OW2 is off in the horizon, my guess is anywhere between February and May of 2021.
That said, when it gets here people are going to burn through the story content within weeks.
And all you’re left with is a bunch of players up for grabs to retain them in PVP.
How can Overwatch 2 do a better job of holding on to as many New and Returning players as possible?
To me, it would seem like features like this are needed:
Improve queue times
Seperate buttons for team voicechat and group voicechat, while being able to hear both voicechats at the same time.
Access to the Notes field of the Battlenet friends list. Maybe with the ability to edit the users name.
Allowing streamers to hide the usernames of other players, and have it show the character name instead.
Some sort of VGS system, to have a menu for all these voice lines.
Make it so healthpack locations are visible through walls, within a certain range.
A “Ping system” equivalent, with waypoints.
A player selected ban system for Masters/GM
Probably find some way to make CC less frustrating. For instance, replace stuns with dazed effects. Where you can at least still walk around at 70% speed.
2CP rework, or maybe a Quickplay version that requires less teamwork.
Cut down on the unnecessary fluff times between actual gameplay such as the hero select screen and the preparation phase. They serve no real purpose at least no purpose that people actually utilise, certainly not in quickplay
stop banning people for “toxicity”. let people banter like grown-ups.
have Lucio Ball, triple damage, and No Limits as permanent modes
ensure that the game is as optimised as possible and can run on low and systems. All the fancy effects are nice and all but useless for people who don’t have good enough specs
have quick play and quick play classic side-by-side just like with open Q
reconsider whether player versus environment is the best direction to take the game in or spend development resources on. This game is at its finest as a PVP game
rework the report system. Currently it is actually abused by toxic players more than actually punishing toxic players. Having it be based purely on the volume of reports makes no sense because people who play regularly are likely to rack up reports over time
rework the hero swapping mechanic. Currently it simply does not yield good results because you spend so much time going back to spawn and then clicking on the hero and sometimes there is lag between you clicking on the hero and it’s actually spawning you and it’s just a mess. There needs to be a simple hotkey for a specific hero that you want to swap to. For example the numbers row 1 to 10 could be assigned to specific heroes that you play most often
reconsider whether it is a good idea to keep continually changing things simply to shift the meta. This is particularly disruptive to new players because when they are simply starting out and trying to learn the game it is quite offputting if suddenly the hero they have spent time learning completely changes or is significantly worse or better. A static meta is seen by many people as a bad thing but I certainly see it as a good thing. I don’t mind having a single meta for a long time. Most lowmid rank people don’t even play meta anyway
map select? Or possibly a map preference setting. Like you could set it to your number one preferred map as Temple of Anubis, number two volskya industries etc. However I understand that this would potentially add complications to the matchmaker.
skip all of the stuff after qp matches and just put you into another game immediately with the same players. The best way to retain players is for them to build connections, and the best way for them to build connections is for them to play with the same players for longer periods of time which they are more likely to do if we don’t have all the unnecessary fluff like POTG, cards and experience gained shown at the end
instead of having to opt in to remain as a group, possibly have it automatically keep everyone as a group provided you win the game. This too would encourage players to build connections with others and that would keep them playing
Overall the single best way to retain players is for them to have friends who continue to play the game which means they need to make friends in the game to begin with which means the social features need to be improved. Clan or guild systems and so on. The games that I found myself playing most frequently sometimes were the games that simply my friends were playing as well
stop punishing people for playing in groups. This means that friends are less likely to play together. Groups should have an equal chance of going against solo players as well as grouped players. It should not add anything to queue time or increase the difficulty of matches
make it possible to display replay codes publicly on your profile so you can show off your best matches to anyone who happens to visit your profile. It would be fantastic for top 500 players as people may visit their profile in the leaderboard. It would also be a learning opportunity for lower ranked players
have a volunteer coaching system. The person being coached can rate the coach and if enough players rate them highly enough The coach may earn special rewards over time. alternatively if the player you coached ranks up then you earn a special reward automatically. Overwatch is fundamentally an extremely difficult game and while I don’t really believe that tutorials would help very much because they don’t consider the individual specific difficulties that players may experience an actual human coach would absolutely be helpful
should the coaching system be allowed for competitive games? I personally wouldn’t see it as cheating. It would be like having your friend sit next to you and give you tips while you play
Voice and text chat with strangers has to end. It needs to be made friend/group only and not automatic opt-in. Toxicity is a key reason people leave and grow to hate the game.
The dirty answer is prioritizing gameplay balance and fun for the popular characters.
The better answer is tightening the hell out of MM parameters before the player surge is over. If this fails the game is going to death spiral slowly 'round the toilet bowl and we won’t get another chance.
There haven’t been any promises for pvp changes so it is safe to assume there won’t be major ones. The only pvp related announcement was about the new mode.
That’s a question for the devs. What we say here does not matter. The devs seem content on letting this game crash to the ground so that’s how it will go. Also OW2 content will last a few days, not weeks.
The way I was thinking of a ping system is something like the “group up” icons we already got, but with an arrow that points in a direction that dynamically moves around the circle.
The ban system, I was figuring between the 4 players on a role, if 3 players agree to a ban, they hero gets banned. Default is no ban.
And with 6 people pinging god knows what on these smaller maps it will be a disaster. It works in Apex because you play in small teams and wide maps.
A giant no. Anything that limits my choice of heroes gets a big no, especially when that limitation can be out of my hands. I wont let some sweaty faceless nobody decide what I can play.
I don’t think they need to change much at all to keep people like me interested. The three main things that cause me to log off:
I get physically tired of playing sometimes, there’s no way around that other than making the game so captivating I ignore that feeling (which is probably something limited to honeymooned games when they first come out) so I ignore this one
Queue times drive me away and cause me to switch gamemodes or close the game - I absolutely prefer role queue 100% but I mentally can’t sit through a 10 minute queue for comp between games, especially after a loss, I’d rather play an inferior gamemode with a shorter queue like open queue. I’ve even had a 20 minute queue for mystery heroes before
Losing isn’t fun, but they’re aware of this and working on it (per the scott mercer interview on platchat). What I think they’re trying to do is implement fun ways to gauge how you’ve improved through playing a match, like tracking a stat or a milestone you’re trying to achieve, something that’s an objective gain even though the round is a loss and it’s something clearly presented and gamified.
The thought of playing my best when I’m certain the game is going to show me as much negative feedback as possible is offputting. Depending on how they choose to make losing still some sort of a “win” outside of mmr gains, I think it could have a big impact on player retention
How is it reasonable that those 3 decide whether or not the 4th player can play that hero. I don’t see how letting some Moira and Zen mains decide that I can’t play Ana that game is reasonable. They wont be the ones missing out on their main, I would be.
