Let them be heroes...let them be...

There’s been some push to have more in depth ability progression for the characters in Crucible. I’d vote not to, sorta. Reasons: (1) depth already exists, (2) balance, and (3) uniqueness of characters. These reasons only make sense when looking at the gestalt, the whole of how characters fit in their team and their environment (objectives, stompers, harvesters, etc.).

Depth: Level one and three offer three upgrades to choose from, level two and four are fixed, and level five has two upgrades. This format gives each character two builds really, a support/sustain and a high damage build. You can build a combination of the two but doing so takes away from how some of the talents work together. At first look this sounds, well, boring. You have to realize each character comes with their own complexity based solely on their kit though. Every hero has some sort of auto attack (left click) that reloads but their other abilities and how they function are completely different.

Tosca has the best damage over time whereas Mendoza and Earl can pelt you from the backline and heal up. The growth that levels provide is there to enhance the abilities, the kit, not to entirely change the character’s role. Not every hero should become a crazy damage dealer, hypermobile, or unkillable. Teams that have compositions of different aspects are actually quite deep but I’d vote that this is one of the least explored areas of Crucible. What combo wombos do exist? What heroes play off of each other well?

 Balance: I fear that adding to talent upgrades is a slippery slope. One of the devs mentioned that AJ’s squid mines originally rooted enemies. How cool? Right? Even if she had to pick that as an upgrade it would be a broken mechanic. The damage output she does is already high (in the right hands) and getting to take shots on still targets, I mean come on. Adding “cheekiness” to upgrades can make heroes hard to balance. At some point, too, the complexity of heroes in battle can become annoying. You’re blinded, silenced, vulnerable, slowed, and dotted, all at once. It’s already challenging to learn the icons for effects and adding more will make this muddier. The devs probably haven’t been given enough credit for how they’ve balanced the characters, when you take them all together.

Unique Characters: The more abilities you add per character the more it takes away from what makes other characters unique. Let’s say Summer’s fireball gets an upgrade where it blinds or slows enemies on contact. Not too big a deal, right? Except that now Summer can do what only Mendoza, AJ, and Rahi could do: blind. She also starts to intrude on Tosca, Sazan, Shakirri, and Bugg slows. But that’s not the only problem. If it becomes a broken mechanic (i.e. unbalanced) then you either have to nerf parts of Summer’s kit (maybe fireball now does less Dot) or introduce counter play for other characters (maybe someone now gets a cleanse of all CC). And on and on. Thinking long term, I’d vote to include these new abilities, this cheekiness, in new characters adding niche to that character.

Environmental Abilities: Now don’t hate me but what I said wasn’t the entire truth. The abilities do need to change, some do need to be added, but they need to relate to how characters interact with Crucible itself. The scanner needs to change. Everyone can scan everything including enemy heroes. This is an example of abilities taking away from hero uniqueness. Tosca has a scanner but everyone has one that is arguably more powerful than her ability.

Here’s a suggestion: make the scanner do something different depending on who you’re playing. Only Earl and Mendoza can scan for med kits. Sazan and Drak get to scan enemy heroes. AJ’s connection with nature allows her to scan for creatures (assuming they’re made more random since we all know where to expect them). Bugg’s can scan for creatures too but he “marks” them so they take extra damage from his plants. Give objectives a zone instead of an exact location and let Shakirri’s and Tosca’s scanners pinpoint them. Ironically, scrapping some functionality would add more depth to each hero. Maybe this is built into level two or three and levels are pushed back a bit, so getting to level six is more rewarding. In my experience games rarely make it to levels beyond six or seven.

In all, leave the individual space, the gaps, in character kits. Put the emphasis on teamwork and the "macro" play. Add more to how heroes play off of Crucible, but let the heroes be heroes, let them be.