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Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

HoTS Game Designer thoughts on current Dva situation.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/heroes/topic/20758206242#post-17

Hey guys, I'm Alex from the Live/Balance Team and I wanted to chime in here.

At the time of the nerfs to D.Va, she had the 5th highest winrate in Hero League (~54%) for players that had leveled her to 10 or higher (our standard metric). She was behind only Malthael, Uther, Ragnaros, Probius, and Tassadar. A lot of those Heroes have also received nerfs since that point in time.

We also find that newer Heroes continue to trend up for a while, and our personal experience told us that players were still learning to be really effective with D.Va, so we believed that nerfs were correct.

She's now at 48%, and anecdotally I've never been upset to see a D.Va in my games (nor felt like I shouldn't play her when the team composition made sense).

It's very likely that we'll do more Talent tuning as we progress, which will likely result in buffs to some of the under-performing Talents. Overall, we won't always hit it perfectly the first time, as each Hero reacts differently to tuning, but we're always watching and will continue to make adjustments to get it right eventually. We care deeply for each Hero that is released, and want to see them have a nice place in the Nexus.

GG WP!

  • Neyman
    Posted 7 years, 2 months ago (Source)

    I was really hoping for a better reasoning than "she had a highish winrate." She was at 54% when Malthael was at 59% and got the worse of the nerfs!

    She's now at 48%, and anecdotally I've never been upset to see a D.Va in my games (nor felt like I shouldn't play her when the team composition made sense).

    And 48 is better than 54, why? Because it's closer to 50? Is that the only factor Blizz even thought about when changing her? Because that's just...silly. We just saw substantial nerfs to a 47% winrate character - deserved substantial nerfs - so clearly blizzard should be aware that being at 50% is not the end goal for every character. Some should be higher in a balanced state, some lower. Some by a little, some by a lot.

    It's very likely that we'll do more Talent tuning as we progress

    I've got very little faith left at this point. Fully expect some shit buff to nanoweave or something that won't even impact its pickrate, maybe some more hit the nitrous nerfs to compensate.

    If we hit it at 50%, we woulda been even happier :)

    One of the reasons it's actually good for a newer Hero to be right at 48%, is because they trend up. That being said, the nerfs might have been slightly too much, which was why I mentioned us likely buffing a few of the under-performing Talents. We think her base kit is pretty good right now, but there are a few Talents that could be better.

    By the way, it's important to point out that while we consider public opinion, we are not always swayed by it. There's been a large echo chamber claiming D.Va is weak lately, but by and large she's been really really close. For instance, a lot of public sentiment felt like Stukov was really OP at release (including some of us in the office), but after a week showed that he was (overall) mighty average.

    What's really helpful to us is focused feedback. As someone that has to give a lot of it to my coworkers all the time, it's really helpful to focus on what you "feel", rather than absolutes. What you're relating is your experience, and the better you can discern exactly why your thinking what your thinking, the better decisions can be made from it.

    As an example, "Malfurion's weak, there's no denying it, I lose everything there's always someone better" is an example of unhelpful feedback. Better feedback would start to discern why that is.

    Example of more helpful feedback, "When I play Malfurion, there's so much burst in the game that after the removal of Cleanse I'm having a hard time saving allies that are out of position. I feel like having a second support is the only way that I can play him, since there's rarely an enemy team that doesn't draft a lot of burst damage." As designers, we can now ask ourselves "Is this because it isn't a good metagame for Malfurion temporarily? Does he need more tools? Is this just a designed weakness and acceptable? Are there ways we can make this feel better, without adjusting the balance greatly?"

  • Neyman
    Posted 7 years, 2 months ago (Source)

    That all being said (thanks for the elaboration), how are you guys feeling about the current metagame with double supports, double (or even triple) bulky melee. Rather slow games with huge healthbars.

    It's been going on for a while and it's starting to get real boring...

    We're talking about it. It's not an easy fix, but I can tell you it's something that we're working on daily.

  • Neyman
    Posted 7 years, 2 months ago (Source)

    Heyo, I was wondering if you'd consider things like making it so Rush-down (Boosters CD reduced by 5s if D.Va doesn't take or deal damage) still activates when receiving non-heroic damage. I feel like this talent (and similarily Royal Focus on Leoric) sometimes feels wonky because you get hit by that one stupid arrow from a stupid melee minion, which really feels bad if you're trying to get across the map. Using my boosters for wave clear? No problem I'll take the full CD it's my decision. But getting hit by an archer and getting full CD is kinda frustrating (even with how easy it can be to avoid minion attacks).

    I mentioned Leoric but to be fair Royal Focus feels better because its functionality includes a benefit you gain even when getting hit, something which D.Va doesn't get. So maybe the gremlin could do with a little somethin' somethin' out of Rush-down even when the full CD is activated as well.

    Anyway just sharing this feedback since you're here :)

    Cool idea, we'll consider it.

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