What even is the point of balance updates?

Keeps the game fresh. If the game changes it gives people a reason to want to play again to figure out new combinations. Otherwise the meta gets set and it never changes and that gets old quickly.

Not necessarily. For instance rocket league was released in 2015 and hasn't gotten any such update since 2017. If the base is solid the players can spend their time mastering what they are given and over time it grows on you. Imagine chess buffing up the pawn and nerfing the bishop.

> For instance rocket league was released in 2015 and hasn't gotten any such update since 2017.

StarCraft 1 has had no balance updates in over 20 years, and the game is doing great.

StarCraft 2 has had no balance updates for like a year or two, and it was slowly killing the joy of the game for everyone who bothered to suffer through it.

StarCraft 2 was designed to be a game where the meta has to be shaken up occasionally; StarCraft 1 ended up more like chess: if you tweak a rule once in a century (or the Internet-equivalent of a century), it's big news.

Different games, different needs.

Nah, Starcraft 1 just ended up pushing balancing to the tournaments and map designers. If you tried playing it on the last Blizzard maps from the original run of Brood War, it's a questionably balanced game.

You are correct. Map design has a dramatic impact on the balance of BW - and as the game develops, and certain matchups become more or less one-sided, tournaments adjust their map pools.

True, but then BW's map pool rotation is also way slower / more conservative than SC2's. We're used to 7 new 1v1 maps every other season by now (personally I preferred the old system where the 2-3 oldest and/or most problematic maps would get phased out every season).

Meanwhile: Fighting Spirit

I think the comparison doesn't work because the composition of the teams doesn't change based on character choice. The interplay of the characters, and inherent strengths and weaknesses of each one create a dynamic metagame that games like MOBAs and Overwatch change to keep things fresh.

For games like Rocket League, CSGO, Overwatch, Apex, etc. The teams are even no matter what (skill aside). Meta still exists however, as anyone who has played multiple years of any of these games sees. Expected attacks, combos, and preferred approaches change over time as people discover weaknesses to the existing metagame and exploit them.

Not to say Rocket League has vastly changed in the last 8 years (I've played for 5 of them), but it's definitely different and a little updated.

Edit: Not to mention Rocket League rotates special game modes regularly for this purpose as well.

Fair enough, though I'd suggest that rocket league has many fewer gauges to fiddle with than Overwatch. It's always symmetrical fields and 5 different car types, right?

There is steering sensitivity, car speed, ball speed, car mass, car power, boost strength, shooting power, jump height. All those variables have been finalized. What I'm saying is that balance patches are a band aid over the core problem.

What’s Rocket League like nowadays? I only played when it first came out. The impression I got though was that it was more like Counterstrike or something: mechanically simple with lots of depth, designed to be more like a sport than a game.

Overwatch is pretty casual. It is tuned for spectacle, and the abilities work out such that most reasonably non-bad players get a steady trickle of moments where they get to be the “star” for a scene.

It isn’t really a core problem, just a different type of game.

In that context those variables are constant from player to player, save for maybe their car’s hitbox.

Even with 6 different cars in 3v3 you’re looking at multiple orders of magnitude less variation than 37 heroes in a 5v5 with all different weapons, movement style, speed, passives, etc.

I don’t think it’s comparable.

For balance updates the problem is that if balance swings too wildly out of whack, it effectively removes content from the game as it gets too underpowered. Especially in a team game like Overwatch, where peer pressure and sometimes outright harrassment will be deployed by your team mates if you pick an underpowered, or perceived to be underpowered, option

> Stop all updates for 3 years - including balance updates

Cries in StarCraft 2