Is Overwatch 2 Balancing Around Skins? | OVERWATCH 2 DISCUSSION |

[@AbbyOW2]

Let's talk about balance and if it is being done around skins, what do you think? Would love to hear your thoughts below.

[@beeshoneys]

The comment and you are straight up wrong about season 2 doomfist was meta for about a week, but it was mostly hog. Orissa kept on getting buffed to counter hog and then when hog got mega nerf about at the end of the season, Orissa became meta for over half a year

[@inadayofglory]

Send me regards in the mid-season patchnotes video if S76 will get buffs

[@imstillaj]

Honestly im pretty 50/50 on the topic. The sombra rework rendering her useless against widow in her mythic season and the ram shield change when rein mha skin released and them reverting it back when hes about to leave shop is hella sus tho. If they nerf widow next season or they buff dive characters to take care of her then its 100% balanced around skins. As for the genji season 1 changes, as a genji main he was hella strong, no offtank to peel for supports and 29dmg+dps passive turned him into a demon. Hate to say it but he needed the nerf. They should revert it now with the 250 health changes

[@AbbyOW2]

Yeah I've been very 50/50 on it too.

[@Chinesetakeout382]

I certainly can’t blame people for thinking it. 50/50 isn’t enough for me to be comfortable with asserting it, but the ram and sombra changes were way too sussy.

[@AladiahV97]

Ram's previous change was a nerf to Rein though, not a buff. More specifically, Ram dealing crit damage to the shield is a buff to Ram against Rein IF people of Ram's team capitalize on that and help bring the shield down. Otherwise it could be considered a nerf, but all in all 70 dmg to Rein is not going to make a big difference if someone is even remotely healing him

[@avadanocum6495]

Well, tbh genjis rmb isnt really healthy, although i love playing genji it is not ok that u either do nothing(not headshoting people with rmb) or dont leave them any counterplay options beside positioning, which most people willnot notice and they will feel that genji is too opressive On the other hand, while playing genji counters are too hard to deal with if u consider that they take no skill

[@natedavis2944]

That’s goofy reasoning though cause how many rein collabs have there been before they did the ram change? Diablo, mirrorwatch, transformers, world of Warcraft… I might be missing one but come on they didn’t even nerf ram for the rein mythic. If ur being honest the changes to ram were fine it just made it so you can’t just cheese a win against rein but everyone had to cry because god forbid rein is better than ram for a week.

[@reesyloko5741]

The funniest thing about the mercy mythic was she didn't have to be good they KNEW that was gonna be profitable lmao all mercy skins most likely make a profit

[@aerostrafe1075]

Yeah Mercy could be dogshit ass water in the fields and her playerbase would of still sold out that mythic. They didnt need to bother.

[@Deusaga]

They don't have to make changes to Mercy. In s10 they nerfed the dps of Lucio, Moira, Sombra, Tracer and Ilari. Heroes that could hunt down and take Mercy out pretty easily. They do make changes each and every season to ensure the mythic holder is at worst, not a throw pick, at best, meta.

[@reesyloko5741]

@Deusaga I didn't even think about that

[@Chrispyy__]

I said this to my friends earlier this last year that whenever a hero gets a Mythic skin Blizzard tends to make that hero pretty busted and they called me crazy.

[@Deusaga]

Not necessarily busted, but definitely not a throw pick. They certainly do encourage that hero into the meta.

[@h2woah127]

That’s because you said busted

[@PunchM3]

In the case of widow it’s a yes Only reason I say this is they nerfed Sombra into the ground and removed hanzo’s ability to duel her at range with the draw speed nerf in a quick amount of time before the cosmetic dropped.

[@GaaraFPS]

Don’t forget Kiriko’s nerf for rein’s hammer?

[@PunchM3]

@ true

[@h2woah127]

@@GaaraFPSand other stuff

[@mrkusty3972]

Thank you for the shoutout! One argument that could be made is that the characters who didn’t get buffed during their mythic season are those who can still sell skins, even if they are not strong, due to their HUGE dedicated player base, like Ana, Mercy, and Hanzo. Therefore, they don’t need to be buffed to sell skins.

[@AbbyOW2]

Thanks for your help

[@Deusaga]

They don't always buff the hero directly, but make changes and nerfs to other heroes that indirectly buff the mythic holder. Every season they do this.

[@Cruxis_Angel]

Current widow buff/sombra nuke and suzu nerf with rein buff are clear examples

[@natedavis2944]

That’s goofy though cause that suzu change is something everyone can agree on being good and that’s why you see zero people complaining about it. It is ridiculous that suzu just overwrote the ultimate after the fact

[@ofmoosenmen]

​@@natedavis2944of course it's good, it's the fact it happened only AFTER Rein got a mythic weapon people can spend money on.

[@Deusaga]

Every season is balanced around the mythic holder to some degree. It doesn't have to last the whole season. They may nerf the meta or revert changes in the midseason patch. But in the first half they boost the sales of the BP by ensuring the mythic holder is playable or meta. They encourage playing the mythic hero. It was less apparent earlier on when new heroes were also locked in the BP. Because they also made sure the new hero was meta (except LW, because they didn't know how to make him strong). Them buffing Mauga and going away on holiday for 2 weeks was NOT AN ACCIDENT. They knew how OP he was. It was purely to drive sales of the BP. The fact people were pointing out the new heroes were always super strong was taking away the fact that they also balanced to ensure the mythic holder was meta or at least a good pick. Now that new heroes are not locked behind the BP, it is much more apparent that they are buffing the viability of the mythic holder. Most if not every season had this encouragement. Even Mercy was. They don't have to nerf/buff the mythic holder directly but make changes around them to force/encourage them into meta. Or ensure they're at least not a throw pick. Heroes like Mercy don't need to be touched to make her meta, you just need to buff the heroes she pockets best. In season 10, many heroes that can hunt Mercy down got damage nerfed. Sombra, Tracer, Lucio, Ilari, Moira. Pharah also got her rework buff in S9. This season is the most obvious because Widow is a massive double edged hero where you don't really just make some small changes here and there. They did walk back some of their changes, but they were all to boost widow playtime and fun. Every change was to make playing Widow more fun, whilst trying to make playing against widow less unfun. - Map changes, were in the works but came out in widow season. The aim for the map changes is to make playing brawl and dive comps more feasible into poke/sniper/dive comps. With sniper comps still being favourable. - Buffs to bap/sojourn/hanzo were all to buff poke and encourage poke meta. So Widow can get more play, the other dps is encouraged to play soj/hanzo. The Support is encouraged to play Bap. - Sombra nerf/removal of perma invis. Yes this was in the works, but it's no accident they put it in the widow season. Sombra no longer counters Widow aka make widow unplayable for 90% of the playerbase. - Ram change (that they later reverted) was to ensure barriers were destroyed quickly. Less barriers = more opportunity for Widow to hit her targets. It was most obvious this season, but if you have the eye for it you can see the patterns in every single season. They balance either slightly or greatly around the mythic holder.

[@bean9315]

The Map changes are widow nerfs?? Sigma got nerfed in his mythic season aswell. I feel like it is a lot of cherry picking and ignoring the evidence that counters this. Im pretty sure the balance team and skins teams are literally separate anyway.

[@jakjak9797]

If the hero is on the weaker or less popular side, they’ll find a way to give that hero a bit of a boost in relation to something in the game, so that when that hero is played with their mythic or other highly converted monetisation shop update, that hero can interact with the game in a more favourable way than they might have a season or two prior, yes. I think if you take it too literally, that the entire game gets skewed to make them a must-pick, no, the devs don’t want to make it that obvious nor do they really want to cause a big issue in balance, but take the idea as a subtle push then yes, it’s a thing. now how much it will impact the game is hard for them to judge, sometimes it causes the hero to jump significantly in viability, sometimes it doesn’t, but the idea is to make it feel good to get the shiny new thing and play said shiny new thing with more positive feelings so that other people see it more often and increase the fomo, we are in a fomo economy, that’s how the game is monetised and so yes, the devs will at least somewhat favour heroes with upcoming mythics and collab skins, a hero that is shit isn’t going to sell well, are they?

[@thatonepronoun7503]

been a while without genji nerfs probs fix that

[@Lenottnoblet]

Just like you said when moira or orisa feel bad to play they are quickly buffed when genji or tracer feel bad to play they wait for 10 seasons and still do nothing .To me it seems like they balance the game around how skillfull a hero is aka the super casual player who get mad when they get stompped by a 2000h tracer otp and then they try to play her because they think shes good bc they got stompped then they get mad when they cant do the same ,you could argue that its around who they find annoying to go against but moira and mercy also fit that category the differance is that with moira and mercy they can do the same thing the moira that beat them last game did

[@DxXNA]

Here's the thing.. i think anything before 2024 is irrelevant.. 2024 is when they started laying off their team and as such I believe they had to start making big decisions to increase money or they'd continue to lose more and more people. This year specifically starting around Season 9 not just around buffs&nerfs, but in general where it feels like there's 2-5x more skins made / available and here's where you could potentially say they could be trying things like this. Any other time is occurred it was likely unintended or very subtle. So i'd say Season 9 was the real start of this potentially sketchy behavior, if it's actually occurring. The increase in skin production can also be part of why it feels like there's a skin for buffed hero's as well.

[@thiefpotato2759]

I am pretty sure Ashe got the "Bob has the tank passive" buff around the time of her mythic or in the season where she had. Also, I am pretty sure Ashe was everywhere in my rank at the time she got a mythic. So I would put her in the yes tier. Edit: I don't think they are balancing around Mythic skins. I just think Blizzard has poor foresight and refuses to own up to their bias towards hitscan and "hard" supports. Second Edit: Orisa is buffed constantly because shes is an excuse to not balance the game properly. When Orisa is good, you can't bully the tank with 4 hitscan due to her headshot removal. Anytime shes not good (except for the DVa meta), ranged hitscan just dominate the game.

[@tau-5794]

The fix I can see Orisa getting that bridges this gap between the hitscan and projectile DPS is to simply remove her headshot immunity and buff up her damage resistance to 50%. So this way it punishes players with bad aim more, and rewards those with good aim.

[@aerostrafe1075]

My outlook: "Is it possible for cosmetics to influence balance decisions? Yes because its a business at the end of the day. Money will influence anything." "Does this mean it happens all of the time? No because not every patch can be solely driven by money because it becomes too obvious to the customer." The fact that OW as a community is surprised that this can occur does tell me they only play OW. A lot of FTP games have moments where you can see where the shop had a hand in balance at times.

[@AbbyOW2]

Alot of people in the OW sphere refuse to step out of OW in general.

[@minibaconboi9898]

I actually remember that when a character got a mythic they used to actually get nerfed around that time too (genji, queen, kiri, sigma too I belive)

[@ragingsharp8416]

I actually don’t remember JQ being “meta”, I remember her being broken because of healing but not Meta. I just remembered her being bellow average aside from the broken wound heals at 2X

[@lorddarkhart2775]

I believe they weren't balancing around the shop at the start, but they certainly are now. Point to add to the theory side: All Might Rein didn't have a sound cue for Shatter up until like the last 2 weeks. They listed it in the patch notes as an add on instead of it possibly being a bug.

[@Firestorm-m4m]

I think they def do to a certain extent. When you also factor in that they have certain biases towards characters and take them into account. Hope genji somehow gets a mythic next season, even though he already has one, just for the chance of him receiving even a small buff

[@marcusbullock2753]

I mean isn’t widow meta now?

[@toro_sensei]

one thing with ana mythic was that during that time was when ana was one of the more dominate supports and all the conversations about anti needing nerfed and needing to be a healing reduction instead of negation so there was no need to buff her then, it seems that when characters are on the weaker side and dont have a super high pick rate in all ranks for the most part they get big buffs when they get mythic or in reins case at least when something for him comes out both with the mythic weapon and the MHA skin, the sombra changes aren't that big in terms of development they just tied invis to locator and gave it a 5 sec duration and gave her old passive back with all this convo around temp stealth those changes could have been implemented a long time ago with minimal effort but they so happen to come out when widow gets a mythic, i agree with the statement that in the beginning it didnt seem like it was the case, but now some things are just lining up too much too often to just be a coincidence

[@nihili4196]

IF they are, the question is whenever they just started doing that recently, or were just more subtle until now. I honestly feel like the first option is true, and this is a new-ish trend that only now got noticeable enough

[@TylerPayne21]

Knowing this company's past track record, I would not be surprised anymore. 😒💔

[@darkstrife1]

that dragon blade dash on the Juno mid air around minute 8 was nasty

[@b23beatz]

I think it's not balanced specifically for the skins but if a big skin in coming out maybe every once in a while give that hero a bump

[@tiredjay3000]

6:18 - 6:20 He meant to say Ram

[@AbbyOW2]

Thanks, made the video at like 6AM before heading out for work :P

[@ofmoosenmen]

The most obvious example is that the literal SAME DAY D.Va's Le Seraffim and recolor skins left the shop, she received her nerf. In a time where D.Va was running the game. Its not just mythics. Couple that with the almight Rein "reach". Is two a pattern? No, but it's certainly not coincidence.

[@AbbyOW2]

Oh this is an interesting observation

[@Raidoguy]

I think we’re asking the wrong question here. Instead of wondering if Blizzard intended to buff the character with the mythic skin that season, we should focus on whether they actually did. The answer is mostly no, as shown below. Buff Yes/no? | Score | Timeline | other Notes Genji -> (Yes/No) 0.5 Season 1 | genji got nerfed, before i blinked not even 1 month in JQ -> (later in season) (yes kinda) 1 Season 2 Kiriko -> (did NOT get buffed) 0 Season 3 Sig -> (no) -> 0 Season 4 | TImeline (JQ became OP, because crazy buffs (17th of Mai)) tracer -> (no) (actually got nerfed, because of Bug fix) 0 Season 5 Ana -> (yes/no) (Got nerfed and buffed) 0.5 Season 6 Hanzo -> (no) 0 Season 7 | Timeline (Hog rework) Orisa -> (yes) (second half of season in Jan 2024) 1 Season 8 Moira (def yes) 1 Season 9 Mercy (no) 0 Season 10 | Moira got nerfed Ash (yes) (Second half of the season BOB gained the OPTank passive) 1 Season 11 | Cas got nerfed heavy aswell Reaper (no) 0 Season 12 Widow (yes/no) (BUT sombra got Gutted, so yeah :/) 0.5 Season 13 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total: 5.5 / 13 for yes 7.5 / 13 for no Answer: No, Blizzard mostly did NOT intentionally buff heroes in the season corresponding to the mythic skin. p .s maybe i missed some of the heros counters (on that season) getting nerfed, but that was not the point of this List.

[@Kitten_Catapult]

W video as usual. I am curious to hear your thoughts about Genji being in the meta and how he's now being treated more like a brawl character as opposed to his standard dive role.

[@AbbyOW2]

I know Spilo likes to talk about it like this that Genji's 'evolved' to a 'brawl' hero but I don't like this approach, the reason he's become more brawl based hero now is because he literally cannot do the one shot combos that allowed him to excel as a dive hero, I really want to dive deeper into this topic because to me he's still a traditional dive hero at heart first then yes, his kit is so flexible he can be played in brawl

[@BBQMikeD]

Its rare to play a free-to-play game that doesn't give an incentive to buy skins. Especially from Blizzard/Activision. Theyve been milking their communities on cosmetics for about a decade now so its not really a shocker

[@forthebigwin]

There's something to be said about whether it's "the chicken or the egg" with this argument - were they planning on releasing skins/weapons for this character so they decided to buff them? OR were they planning to buff this character and decided to release a skin/weapon for them? We really have no way of knowing. Realistically speaking I think there's at least SOME truth to both. However, if it's going to degenerate into a trend where we "cycle" buffs to a character to push a product, and then cycle the changes off like a lightswitch, thats just god-awful disingenuous marketing and game design - if this is what they plan on doing, it will be yet another example of how much they dont actually care about the game, and that as passionate and loyal as blizzard and the OW team still claim to be about it, they will sacrifice their own game at the altar of profit when given the chance. That's what OW2 was conceived for after all...ANYWAYS I hope that I'm wrong :D

[@huuREG]

TLDR; yes

[@natedavis2944]

I’ll make the case for rein not being a strong example. Yes they nerfed ram for the mha skin but rein had several collabs already at that point why would they do that for that one? It’s probably more so it’s kinda ridiculous ram can even punch through shields when he’s a better rein in every way with his speed boost, smaller hitbox, more hp and armor, some self sustain, twice the range, and a slow…. But it’s apparently he’s ass if he can’t cheese a rein’s shield got ya. And for the suzu change with the mythic hammer, I mean come on wasn’t everyone complaining about how suzu just removes ults from the game even after the fact but cause it happened around that time it’s wrong? No it’s a good change as well hence why no one says that change was bs.

[@AbbyOW2]

Yeah thats why I said the Rein one was a big stretch

[@0mrmatheusbr0]

Im like 70% sure they are doing it now, i mean its not a secret they already forgive the balance around characters that sell skins like kiriko. its not like they unconsciously made 4 skins in one season for that character, her kit is overtuned and her balance was always that way too, almost never had a real nerf without a compensation buff and the one time she had one was when the rein mythic came out Because she just made the character useless, kiriko was one of the reasons i stopped playing rein when i started in ow2...suspicious at the very least, now with this sombra 'rework' when widow gets a mythic and now that you mentioned those ram changes too...idk seems like they are doing it, not for every character but they are. And looking that way, it looks like they are setting up a ball skin or something? those little buffs and the new sombra is just heaven for ball, but he is not a popular character so i doubt he gets a mythic any time soon.

[@bean9315]

If it feels 50/50, then its probably not the case. I doubt the skins and balance teams communicate that much

[@leonzchannelz]

Venture will be meta when her skin finally drops

[@Rezlusiowa]

0:39 sig received nerf with mythic skin sooo... and he wasnt meta up until sig rush in late s6

[@_EXP626_]

No, extremely likely it’s not. But if in the season that Venture is supposed to get their first legendary skin, they buff Venture, then I’m hopping on the hate wagon.

[@rage_tv4493]

i mean the proof is in the pudding. but yea 1 more instance and it’s 100% true

[@dsvd4727]

How is that extremely likely, there is a consistent pattern with only few outliers, which don't disprove it

[@afterthought9538]

I think it's just coinicidence. I could see it as an incentive to be *slow* about nerfing a hero who *just happens* to be strong at the time they get their mythic.

[@SpktraSK]

Please show me the tens of Orisa skins they have been selling the seasons where she was meta. Or the 10 season long mercy meta we apparently have been having. Please understand that skins go to popular characters, and people like popular characters in the meta. It's not directly related to skins, it's just a side effect of people liking the characters.

[@b23beatz]

Did you watch the video or? You're just typing for no reason lol?

[@AbbyOW2]

@@b23beatz Leave it, if he couldn't pay attention to the video there is no reason for me to entertain his actual question

[@carlossolorzanoescobar4945]

fortgot to mention they nerfed sombra while widow mythic

[@Karlmut]

what rank are you btw

[@willtheconqueror6148]

Dude of course they do. Overwatch is losing players so the only thing they can do is sell the heroes they sexualize. They even posted about Kiriko’s feet on the official OW Twitter. That tells you everything you need to know

[@its_lucky252]

4:04 third. season 1, 6, and 8

[@GoldenKing456]

illari main here, she doesnt really get touched up on or anything, at least nothing major, but at about the main topic, i think blizzard isnt buffing cuz of skins or anything, i think this argument is only being mad cuz of the widow and sombra and ram and rein

[@AbbyOW2]

There's previous cases outside of those too to be fair.

[@anthonyfarias5076]

​@@AbbyOW2was this a thing in ow1? Idk, I didn't play it, what was the balance philosophy in ow1? From what i've seen about the history of ow1 there was a lot of things that seemed stupid broken (not just brig).

[@rage_tv4493]

i mean look at genji season 1 they buffed him with the transition and then gutted him.

[@AbbyOW2]

@@rage_tv4493 He wasn't buffed with the transition this is just misinformation.

[@rage_tv4493]

@ i consider the DPS passive a buff sue me

[@geert574]

they balance to make it as scripted and sweaty as call of duty

[@brycenb2994]

Of course a channel like this would be making a serious video about a meme topic. For every 10 skins that got positive changes correlating to a new skin you could list 100 that remains neutral or got nerfed with new skins. Videos like this are why conspiracy theories exist. Just a ton confirmation bias. Sombra is stil good Into widow and ram’s changes affected ALL barriers and weren’t even a direct nerf. Just a shift of power

[@AbbyOW2]

It is a light hearted discussion it is literally not that deep bro tf you on about 'conspiracy theories' i myself already discussed this topic before on a livestream and on twitter that I do not believe this to be the case but I wanted to see the youtube communities feed back

[@KaiPurge]

I am starting to think so many people are just afraid to admit that mercy isn't weak because of fear of pissing off mercy mains. Mercy isn't weak. Rez and Damage boost will always be super strong. Her mobility is high as well. I have seen it across all ranks from big streamers all the way to metal ranks. Its time to stop being afraid of mercy mains.

[@AbbyOW2]

Mercy is by far the worst support in the game. No one is 'afraid' of Mercy mains, she gets farmed hard and destroyed at higher levels of play.

[@KaiPurge]

@@AbbyOW2 really? every few months everyone across every rank complains about damage boost...then some new support comes out, people play the heck out of them in mirror matches until they get bored. then the cycle repeats of everyone going back to complaining about mercy damage boost in every rank. There are still youtube videos that pop up every few months of your masters and above players complaining about damage boost. I have been playing since late 2016 and it always happens.

[@fractalelf7760]

Well yeah of course it is…

[@PlainDoll]

Yes

[@JamesWins-m4u]

1st off you seem like a cool dude and I've watched a few of your videos. I watched this one awhile ago now I'm getting to my comment Bro I can tell you are a fan of the ow franchise and that breaks my heart because you couldn't pick a worse franchise to be a fan of and it's not your fault You basically end this video saying there's a 50 50 chance they are balancing around skins To which I ask if there is only a 50 50 chance why even make this video? What I mean by that is as a KZbinr you've clearly seen this is a topic of conversation and if it's false most of the time it won't get enough gas to become the topic of conversation Let's keep in mind we're talking about the same company that marketed and hyped a sequel that was the exact same game with minor changes all while missing the features they marketed. No one asked for a sequel. No one asked for pve. They chose to market those things most likely because of the state of the original game and player base only to basically lie add a battle pass and act like everything's fine This is also the same company that while a few games have skill based mmr. OW2 is the worst. COD is pretty bad. But literally I had a pit stop in OW2 the other day (I normally play SW battlefront 2, DB xenoverse 2, or cod I hate OW) I chose to play ramattra. 1st game in about a few weeks I kid you not I had 60 eliminations 1st game with ramattra (I know that's not crazy impressive he's broken) Guess how the literal next game went 🤣 Me and my time while I'm playing the same character couldn't even touch point my teammates got rolled so bad And that's this games skill based mmr. Every game 1 team is rolling the other there is 0 competitiveness Forced 50/50 also makes it impossible to rank up past where the mmr puts you and streamers don't count because they could very well have they're own lobbies making it easier to not only win but play the game in a way they can upload clips to KZbin So if the same company would do those things. Why is it even a conversation of if they would balance the game around skins 🤣 Ain't no 50/50 chance they've already done worse than that bro ofcourse at this point they might as well 🤣😂🤣

[@rage_tv4493]

yes

[@PyroManiacOW]

Nope, it's not