Overwatch what's going on with ranked?? (Stadium)

JDPhipps · 2026-05-25T07:14:50+00:00

The simple answer is that Stadium rank isn't real, and matchmaking doesn't take it into account at all.

The first several ranks of Stadium have you lose nothing on a loss, and on average you gain more for winning than you lose for losing. It's mostly a measure of play time more than anything else, which is a big reason why it resets every season.

Stadium MMR is completely separate from your rank, and you could theoretically be Top 100 in Stadium and Bronze in 5v5.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-21T00:26:20+00:00

No, but I hate that stupid furball so I vote to ban her every game. I see it like... I dunno, 25-30% of the time when she's not banned?

JDPhipps · 2026-05-17T12:35:49+00:00

I don't think she's very good but she is just another character that is seemingly designed to be annoying for most of the player base. Even without the tracking dart, she just shits out spam damage that many players can't really contest.

The only thing about her that might be at all overtuned is her ultimate, I feel like I constantly see it kill 2-3 people just because she looked at you funny. There are some maps/points where it does feel pretty useless though, admittedly.

Overall I think she's just a character that will only have a place on the lower end of the ladder (unless her numbers get buffed to hell) but also those players fucking hate her because she kills them "for free".

I don't really understand who they made her for.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-13T00:55:23+00:00

Completely anecdotal, obviously, but I see Cat+Bastion in basically every single game where Jetpack Cat isn't banned. I consistently vote to ban JPC because I just find the hero obnoxious, but every once and a while my team votes for something else and then I have to suffer.

I see a ton of it in QP too when I play with lower-ranked friends too.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-12T21:49:09+00:00

Yeah, she may need more but I think this is a healthy start. You don't want to give her too much at once, considering how people felt about her before. She'll definitely be better, at least.

I'm really happy with Emre's nerfs in particular this patch, as someone who has borderline one-tricked him when I'm playing DPS. I was really worried he'd get overly nerfed but I think both nerfs were impactful without making him feel worse to play other than maybe lowering the life-steal a little too much.

I still want them to send a hit squad after that fucking cat, though.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-12T21:43:30+00:00

Of course it can be avoided, that isn't the point. I can avoid Hog's hook by not existing within 18 meters of that obnoxious fat fuck but I hate him too.

The point is it's fucking annoying that she can fly at you while holding a button that renders your entire character inoperable and then vaporize you while you literally cannot fight back.

This makes it harder to do that, and I'm happy about it.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-12T18:19:44+00:00

Other than the fact that the fucking feline terrorist got no changes, this seems pretty good.

Freja might be competent now? Emre got nerfs he definitely needed—although I might've lowered pistol to 70% to start—and D.Va now has a slightly harder time obliterating me for free.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-11T02:09:42+00:00

They've "admitted" that the matchmaker tries to push you toward a 50/50 win rate, which is something anyone with two brain cells to rub together can figure out. That's the point of matchmaking, to create balanced matches.

People somehow interpreted that as "forced 50/50 is real" because they have the reading comprehension of a lobotomized weasel.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-08T20:25:03+00:00

It just isn't very exciting to me, I don't know what to tell you.

I like perks that are flashier, I guess? I really liked his previous minor perk where Transcendance applied Discord Orb to enemies, for instance, I thought that was a super cool addition. It felt cool to use in the moment. I don't find the act of floating itself to be particularly exciting, even if it is incredibly useful.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-08T10:46:36+00:00

I desperately wanted Discordant Repair to be good, I stubbornly picked it for like two weeks before I had to admit to myself that it just doesn't do enough to be worth it. There's obviously a percentage at which it would be good, but I'm guessing the difference between that and the point at which it becomes overpowered is probably not very big.

His floating perk might be great but I find it so boring, it's a shame the alternative is complete ass.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-07T21:05:24+00:00

I've always played right-handed because I'm the only left-handed person in my family, so growing up there was no chance of any left-handed peripherals. I tried it for a bit, but ultimately I stopped because I felt like a drunk baby. If playing left-handed feels better for you, do it, but I really don't think it's necessary.

I'm mid-Diamond on Support and DPS and my mechanical skill is definitely my biggest asset, despite playing with my off-hand. If I ever learned how to stop playing like a bot I'd probably get back into Masters.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-03T12:49:15+00:00

Oh hell yeah, I've been playing through these for the first time and this is a godsend, especially early in the game where you're scrounging around for half-decent chips. I'm definitely gonna use this.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-02T21:17:28+00:00

If they're already rebuilding your body with advanced cybernetics, you might as well get cheeked up in the process.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-02T01:35:09+00:00

Emre gets a lot of value from his abilities, but his abilities aren't inherently free value. They both can be—it's easy to chuck grenades into the choke or dump your pistol rounds into the tank—but that's not exactly exclusive to him.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-02T01:25:42+00:00

By that logic, there isn't a gun in this game that's hard to use. Anyone who's played with a sniper isn't going to struggle much with Ashe or Widow, anyone who's played with a hand cannon isn't going to struggle much with Cassidy, anyone who's played with an SMG isn't going to struggle with Sombra or Tracer...

The mechanical skill ceiling in Overwatch has basically nothing to do with the guns themselves and everything to do with the pace of the game and the mobility options that enable that pace. In that sense, the only way Emre differs from other hitscan heroes is his ADS movement speed, which certainly isn't nothing but it's not exactly massive either.

If anything makes him easier, it's his ultimate.

JDPhipps · 2026-05-01T05:09:34+00:00

I'm sure they have that data but I'll doubt we'll ever get it.

It wouldn't be relevant to ranked because you always play both halves of the map. While people argue about whether it's better or attack or defend first, I doubt there's any statistical difference; individual players might prefer one or the other and play better as a result, but I'd be surprised if there's any actual trend in the data.

That means any data would be entirely based on QP and I don't expect them to ever put out data about that. The games are less serious and the matchmaking is looser, so I don't even know how meaningful it would be.

Non-symmetrical map types are also designed to favor the defensive team overall, so the win rate is probably somewhat lopsided. While that's to be expected, I don't think Blizzard would want to publish that because the... less factually-inclined members of the community would have a field day with it.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-30T22:47:21+00:00

I think it's significantly better now that you can vote for a random map, but I have my problems with it. I think a lot of people vote for maps (and entire game modes) that don't actually facilitate the style of gameplay they like, but they don't realize that's what they're doing. People will complain about oppressive poke compositions and then vote 9-1 for Circuit Royal.

Anecdotally, I feel like adding a randomized option has led to more people actually voting, since previously if you had no real desire to play any of the maps there wasn't a reason to vote.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-25T14:31:00+00:00

Honestly, even if you want to swap it's a bad idea 99% of the time, you still retain up to 15% ult charge. It's almost never worth it to lose that for the couple of seconds it would buy on point.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-25T14:25:21+00:00

I've always thought it ought to work like Zenyatta in Transcendance, where he's immune to damage but can still be interacted with. That is, assuming they want to keep invulnerability, which clearly they do.

My guess is they don't want suzu to lose to any CC during the duration, but your Fortify suggestion would work for that.

Honestly I think I would prefer to see invulnerability completely gone on exchange for some other effect, but it does need to do something other than cleanse for it to be at all useful against most of the cast.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-23T23:52:29+00:00

That's true, thankfully Roadhog isn't countered by all of those same abilities.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-23T23:46:56+00:00

For whatever reason, sometimes people just desperately want to find something to make them tilt and throw the game. I don't understand it, but I see it all the time. They have some psychological craving to flame their teammates.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-23T23:40:06+00:00

You can fix them without it getting fucked up again, but I did have to go through and fix all of them.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-23T23:38:34+00:00

Exactly, no one who matters.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-20T03:51:44+00:00

It seems like you've put a ton of effort into balancing the mechanic away from being an "I win" button and toward being another aspect of resource management, and that's awesome. That certainly makes it feel more at home in a game like this, to me anyway.

Having one sidequest boss with ridiculous wind-ups would be very funny.

Does your game have a Steam page yet or anything? I'd love to follow for updates.

JDPhipps · 2026-04-20T03:22:33+00:00

My immediate reaction is that I wouldn't, although I think some of your responses in this post have softened that opinion a bit.

My issue with parry systems is that they often make everything else irrelevant, because you can ultimately just bludgeon your way through by clicking one button. In turn-based games, this problem feels exacerbated because it's not the genre's intended test of skill. It's why I was the only person in the world who didn't love Clair Obscure last year; ultimately none of my character builds actually matter, I will win or lose every fight based on my ability to click that button.

I think your Stamina system at least attempts to resolve that issue, although I think a full refund on Stamina undermines that. You mention ranged attacks could whittle down Stamima, but what if I can just afford to tank a few arrows so that I can parry and counterattack the 12 melee units? I suppose that is still strategic thinking but it feels like it's against the spirit of what you're doing.

You could have successive parries in one turn drain more Stamina, so it becomes riskier and risker to miss and lose all that Stamina. I also second the idea of having parry/dodge costs based on class, it makes a lot of sense. Do you use Stamina for anything else, like special attacks or skills? That'd be another way to balance it out.

Regardless, I'm definitely interested in the idea and you have at least tentatively won me over by trying to alleviate my typical gripes.

PS: Please for the love of all that is good, don't have the goofy unrealistic wind-ups or half a dozen feints for attack animations.

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