A new patch for Overwatch came out recently and I guess we'll no longer be seeing amazing highlight clips like this:
Courtesy REA Ko YouTube channel
Very skill. Much Korean. Wow.
With the update came the nerf hammer, and it came down hard on McCree and Widowmaker, leading to important changes to the in-game functionality of those characters. Most people knew something like this was coming as the community had been discussing problems with McCree and Widow for some time. McCree has been a staple of competitive play for a while with teams even running 2x McCrees due to his massive damage potential, while Widow is much the same story with almost every competitive team comp consisting of a Widow in order to be viable.
To address perceived issues with the two heroes Blizzard chose to nerf McCree's right click damage from 70 to 45 and decreased the delay between consecutive fan the hammers. At the same time Widowmaker's body shot damage was decreased, her ultimate charge cost increased AND she no longer has the ability to quick scope. Ouch.
Taken from the patch notes, the developers had this to say about the Widowmaker changes:
"In the right hands, Widowmaker can often feel unstoppable—even when just landing body shots instead of critical heads shots. The changes to her alternate fire weaken body shot damage while leaving her headshot damage unchanged. Additionally, we felt her Ultimate ability, Infra-Sight, was coming up a little too frequently, especially considering its impact on the game."
What's my problem?
I understand and agree with the reasoning behind the patch as a whole. Ultimately I believe the game and community will be better as a result. However, I philosophically disagree with the Widow changes. The damage decrease is good, but probably would have been more than enough to curb the hero's power level. Did we really need to nerf the scope cool down too? They didn't even mention that change in the comments - like it was some after-thought or inconsequential. It's actually not. Though one change may seem small it has multiple significant after-effects to Widowmaker's play style.
UPDATE: At the time of writing the developers had not directly addressed Widowmaker's scope cool down. They have since responded via the following forum post: http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20745186024?page=3
Let me explain
My ideology on game design which trickles down to my ideology on what should and shouldn't be nerfed is this: players should be given options. Specifically, players should be given choices in style of play. As she stands now, in order to scope, Widow needs to wait for each scope animation to finish before scoping again. The current patch removes Widowmaker's previous ability to quick scope, reducing movement, thus removing styles of play, thus reducing the overall depth of the game.
An example of different Quake 3 movement styles courtesy of hoxeg YouTube channel
“Rocket jump? That sounds dangerous” – Pharah
A good example of my design philosophy is the Quake series. Quakes 1-3 are widely regarded by professional players as some of the most well designed and balanced competitive games of all time. The Quake series showcases a bevy of different play style choices by way of distinct weapons and (an oft-overlooked area of game design) movement styles. Weapons in Quake are balanced and varied, each having their own unique strengths and weakness. Strafe jumping, bunny hopping and clipping allow for a multitude of different movement techniques. Players are free to choose exactly what weapon they feel fit for any situation. Varying movement styles allow for new map routes, access to previously inaccessible areas and more. How and when a player decides to implement these options results in diverse outcomes and an added depth of play. This allows for a higher skill ceiling, a profound level of strategy and a better game overall.
What's your point?
Circling back to Overwatch, the Widowmaker changes are important for a few reasons. One reason is because there are so many of them. Another is because of how the scope cool down change affects the hero. Not only does it affect how she fires her weapon, but her movement as well. My fear is that with all the changes, the Widows of the future will be restricted to only one style of play -- camp, shoot, camp, shoot. What if Blizzard had just nerfed Widow's damage rather than changing three different aspects of the hero? What if they just lowered her damage instead? What if they just lowered her damage and maybe changed her ult? At this point we may never know the answers to those questions. What I really fear is that this line of design thinking is pervasive among Blizzard's Overwatch team. That the removal of play style options will persist among iterations of both current and future heroes.
A better solution?
If there's ever a need to rethink a character my suggestion would be this:
- Players and teams should be given the opportunity to sort out a counter on their own before considering any changes
- Blizzard should implement small updates a bit at a time. i.e. nerf Widow’s damage, see results, then revisit if she's still a problem.
- Other characters should be buffed, reworked or introduced in order to deal with the problem
"This dog’s learned a few new tricks" - Soldier 76
Now, I'm not saying Quake and Overwatch should be the same, nor do I want them to be. They're two different genres of games. My opinion on the design philosophy remains the same though. Players should be given options rather than have them taken away. The original Quake games were some of the best of all time due to the design decisions which allowed for varying play styles. There's a reason the best, most hardcore professional players still compete and love Quake. There's a reason they just announced a reboot of the series with an eSports focus at E3. While we're in a more contemporary era of gaming now, the new school games may stand to learn a thing or two from the old jack games that came before them.
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