Bleeding Edge

NappyAzzNinja

I love bleedind edge it is Defiently one of the most enjoyable team based games I've played but i can say that the have a few imbalances and problems with certain characters and classes that need to be addressed

Healers
The community finds the healers in the game annoying and after playing since alpha i can openly agree with that statement but i dont belive it's for the reasons that most people think i belive the main contribution to the healers being "o.p" argument is the TTK (Time To Kill) of the healers is too long and i think that problem stems from 2 sources the healers individual health pools and some of their abilities

Zero cool is honestly in my opinion in the middle of the balanced spectrum he has basically no offensive capabilities but a particularly high mobility and verticality his health beam is powerful but since melee stops the beam it's not that big of a problem the issue i have with zero cool is that he has the highest health pool out of all the healers sitting at 800 health
That coupled with his high mobility and the fact that he has the highest healing rate in the game makes him a pain to deal with in games unlesa you get half of your team on him

Solution i don't think zero cool should loose his mobility or have anything about his abilitys changed i simply believe that zero cools health pool should be lowered considerably maybe to around 600 as a zero cool you should be smart about your positioning and play style as a back-line supportbut most zero cools can get close to the action without really fearing anything since they take a good amount of damage to put down and can even escape those engagements i belive this change will allow zero to stay in his role better as a back-line support while also allowing more tactical offensive play from the enemy team like flanking rather then just dog pile onto the zero and hope to kill him before he escapes

Kulev is my main healer and i love him he's honesty the most balanced healer in my eyes i do however believe that kulev should lose thw ability to parry while his shield is active since having the ability the parry an attacker without flinching is just too easy and it farms stamina
Miku is the most problematic healer in the game for several reasons even tho she has the lowest health pool of all the healers she is still the hardest and most annoying to deal with miku is almost impossible to kill solo if you manage to catch a miku on her own it will usually end in your death her abilities and attributes are just not handled well and make her way to much of a pain
chain heal is an ability that is good in concept but it was complemented poorly giving miku a self heal was truly a big mistake the bigger mistake was giving her a self heal with only a 6 secound cooldown even shorter with the use of mods the chain heal can even bounce back to her to heal her and an ally

Solution i have thought of 3 ways to possibly balance this obviously problematic healing ability

Increase the cooldown time of the ability in general making miku be more strategic in its use make it's use bumping it up to 10 secounds

2.double the cooldown time if self cast 6 seconds of used as intended and 12 of used on self making it so miku can't spam heal herself to full health

3.change the heal to a charge heal making it so you have to hold the cast button and depending how long you hold it depends on the level of healing you receive/give and like zero cool getting hit will knock you out of the animation resulting in the cooldown being halved so if used normally a 6 secound cooldown if knocked out of it from flinching via melee attack 3 secounds

Stasis my biggest and really only gripe with this ability is that the cast time of it is too quick and impossible to dodge on reaction

Solution change stasis to charge cast as well with similar aspects as i said about chaging the heal to a charge if just tapping the button you freeze your target but for barely any time at all maybe just enough to give you the uper hand in a 1 on 1 fight if fully charged you get the freeze as it is the game now a good amount of time to capitalize and get good damage off on your target if your knocked out of it the cooldown time is 6 secounds if cast correctly it stays 13 secounds

Solution
at the very least if the other changes are not implemented she should have her evades reduced from 3 to 2 as being a healer with both good offensive and defensive capabilities with a high mobility and a stun is a bit too much

miku also has a few problematic mods that should be worked on

1.battle footing this mod should not be allowed on miku spacificlly because of her already low cooldown on her healing ability if the healing ability is changed this mod may be a welcome addition to her kit but as she is now this needs to go

2.Adrenalin this mod is just a mess giving miku a get out of jail free card when taking any damage allowing her to exploit her self heals and tbh this mod also screws with mikus character model making her seemingly teleport all over place when activated now i know the game is no stranger to lag but all games with a miku using the adrenalin mod are seemingly laggy but it's never the whole team it is exclusively miku teleporting im maybe it's simply because i play on concole and not pc but it's still a grave issue if you are reading this as a player if you see a miku just constantly teleporting around a fight check the see if the person playing her is running this mod

General character issues
Certain characters i feel like were not thought of to much in terms of balance so i thought of ways to maybe level them out

Meave a bit too overpowered and easy to play as she is now even tho she's supposed to be an advanced character who utilises kills to reset her abilities i believe this stems from her drain and her cooldowns meave can effectively kill any other damage in the game with her drain if they are at about half health and that is too much damage the only possible character with the most efficient means of escape is gizmo since her suckka has decent range making meave have to evade or get stunned both of which would cancel her drain the problem is the other
damage characters dont have this luxury deamom would need to use either his stealth or his shift strike to escape the both of which are incredibly useful abilities that are a wasted due to the drain nidhogger needs to use his boomitar to possibly stun meave out of her drain but meave can just jump over it and be safe from the stun forcing nidd to use his powerslide and his evades to try and leave the AOE cass is probably in the worst situation not having a stun and leaves her at a major disadvantage against meave forcing her to use her swoop to leave the area the point here is that meaves drain basically forces you to use some kind of utility that can be used in other ways and while it can be said that it is tactical being able to force out those types of abilities i say not having another means of stopping meave if those abilities are available is a problem as the onlg other alternative is getting out of line of sight to cut off the beam like say around a corner but its not always an option

Solution
I believe a good solution to this is making it so that meave can be knocked out of her drain by ground slams this allows characters without stuns not have to waste abilitys on escapes and also good players will know how to do the wake up attack to recover from this also this makes meave players more clever in their approach instead of pushing an enemy while using a beam they back away while draining health and doing damage I also think it would be a good idea to make it so meave cannot interact with healing or pick-up while using vanish since she's completely immune and invisible there's no way to stop her from healing if she uses it or you can keep the vanish and the drain the way it is but increase the cooldowns as i don't think meaves cooldowns on her siphon life(8 sec) and her cage(12 sec) accurately reflect the way the character is ment to be played as an advance character who needs to "exploit her ability resets" the cooldowns on these two ability dont seem to be punishing enough if misused id say increase the cooldown of cage to 15 sec and increase siphon life to 11 sec making more advanced player's better time the siphon to get the best result and punish players for missed timing

Cass is a good hybrid character but a little too strong with her only counters being meave buttercup and el bastardo since they are the only characters that can lock down her movement

Solution
I think the only change cass needs is the removal of her ability to use her ranged attack while her jump is charge as it makes it impossible to catch her with any melee attacks whatsoever this would make cass players better think about they're engagements as cass is now she can solo almost every melee based character on the roster by jumping over them and shooting them over and over

Deamon has only one problem with his mods spacificlly the mod clippin the mod is supposed to reduce the cooldown of his stealth ability by 0.3% on basic attacks but instead the mod lowers all of deamons ability cooldowns making the mod broken

Solution
Change the description of thw mod to have it accurately say what it does currently or fix the mod so it only applies to the ability it is listed for

Nidhogger the only problem nid faces is with his shredder ability it is an aoe but this ability can even go through walls and around corners if enemy's are within the range i cant help but feel like that is a design flaw

The new skins
I love the new designs and akins for the.characters on bleeding edge but locking them behind level 30 is an unnecessary grind since the only sure fire way to level a character to 30 is to non stop win games with a single character and the only way to ensure That is play with a team of 4 coordinated people and even then ot takes some time my point is the level 30 cap is not friendly to solo players or players with time constraint like jobs if you cannot dedicate it takes too long to level up past 21 im a nidd main and when the skins dropped i was level 20 with him as a solo player i obviously win and lose games it's a back and forth spiral if i had the chance to pick nidd i alwasy picked him and in all that time I've gone from level 20 to level 22 that is only 2 levels in 5 days of playing now i do have a job that is deemed essential so i still have to work during the covid-19 pandemic but even with that i still find time to play bleeding edge every day before and after work and I've honestly started to lose the urge to want to reach 30 cause it's becoming a grind and no i dont blame people playing in teams of 4 winning matches or people who dont have to go to work or school im saying that having that be the only 2 options to level up as fast as possible is not efficient and i know that quests are supposed to be implemented soon but to my knowledge that only applies to getting more coins to spend on the skins not xp to help you level up faster to get them

Solution
I believe that the xp rewords for matches should be raised as passed 21 you get breadcrumb amounts of xp even for won matches or the cap should be lowered down to 25

Those are what i believe are problems that the devs have yet to address as previously stated i love the game bleeding egde and in are in no way shape of form saying it's a bad game it just has things holding it back from it's full potential but as a community member i would love to know the thoughts of my fellow misfits do you believe these are good changes? Do you think the game is balanced or imbalanced? Im intrested in other players feedback

Rebel Tetris

@NappyAzzNinja

Thank you for the detailed post, lots of information on different aspects of the game here, I would say some things here don't require changing but are part of a system that wants you to work as a team with other players.

I will also mention we announced the quest system last week which when implemented, will increase the amount of rewards players earn.

Thanks again for sharing your feedback, keep it coming and we'll keep reading.

Commander Brand

I can't agree to the account of Miko. I never have difficulty defeating her. Even Kulev is almost invulnerable when he stands on the heeling ground and under a shield.
Miko has very slow punches, Daemon and Nid can easily get away from them and counterattack and stun her. Even three dodges are not enough for me to be maneuverable enough. Now Miko is equal to Daemon and Nid, I had many duels when I played as Miko and defeated Daemon and Nid, and many ones when I played as Deamon and Nid and defeated Miko. These are really interesting duels on an equal footing, where everything depends only on the combat skill in owning the character.

b4njAx

@NappyAzzNinja I would like to add that if these are balancing changes you're suggesting based on "Time To Kill" being too long I'd say that isn't overly a concern. Part of the focus on teamwork means that the game expects players to really earn their kills. It's probably why they didn't launch with a proper Death Match mode. Plus a lot of what I'm reading appears to be trying to lead the game into one where it's enables quick 1v1's more and in my opinion that is a detriment to the teamplay focus. Everything else seems to be just trying to target intended strengths for those fighters, which will of course appear glaringly overpowered when in the right hands.

As far as your arguments about the grind for cosmetics, in my opinion the lvl 30 skins was a great idea. It's something challenging to really strive for, as it should be. I like the idea of knowing that if someone has one of those skins, they are the real deal with that associated fighter. It's a badge of honour that is valued highly as it should be. And I'm saying this as someone who not only has a job to go to throughout the week but also tries play all fighters equally so I have arguably much further to go than most who have a single main they play. But yeah, it's a long grind but come on, what's the rush? It'll feel so satisfying once you get to that stage where you can acquire one. By then, you'll understand what it takes to earn one of those skins and see the true value they have and the time will feel worth it.

Overall I personally feel the devs have done a phenomenal job with balancing the game to fit with their focus on teamwork!

S0ul3ssPhantom

Only thing I can agree with is Maeve's life siphon seems a bit too powerful, the damage is big and you can only stun her out of it, it doesn't seem very risk vs reward when all she has to do is cast that half health you go invisible and cast it again.

b4njAx

Maeve is super strong but in fairness she's designed to be. Besides the damage on life siphon typically can't outdamage/outheal the incoming damage from most other damage fighters. It's when a good Maeve is running the Swindler mod that you start to see the serious damage come out of it. Teams need to focus her down to either make her run from the fight and thus have a difficult time securing stacks or they need to be persistent enough to hunt her wrinkly ass down so she looses stacks. Pretty much everything can be countered. I'd rather figure out how to counter something than insist the devs mess with their own balancing by nerfing stuff.

GattlingCombo

@Commander-Brand I agree with with Miko being a problem. She can heal well, attack well, AND her attacks have good hitstun, she can block off projectiles, and if she gets attacked too much she can get away too easily. You might feel like it's important to attack the healer, but attacking her, being the one who is keeping her team a live will just fuck you over. The Adrenaline mod and maybe her cooldowns need to be toned down.

Votre Daron

@NappyAzzNinja I just don't agree with the zerocool changements. Even if he has vertical mobility, he only has 2 stamina bars, and can be easily flanked by a cass or daemon and his wall doesn't stop bullets etc... So giving him 60hp only would make him really easy to deal with, for me they sjould lower his healing and give him one more stamina bar.

As for miko, being a main miko, she can come in and get out so easily, I don't find her shield the problem but the self sustain she has is too high, her damage is low to middle of the pack.

The thing is: I don't want Bleeding Edge to go the overwatch way of designing supports, I want them to go the paladins way, where they can hold their ground but are not ultra frustrating to deal with.

b4njAx

@Votre-Daron I don't want Bleeding Edge to go towards neither of those games. They have earned the right to do things their way imo. The more like another game it is, the less like Bleeding Edge it is.

Votre Daron

@MisfitBanjax What I meant was I don't want the supports to feel like the overwatch supports who are just healbots, there's so much potential with BE and I really want it to succeed while being its true self. I mentionned paladins because they have self reliant supports. I don't want BE to just be paladins.

b4njAx

@Votre-Daron Ah ok I got ya. I guess I just got a bit defensive

Votre Daron

@MisfitBanjax No problem

GattlingCombo

@Votre-Daron Early Briggete and Moira wave happily I hate all overwatch characters beside Zenyatta and Sombra though, they probably suck ass even more now.

Votre Daron

@GattlingCombo Brig already received a rework and is gonna receive a new one pretty soon to the armor she gives, moira is also getting a rework cause the devs said she was too easy to play. So they're making improvements finally.

I seriously want Bleeding Edge to create new game modes though.

BTW Sombra is the second least played hero and zenyatta is DEAD.

b4njAx

@Votre-Daron We all want new game modes but until the devs get something solid sorted and the player base has grown to the point where queue times don't become abysmal, we gotta trust that they have awesome stuff in store for us.

Also Zenyatta isn't dead, Zen is life!

GattlingCombo

@Votre-Daron I shall create tombstones dedicated to Sombra and Zenyatta of them giving the finger to all of the "meta" characters in Overwatch....In the source engine. RIP. And they are JUST now reworking moira saying she is too easy to play. Phew.

I don't know if I'm in dire need for new modes in the game though. Some more interesting stages and characters would be nice, character and matchmaking balance is at the top of the list for me though.

They could do a straight up pvp mode maybe? But they'd have to balance around that too. Maybe a mode with some pve elements a la battleborn incursion with a sentient robot you need to protect from the enemy team and their minions? Or more like Gigantic where player kills give you chances to injure a sentient nexus maybe? Very ambitious, but they are ideas.

b4njAx

@GattlingCombo Better matchmaking would be ideal but I fear that's something that's limit by the player base anyways. Especially due to coordinated 4-stacks, they are rare enough to struggle putting against each other but common enough to be a problem of really outmatched teams.

But yeah, I'm not too pushed on new gamemodes yet either. I mean, like, Objective Capture and Power Collection are decent team-based modes, in my opinion. We just need people to realize how they actually work. Anyways, a TDM is a given for a future gamemode the way I see it. King of The Hill and Capture the Flag should be welcomed modes too.

As for Gigantic's Powering The Guardians style mode, that shit was way too complicated for most people even by the end of it's lifespan. Bleeding Edge's gamemodes are comparatively piss easy to understand and we STILL have people struggling with the concept.

Votre Daron

@GattlingCombo Now with the genji buffs it's a mess.

As for BE making a gigantic style game mode would be EXTRA AWESOME.

Votre Daron

@MisfitBanjax
I weirdly have much more faith in the BE devs than I do for the OW devs team.

Feedback on current issue's and balancing that should adressed