strokes.

1) Destiny did this first. And it still has a pretty solid player base. Blame activision/Bungie for making this acceptable practice.

In no way, shape or form has Destiny been the first game without a story mode introduced inside it. I can point at multitude of examples: Pong and Tetris come to mind, but if we are talking about competitive online games, how about stepping back to around the start of the millenium with Unreal Tournament. Since the OP contains many comparisons to Team Fortress 2 I definitely have to point out that doesn't have a story mode, either. I've played Team Fortress Classic and I assure you, it had even less story in the game than TF2. I've not played the original Team Fortress but I'd hazard a guess that's also the case. There is also DotA, Leage of Legends and many others that came out way before Destiny.

It is "accepted" because you don't generally need a story mode for any game ever. Especially if you're focusing on multiplayer.

Why you chose to point at Destiny I do not know, nor do I know why it's somehow a "new" phenomenon.

Had the entire cast been gruffy 30-something white dudes with 5 o'clock shadows, you can bet your ass that you'd never get the same instinctive recognition of who's attacking you.

If you'll allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a second, may I remind you that TF2's cast consists mainly of "gruffy 30-something white dudes with 5 o'clock shadows," and I never had any problems telling them apart thanks to their distinctive silhouettes:

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your argument as a whole. I'm just saying you CAN have a (mostly) racially homogeneous cast in a class-based shooter and make them distinctive from one another.

Yet, if we apply OP's logic, then that cast is WRONG! Why have a black Irish man? Why have a Russian? Why have an Australian? Those are characteristics that don't compliment their characters at all.

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.

That's a variation of tanks called "bruiser". They are, as you described them, high HP characters that have high DPS. Their role is to get into the enemies faces and force the enemy team to waste effort taking them down, instead of the squishier characters. In more PvE oriented games, you'd have some sort of warrior with aggro mechanic, but in PvP, you cannot force players to attack a target via artificial means, hence you make one character seem big and scary.

Roadhog is really just a variation of the Pudge character from DotA: Allstars - high HP, the most distinctive ability is a hook ability - a long-range trickshot that can pull an enemy to him. The same archetype shows up in Heroes of the Storm as Stitches - also high HP, has a hook ability. Roadhog is another variation of it. In fact, you can very clearly see the resemblance as all three share the same body type - very heavy frame. Sure, you can point out that Pudge and Stitches do come from the same base - Pudge used the abomination model in Allstars, Stitches is an actual abomination, yet the WC3 abomination doesn't have a hook ability. It was something introduced in DotA and stuck around.

So, yes - he's a tank. Bruisers don't tend to be the main tank, but can definitely classify as secondary, at least. In some cases, you can have a bruiser as your main and only tank, but it requires a team composition to back this up - generally very high damage characters, so they deal with the enemies, as the enemies try to deal with the bruiser. In such cases, the bruiser is usually expendable - their job is to just stay around enough for their team to pick off some enemies, this when the bruiser is dead, the team can deal with the remains. Or alternatively, you can have supports that have damage mitigation/HP recovery abilities to keep the bruiser in the fight.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Yet, if we apply OP's logic, then that cast is WRONG! Why have a black Irish man? Why have a Russian? Why have an Australian? Those are characteristics that don't compliment their characters at all.

Being Irish while being black while being theme around explosives is a perfect balance and shows Valve knows their shit with character design. Having the most formidable character be a simple straight-forward Russian guy made sense. These characteristics completely complemented their characters.

Overwatch isn't as tasteful about it. It'd be a little difficult to pinpoint precise places you go 'wrong' with character design but I can fairly easily point out when the elements are working well and TF2 made that easy. Overwatch... is a bit all over the place and I feel any idiot coulda mixed several different features and characteristics together like Overwatch did. Some character designs don't fall into this rut for instance the concepts of Zenyatta and Tracer are fantastic in all aspects in personality, features, and gameplay mechanics because everything about them screams purpose and consistency.

 

[DoPo]

Being Irish while being black while being theme around explosives is a perfect balance and shows Valve knows their shit with character design.

Being Irish has nothing to do with explosives...unless you refer to IRA.

Being black also has nothing to do with explosives.

Being black has nothing to do with being Irish, either.

The only thing that the demoman has related to explosives is his eyepatch, which can easily point to a mishap. But the other two factors? They have nothing that fits the core theme of the character. In fact, they seem to be there for "diversity's sake", as you would put it - why else would he be both black AND Irish?

Having the most formidable character be a simple straight-forward Russian guy made sense.

Maybe, but why not not-Russian?

And what about the sniper - why have him as Australian? Is this also just for "diversity's sake"? I don't see anything to suggests he needs to be one.

See, this is sort of the weakness here - requiring justification for backgrounds is a bit weak. What if somebody is Indian, Irish, or whatever - they are a distinct character and work as one. If you look at any other game with a big character roster, you'd find a bunch of oddball characters, too - in Mortal Kombat you have a bunch of ninjas that can do supernatural stuff, a four armed dude, reptilian humanoid, some robots, some humans that do almost supernatural feats. None of them require justification for their backgrounds - people just accept it. In Guilty Gear you have an even more eclectic collection of characters - some little girl that can whack you with whales, a gay man that uses a pool cue as a weapon and can summon billiard balls, a crossdressing boy who has a yo-yo as his main offense, extremely tall guy who wears a paper bag on his head and has a giant scalpel, also he can apparently summon random things like hammers and bombs on a whim, like some sort of cartoon characters, etc. In DotA: Allstars, which is (sort of) set in the Warcraft universe, you have Warcraft characters, but also people from real world mythology, like Zeus, then people from other works of fiction like Lina Inverse and some completely random ones. They use models from the base game because...that's what they can work with, but I've yet to hear people complain about their backstories not fitting. In Dota 2 the characters were changed to remove ties to other IPs (like Lina Inverse is now just Lina) and new backstories were created but...there is very little need for justification again. Zeus is still there and he's still the Zeus from the Greek mythos. Now let's look at Unreal Tournament - the characters don't even have classes, you are just choosing a skin. Yet you can choose from several different types of humans and even aliens. They have a bit of a backstory (super bare-bones), so if we go about trying to justify their inclusion...we cannot, really. Does that mean they are there for "diversity's sake" as well? Same can be said about Quake 3 multiplayer - why would you have a walking eye or Tank Junior in the same place, or Anarchy or any of the others.

 

[laggyteabag]

Why have a black Irish man?

Being Irish while being black

Being Irish has nothing to do with explosives...unless you refer to IRA.

Being black also has nothing to do with explosives.

Being black has nothing to do with being Irish, either.

Uhhhh? Irish? Are you suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure?

Being Irish while being black while being theme around explosives is a perfect balance and shows Valve knows their shit with character design.

A perfect balance of... what, exactly? Not only are you objectively wrong, it is a perfect example of blurting out a point, and then backing it up with a boatload of nothing, as well as showing your blind defense for TF2 without really fact checking anything.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Why have a black Irish man?

Being Irish while being black

Being Irish has nothing to do with explosives...unless you refer to IRA.

Being black also has nothing to do with explosives.

Being black has nothing to do with being Irish, either.

Uhhhh? Irish? Are you suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure?

Being Irish while being black while being theme around explosives is a perfect balance and shows Valve knows their shit with character design.

A perfect balance of... what, exactly? Not only are you objectively wrong, it is a perfect example of blurting out a point, and then backing it up with a boatload of nothing, as well as showing your blind defense for TF2 without really fact checking anything.

Black and Scottish is associated with more active "explosive" personalities that's why it makes sense. As for fact-checking... what do you want me to check?