A madman's rantings

The idea that I originally had for this post was a discussion on the paradox of "a solved game has no value" and "in all games there will emerge a META" (a most efficient answer available). Researching this topic has lead me down a rabbit hole that can only be described as understanding the core mechanics of game longevity.  We're going to follow the path I took and cover the major ways to increase a games life span after my realization from the initial paradox.      To follow my initial idea we'll need to agree on a couple things.  The first is that a solved game has little replayability and low value as a game .  The best example of this would be tic-tac-toe, anyone that has played the game and can look ahead even a little will always be able to force the game into a draw.  This is why its at the top of most hated games across the web.  You can teach kids basic concepts with it but as a game its worthless.  The second idea is that there will always be a be

While streaming Overwatch I've been asked a significant amount of times how do I not tilt.  I usually say something about fighting and getting use to being hit in the face and how it helps me deal with tilting but I finally got around to thinking about it and how to put it into words.  To be perfectly clear, I'm sure there are multiple ways to learn how not to tilt/get upset but this is the method I believe that helped me the most and the great part about it is that it has actual progression unlike players and coaches saying "just get over it" , "get thicker skin" or "don't be mad". Before anything everyone needs to understand that when I say "I do not tilt at all" is a lie.  It's unreasonable to try and divest yourself that much from something you're putting effort into.  Not getting upset is one thing but don't fool yourself that you won't feel anything.  It's not a healthy goal nor a reasonable expectation, you&

I'm challenging myself to be more concise in this one, sorry if it ends up like it always does. I've discussed this point two years ago but would like to revisit it based on some new realizations. Let me briefly recap what I discussed before and add in what I've recently discovered from my last post about OW and it's mechanics, I want to specifically target OW's concept of simplicity causing most of these issues.  The other point I want to solidify is what I want from a balanced game.  In my mind a balanced game is where the each member of the cast can use their unique strength to have an impact on any map, point or composition.  While they won't be the most optimal picks they should never be useless or eclipsed so significantly by everyone else that there's no point in ever playing them. Why niche heroes don't work well in OW The first issue is that a niche hero can't be too strong in their niche.  This is because if they have a 100% chance to win

This discussion is going to require a bit of setup.  To talk about what I believe is wrong with Overwatch I will have to step all the way back to the fundamental ideas Blizzard based this game off of.  While Blizzard has not shown or talked about these values we can get a good guess based on their design and balance philosophy.  Once established we can discuss the current roles in Overwatch, how the fundamental ideas shaped them and how they compare to the popular roles across other game genres.  This will set us up to finally discuss the issues we're seeing in today's version of Overwatch.  Finally at that point we can properly discuss the direction we want Overwatch to go towards.  This will leave us in an open ended state on how to accomplish these changes.  Again, I'm not Blizzard so I don't know what their exact method is for design but the method I'm going to show here will be similar to the concept Jeff Kaplan talks about when he asks players to vent how the

Just a quick reference to Overwatch's damage and how a hero's damage compares with and without reloading.  Why does this make a difference?  Some heroes such as Junkrat are said to have high shield break but are actually #8 in DPS when accounting for reload.  Another example is that Ashe and mercy have the same DPS with their primary fire.  Ashe's reload lowers her consistent DPS quite considerably but the greatest difference is Doomfist.  Doomfist has burst damage comparable to reaper but because of his long reload it appears closer a support. Name Role DPS w/ Reload DPS w/o Reload Difference Bastion Sentry DPS 405 500 -95 reaper DPS 204 280 -76 Hanzo DPS 167 167 0 symmetra (Max) DPS 159 181 -22 tracer DPS 152 240 -88 Dva Tank 147 147 0 zarya (Max) Tank 129 170 -41 Junkrat DPS 126 185 -59 roadhog Tank 120 176 -56 Bastion Recon DPS 119 160 -41 soldier DPS 118 173 -55 Baptiste Support 117 124 -7 sigma Tank 73 73 0 Echo DPS 112 155 -43 torbjorn M2 DPS 110 156 -46 orisa Tank 1