I have played ow from the beginning. I started on console and this very game is why I got a good pc. I’ve made friends from the beta and some I still have others I lost to other games. fights, them getting better than me, and just plain stop playing with each other. My point is anybody who’s played in the beta and loved this game has most likely been through this can probably agree with me and say that something from this game that made it so good was taken away. I don’t know what it is the community, me, other games (Fortnite), or the developers altered the game in a way where at least I feel this game is noticeably different in how I feel logging on to this game. I debate with myself if I truly want to play this game and how I might be with an overly toxic team or I might just play with a team that wishes not to talk at all. I used to look up overwatch stuff on youtube/twitch and watch people like Muselk for comedy, Loserfruit to see if she can stay in Master for the season, Alucrad and his entertaining videos of him getting banned for beding too good, and Lone Hawk and Nateson to figure out why I still suck, and nearly all of them were lost to Fortnite.All I saying is that I feel something was lost or taken away that has made the game great. Is there anyone else that feels this way? I know this was long but if you read it throughout then you can understand where I’m coming form. If you do feel this way what to think was lost.
TL;DR version;
OP asks
To everyone who played circa beta/launch period;
- Did you binge Overwatch and fall in love with it way back when?
- Today, 2 years after launch, do you share the same feeling of hesitation/regret/remorse/dread upon booting up Overwatch having to deal with Overwatch’s community, that I currently do?
Sorry about my grammar for whoever reads this. In the last sentences I meant to say If you do feel this way? If so, what do you think was lost?
Yes, I fell in love with Overwatch.
Yes, I groan upon booting up Overwatch. Largely because I have to deal with people. People are the worst.
But as for the magic Overwatch seemingly lost, I think it lost 3 things;
1. Stability
- Launch was the most stable period the game has ever had. Short of fixing bugs, which is important because bugs, I was secretly hoping there wasn’t going to be a constant cycle of balancing, and that was quickly shut down.
- In choosing to balance the game, it splintered the community from being supportive and nice and trying to figure out every single in-and-out of the game, into being divisive and taking sides on which characters are allowed to be strong and which characters are entitled to changes. It’s been a mess ever since. Every single player clings onto the patch notes to see if their hero is good or bad.
2. Speed
- The game slowed down drastically, intentionally, for spectator viewing. What used to be a huge ultimate fest, turned into slow pushes and waves.
- What used to be multiple heroes of the same type, with wild experimentation on what could work (No Hero Limits), turned into 1 of that hero per team (1 Hero Limit), severely starving experimentation and locking in a very distinctive meta.
3. Freshness/Excitement
- There’s no wondering about things anymore. It’s all just expectation.
- Rather than wondering what new game mode is going to pop up, it’s pretty much going to always be Lucioball, Junkenstein PvE, Winter Offensive/Yeti, CTF, Uprising PvE, then new skins – in that order.
- There’s no wondering about the eSports. We know exactly how it works now.
- Overwatch League squashed the third-party tournament scene to the point where there was nothing to look forward to other than the Blizzard sponsored tournaments.
- There’s no hyping about new heroes.
- There is only an instant reaction when they’re announced. Ana/Sombra/Doomfist/Orisa had in-game teasers and hypetrains. Moira came out of nowhere. Brigitte also, sort of came out of nowhere.
- There’s nothing new in newly released animated shorts. It’s been mostly backstory instead.
- We already “knew” what happened in Eichenwalde/Antarctica. Rein and Mei’s animated shorts just showed us.
- We already “knew” that Junkrat/Roadhog had an international crime spree, the in-engine short didn’t even really show us that, it just showed us their loot pile and what they’re intending to do with it afterwards.
- Bastion’s short briefly teased a backstory, but not enough for a full picture. The ending is so open ended that we literally don’t know what will happen, that it basically didn’t impact the story at all.
- Recall, Dragons, Alive, Hero, and Infiltration were all new story developments. It’s been a while since then, that the most significant development we’ve heard thus far, is Torbjorn discovering Bastion in the wild, and Zarya meeting Sombra. Oh, and Ana/Soldier discovering Reaper is Gabriel, and that all three are alive. That’s pretty much it.
Thank you for that do you believe it’s dead or it can be revived with the right choices?
Stability is gone. It will continue to stay unstable, because we will always have balance updates. No one can ever say “this is just how the game is, deal with it” because we’re always going to see something change, so we’re going to see a constant bickering of who deserves what buffs/nerfs and for what reasons. That will never go away.
Speed is also gone. OWL is big and consistent enough that it has to stay moderately paced (slower than launch) for spectators. Until Blizzard decides to open up software editing tools to the public to create their own mods, there will never be a “faster” version of Overwatch ever again (ignoring the Custom Games 500% everything)
As for freshness/excitement, there’s plenty Blizzard can do. New story developments, more comic releases, more animated shorts, a permanent PvE campaign. Doing different events and gamemodes that are brand new instead of modifications of existing things, making a PvE environment, following the trend of making a Battle Royale mode that every single FPS games wants to do (heaven forbid). Making new maps with new teasers in them, teasing new heroes in said new maps. Remaking existing maps or separate map variants.
If it’s about rekindling interest, basically all Blizzard needs to do is inject fresh and exciting things in the game. Brigitte is literally the breath of fresh air that I personally needed. If they can do more of this, add new features for the game entirely that improve it, and actively combat toxicity instead of leaving it in our hands, then Overwatch will last long enough for a title update/engine upgrade that effectively turns it into Overwatch 2.
I fell in love with the game when it first came out, and I binged it alot.
But now a days I’ve been playing much less and getting less interested. Mainly for reasons
- Game is slow in updates. I get that Blizzard releases content regularly, but one month per content does not sound that exciting to me, nor does the snail pace of a balancing they do. They rather keep silent to themselves in regards to balance and only give us things that pretty vague or inadequate. Sometimes I question if whatever internal play test team they have is actually an accurate representation of the playerbase, or at least, the majority.
- The story has gotten stale. Remember how they had to cancel First Strike in order to continously evolve the Overwatch lore? I don’t see the latter happening to be honest. Only thing we got in terms of current events is Masquerade and Searching, and that was months ago. We only got background information and usually, after a new Hero is released lore content is out to reveal how are they relevant to current events. We never got that for Moira, nor Brigitte. Orisa does not really count as her reason was already in her origins. Instead we get retcons and inconsistencies and “moving as fast as we can”.
They didn’t even make a YotD comic like they did with YotR, so we never know anything about the characters and their connection with the 4 Mystical Beasts - The community. It’s a no brainer. Aside from the selfish playstyle of them, I can’t take it how split the community is when it comes to specific causal selfish playstyles, which indicates how casual they really are. And because of that, Blizzard tries their best to be as neutral as possible, catering to everyone, and it only made things worse.
it isnt really the games fault, rather the community, and also the fact is it isnt new anymore
since this is an esport, and always has been, at a certain point people will shift their focus to the sport side rather than the fun side, because that is what the game is, so you have people worrying about patch notes more than game modes
the reason why people are playing things like fortnite is because its new, its fresh, its in, i myself am going to take a break once this season is over simply because ive been playing constantly since season 2, i need a break, and im sure im not the only one
and thats just how it is
i agree with this one
Nothing has really changed, the game is still the game, you just simply don’t get as excited about the same things like you do when they were new. It’s like dating a girl, for the first month or so, things are really exciting, you can’t wait to see her and everything is great. But after a few months pass you start to notice her faults, she won’t stop nagging you about doing that thing you promised you’d do a year ago and things just settle into a rythem.
For me OW is one of those girls that you actually marry. Sure she has her faults and you’ve been trying to fix that one bad habit she has, but there are no deal breakers for me and we still have a good time together, even if it’s not as exciting as when we first started dating.