Overwatch, a team-based hero-shooter created by Blizzard Entertainment, first launched in 2016. Featuring a vast assortment of colorful characters, a number of team-oriented game modes, and fast-paced combat, Overwatch became a hit with casual and competitive players alike.
Being that Overwatch is an online-only title with a focus on competitive play, the game has received many balance updates and meta changes over its lifespan. Sometimes, these changes and updates include new maps, new characters, or reworks of existing characters.
RELATED: Overwatch Fan Points Out Interesting Connection Between Wrecking Ball and The Suicide Squad
One character, in particular, the healer-type named Mercy, saw an extensive rework in Overwatch’s August 2017 update. In this update, Mercy’s ultimate ability that allowed her to resurrect any downed teammate within a set area saw a nerf which decreased the number of times she was able to use the ability while also increasing the cooldown between uses. As such, Mercy was no longer able to resurrect or heal as often or as effectively. This change was made for balance reasons, forcing Overwatch players to play more actively with Mercy and make her more fun to play against, too.
While the decision to downgrade her abilities could be considered a sound one, there is a major problem. In Overwatch, there exists a mechanic called “On Fire” in which players that are playing particularly well receive a status effect of the same name. While this effect doesn’t actually change how the game plays, Overwatch tracks the amount of time that a player is in the “On Fire” state, making it a useful tool for players to keep track of how well they have been playing.
When Mercy was nerfed and her resurrection ability was dialed back, no changes were made to her “On Fire” calculation. Because of this, Mercy players are hardly even able to achieve the status effect at all. Overwatch forum member Imbad has made a post regarding the problem and has noted that Mercy players are in the “On Fire” status effect about 2.5% of their playtime, versus an average of over 9% for other Overwatch heroes. Fans have noted that something seems off about these numbers.
Game balance can be an extremely delicate practice and plenty of other titles like Apex Legends or Warzone struggle with it as well. Still. the strangest part of the whole debacle is Blizzard first implemented this change in 2017. August 2021 marks four years since Mercy’s nerf and the problem has yet to be fixed, or even acknowledged by the game’s developer in any way. With Overwatch essentially in maintenance mode and Blizzard working hard on the incoming Overwatch 2, it may not ever get fixed at all.
Overwatch is available on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
MORE: If Overwatch 2 Release Date Rumors Are True, It Should Make A Big Change
Source: Dexerto
