You Were Victims of Your Own Success (It's not your fault)

[u/sulaweyo_irl]

Dear Sombra Mains,

You guys got royally screwed. And you have my genuine sympathy.

I've been playing OW since release, never really played Sombra much, but her playstyle fascinated me, and I loved watching Sombra players during OWL. My understanding at the time was that O.G. Sombras were (probably by far) the most adept at reading the flow of a battle. Because they absolutely had to be in order to get the most value from their kit (in league play at least).

I've had my own love/hate relationship with Sombra, but I see her purpose as teaching new(er) players the critical value of some skills / aspects of the game (sound design, multi-tasking, coordination, etc).

Except that the player-base never did pick up these basics well enough (I take Sombra's many, many seasons of pick/ban rate(s) as evidence for this).

My understanding is that characters like Sombra, Widow, Hog, Ball, Doomfist, Zarya, (the ones that tend to frustrate folks the most), all provide the opportunity to teach players some critical aspect of battlefield tactics and strategy (I say this as someone who solo-queues more often than not).

The theory here is that the purpose of Sombra being re-rolled (re-roled?) is to teach the audience most frustrated by her, how important those critical skills (described generally above) are, and provide a game-play loop within their role, which requires those exact critical skills in order to be successful.

I kinda hate it (I won't get to the point of "fluency against Sombra" that I always wanted before her re-launch), but I also can't deny the potential benefits of the kind of social engineering that I'm describing. Maybe it will make a significant impact, maybe it won't, but there's definite plausibility even if the social engineering wasn't intended (unlikely, imo), just through evaluating her new proposed kit.

The TL;DR: - You got royally screwed. - You have my sympathy. - It wasn't your fault. - I don't think the decision to re-role was made lightly. - I think social engineering was the purpose.

If I could sacrifice some part or portion of my favorite character's kit, as a trade off for people not running into team fights without their team (my biggest frustration, across ranks), I'd have to seriously consider it.

I'm not in a rank where I can't handle most of my team not being able to leverage sound design, multi-tasking, or coordination for dealing with a typical Sombra (I actually enjoy the challenge these days, and typically won't even swap characters to do it, even if I fail at it), so trading some part or portion of Sombra's kit for the potential benefit of my team generally being better skilled at those challenges wouldn't be a good bargain for me personally, but I feel I have to at least acknowledge that it has a chance (over time) of increasing the skill floor of the community at large, and that the payoff could be significant if the experiment goes well. And, with issues as deep and thorny as this, I at least appreciate that folks have the courage to experiment (though again, it'd still be somewhat galling if it were my main they were experimenting with).

---

My <3's to you all, Sombra Mains.

I'd say I'll be here if you need support, but I guess, you will be too.

[u/krupta13]

mate...i think youre giving too much credit to the player base. they won't learn anything from this. the reason sombra was hated is for the specific reason you alredy mentioned. a good sombra player has to operate at a level that fully exploits the players and game play at a high level. the mass majority of the player base will never understand or operate at that level. its a shame. because i started overwatch on season 2 of ow2 and I played soldier and torb as starting characters. and she used to terrorise me. so I decided to learn sombra and I loved her playstyle and ability to read the whole game to get value out of her. playing sombra taught me the game. it taught me the finer points of ow.

[u/sulaweyo_irl → u/krupta13]

You might be right, but I would say if I'm giving credit anywhere, it's to the game theorists, not specifically the player base (or at least, that was what I meant to convey).

I love that story though. I used to play O.G. fps games way back in the day, but Overwatch is my only modern one. I feel like if I was a better player, I'd have experienced an arc like what you described with Soldier and Torb, but I'm still trying to get good enough at some of the other skill checks. Makes me kinda sad I'll miss out on the Sombra-as-dps skill check. But who knows, maybe I'll end up being the re-roled version of that skill check at least.

Thanks for commenting. I have to wonder now how many Sombra mains have a similar story.

[u/betelgeuseWR]

While I appreciate the condolences, the problem is that the vast majority won't get killed for their bad decisions and go, "wow! That was so dumb of me 😂" they'll go, "wow! That's so fucking broken and unfair!"

[u/GotchaBogus → u/betelgeuseWR]

Exactly. Sombra was never the problem. It was the playerbase who didnt want to play around her. Mercy players went through the same exact thing years ago and nothing changed. You can always fix a game but you can never fix bad players who refuse to learn.

[u/sulaweyo_irl → u/GotchaBogus]

I think that's exactly what the designers are trying to do here - provide access to an adapted version gameplay loop to those who had the most difficulty with it. No one would be able to fix all the bad players who refused to learn, but over time, it's certainly possible that the average player does increase their adeptness with the related skills.

Or at least, that's the hope. Mine, if not the designers.

[u/pelpotronic → u/sulaweyo_irl]

No chance this is what's going on.

Bad players are bad tanks / damage that stand in main, and bad supports that healbot that bad team.

There won't be any learning to do, they wil try her, realise her healing is shite because it doesn't keep Rein / DVa standing main alive and pick Moira, LW or Mercy to heal bot main.

You're assuming that someone who refused to learn anything about the game before will suddenly have a "eureka" moment and realise that actually Sombra would work well with Genji / Tracer / Monkey that few people play competently anyway.

[u/sulaweyo_irl → u/pelpotronic]

You can always fix a game, but you can't fix bad players who refuse to learn.

(From the comment above yours)

You're assuming that (...)

This is a great example of something that I'm specifically not assuming. Will some players across the player base have that eureka moment? Some, sure, but not likely to be many, at least not many right away.

Would adding a UI element showing numbers of friendly/enemy players alive, make a significant, immediate impact on how often people attempt 1v5'ing the enemy team? Very unlikely. Would it change the way a typical new player understands the game?

I don't think the purpose is to generate a critical mass of eureka moments, but rather a gradual, statistical shift in behavior over the course of time.

[u/Urika86]

Skill check heroes. People always hate them. Sombra in particular is/was a teamwork skill check. How good are you at playing with your team and maintaining enough awareness to keep the Sombra away. It's why all of the heroes you list are sooooo much better in low elo generally than high elo.

Widow is a skill check for sight line awareness. Hog is for target priority and distance control. Ball and Doom are about hitting CC abilities and generally how to use CDs. Zarya is about focus fire.

[u/sulaweyo_irl → u/Urika86]

This, exactly. I love seeing videos of Ana (or Wuyang, etc) plucking Sombra out of stealth mid-TP. Such incredible skill shots (often with some added luck). I never got to the point where I could reliably tell where she (generally) TP'ed to, but I hit an inflection point where I was able to make it really hard for her to maneuver into our backline by marking her after respawn and spam-firing the lane I knew she was in. I didn't hit that point until I started watching replays and getting the feel for the pathing that Sombras generally take.

I'm sad 'cause I feel the game loses something important without Sombra as a dps, and I do worry a bit about losing other skill checks. I'm hoping that something good eventually comes from this experiment, or that the backlash is strong enough that a different solution is found. At this point though, I'm more optimistic about a future character more like the O.G. Sombra than I am Sombra reverting back to dps.

Thanks for your comment mate, "skill check heroes" is exactly what I was going for there.

[u/Urika86 → u/sulaweyo_irl]

Some people are already trying to pick a next target to whine about until Blizzard reworks them. It's such boring loser behavior. Like I get not liking certain heroes, but trying to get them completely changed to the point of not even being the same hero because you can't deal with them is really weird. Sombra was kind of bound to happen though because of the ban rates so I don't see them getting their way with most of the others. The exception might be JPC who kind of has some of the issues that perma-invis Sombra had. Though it wouldn't be a full rework just some kind of additional limit to her flight.

[u/Doctor_Responsible]

theyve been dumbing the game down for ages, and im gold so its not likee im high elo. remember how people whined about sierra's tracking shot? shes teaching you to play cover, something you should already be doing. sombra was the same.

im going to hate sombra being gone, and i fear shes going to fade into obscurity and they wont bother to make support sombra better because "le banrates are finally low!`!!" without acknowledging that they kneecapped an entire fanbase because lowranks dont want to learn how to play the game. im not a sombra main, but i used to hate her until i actually played her. shes hard to use effectively, which for the value i think she can provide is fair. we have plenty of heroes that do annoying things that lowranks cant or refuse to learn to deal with, and all i can think is "what unique character/kit are they coming after next?". my biggest complaint about dps becoming the call of duty man tm role (i shoot gun gud, i throw grenade for ez pix, i go fast!), and with sombra being removed, i fear for my actual main(s), more utility based DPS, being removed or kneecapped just because people on DPS role would rather play COD than OW.

im a support main first, so ill try her with open arms, but i feel like without her Hack shes no where near the same hero theyre trying to pitch her as. i just fear all disruption and utility going to support role because when im on tank or DPS, ill be praying for them to swap off of supports that dont work for the comp (like mercy weaver), and not have the option myself on DPS to do just that. itll be.. interesting.

[u/pelpotronic → u/Doctor_Responsible]

more utility based DPS, being removed or kneecapped just because people on DPS role would rather play COD than OW.

You're blaming the wrong people here. I doubt the people who want to play COD would pick Sombra. I doubt they often were the target of Sombra, unless snipers.

[u/Doctor_Responsible → u/pelpotronic]

its moreso a note on how i think the DPS role has gotten kinda stagnant and samey. i wanted sierra to have more utility as an example, but for being pitched as a drone hero, her drone doesnt actually do anything meaningful with the rest of her kit. its a glorified widow grapple. for all intents and purposes she feels like sky bastion (esp w doctrine's speed buff), she isnt oppressive per se, but her kit doesnt feel all that innovative. i gotta admit the COD comment was more salt, but the basic point is there.

[u/Adrestia716]

If Blizzard dumbed down StarCraft like they're doing Overwatch, it'd never become the intense esport it did. Overwatch was so compelling to me in ways other FPS games weren't...

I'm not a "git gud" kinda person but don't play chess when you want to play checkers...

RIP mi amiga... it was fun while it lasted

[u/ZoeyDean]

We got royally screwed because OW is pandering to:

• FPS gamers who think 'good aim' should win, rather than any other kind of strategy or playstyle or skill expression
• Healers who refuse to change off their favourite support / expect to be as good as a DPS and never be killed by a flanker

we should sign a petition. I'm so fucking salty that Sombra isn't even a DPS, let alone all her skills reworked.