A madman's rantings

With this being part 1 of some changes i'd like to see i'd like to address the problem i see in Overwatch. With a new balance patch on the horizon a lot of people are hoping for goats to be removed.  The problem i have is that goats isn't the issue, its that players are forced to play with only one strategy. To be the bearer of bad news - goats is a legitimate strategy and should be an option.  We need to strive for multiple viable strategies on each map, not completely remove those that we don't like. If goats goes away then double sniper becomes the dominate comp, if we take that away then dive comes back.  This trend will take you back through the strong comps and leave you with the same issues.  A boring repetitive play style or being forced to play what is deemed "correct".  The most popular idea I've heard so far is that a ban system would fix this. While at first glance it looks like a good answer since you can ban a strategy out, it actually ...

I was told I should start writing some of my ideas about Overwatch down, specifically on upcoming changes.  While I missed calling the shots on the torb re-work, I did want to think about Roadhog and the changes they could have in store for him.  All we were told is that they needed an animation for the change.  As always i threw out a couple guesses, like a one handed reload so he could heal and hook while shooting, it doesn't bring to light some of the core issues I have with him. I'll start off saying i'm a huge fan of hog, always have been and always will.  The main reason?  Shotguns.  I've always enjoyed the super shotgun from Quake 2 and the double barrel from doom.  It was always super satisfying to get a meaty shot and take someone out in one hit.  The trick was never the shotgun itself, it was how you moved and positioned yourself that made the weapon so great.  Roadhog has this Wimpy (from popeye) philosophy.  You'll trade a ...

This will be more of a blog post, less paper like.   It's finally starting to happen more often, an event that I saw coming for years is now happening in OWL.  Teams are beginning to run a scout such as Boston Uprising’s Striker who ran Sombra to scout the enemy team composition and then teleported back to spawn to change their line-up.  It seems unremarkable in every way so What’s the big deal about this?   One of the inherent advantages the offense has over the defense is that they have the ability to change their hero picks with little to no drawbacks.  Spawn is usually closer for the attackers and in most cases, attackers are the one who initiate combat.  This means that defense cannot up and leave the point to go to spawn due to threat of an attack at any time.  After a death would be the only good time they are able to change heroes.  Ideally, the offense should always have an advantage over the defense when it comes t...

Core Design There’s been a lot of talk in the Overwatch community on what the developers wanted, about what they expected and how things have played out during release.  The hottest of these topics currently is the idea of hero swapping, counters, one tricks, and how Overwatch was designed around it.  How this “core idea” must be followed and if it isn’t then according to the masses you’re not playing Overwatch correctly.  The problem I have with the “core idea” of counter picking is that there is very little follow through displaying it. While it’s true that some heroes have an advantage over others, it’s been shown that its nowhere near the absolute need to change your hero.  We’ve all won games with a disadvantageous matchup where you “should” lose.  Furthermore, a majority of changes in the game have been made opposite of this “core idea”.  Bastion, Symettra, Torbjorn, Junkrat, Reaper and Pharah have all changed so that they are more effective ...

This is my random blog where i'll post some of my thoughts and observations on overwatch and game design.  Not sure how often or how large my updates will be but i'll try to make them interesting!