u/RobManfredsFixer

As a tank player, D.mon is the first new ground tank I've been interested in years and she also seems to dwarf heroes like Ram, Mauga, and Domina when it comes to how exciting her gameplay is (especially after recent changes to her fluidity and mobility).

When I say flashy I mean exciting gameplay. Good carry potential, exciting clips, fun to watch played at a high level, has some fun strats/techs, etc

How high of a priority should flashiness be when designing heroes?

Which heroes do it well and which don't?

Can it be unhealthy?

Are there any heroes who could be more exciting with some changes?

I've seen some people talk about how payload can be improved with more map reworks, and while I do think changes can improve the feel of the maps, I just wanted to make a post to explain why some of the painpoints with payload maps are required by the format.

This is especially common in the 3rd point design on Escort maps. Circuit, Dorado, Havana, Rialto, Route 66. You load into these maps and when you fail to cap 3rd, you can reasonably say "its okay this point is really hard to capture." The points have strong chokes, oppressive high grounds, long sightlines for defenders and a lack of easy flank routes. It makes these points feel impossible to attack into. 3rd points on hybrid maps tend to be a bit better, but thats mainly because a lot more pushes end on first point before the attackers even unlock the payload.

The problem is, this is by design and is not fixable. If you make maps too easy to capture, you end up with larger timebanks and much more frequent overtimes. Pushes grow longer and those longer pushes eventually mean more set up phases. You'd end up with more 6-5 games, or worse.

These points are intentionally difficult to capture to keep the format in check. Its either you make the maps hard to attack or make the longest mode longer. The devs rightly choose to keep these maps difficult to capture, but that means they are as much as much "Attacker vs Map" as they are "Attacker vs Defender."

We've seen it with maps like Circuit and Havana. They give us map reworks and players are left asking why they didn't get meaningful changes. The answer is the changes you want will probably break the mode. Its also why 2cp was unsalvagable. The attackers theoretically only needed to win 2 fights to fully cap, so the maps needed even more oppressive geometry and crazy defender respawn timers to make sure games weren't going to 8-7 final scores every game.

Compare that to push. It is quite hard to full cap a push map, but its not because of the map design. When you win a fight in push, the payload starts moving the other way which causes most of the fighting to naturally happen in the middle 50% of the map. Payload doesn't have the luxury of the format checking itself so the map design needs to check the format.

TLDR You cant capture any 3rd points in payload because if it was easier, the mode would go one forever.

IMO, the game is in quite a solid spot at the moment, but I'm curious what you think are the biggest issues currently affecting the game. Or if you think there aren't any major issues, what opportunities do you think the devs have to improve the game further?

Any philosophies youd like to see them change/adopt? Any hero design, system design, or quality of life changes you'd like to see?

Hope you didn't want your replay codes

I was going to specifically ask about the Subrole passives, but I figured I would open it up to a broader discussion since we have seen some significant shifts/changes in the game since the start of the year.

So any thoughts on subrole passives, new heroes, map voting adjustments, menu overhaul, Gibraltar/AP reworks, challenger system changes, general balance philosophy, post match screen, etc, etc?