'Overwatch' News: Bastion Nerfs Live On PTR; He's 'A Little Too Powerful Right Now,' Kaplan Admits

After the unpopular Bastion buffs went live in Overwatch patch 1.8, players have complained and complained and complained some more. But did they have a point, or was it all just mulish fear to change? Game director Jeff Kaplan has responded to the community’s uproar over Bastion’s buffs in a new post on the Blizzard forums.

First he assured everyone that changes to Bastion’s changes were incoming. “One of the things I've learned about online communities is that change -- any change -- can cause a lot of anxiety.... With that said, we'll make some changes to Bastion and put them up on the PTR this morning,” he stated.

The Bastion changes are now live on the PTR: so far it looks like just Bastion’s Ironclad passive has been nerfed. Ironclad now reduces 20% of incoming damage rather than 35%, making it a little harder to win that war of attrition through sheer damage reduction.

Kaplan shared some thoughts about Overwatch ’s meta and why people pick the characters they pick: “When I read some feedback about what the meta should be, I get the sense that for some people that means every hero in Overwatch is picked at the exact same rate (so everyone has a 4-5% pick rate). I'm not sure this is entirely realistic, nor do I think the game is necessarily better if this is the case,” he stated.

He then elaborated on the difference between pro meta versus actual meta. “The perceived meta is largely driven off of the professional scene and what gets played in tournaments. After those tournaments, really cool reports are written analyzing the pro scene. Those reports go out of their way to say that they are solely reflective of the pro scene and not necessarily representative of the playerbase at large. Yet people cite the pro pick choices as gospel.” He gave Mercy as an example: during the triple tank meta, players called Lucio and Ana the only viable healers, yet Mercy was the 5th most played hero overall in Competitive Play.

“So often, the perception of what the meta is does not match what the actual meta is,” Kaplan pointed out.

He went on to talk about how people’s emotions affect their reaction to balance changes intended to make the very changes the community wants: increased viability for under-utilized heroes. “There is outrage if a hero does not get played a lot (like with Bastion or Symmetra). We make changes to make those heroes more viable which means they will get played more. The result is, people need to adjust to playing against Symmetra and Bastion more... and they are more powerful. We cannot just magically make Bastion get picked more so the stats look pretty and not make changes to make him more viable at the same time,” Kaplan stated.

Finally, Kaplan gave his personal opinion about Bastion separate from Kaplan’s role as a spokesperson for Overwatch, based on his experience playing with and against Bastion. “My perception is that he is a little too powerful right now. In particular, in one match I was playing Bastion and the enemy Tracer was trying to hunt me down. The Tracer player was clearly a better player than I am -- a very skilled individual. I relied heavily on my self-heal and the Tracer could not finish me off. But I was able to kill Tracer in recon mode almost through attrition. This part felt wrong to me,” Kaplan allowed.

“But a lot of the feedback I read feels wildly blown out of proportion. Bastion isn't the ‘I Win button’ and he can be focused and countered. When a team is coordinated, he is far scarier than when a team is just playing a pick-up/deathmatch style of play -- and I've witnessed both over the past few nights. I think complaints and praise of Bastion are both valid. I don't think he's perfect yet. But I do think there is a high amount of hyperbole around this particular situation,” Kaplan said.

Do you think Kaplan’s right? Is there too much sturm und drang around any changes the dev team makes to characters, especially to improve under-used characters? Do you think Bastion is fairly balanced or does the PTR nerf to his Ironclad passive make a difference? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.