I’ve played the beta for a little while and there’s a few issues which whilst not game breaking, I’d like to see changed just to make the overall gameplay experience better, just because they were kinda annoying. I’ve played about 30 PvP matches and played the two story missions once over. Some of these are quite nitpicky, but I feel like everyone’s talking about major balance changes right now, and nobody’s mentioned some of the other issues.
First up, I’d love to see another support character added to the roster. I have no doubt that new characters would be in the pipeline for DLC waves in future, if not already. I really enjoy playing Reyna and Miko (haven’t unlocked Ambra yet), but I feel like without them there is no sort of reliable sustainability in a match, especially for squishy characters. When playing a DPS character that lacks life steal, like Phoebe, I have to teleport back to base very often to regen health. This is offset with gear and skill builds, but only slightly. I’d love to see supports widely encouraged and an essential part of a team, like they are in MOBAs, but with only 3 to choose from on a roster of 25 they’re a rarity in the matches I’ve played. Maybe a character who could make a teleporter so my team can keep up a push.
My next big issue is communication. It seems to me like this game could be fantastic with proper co-ordination and teamwork, but I only have one friend playing the beta right now and efforts to communicate to my team in solo queue fall literally on deaf ears, whether because of a lack of microphone or the language barrier. For example, after engaging a thrall camp with a friendly Galilea, the Galilea ran off back to mid. As she was leaving, an enemy Rath showed up, killed me, took the thrall camp, and I couldn’t communicate to the Galilea to just turn around and come back to help. I would suggest some kind of chat wheel, like in DOTA or TF2, where set responses such as ‘Help!’ or ‘Go!’ are broadcast to your team. I’ve seen the excuse ‘But it’s a team game’ thrown around in balance change threads plenty, but when communicating is nigh impossible, the argument doesn’t really hold up.
I’ve not seen any discussion about this so I’d like to mention it here: do you think you should be able to see the other team’s picks as you pick yours? I think it could bring about an interesting metagame, and at the very least it’d improve team composition. Right now I just feel like people are picking heroes that are powerful or the heroes they want to play, rather than making an informed decision. At the very least it’d help me avoid picking Montana against a team with a Marquis and Thorn.
A couple minor tweaks are all that’s left for me to think of.
When playing Reyna it takes me at least 2-3 times to apply an over shield to a friendly, because they’re usually jumping around or sprinting and the searchbox for applying the over shield is just a bit too small. There’s been a few times when I could’ve saved a friendly on low health but I missed them as they were sprinting and jumping away.
Phoebe’s hitbox on her melee swings seems really narrow. I get that she uses a rapier and stabs rather than slashes, but other common melee characters like Rath or Galilea have a melee combo which ends in a spin, making it much easier to put damage on people without having to aim very much. After closing the gap with Phoebe, enemies can easily just hop around like a frog and I have trouble hitting them. Maybe I’m just bad, but if the phase gate slow gene was replaced with something like a gravity effect which stops people from jumping that’d be perfect. Just an idea, but otherwise the way Phoebe plays to me is just fine.
I never take Rath’s double jump gene in his skill tree, because after double jumping, his skirt obscures the entire screen when he looks down while falling. I want to jump up onto high objects and then come down for an ambush but I literally can’t see anything on my way down.
I’d love a wider FoV or smaller viewmodels for certain characters. The screen can get so obscured depending on who you’re playing. For characters like Orendi, Reyna, Miko, etc I don’t think it’s an issue, but when swinging Phoebe’s rapier around I can’t see the right hand side of my screen. Don’t get me started on Attikus either.
Bugs (PS4): when being hit by a skill which knocks me upward, like Montana’s stomp, I’ve been sent into orbit instead. It’s happened 3 times now I think. It’s funny when it happens, and not exactly unfair because I always come back down within 5 seconds or so, but still, it needs fixed.
First time I played Thorn on Meltdown I spawned without my bow. No model onscreen and I couldn’t shoot either. I could zoom and cast my skills (blight worked as intended but barrage failed to shoot seeing as I didn’t have my bow, yet the skill went on cool down all the same). Taunting and teleporting to base didn’t fix. I had to die, respawn, then everything was fine.
I’d love it if you guys made all the characters playable in the final few days, just for kicks.
Had a lot of fun with this game so far. Gearbox did an awesome job with Benedict. Favourite hero to play so far. Thanks for listening and let me know what you guys think, though I’d appreciate if balance discussions were saved for another thread.