If you mean ‘Activision Blizzard’ when you say devs, then I can kinda agree since corporate is included in that. But I doubt the actual devs (programmers, artist, etc) have 100% say in how things move forward.
As a dev in a different space, I will often get told at a high level what needs to get done, but I’m responsible for low-level execution of that high level request.
100% agree with everything else though.
understood
as I see it, most folks here refer to the team that includes not only the coders, graphics folks, qa testers, and implementation /operations folks (dbas, network guys, etc) as well as the overarching decision makers as “devs”
in short, the team as a whole that ultimately produces the product
aside: I like what I am seeing from you in your recent post history. On topic, reasonable, thoughtful, and no ad hominem. so many forum members seem to prioritize ad hominem these days
Their are 35 heroes, each with unique kits. That have completely different playstyles, and many can move completely different ways.
with the exception of halo melee weapons. all spartans will move the same.
Like yes how you play against a sword and rocket launcher is different. But for the most part you can approach combat against the melee weapons in the same way. There is mostly one solution around them, and that is to keep your distance and fire while they are out of range.
You have different ways of doing this, but it’s the same tactic with almost every weapon in the game.
In overwatch, how a road hog plays against a genji/pharah/ana is completely different from how a widow will interact with these same heroes. And it’s not just because of the gun they hold it’s because of their mobility (or lack of)/their role/ self sustain/ additional damage tools/utility.
Each hero in OW will have a completely different experience from each other.
Like mei couldn’t give a dam about a tracer/d.va/rat ult/ flash bang(sticky grenades/helix/ damage combo’s like with doom. As she has two tools to get around them with ease. Cassidy on the other hand has to kill these players before the ult/cooldown goes off, rely on his tank in the middle of an open point, play specifically around corners that are still in range of his gun.
Every hero has a completely different set of interactions with another. Halo guy with shut gun, and guy with the rocket launcher just needs to position in a way to kill the other first. one being an up hill battle from the other.
(it’s almost sounds like you don’t actually play much OW at all)
Fun fact, their will be 35 heroes at the launch of OW2 34 considering that they need to grind for Kiriko.
Going into the training room only shows you what the hero does, not how they interact with other heroes. And vs AI is a joke, because they don’t play like actual humans and have a very limited selection of heroes to pull from. So your experience their is not going to get you up to speed. And at one point they will be placed with people that have years more experience then they do. Even if they are the same comp rank.
Like the complexity of the game isn’t the hero themselves, it’s the thousands of hyper specific interaction one hero has with the rest of the cast.
six is over half way to ten. it’s not a small number. Especially when it comes to a project that needs to take into account the mobility and LOS of over thirty heroes. Have functional chokes/flanks/ high ground low ground, for three separate points. on top of the hundred of unique art assets that are only found in that one map, multiple lighting settings, and play testing to find a comfortable speed at which points move and cap. (as they do vary between maps/points)
building 6 of them is a lot of work.
Says their isn’t any differences, immediately contradicts themselves by noting a very distinct difference in how fights play out.
Especailly now that their isn’t an extra buffer tank to jump to that teammate aid, making fights alot more damage 1~3v1~3 duel focused. Instead of the mass team fights that either turn into focus fire knock outs, or a poke phase stall fest while the two teams burn out each other’s defensive tools. With the only mix ups being big interruption tools like stuns and environmental kills, or massive burst damage ults like pulsebomb, dragoon blade, D.va bomb. but only after the one of the major defensive tools are used. otherwise the rien/zarya will hard counter any single ult.
Now no longer needing many of the former, with the latter being less effective by defualt do to the more spread nature of fights. And the ubber buffs tanks got to manage at least one of these tools, yet at the same time being a lot more counter specific in their use.
Rien would still be good at a d.va bomb/while zarya is more suited to tracer.
As you can’t have both, at least not in normal que. Would love to see the wacky comps in open que.
I’m just pointing out that these reworks were of the same complexity of as torb and sym back in the day.
If they just added a new payment system to OW1, it wouldn’t have helped much. As it wouldn’t pull in new players to OW1. And the ones that are their are not buying into MTX. Making the development of such not exactly appealing.
As new hero/map content wasn’t bring in new players, and going for the locking heroes behind a paywall route in a game that isn’t already growing. Is just making that prospect less apealing.
OW2 gets away with it because of the multiple large-scale additions to the game, with new content in PVP giving the current player base what they wanted. And a whole new PVE mode that would be better suited to keep casual players invested in the series. With market one one being just as working for both titles.
Their is a lot a new content, a lot to show off. And a considerable bit of content within the first two years alone. They needed a new game to do that, or at least the hype of a new game.
People didn’t like the constant balance issues with tank duo’s, people didn’t like the constant stuns that act as an easy way to interrupt or create opening’s.
People were tired of the poke phase were you were just burning out each others defensive tools.
players didn’t like the amounts of burst damage meant to get quick kills in the small amount of time those defensive tools were down.
Support players/tank didn’t like having to be reliant on their team to peel or get kills for them.
A lot of OW fans didn’t like PVP, but loved the PVE events/heroes/story/ abilities and more.
Their is a lot of complaints specifically addressed in OW2 changes. We in many ways wanted this very thing.
I mean those steamers got hundred of thousands of views, some even up to a mill.
we are getting multiple trailors with each hero release, that have a million views each. 2 mill for the junker queen animated short.
And being a F2P game their going to plastered all over the Console stores, and very appealing to those that are just now buying Ps5 and the likes.
Also like traditional TV is kind of living off the older generation, most of the hit shows their are mostly target 40+ age demographics.
Like don’t get me wrong Yellow stone is doing avengers numbers, but like not the audience OW is shooting for.
~The CW Average Viewer Age Is 58, Fox Has the Youngest Audience
On the halo examples…please go onto a Halo forum and say that. I dont believe most of that would hold up about approaches being that comparable.
On the training mode examples, I don’t think you’re giving people enough credit when it come to reasoning. Training mode is not meant to teach players everything, but if someone knows what two heroes do, then they can probably figure out how many major interactions work and figure out the rest later through experience.
If a player knows Mei can slow within a certain range or block a them off, then is it unreasonable for them to understand where they shouldnt be or where Mei shouldnt be a threat? Same with hog hook or Pharah rockets.
And While AI is not like vs Humans, it does give them hand-on experience of how some interactions can work.
On “few”:
I dont see how being half way to ten is relevant. No one said it it didnt take work
On me saying there “isn’t any difference”:
On Torb/Sym reworks:
Yes, I would consider those on the same level as Orisa as they had strong impacts on how they played, effectively making them different heroes.
On my coffee:
I agree that bulk dropping is more likely to bring more people in as can feel like an expansion. I’ve never argued against it.
i’m affraid the average player isn’t going to do that. not for 35 unique heroes. Nor will they grasp everything a hero can/will do. Even with descriptions/and the training room.
A large number of people at launch thought lucio healed by shooter at his teamates, in a very moria ult like fashion. (no I’m not joking)
~https://www.gamespew.com/2018/02/5-mistakes-new-overwatch-players-often-make/
Even then their is a large number of Mechanics that simply are not common in other shooters.
like if I see a large glowing enregy orb moving towards me in any other game, I’m going to to assume that it’s going to kill me if I touch it.
In OW that is only true for the blue orbs, The green one will trap you, the purple one will damage you with an AOE effect that changes depending on how many targets is in range, and if you didn’t pick up that bright yellow was the healing color. You might be running away from the healing orbs bouncing back into your team.
Of course one of those no longer exists, and they did change up Sym’s damage to be distinct.
yet for a newbie it’s not the same as looking at the players gun, and playing around ye old shutgun, machinegun, sniper rifle ranges.
That depends if you can immediately grasp the many ways mei can use ice wall, and the combo’s that work with mei.
Like if a lucio speed boosts mei into your backline, walls off the exit. Eats your Cassidy stun with block. Gets a free freeze on your d.va allowing her to freely throw ult. Multiple free headshots, triple freezes d.va while the other tank/dps losses to the rest of team on the front line.
That was my brothers first game against a mei, giving him an incredibly bias view of her balance.
Like you simply can’t learn heroes in isolation. And what combo’s of heroes you see will be completely random for the most part. And have to deal with layers of interactions unique to every team. Like where and when you can do things is very dependent on what your team/and enemy are playing.
forcing you to adjust you play style to such instances, even the hero you play in some cases.
Nope the AI aim sucks for the most part. it’s very easy to push right up to spawn as they won’t shoot you till they come out, and they make a neat line out of spawn for you to kill them 1 by one. They don’t really combo outside of the highest difficulty.
And theirs not much keeping you from messing up their pathing with slows, or knock backs. As you can easily split them up.
Like a barrier and a bastion is basically all you need, and even by random chance they get by you. they mostly just stand on point. and don’t push ahead to more optimal chokes that even silver players know to use.
They don’t play like humans, don’t know how to use their tools in the same way, and really not much of a threat.
Like at best they would regroup a take a different spawn exit. And that’s the most impressive thing they do.
At best it can help you get to grips with FPS controls, map layout, the basics of a game mode.
but for learning how to aim your tools I woulnd’t recomend it, walking in straight predictable lines is only going to hurt your aim when actual players start jumping around, wall running/ridding, flying, double jumping, AD spam, flanking, and more.
On a side note the same isn’t true with PVE enemies, they run on specific scripted events. With unique enemy formats, and loads of map specific positioning interactions.
Talon snipers having multiple set purch locations, and locations to stand in and grapple to for example.
Also no shade to Halo, it’s built like an arena shooter. Were learning gun spawns and getting better at posisitioning and aiming is the name of the game. it’s really clean experience and there is nothing wrong with that.
Like they were complaining when a sprint button was added.
Most of the scenarios you listed sounded like they didnt read or try anything in the training mode.
If someone effectively skips the tutorial, then sure they can get confused on how things work.
Maybe skipping tutorials/information is more common than I thought.
But again, Training mode and AI games give hands-on experience for some interactions. It’s for the basics. Tutorials and training almost never show everything that can happen in a game, so I don’t believe that should ever be the expectation.
Remember the hype for OW1 launch. OW2 pales in comparison
Mei’s triple freeze, and wall traps are not something the game teaches you. Nor is something that is obvious that you can do. Nor does the training room prepare you for how to actually deal with such.
Your basically learning it from seeing someone else use it on you. Then find your own ways around/learn from the community via posts/ or videos.
Like my brother was just getting to grips with cassidy’s roll/stun combo.
let alone the complex counter plays / picks for dealing specifically with mei.
To us it’s obvious, but to new players even after a skim of the cast isn’t going to having that info handy without practice.
Like you can’t expect people to know the thousands if not hundreds of thousands of interactions off the back of their hand. with no experience. Especially when their isn’t really another game exactly like OW.
Thats like handing someone a txt book on how to build a super computer, then ask them to perform the same day. Or you know to absorb all that info somehow before even entering the main game.
Yeah, I’m a little concerned as well…
Meanwhile, the re-release of a 14-year old Blizzard game has cinematics/lore videos coming out on the daily it seems.
Unless, I misunderstood your original intent, I was under the impression that we’re talking about new players learning how to play OW, not knowing every possible interaction under the sun. Those are two very different things.
I’m 100% fine if a beginner doesnt know complex counterplays or advanced tech. Those aren’t basics and are not needed to understand OW as a game or necessary to get started.
Like, people don’t need Magnus level knowledge before they’re allowed to say they learned how to play chess.
It’s also been 2,527 days since Blizzard was first informed of game breaking issues that are still in game now.
Well see if it gets fixed on day 2,536 or not, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’m surprised they haven’t announced a “login in the first week” to get some exclusive janky cosmetic. Perhaps another player icon or spray.
It’s going to be popular as long as players with subsantial means support the F2P model. When those people are gone, players that only support that business model vocally but not financially will face content drought and quality drop once again.
Many players that are rooting for the F2P model for Overwatch admitted they wouldn’t give a dime for it from October and on. In a way, their input to making the update successful is the same as players who will boycott it : nonexistent.
I hope you will be decent enough to spend the rightful money the October update deserves next week since you defend that business model so much 
!
kind of yes and no, my point being that OW has an extreamly steep learning curve. When compared to other shooters, do to heroes being a lot more complex beasts then you average loadout in other games.
As like every hero has almost completely different interactions with every other hero in the game. So much so learning the mei genji match up does almost nothing for you when you hop on Ashe for example. Or even on another role.
Where as learning to play against say a shot gun user in halo is a lot simpler, as a lot of skills from other shooters can be applied.
Which was going with my point of players getting over the learning curve can be quite hard for a game like this. Because they’re going to a run into many situations that don’t simply doesn’t exist in other games, and won’t be able to perform because of it.
Especially in a game that has been played for the latter part of 6 years.
Were as hero unlocking can act as something to play towards keeping them looking forward, instead of the bad interactions they eventually will face.
As they are going to be thrown in the main player pull not to long into their play experience. And are going to be put with players with multiple year under their belt.
lmao im buying the skins and heroes i love for this game for as long as i can and you cant stop us for that. im not being gaslighted into thinking otherwise.
game is gonna be fun and worth the money for me and many people.
How are you defining learning curve in OW?
It may be difficult to come to an agreement if there’s no agreement on what it means to “learn the game”
So, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems you’re defining it as learning all, or at least a most, of the interactions between heroes.
And , as you’ve probably guessed from my replies, I’ve been talking about the basics of how to play OW, not how to approach every situation on OW.
To me you responses seem to be more about mastering the game when you start talking about all possible scenarios, not just learning how to play it.
Not the case for everyone. I have nothing against you, I don’t see your posts much but there are a lot of members on this forums that vocally supports F2P Overwatch and criticize those that are against it while at the same time not willing to support it financially themselves.
My point is that those people’s takes can’t be taken personally. You can’t criticize a big portion of the OW community for defending the P2P business model and accuse them of not wanting to give money for the franchise (just because they paid a game 40 bucks once in 2016) when it’s literally untrue and yet be among actual players that just want free stuff on a F2P version of the time so other players have to sustain it by buying skins a lot (especially whales).
That’s the biggest cop-out I’ve ever seen from so-called people truthfully “supporting” a game. One should know there’s no supporting a F2P game if it’s not financially. That’s the reality of “free” games. They’re relevant as long as some people contribute to making it profitable. At the moment those profits stop, the game decreases in quality and content release.
If people don’t believe this, they can just look at some F2P games that lost their whales’ history 
. Overwatch doesn’t have any immunity against this. It can happen at any time from October and on. That’s what going from P2P to F2P does. It puts you in a situation where each month passing by is unpredictable and unsure.
Honestly just being able to play the “basic version of OW”, needs you to know what all three roles generally do. Something that isn’t 100% obvious because the OW cast doesn’t exactly operate like your standard RPG Tank/supports roles do.
learn what roles can’t do really well on their own. (Dps can’t make or maintain space well, supports have issues out damaging tanks/ other healing sources, Tanks are not effective range duelists, and without their team breaking up focus fire their easy to poke down.) (yes tanks don’t want to have the full teams aggro, which is the exact opposite of like every MMO.)
The exceptions in subclasses like hog/dive tanks/ combat supports like zen/kiriko/lucio, flankers/snipers(Pharah/echo are somewhere between flanker and sniper). And the various ways around them with whatever role you play.
Which is usually the first major wall these players hit. And why it’s so common to hear complaints about them.
From their it’s comp synergy, or “passive/automatic” team work. Learning to play with and around the heroes you have on your team, with whatever you personally pick.
Like a team that is hog/reaper/mei, is going to benefit a lot more from you doing damage then spam healing in the support role.
While a dps would need to know where to position and move with his team in a general dive tank strat, as to not get caught out in the open or loss LOS to the team fight.
Even if your not in team chat making calling out, learning to actually play around whatever your tank/supports are doing is going to win you a lot more games. And help you not get caught out from random bs.
And then and only then would you be over the learning curves hump, which then narrows more into specific hero match ups that vary up the game play. And mastery of your hero around those situations.
But just to be competent at OW and not feed, your going to need get over that hump.
Many of us that hoped onto OW in the first year or two got the chance to learn with the community. Meaning that most of those hurdles were not really there, and only grew with our knowledge of the game.
Like the standard of play only got higher over time, as like someone that would be diamond in season two would be like todays gold. As back then it only took decent mechanics to get over that hurdle, not so much now.
With the new kids being thrown into the loose matchmaking of quick play, they’re going to get hit with with things like the mei example.
The only saving grace being how disruptive most of the 5v5 change are to peoples play styles and team building strats. So that learning curve is going to be a tad lower than usual, at least till the community figures out the new game flow.
also that is not to say you can’t have fun with OW in the mean time, it’s just that they’re going to hit the same walls over and over again.
Exactly. Battle not with trolls, lest ye become a troll…