I saw about 90% minus the two times greedy FNS ran ads but they gave so little info. Each answer was just some variation of "we want to increase skill ceiling", "we are looking to set ourselves up for the future", or "We are closely monitoring that going forward". Like sure thank you for being awake and alert, but it doesn't mean anything if you interpret the game wrong and fuck it up completely for the 90% of people who play it. Then the whole line with "We have play tested this the most out of any update", but they begging the community to play so they get more data for future changes? So was it widely tested or not, sure community scale is massive, but a change this big didn't need to be all at once if there was no way for you to actually internally test it fully. Just all over the place answers, the main observation I had is that they might say they want to increase skill ceiling, and with aim and gun changes that is somewhat arguable, but with everything else it just doesn't fit.
Dev Interview with FNS
I find it annoying and not fun to play 90% of my ranked games with Reyna, Clove, Jett, Chamber who don't comm, barely entry, and most of the time fit into the categories of being ass or a smurf. Having a whole category of just ranked agents is a problem, you understand that right? Playing two very different games between pro and ranked is not good for the update and leads to stupid balancing decisions.
He was more asking questions and it was mostly the devs dodging questions. He was asking softballs at first but asked a few important questions. Basically the devs hear complaints, but want to go ahead with the changes as a way to completely rebuild Valo from the ground up. Why you would do that and not address the main ranked agent problem or the grand canyon sized difference in the way this game is played in pro and casual is a question the devs were unable to answer.
imo, you'll never be able to compensate for the difference between pro play and ranked play.
Pro play is 5 players playing towards one real goal, which requires selflessness in both play and agent selection.
What's the goal of playing ranked? Might say increasing your rank, but I think more ppl play for highlights/kills/etc, and the elo system actually rewards this kind of playstyle (amount of rr gained is more or less based on your leaderboard placement).
Not to mention the selfless players on support roles like initiator or smokes don't have any incentives for playing those roles, which is why you'll almost never get a ranked game with less than two duelists.
My solution is to factor in utility usefulness somehow to rr gained/lost. Like if you scan 3 with kayo knife, that should be just as impactful as an assist would be. If your dart scans 2, that should count for something. Otherwise, any support player in ranked is basically at the mercy of their duelists/sentinels. If those guys don't capitalize on good utility, then there's no point in playing those support roles.
I think there is something there with rewarding team play and utility rather than simply ACS, especially as a means to change player choices. My incentive as an Omen main and for queueing the game is not really that highlights/kills/rank, I like to queue for the team play and the problem solving the game has. A lot of people will reply "that is what premier is for", but I don't have a team of ppl who want to commit to Valo like that and have the same schedule as me. My schedule isn't completely ordered too, the real world exists and I play other games too. That is the leveI of casual I want to be in comp, but right now there is too much casual influence in comp. While this change somewhat attempts to change that by forcing util to be scarce, which makes communication more important, they have not addressed the other side of that problem that you can avoid that entire thought process and lock the same 4 characters.
same shi bro i feel u, i heckin love playing fade and making impact on her even if it is unseen or i dont gain as much rr as i do if i play jett/reyna for instance, but it is hard to have a great fade gameplay when almost every game u queue u get 2 muted instalock duelists who do not give a shi about utility and just play for their own kills, and now with this patch it becomes even more useless as the impact you can make on these support characters is even less so like what's the point if it becomes easier to just go and run it down on duelists
Instalock + No comm + No headset or blasting music + baiting + no entry + toxic if they do comm + ragebait + half the time suck at their character
And you get minimum 2 of that player each game... honestly games where there are only 2 ppl playing like that are a breath of fresh air from the games where it is 4 people playing like that... In comp mind you
it's so funny when they are being muted the whole game, make a lot of mistakes that you don't want to point out to harm the morale of the team, but when you accidentally bait them once or miss a free kill they INSTANTLY start talking hella shit, the absolute absence of self-awareness from these guys is genuinely outstanding
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