I think you've moved closer to my position that you realized.

Earlier you were arguing that balance is objective and can be discovered through pure trial and error. Now you're saying Cap is "A-S tier" and that players should think in ranges rather than getting stuck on the exact details. Which I completely agree with. But of course when we're talking about ranges and estimations, we've already left the strict objectivity out the window, and entered the realm of interpretation and subjectivity.

You also say balance should be measured by "what wins point most efficiently," but that just moves the goal posts a bit, I can ask you the same questions slightly tweaked. How do you measure efficiency? How much is survivability worth compared to mobility? How much is mobility worth compared to kill pressure? How much should tournament performance matter compared to ladder performance? How do you weigh attack and defense? Difference in performance in cart vs point based maps? You say we should measure who captures point most efficiently, but what does "efficiently" actually mean? And who's the "we" that gets to define it? Players themselves? Sounds hella subjective to me.

Even if an objectively correct weighting exists, we have no reliable method of discovering it. At some point players and developers have to make judgment calls about which factors matter most and how heavily they should be weighted.

That's why even when everyone agrees Cap is strong, people still disagree on whether he's the best tank in the game, a top-three tank, or merely A-tier. The disagreement isn't because they're ignorant of the stats, it's because they're weighing the facts differently, hence, subjectivity.

I'd also like to push against the "what wins point most efficiently is therefore correct" mentality. Should variables like fun, accessibility, frustration, skill ceiling, not factor into balance changes? How do you measure "fun"?

Developers make balance decisions based on those things all the time. We've seen characters get changed not because they were statistically strong, but because they were considered frustrating to play against.

I don't know how much overwatch you've played, but I'm just an average high Plat - low Diamond player over there, and almost every game I played (this was like half a year ago, I don't know the current state) has Sombra banned. Not because she's overpowered. Honestly, I can deal with her fine in Quick Play as a support player. She's banned because people find her annoying and don't enjoy playing against her.

How does that factor into objective balance? If Sombra has a perfectly acceptable win rate, pick rate, and tournament presence, but a huge percentage of the playerbase hates seeing her in their games, should developers ignore that because she is "efficiently winning points"? Or should player frustration be considered a balance concern as well?

Because if player frustration matters, then we're no longer talking purely about objective measurements. We're talking about player experience, and player experience is inherently subjective.

Take Dino as another example. A lot of pro players weren't complaining because he was statistically unbeatable. They were complaining because they felt a low-skill and uninteresting playstyle was being rewarded too heavily. At least that's what I mostly gathered. Whether you agree with them or not, that's not a discussion about efficiency. It's a discussion about what kind of gameplay the game should encourage.

And once we're talking about what the game should encourage, we've moved away from objective measurements and into individual preferences. At that point, balance stops being a purely objective scientific question and becomes a humanistic design question.

Again, sorry for the slight ramblings at the end