Haze is way too powerful

[xenxe7777]

I think her sleep could be half a second shorter in duration. She's fine otherwise though her ult has such a pitifully low range. Just dash jump backwards and watch her shoot nothing. There's a very obvious sound cue.

If you see a haze ping her. It will reveal her during invisibility. Not sure if intended but...it works

 

[rays1712]

"People" aren't some singular entity... If person A likes the color blue, and B likes red, would you tell them both they're idiots and need to make up their mind?


I AM a high elo player, and I have no problem with Haze (other than the fact she's a common hero to find with an aimbot cheater). Haze is the kind of hero you need to pay attention to, but she is hardly unique in that regard. Actually broken heroes include the prenerf Kelvin, where you can't even play around him despite knowing he exists. If Haze becomes a significant problem to your team just buy Metal Skin... She is arguably the only hero in the entire game that deals 99% damage of a singular type.

Compare it to e.g. Faceless Void. You either respect that he exists and react to it accordingly, or he will kill you. It's just the mentality of new Deadlock players that haven't really grasped the idea of a MOBA yet. You must adapt. If a hero forces you to and you don't want to, you simply pay the price. Haze has very obvious weaknesses. You don't exploit those? You pay the price.


I personally disagree. In my opinion you want to design the game around "what is possible", not "what incompetent people do" (crude, but I don't know how else to describe it). We see this design mistake in e.g. Sniper from TF2: sure, playtesters won't quickscope everyone the moment they appear on the screen, but given enough time people will learn and adapt to that skill, resulting in a completely broken class.

Technically everyone can reach the level of competence the heroes are balanced around. You can't undo balancing around incompetency once that gap is bridged.

the problem with MOBA, faceless void or otherwise we call carry heroes in that sense, theres alot amount of them where time scales with their power.

in this game, only haze has the highest power to scales her kit way more powerful than any other heroes.

if theres more problematic heroes like haze which highly scales with time/souls, i probably wont complaint much

but because theres only 1 of them, it became a problem for me because whoever have her, now only need to play with time, reach 30 minute mark then its gg.

 

[1184557354]

the problem with MOBA, faceless void or otherwise we call carry heroes in that sense, theres alot amount of them where time scales with their power.

in this game, only haze has the highest power to scales her kit way more powerful than any other heroes.

if theres more problematic heroes like haze which highly scales with time/souls, i probably wont complaint much

but because theres only 1 of them, it became a problem for me because whoever have her, now only need to play with time, reach 30 minute mark then its gg.

So I say that when two Sky Snipers are in the air, their damage should be explosive. Only then is their strength comparable to that of Haze. Because you can also use items to deal with flying heroes.

 

[larswillemsen]

the problem with MOBA, faceless void or otherwise we call carry heroes in that sense, theres alot amount of them where time scales with their power.

in this game, only haze has the highest power to scales her kit way more powerful than any other heroes.

if theres more problematic heroes like haze which highly scales with time/souls, i probably wont complaint much

but because theres only 1 of them, it became a problem for me because whoever have her, now only need to play with time, reach 30 minute mark then its gg.

But this is not true. Haze does scale with time, much more so than most other heroes. But she is not alone in that regard. Lady Geist is arguably as, if not even more scary than Haze in the end-game (her 3 becomes a ridiculous ability). Why should the game not explore this spectrum of possibilities of heroes coming online, and respectively falling off at different intervals?

Haze is a carry in a very classical moba sense. She is terrible in lane when pressure is applied to it. She is unlikely to commit to much of anything until she has her core items. She will heavily contest the jungle. These are all exploitable weaknesses. I just don't see how any of this is problematic as it worked for decades past.

 

[why_me1]

Geist 3 is another topic, yes her 3 can be strong. But the topic here is Haze!

Hazes whole kit is broken in combination. It is scaling way to easy and way to fast compared to other heroes.
- Ammo from spirit power -> you get 4 purple items and get from 25 to 80+ ammo combined with ricochet and lucky shot and you are at 150, some Mcginnis builds dont get that much wich titanic and McGinnis starts with 66 ammo.
- Her 3 passiv is boosting her gun dmg plus dealing spirit dmg every 20 stacks -> you can apply spirit debuffs just by shooting at them, no item to enable it needed, just a passive skill.
- upto 70 stack on her 3 time 0,4 bonus dmg = 28 per shot. Not much, but when you notice that she is fast hitting with "low" dmg per bullet, thats insane. Not sure if that bonus dmg scales or not, but still insane.
- and if the 3 isnt broken enough, it also slows a tiny bit, because why not?
- in combination with her sleeping dagger she can do 2k dmg within a second to a single target and there is not much you can do about it. And only use about 30 ammo of your 150 while getting 30% liefesteal on top when you came out of stealth.
- And her ulti beeing a 15-20m radius aoe aimbot with bonus dmg, applying on hit effects and also getting 50% evasion?

All this combined is just insane. And you dont even need all your 16 items slots to get all of this.

 

[Spektrum]

I fundamentally disagree. You can apply the same opening to best 95% of the people who never played chess. That is not a problem with the game, it is a problem with the people who do not understand the game. Admitting incompetence is annoying, but you can't improve until you do. You do not need "12 hours a day" to get better at any game. I am pretty sure someone with a competitive, improving mindset could best 90% of the players who spend a tenfold more hours on a game within a minimal amount of time.

The issue is fundamental, as I stated. If you would balance based on skill bracket then certain options would lead to inconsistent balancing for those that climb (or descend) the ranks. This warps and mangles the learning experience. Imagine some variable has some codependency on another now, but tomorrow it depends on something else. Balancing around the "common man" would destroy the game at the highest skill convergence, as it would be dominated by poorly balanced heroes that perform desirably in the hands of the incompetent.

So you want to make a game fundamentally shit at the launch so every new possible player going to drop it again after going for it a couple of hours?

I guess that is just "I am high MMR player and I know what is right and nothing else matters" mentality.


Even calling people incompetent just proves my point that you are a stuck up sob honestly. But hey, you do you. At least I know I won't deal with you or interact with you again.

 

[ninkaridze]

Case closed

 

[ninkaridze]

I'm not reading whatever you all typed, so probably what I said was already said:

Haze late hypercarry. Means that till she gets her expensive items, she is basically a walking minion that get farmed by 90% of the game cast. To become truly online and hypercarry machince, she requires:

Ricoshet for aoe ultimate damage
Lucky shot - to deal actually deleting amount of damage
Unstoppable so she cannot be interrupted

It is bare minimum she requires. And all three of those items are 6200. I didn't take into account other items she buys through course of the game to farm\escape\damage\fire rate... All it together leads to her becoming online only at 25-30k souls.... Just so she can be shut down or completely ignored by two items that costs 3000 or general awareness. So she need spent even more souls to buy curse on real important targets and most of the time - silencer as well.

And all of it still can be countered with items, allies and actually being aware of her existence. If you are not doing that, not trying to play around her or buying defensive item, of course she gonna destroy you, but at this point - you just deserved it.

Unrelated my first game of Haze where enemies just refused to buy anything against me and this is a result. Probably one of them created thread on forum complaining how Haze is op

 

[Dashiell]

I ask everyone who wants to balance game according to casuals, where is bottom line of balancing?

Is it that guy that posted thread here asking why Haze doesn't deal any damage when he had 2,2k souls and no dmg items vs enemy team with over 7k souls and items?

Is is the people that claim Haze/Seven are OP so we nerf everything that they say is OP which will progressively nerf all abilities once they discover next one to complain?

Is it people that refuse to buy any other items than dmg so we nerf these items until game is a slogfest?

The bottom line for casual players is incredibly deep into "I don't know how to play and refuse to learn", accommodating them by balance is impossible, they will balance themselves by staying in "mmr hell" once ranked is in game where they will play only with other bad players that probably won't stomp them.

Currently unless you're very top player you will play with everyone, which includes people simply trying out heroes for the first time so performance will vary but if you get stomped by hero instead of making threads "x is OP!!!11111111111" you should be discovering how to deal with said hero so you can improve next time, if you refuse to do that you're simply bad player.

Haze is Riki of this game, though invis in this game kinda sucks.

 

[Lady Briar]

...I fundamentally disagree...

...I guess that is just "I am high MMR player and I know what is right and nothing else matters" mentality....

I think there may be a miscommunication here. I hope. I feel like when Spektrum is talking about the broader, or "casual" players, they mean the people who love and play the game, but don't dedicate time and energy into mastering it competitively.

I think, and let me emphasize the I think part, because I am making an assumption based on what I'm reading, and if I am wrong please correct me...

But I think it sounds like when you hear that, lars, you're equating that with people who have never played/new or don't care. Like the kind of people who download a game, and maybe play it a few times but either don't pay attention to the tutorial, don't bother to read anything, and play maybe a handful of times before uninstalling?

Because there are a lot of people who play games like this, like Overwatch, like any moba or shooter... and they may not have the time, or they may not be the type, to be interested in "ranked" or hyper competitive play... but they enjoy the casual competitiveness. They do care about the mechanics, learning the skills and items, but they aren't going to spend hours perfecting the timings of super nuanced or niche mechanics and whatnot. That's the players that, I believe, Spektrum and I are specifically referring to.

I at least hope I'm right, because I do absolutely agree that Overwatch, and League even, have a huge problem with attempting to balance their games for people who will spend hours every day trying to bend the game's most niche/nuanced merchanics to give them a competitive edge. Because that is what the pros do. That's the point. And trying to balance for that is the ultimate game developing Ouroboros. You literally cannot do it. Because you change something, they adapt, and find the next thing they can abuse. And, when game design is built around building for those people who can, and will, spend their time perfecting those kinds of skills... the entire rest of the playerbase absolutely suffers. I've seen it time and time again in all the competitive games I have played over the years. And I've even advocated against this kind of game design in the very games in which I myself was one of the pro-tier players. I always will. Because I believe two things very strongly. First, games should be fun for as many people as possible. Period. Two, good game design should have a low entry (meaning that its easy to pick up the game and just start playing) but a high ceiling (meaning people with the time and the desire, can invest it into mastering the game in a way that will, obviously, make them better at it). These things can coexist, and they should, imo.

I dunno. I hope this may help?

 

[1184557354]

I think there may be a miscommunication here. I hope. I feel like when Spektrum is talking about the broader, or "casual" players, they mean the people who love and play the game, but don't dedicate time and energy into mastering it competitively.

I think, and let me emphasize the I think part, because I am making an assumption based on what I'm reading, and if I am wrong please correct me...

But I think it sounds like when you hear that, lars, you're equating that with people who have never played/new or don't care. Like the kind of people who download a game, and maybe play it a few times but either don't pay attention to the tutorial, don't bother to read anything, and play maybe a handful of times before uninstalling?

Because there are a lot of people who play games like this, like Overwatch, like any moba or shooter... and they may not have the time, or they may not be the type, to be interested in "ranked" or hyper competitive play... but they enjoy the casual competitiveness. They do care about the mechanics, learning the skills and items, but they aren't going to spend hours perfecting the timings of super nuanced or niche mechanics and whatnot. That's the players that, I believe, Spektrum and I are specifically referring to.

I at least hope I'm right, because I do absolutely agree that Overwatch, and League even, have a huge problem with attempting to balance their games for people who will spend hours every day trying to bend the game's most niche/nuanced merchanics to give them a competitive edge. Because that is what the pros do. That's the point. And trying to balance for that is the ultimate game developing Ouroboros. You literally cannot do it. Because you change something, they adapt, and find the next thing they can abuse. And, when game design is built around building for those people who can, and will, spend their time perfecting those kinds of skills... the entire rest of the playerbase absolutely suffers. I've seen it time and time again in all the competitive games I have played over the years. And I've even advocated against this kind of game design in the very games in which I myself was one of the pro-tier players. I always will. Because I believe two things very strongly. First, games should be fun for as many people as possible. Period. Two, good game design should have a low entry (meaning that its easy to pick up the game and just start playing) but a high ceiling (meaning people with the time and the desire, can invest it into mastering the game in a way that will, obviously, make them better at it). These things can coexist, and they should, imo.

I dunno. I hope this may help?

You said it really well, that's exactly what I meant. The most important thing in a game is that it's fun, and learning and growth are, of course, part of that fun. However, you can't balance a game based solely on professional players and many minor details. For example, players who have played for a short period: Haze just needs to focus on not dying in the early game, building up her economy, and then sneaking around in the late game to deliver earns and start fighting in the crowd. But for players facing a Haze on the other team, they have to be aware of many things, like preventing completely new teammates from getting caught by Haze, which would make her overfed, buying Metal Skin, coordinating with teammates to catch Haze, and so on.

 

[joeinky]

I disagree with the general idea that developers shouldn't balance with the top players in mind, as doing so usually keeps the skill ceiling high and allows for more varied, individual player skill expression. Balancing around the casual playerbase having problems with certain strategies usually leads to a homogenisation of what individual players can do, which is very limiting and makes a game boring in the long run because there's less variety in strategies that you can use and face.

I'd also note that IceFrog doesn't balance with the top players in mind by looking at things in terms of mechanical skill, they usually balance things around top players with regards to game knowledge. The top players aren't just good because they have better mechanical skill, but because they have more in-depth knowledge of the mechanics and better game sense than your regular player (map awareness, knowing certain timings, etc.)

Now whether or not that's a good thing or not is up to you as a lot of people have said a lot of things in the past with regards to the "burden of knowledge" for MOBAs, but they're also the reason that games like DOTA are so dynamic and engaging.

 

[larswillemsen]

I think there may be a miscommunication here. I hope. I feel like when Spektrum is talking about the broader, or "casual" players, they mean the people who love and play the game, but don't dedicate time and energy into mastering it competitively.

I think, and let me emphasize the I think part, because I am making an assumption based on what I'm reading, and if I am wrong please correct me...

But I think it sounds like when you hear that, lars, you're equating that with people who have never played/new or don't care. Like the kind of people who download a game, and maybe play it a few times but either don't pay attention to the tutorial, don't bother to read anything, and play maybe a handful of times before uninstalling?

Because there are a lot of people who play games like this, like Overwatch, like any moba or shooter... and they may not have the time, or they may not be the type, to be interested in "ranked" or hyper competitive play... but they enjoy the casual competitiveness. They do care about the mechanics, learning the skills and items, but they aren't going to spend hours perfecting the timings of super nuanced or niche mechanics and whatnot. That's the players that, I believe, Spektrum and I are specifically referring to.

I at least hope I'm right, because I do absolutely agree that Overwatch, and League even, have a huge problem with attempting to balance their games for people who will spend hours every day trying to bend the game's most niche/nuanced merchanics to give them a competitive edge. Because that is what the pros do. That's the point. And trying to balance for that is the ultimate game developing Ouroboros. You literally cannot do it. Because you change something, they adapt, and find the next thing they can abuse. And, when game design is built around building for those people who can, and will, spend their time perfecting those kinds of skills... the entire rest of the playerbase absolutely suffers. I've seen it time and time again in all the competitive games I have played over the years. And I've even advocated against this kind of game design in the very games in which I myself was one of the pro-tier players. I always will. Because I believe two things very strongly. First, games should be fun for as many people as possible. Period. Two, good game design should have a low entry (meaning that its easy to pick up the game and just start playing) but a high ceiling (meaning people with the time and the desire, can invest it into mastering the game in a way that will, obviously, make them better at it). These things can coexist, and they should, imo.

I dunno. I hope this may help?

There's no need for careful rhetoric, it's totally fine if we just disagree right?

I understand your point, but I am, by profession, a mathematician. I very much reason like a mathematician. I don't think in "average" cases, I think in "worst" cases, in the limit of some variable. Some situation that "could theoretically happen". Icefrog has proven to think very much like I do over the past decades.

I agree that you cannot balance a game around all levels of competency. It's just flat out, even on paper, impossible. What to me would be the most desirable way of balancing is confining the means of skill expression to the "intended scope" (i.e. remove or constrain really finicky mechanics that people can only properly learn by extremely intensively grinding the game) and then balancing around where skill converges. That is, competitive level playing. An example I think would be suitable is currently the ramp- sliding at the base of the tower competitive people use to gain infinite ammo whilst shooting at it. I think this is the kind of micro mechanic the game should opt to avoid, and try to prevent them from popping up elsewhere.

Hero balance however. Purely at the ceiling of competence. It is proven that there exists a path to that balance simply by people operating on it. It is up to the design of the game to allow people a good handle on how to improve (which many games suck at, especially with the souls-craze from the last decade). If people want to play the game so casually they genuinely do not care to partake in improving I, very crudely, also think they shouldn't complain about imbalance in first place. That includes people who genuinely cannot commit the time to get better. There are games out there who cater to specifically this audience as is, and like everything else in life: the less you commit to it, the less you will get out of it.

 

[nomrencalbaos]

check haze winrate on high rank if not crazy then, her being too powerful likely a skill issue

 

[rays1712]

check haze winrate on high rank if not crazy then, her being too powerful likely a skill issue

youre caught not reading the thread.

 

[Lady Briar]

There's no need for careful rhetoric, it's totally fine if we just disagree right?

I understand your point, but I am, by profession, a mathematician. I very much reason like a mathematician. I don't think in "average" cases, I think in "worst" cases, in the limit of some variable. Some situation that "could theoretically happen". Icefrog has proven to think very much like I do over the past decades.

I agree that you cannot balance a game around all levels of competency. It's just flat out, even on paper, impossible. What to me would be the most desirable way of balancing is confining the means of skill expression to the "intended scope" (i.e. remove or constrain really finicky mechanics that people can only properly learn by extremely intensively grinding the game) and then balancing around where skill converges. That is, competitive level playing. An example I think would be suitable is currently the ramp- sliding at the base of the tower competitive people use to gain infinite ammo whilst shooting at it. I think this is the kind of micro mechanic the game should opt to avoid, and try to prevent them from popping up elsewhere.

Hero balance however. Purely at the ceiling of competence. It is proven that there exists a path to that balance simply by people operating on it. It is up to the design of the game to allow people a good handle on how to improve (which many games suck at, especially with the souls-craze from the last decade). If people want to play the game so casually they genuinely do not care to partake in improving I, very crudely, also think they shouldn't complain about imbalance in first place. That includes people who genuinely cannot commit the time to get better. There are games out there who cater to specifically this audience as is, and like everything else in life: the less you commit to it, the less you will get out of it.

To be clear, I'm not afraid of disagreeing, I truly just don't wish to be disrespectful and misrepresent anyone else's words! But in this case I'm not even sure if we are disagreeing. My point is more that I think the two sides were related, but discussing slightly different aspects or perspectives, instead. Apologies if that doesn't make sense, I haven't had coffee yet. I'll correct that shortly.

What I'm saying is, I actually think there's more agreement here than disagreement, but to borrow your own lovely term, I feel like some of us are discussing/focusing/thinking of different "scopes" within balancing itself. In no way am I saying we should cater to the lowest common denominator. There is, I feel, a minimum threshold of mechanical competency and familiarity with the game that one should have before their opinion has any weight to it. Beyond the scope of gaining said competency and familiarity, that is, because of course any barriers to new players getting to that level is its own separate issue. But when we're talking about balancing character mechanics and scaling, then yeah, obviously we need to have adequate experience and understanding of the game, first.

So for me when you say competitive level playing, I don't think of the average user. That's because the game is PvP so it is, fundamentally, a competitive game. When you talk about competitive level playing, I'm thinking of people who intend to seek tournament level skill. Not people who just enjoy the game and want to get better at it because its fun and they like to play and want to do well, but specifically the type of people who intend to dedicate time and energy into earning money and winning awards from it. Does that make sense?

When you say casual, I get the sense you are referring to the kinds of players who can't be bothered to know even some of the basics of the game, and just want to point and click and somehow win without any understanding of hero mechanics, map dynamics, team play, items, etc. The kind of person who skips the tutorial, plays 0 bot matches, skips straight to matchmaking, and then dies to someone and starts screaming "THEY'RE OP!" without even knowing what any of it means, yet. But that isn't what I think of at all, because as far as I'm concerned to even be a casual player of a game you have to actually care about the game enough to have a solid understanding of its core mechanics and information. So that's what I mean when I say I actually think we are agreeing more than not, and its just coming down to a difference in communication. Basically the way I'm labeling things in my head is, probably, different from you. I'm not saying we're going to agree 100%, or that we need or even should. Disagreement can be really beneficial, imo.

Your definition of casual might be what I usually call window shoppers. Its not a real gaming term, just a joke I make sometimes, because there are a weird subset of people who will drop into PvP games, make zero effort to know at all wtf they're doing, and then try to have an opinion on it. Like people window shopping at the mall and claiming something isn't well made, or the fabric is itchy, or something when they haven't even done more than glance at it. Gawd those types are infuriating... AND I HAVE DEFINITELY TYPED WAY TOO MUCH SO I'M SHUTTING UP NOW OK THANKS BYE! /runaway

 

[rays1712]

this is how i am usually defeat haze, its pretty much 6 vs 5 early on, haze is pretty weak early, hence we punish the whole team by dominating the match and dont give time and just end



we can also punish haze if the game goes late

but full coordination to buy metal skin with the whole team sometimes near impossible for 90% of the match, and they crumble fast most of the time which gonna turn the tide even when we win early and mid game.

thats why its always fight against time and end fast, which i dont really like personally

so even in high elo haze still a prick, but pretty balance, but not on mid or lower elo(if the haze know what the hero suppose to be)

but also in this match, the amber hand draft pretty much dead on arrival tho, lmao.

 

[evoniee]

It's overblown because of cheaters.

Cheat nowadays can be insanely hard to distinguish like you have to looking into it and have experience on aiming yourself.
for example a certain fps streamer / ex-pro has many really good youtube video proofing that he is a cheater, yet nothing happened and guy still run freely.
basically a lot of cracked / pro player are a fraud and not on the same level as good honest player.

so the root of the problem is MASSIVE CHEATER INFESTATION.

 

[ninkaridze]

check haze winrate on high rank if not crazy then, her being too powerful likely a skill issue

I wonder where you get winrate stats, considering that steam prevented collecting stats for two weeks already

 

[jasontlang]

What works to stop her ult? Isn't her ult like Seven's? Meaning only hard stuns stop it once it's channeling?

Don't make the same mistake Blizzard did with Overwatch a few years ago. The hero balance was made entirely for competitive play, without considering the feelings of most regular players. While Doomfist may be easily countered in high-level competitions due to pro players' ability to consistently land headshots, most regular players are left feeling that Doomfist ruins their gameplay experience.

As someone who plays Haze a lot, she's strong but not unstoppable. However, that's also contingent on your allowing her to farm and not building against her.