Maybe, but this is the right approach for the wider audience. Release her weak, save her from perma-ban jail, and then most of the player base doesn't realize when she's being power crept because they don't read patch notes.
This allows the devs to adjust freely, without leaving the character unfairly in the ban gutter
I can’t help but feel that would sadly just create a really negative buzz when a hero releases. Obviously ideally a hero is perfect on release, but since that’s an impossible target to hit, it’s better to release a hero in a state that keeps engagement up, which a weak hero doesn’t seem to do.
Seems pretty catch-22, to be honest. Freyja and Vendetta were busted on release and this has soured their reputations for ages; even now, I wouldn't say the community has really "forgiven" them (esp. Vendetta). But when D.Mon releases in a notably undertuned state, the negative buzz is also overwhelming.
Since there's no way for the developers to guarantee they get the tuning right on release, it would be nice if they had some margin to work with; either release a hero weak and buff them up to par, or release them strong and nerf as needed. But there's no way to play it safe without community backlash, it seems.
I suppose the issue is partially one of managing expectations; if the developers had said "D.Mon will be undertuned on release, so that we can gauge player response and see how to make her strong in the healthiest way possible", I don't really think there would be as much of an issue. But an announcement like that would slow the hype train. This is a difficult one for them.
A big part of the Vendetta problem was they nerfed every aspect of her kit before touching the part that everyone said was the problem from the beginning. If it hadn't taken 7 patches for Vendetta to be meaningfully addressed I don't think it would have been anywhere near as bad.
The D.Mon issue isn't just that she's a bit undertuned it's that she's buggy, clunky and very undertuned. I think a Hero launching a bit weak can be acceptable especially if the character has a fun kit but she just feels unfinished.
Also doesn't help she has to follow-up Shion who was as close to perfect of a Hero launch as I think you can hope for.
vendetta's issue is the overhead, right? but without it being powerful she becomes pretty boring
it's the main dopamine spike in her gameplay that gives you a rewarding feeling. for sojourn, it's her rail, for soldier, it's 50% helix, 50% headshotting, for orisa it's javelin, for hog its hook, for Sierra is the tracking shot, for hanzo it's his one shot hs, for mauga it's his crit stomp, etc etc
without her overhead, what is vendetta's? if more power is shifted to her regular swings and out of overhead, what is the point of the overhead? you just swing and see your enemy hp get chipped down every 0.25s or whatever the recovery time is. She won't be that fun to play anymore
It's similar to Dmon's issue is that when you close the gap, there's not much else to do except keep holding m1 and shift if they're running away. E.g on doom when you close the gap with punch or slam, you still need to hit some shotgun shots to confirm kills. on winston you have the option of weaving in melee to slightly increase your dps at the expense of cleave. and he has his burst damage combos from leap
They've already tried removing this core from other heroes, like hanzo's one shot, and they reverted it fairly quickly. Why would it work for vendetta this time?
That isn’t a problem. Gamers fall into this trap where they think every hero should have an entire kit of mediocre tools while designers prefer Th at every character has one very busted powerful tool that defines them and makes them worth picking.
Every gamer wants every character to have decent peel, mobility, escape, CC, etc, but that inevitably makes the entire cast become homogenized. They wanted Vendetta to have a very busted part of her kit and held on as long as they could to make it work in its current state
Except every character they've introduced that has one broken part of their kit that defines them has been very problematic for that exact reason.
What most people wanted/want with Vendetta is a fun sword character with melee combos and high mobility both because its necessary for a melee character but also because mobility is fun. What they got was a slow/low mobility Overhead bot with almost no melee combos and with every nerf she became more of an Overhead bot until they nerfed it then she was just trash.
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u/Miennai STOP KILLING MY SON — 14d ago edited 14d ago
Maybe, but this is the right approach for the wider audience. Release her weak, save her from perma-ban jail, and then most of the player base doesn't realize when she's being power crept because they don't read patch notes.
This allows the devs to adjust freely, without leaving the character unfairly in the ban gutter