The balance in Overwatch is a difficult topic. The community often has very different opinions than the statistics.
The ultimate challenge for developers in most MMOs is to establish a proper balance. Which character is good against which? Which hero wins too often? Whose abilities are too weak? In a perfect (and quite utopian) world, every player would win 50% of the time with every hero in Overwatch. Then the balance would be complete.
In an interview with colleagues from Eurogamer, Jeff Kaplan discussed how difficult it is to properly balance the game and explained the concept of the “balance triangle”.
According to him, there are 3 different points that developers consider when balancing heroes:
- the pure statistics
- the community perception
- the perception and intuition of the developers
Occasionally, the triangle swings equally in all three areas – for example, when an ability is too strong, something both developers and players recognize and is backed up by statistics. However, this is not always the case, and often the statistics do not align with the perception of the players or developers.
He also mentioned a special example. Originally, Symmetra was a hero who won far too often – according to the statistics, she was therefore too strong. However, this did not match the community’s perception, as most saw a Symmetra pick as an “instant loss”. Here, the development team knew it wouldn’t be enough to just tweak the numbers. Because according to the statistics, she would need to be nerfed, which would further diminish her standing in the eyes of players.
The solution here was a rework with a fundamental overhaul of many of her abilities.
In general, balance can never be “perfect” – that is simply not possible.
Are you satisfied with the balancing of Overwatch and the work of the developers?
