Have you ever had that feeling when playing certain team-based multiplayer maps that things are slightly unfair for one of the teams? That one side has it slightly harder, and it’s more difficult to win when playing as them? And when you mention it or complain about it, you’re met with a torrent of “eh, seems fine to me”? Well, in the case of the Rialto map in Overwatch, you may not be crazy.
A disgruntled player took to the Overwatch forums to complain about the balance in the map, and was quite surprised when Blizzard vice president Jeff Kaplan entered the discussion – to admit that the map actually is unbalanced. There’s approximately a 14% win rate discrepancy, with Attackers more likely to come out on top – however, Kaplan says that this is “not hugely out of line.”
“In the past week, Attackers win 42.88%,” he says, suggesting that Defenders win 57.12% of the time. “We always try to balance toward a 50/50 win rate. We have some minor tweaks we can make to bring the map more in line… While it’s not perfect, it’s also not hugely out of line.”
Kaplan has posted win rate percentages for maps before, and things seemed far closer to the 50/50 split that Blizzard are aiming for. King’s Row and Watchpoint: Gilbraltar in fact were near dead-on 50% each way. The biggest difference at the time was with Horizon, in which Attackers won 54.50% and Defenders won 45.50% – a 9% discrepancy. While Rialto is a newer map, 14% still seems significant.
Players in the thread commented that Rialto was turning into “a sniperfest”, but many believed that Horizon Lunar Colony was far more unbalanced. “Horizon makes me want to uninstall every time I see it pop up,” said user Dragon. “Nothing in this game comes as close to being as bad as Horizon Lunar Colony. NOTHING!!!”