New player: Game seems heavily unbalanced?

General Discussion
1

I just got Overwatch, played the Tutorial and KI match, etc. Then a few matches against other players.

We won a few games and we lost a few games. The games we lost, we literally stood no chance. And the games we won, the opponents literally stood no chance. There was no “in between” and it felt completely unbalanced for either side.

This feels a bit underwhelming. Whats the problem here? Or is the balance of the game really bad?

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The game can feel like that if people aren’t swapping to counter the other team properly and just doggedly remaining on their initial pick. Whilst some characters are arguably overpowered or underpowered, usually games tend to have a good ebb and flow of win-loss and you can end up with a lot of really close matches.

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3

That’s just the nature of QP for you.

Everyone just plays what they want and keep the hero even if it’s not working and insteads trying to counter their counter (which is entirely possible with some heroes)and don’t care about winning.
I don’t mind it’s QP for a reason but this means that a big part of QP is a stomp.
Their are matches were entire teams switch to counter or at least even up with the enemy team and then you get close matches.
Too be fair, I don’t really play comp all that much but when I do the more even matches are a lot more frequent cause people are incentivised more to swap cause people generally want to win there.

4

Welcome to overwatch.

There are times when you get a close match, those are the ones I think we all play for but they are far and few between.

5

Sad to say that your experience is legit and accurate. As others have pointed out, that when a match is good it really is Good in OW. The best way to improve your time with the game is to get a microphone and use it, even if no one else does this. Being able to simply call out an enemy in your back line (and hopefully someone reacts to this) makes the game much more worthwhile. And oh, just ignore if someone starts to flame in the voice chat, that I’m afraid can’t be helped — it will happen.

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Sometimes they get it right. (Look at how they changed Sombras Stealth Ability so it has no limit but no longer affects the point/payload) and sometimes they get it wrong like Torb (They is no risk to reword with his turret now)

7

I don’t think u even read the thread lol

This is exactly how this game works most times: either you stomp or get stomped. Literally the worst matchmaking i’ve ever experienced in a game…

I’d say this is probably one of the main reasons why people quit Overwatch.

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Keyword “can”

Keywords “all that much”

Yup, that’s all you can expect from OW, stomp or get stomped. In comp, you get 2 people that play only Genji, and 2 people that play only Mercy, and the other side gets people that can combine nice comp by not switching off their mains. And, they call it ballanced. Because if by any means they would move that one Genji and that one Mercy to enemy team(and give you 2 players from enemy side) the balance would be broken(you wouldn’t have 50-50 chances to win the match … I mean, whoever thought that having two guys who can’t play other heroes on level they’re at vs guys who get to play all their strongest heroes is a 50-50 chance to win, is probably on drugs or something… because that makes no sense at all.
So, you got to master, you’re thinking games now will be much better then diamond … you check their team - they have people who play tanks, they have dps, they have healers. You check your team … 3 Mercy mains, or so called one tricks with not a minute on any other heroes in comp, and it’s 50-50 chance of winning … your team gets rekt hard, but it was 50-50 chance of winning
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At some point in the game people were outraged by Mercy mains(it was Blizzard’s fault obviously), there was a huge anti-Mercy campaign, and mostly people from high ranks, and it apparently succeeded …
But, that’s why we have smurfs to make percentages more believable.
And we also have private profiles now, so you won’t be able to see how good matchmaking is …
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Lol, pessimist, Keywords are “more frequent”.
I played enough comp to see were the effort is put in more.
I don’t play comp because toxicity is rampant there and i’m more for the casual arcade and QP modes.

The fact is that close matches can actually happen anywhere but statistically you’re gonna have them more in comp then anywhere else cause the objective of players in general there is to win.

The thing you’re doing is just putting the blame on anyone but yourself.
Look im not the highests of elo so never really ran into GOATS but even in some of the comp matches i’ve played and especially in QP i have seen the most ridiculous comps win over standard 2-2-2’s.

i’m also not a support or tank main but yet i have slow but steadily been climbing when in comp I rarely get to play what i actually want cause i flex to atleast have 1 support or main tank.

And also expecting matchmaking to be perfect in any game is ridiculous.

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Others? Really? I only blame Blizzard … there’s no others.
If you get 2 people in master or grandmaster that play same hero and only that hero, you’re going to lose if enemies don’t have the same situation. Like I’ve told you before, there were situations where you would get 3 players who only play Mercy. High ranked players hated Mercy with a passion just because of that.
I mean, it’s not player’s fault, they just play their hero, and play them good enogh for high ranks, but they don’t play(or even can’t play) any other hero at same level. So, whose fault is that? Blizzard’s match making.

Perfect? I’d be fine with not bad… I don’t know, maybe match making today is excellent, it was a long time, players in high ranks maybe play multiple heroes now, so it doesn’t matter if you get 3 Mercy mains if they can play other heroes at same skill level … we’ll need someone active from high ranks to tell us.
But back in the days, somewhere up untill season 6-7-8, matchmaking was pretty bad(you could tell with 90% accuracy if it’s a win or loss by just looking at players’ profiles, which is obviously bad).

12

From what I can tell, people are just playing AI to farm xp without effort. You do not find many people picking based on group need.

In any other mode, it is all teamwork and composition. The ability to counterpick effectively is huge. If you are solo queue, you are going to find yourself winning less. Grouping up and communicating helps a ton.

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And looking at profiles and knowing who wins the match ? That’s exactly why private profiles exist because of people like you tilting before the game even starts.
This is why i said you but the blame on anyone but you.

Ever considered that you going into a game expecting to lose is also contributing to your loss ?

And in Low Elo’s litterally any kind of comp can win as long as a few people play something they are good at.

Also you are presenting something like it’s a legit problem in high ranks when you have 0 experience there.

This can also only ever be a problem when there is a phase like a super OP Mercy to even have this happen with any regularity. Cause as soon as they are nerfed the players drop down again.

Most GM players I have seem have enough Game sense and Raw mechanics to make a multitude of heroes work for them.
So your suggested situation of everyone being the same 1trick impacting their certainty off a win or loss should begetting incredibly smaller.

14

Its the matchmaker’s fault. By creating 50/50 games they completely unbalance them because they require certain players to carry. if they cant? Be prepared for a stomp.

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No, I played comp when stats climbing was a thing … in low ranks I wouldn’t care what you pick … The worse the team, the better SR gain, and faster climbing. Doesn;t matter if you lose, as long as you lose small amounts of SR, and get a lot more when you win ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t know if you played in high ranks, and I can’t say how high-ranks look today, since I stopped playing comp somewhere around season 6-7-8 … but back than, 2 Mercy mains in your team meant defeat … I doubt it changed, but who knows …¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Like I said, the worse your team, the better SR gain. That works today too, up to diamond … ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, I did climb old Hanzo to master, I unsuccessfully mained Mei in diamond(like very low diamond, I was certain at the time I could get Mei to master … but I guess I wasn’t good enough ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), and I still have access to like several my accounts from bronze to plat, so … I also have few quick-play only accounts for trolling - I blame it all on discounts¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mmm, I don’t know how you imagine that, but people who only play Mercy, and are in high ranks can’t really play other heroes(because they never played other heroes seriously, those who play other heroes as well can … that;s why people create smurfs). You don’t need to know how to play all heroes to get to high ranks. I don’t know if anyone even plays Mercy in high ranks today(after nerfs, but don’t really care ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
People play meta heroes, many were meta(or metish) from the begging(so you needn’t change from season 1), it’s expected to see same heroes over and over again…

Mmm, so, you think they pick a hero, and do exactly the same as other GMs on that hero immediately?
Doesn’t work like that. If you’re GM Genji, you’ll have little problem to transition fast to Tracer, or even Doomfist, etc. If you’re GM Widow, you’ll have little problem to transition fast to Mcree, Ana, or now Ashe … I’d say even Hanzo, Soldier, why not.
If you’re GM Mercy, well, I don’t know, Mercy is a unique hero … ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That’s not suggested situation, that’s how it happened. Matchmaking would match few people who main one hero on one side and various mains on the other. Depending on that, you’d stomp or get stomped. And that also created a lot of problems with “me Genji or throw”, so yeah. Sometimes, you’d have a smurf who won’t play other hero but their hero(because wanting 100% hero playtime in stats), and there wasn’t this auto-report system, so you even wouldn’t get banned for being a d. So, you know that’s defeat, but it’t not like the end of the world or something…
They could resolve that easily, but they’ve chosen not to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nope, private profiles exist so you don’t force others into playing what they want, or report if they don’t. I don’t get why you behave like losing is the end of the world ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You win some, you lose some … it’s only lame when you see that match making could match people better, and not serve us that tall story about 50% win chance, when you have few otps of the same hero in your team, that was almost always a loss. That’s not 50% win chance, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.
Now, after all these discounts, people do have a lot of smurf accounts, so some, especially old players, can prob play 5-10 heroes at their level, that’s why I’m saying we need someone active to tell us if it’s better … but I doubt it did ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, one would think that 50/50 means equal teams, equal players, equal chances to win - balance … not 3 Mercy OTPs on one side… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

16

You are level 5.

If you are truly a brand new player, what happens is that everything is new; you pretty much don’t know what to expect, or what heroes do what and when.

And since low levels are matched with each other, two things occur:

  • The other new players are still clueless and trying to figure out the game, doing random things;
  • some of the other low levels are actually ‘smurfs’ (aka veteran players that bought a new account and are just playing QuickPlay to get to level 25 and enter Competitive).

These experienced ‘new’ players already know the mechanics of the game, not to mention map layouts, flanking routes, healthpack locations…

As a result, the teams are ultra disorganized and the one with the biggest number of ‘hidden veterans’ will win hands down.

For these first couple of dozen levels, pick up a easy hero (I recommend Soldier 76 if you have previous FPS experience, as he plays just like a CoD character, Mercy if you have a RPG background as healer, Reinhardt if you played tanks in RPGs), and focus more on exploring the maps, seeing what is needed to win each one of them, what each hero does and how generally keys and mechanics work.

You’re learning a new game - it takes a while to get used to it.

(my first games in OW were ones of ‘clueless shooting random things’)

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17

Welcome to Overwatch… You have just discovered that QP abysmal. Wait till you go into ranked and find out it’s just as bad, only you actually lose something from it.

18

Couple of things:

  1. You are very new, so the game doesn’t quite know where to put you. It gets less wild in terms of your team mates. Also: use play vs AI to learn the maps and heroes, that way you can have more impact on QP or later competitive by chosing the hero that is needed.
  2. QP can be a random FFA. Sometimes all 5 team mates pick DPS, that makes it hard. Sometimes one of them plays a tank they only know a tiny bit, that makes it hard. Sometimes the tank is actually decent, but gets fed up by underperforming, swapping to DPS, dooming your team. If you pick a tank or support yourself and ask (nicely!) in chat whether someone else wants to do the other role, you have a good chance at a 1-1-4 comp (all those comp names are number of tanks-number of supports-number of dps, with 2-2-2 being generally the best mixture) which already is a lot better to play.
  3. Do you want competitive early? No, you don’t. It’s annoying, because CP is where there’s more balance, while at the same time you’re expected to know the maps and be flexible which needs more time than level 25. There are some arcade modes that are great for learning (3v3/6v6 elims if you want to learn a specific role with multiple hero choices, Mystery Heroes if you want to learn all the heroes and maps with major random elements to deal with, Total Mayhem if you want to train using ultimates, FFA DM if you want to learn how to aim in circumstances that’ll never occur in the actual game, 4v4 DM if you want to be annoyed with your team mates without the hassle of playing competitive).
  4. Be nice, communicate a lot, play the selfless roles and play them well. You will get endorsements (it’s basically a “hey, 'twas nice playing with you”), and if your endorsement level is high, you are more likely to be matched with other people with a high endorsement level (i.e. helpful, versatile, flexible, non-toxic people).
19

The game is unbalanced. Dont’ take the game seriously and it can be an enjoyable casual team based shooter. Which is what it’s designed to be.

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20

Well the matchmaking works like every other competetive game pretty much, except LoL, who recently changed theirs for the same reasons as Overwatch is changing to role queue.

The matchmaking is actually not at fault as much as the playerbase and people in general for being unwilling to play the game as intended. The problem there is, how slow Blizzard has been to listen to the feedback given and act upon it.

21

Don´t go around spreading false information, it is a E-sports FPS. I branches more heavily towards an aspect of hero shooter, but still.