Casual player's thoughts on Stadium

General Discussion
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I said I wouldn’t play Stadium because it’s competitive only, but enough people said that no one is treating it like comp that curiosity got the better of me and I decided to check it out after all. I’ve played Stadium for a bit now (idr how many matches exactly, the history doesn’t go back far enough, but it’s at least more than 10), and I thought I’d share some of the thoughts and feedback I have about the mode thus far.

The positives;

+ The maps are very compact, making getting back into the action after dying very fast.
+ The full sell back value on items feels really nice, since it let’s you get to the over the top, most fun builds quicker and without needing to be overly concerned with your econ.
+ There’s a good amount of crazy movement enhancing powers/items, which as a schmovement lover I appreciate.
+ Though a bit overwhelming at first, the power and item menus do start to feel very intuitive rather quickly.
+ The gamemodes themselves we’re all pretty fast-paced and fun.
+ Overall, the powers are pretty fun, and you can make builds to suit quite a number of different playstyles on any hero.

The negatives;

- The announcer. The constant commentary and yelling really started to get on my nerves, and I’m honestly surprised this didn’t come up during playtests (or if it did, the feedback was ignored), but there really should be an option to just mute it.
- The whole “sports arena-feel” of the mode. I get that it’s called Stadium and that’s kind of the point, but I just wasn’t a fan of the crowd cheering sounds, the drone cameras flying around, the transition screens and the giant displays in the sky. I felt that it detracted from my enjoyment a bit.
- If you do intend to take the mode more seriously and try to play it competitively, you’ll be doing a lot of reading on the scoreboard to see your teammates builds and the enemy teams builds in order to formulate the best possible strategy, and I’m sure that sounds fun to some people, but for me, I just cba. Way too much effort.
- The shallow roster. I still think it’s unbelievably lame that the mode launched with less than half the roster being playable. “Sorry insert any hero not in the mode yet-mains, no fun allowed for you just yet”. It’d still be egregious even if they launched with only 2/3rds of the roster, but less than half is just un-freaking-believable.
- Confusing UI and wording. Why on earth is the attack speed icon three left-facing orange arrows? It constantly made me do a double take on whether I was hindering one of my abilities or something to gain an advantage elsewhere, but no, the icon is just wack. And there are quite a few instances of descriptions for certain powers or items being very obtuse, or even misleading.
- Lastly, while at the moment the mode is indeed not being taken very seriously and people are just having fun and goofing off, I still very firmly believe that this won’t last, and once the excitement wears off, and the competitive crowd does it’s thing and figures out the meta builds and team comps, the mode won’t be nearly as enjoyable for a casual player anymore (though if the devs go ahead with their idea of making an unranked version, this wouldn’t be as big of an issue).

Wishlist;

* Honestly I’m surprised they didn’t add a tab for making your own custom builds and letting you name them, and have an option to auto-buy the upgrades as the rounds progress. Seems like a bit of a no brainer to me.
* I think the stomp protection system should be changed a bit, as I have not seen it get triggered once, even though I have experienced some very decidedly one-sided matches already. I think having it give the losing team a vote on whether to give up after losing 3 rounds in a row would be an okay system, but in any case, I believe this system needs some tweaks.
* Add the maps from Stadium to the Workshop. Some of them would even work for other modes, like Team Deathmatch, or Elimination, and could be used in the Arcade as well imo. I particularly like the Colosseo one, and my immediate thought after playing it was “This would be sick for TDM”.

Overall;

I enjoy Stadium, more than I thought I would, but I do have plenty of gripes with it, that I feel will take quite a long time to get addressed in any meaningful way. There’s also a lot of stuff I just don’t care about, or feel very neutral on, such as the new ranks, balance, the 3rd person perspective, the skin rewards, etc. I’m a bit hesitant to recommend the mode to casual players, particularly if you don’t enjoy any of the lucky few heroes that actually got invited to the launch party. But if you do enjoy any of the heroes in the mode, and you don’t mind matches that last a little longer, then I do think it’s a pretty fun time… for now. If you have any interest in the mode, I would suggest trying it out now rather than later, since there’s no telling whether the devs actually will make that unranked version of it or not, and I do believe that the people who care far too much about their shiny rank icon in a video game will eventually suck all the fun out of the mode.

So those were some of my thoughts on Stadium. If you think I missed something important, feel free to share your own thoughts on the mode.
Thanks for reading, and I wish you all a lovely rest of your day :blue_heart:

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I’m a jaded player who’s seen it all since OW1 alpha and into beta and into OW1 all metas and so on. I can confidently say Stadium is a step into the right direction. They did something right in a long time. They tried to break the pattern. They innovated.

Yeah, it’s cheesy and unpolished and feels rushed at times. There are bits and bobs they could improve/add/remove/make configurable. But at its core it’s a huge W. A kind of W this game didn’t see since forever.

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I wish my feelings were that positive. Personally I can only see Stadium, at best, as a very minor victory in an ocean of disappointments and broken promises. I do hope the devs can continue to work on the game and pour their passion into it to make something truly great, but honestly my feelings regarding Overwatch’s future are getting more and more pessimistic with each passing day.

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Which characters did you play, and what kind of builds did you go for?

I have not played Stadium myself and I’m curious what you got up to in there

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So far I’ve played D.Va, Ashe, Cassidy, Reaper, Soldier, Mei & Lúcio.

I don’t remember exactly what I did on Mei, since that was my first match, and I was so overwhelmed by everything still, but the rolling ice ball power was pretty neat, and you could spray the ground to move around faster which was fun.

For Lúcio I immediately went with getting a second charge on his boop, and the item that let’s you knock yourself back with boop while using the speed song, and getting 25% increased damage while above 50% speed. It was really fun to just boop yourself straight into the air, scout out an enemy player and boop yourself towards them to dive bomb them. Kinda felt like I was market gardening in Overwatch, which I have wanted to be able to do as Pharah for the longest time, but I guess Lúcio will have to do for now :p

For Reaper I really liked the idea of playing him as the silent assassin, probably cause I’ve been playing so much Hitman WoA recently. The (almost) silent footsteps and teleport power were really fun, especially combined with the ‘increased damage to enemies struck from behind’ & ‘eliminations reset cool downs’ powers.

I think Ashe is the one I experimented the most with, which is a little surprising cause I don’t normally play her very much, but I had a lot of fun on her. I tried the power that increases your next scoped shot with each unscoped hit you land, but my aim is utter garbage so I couldn’t really make it work, but I imagine for a more skilled player it could be fun. I also tried to just make a full on spam hip fire build, where each consecutive hit dealt increased damage, and I went pretty much all in on extra ammo and fire rate, which was quite fun(ny). I also really liked building dynamite to be an utterly stupid ability, spawning 3 mini dynamites when you shot it, leaving behind a lava pool when it exploded on the ground, and having it’s cool down reduced when you hit a burning target with your primary fire.

On Cassidy I just went all in on fan the hammer, taking all the powers and items that gave him extra ammo and firing speed. Wasn’t very effective in all honesty, but it was very fun.

And for D.Va and Soldier, I haven’t really done much experimenting myself, and have just been using the example builds for the most part. Soldier getting tac. visor for a brief moment every time he uses helix rockets is kind of insane, and it’s tough to justify picking anything else tbh.

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This is already happening. I’m just there to have fun and try stuff out, and the enemy reaper comes out of nowhere and kills me with one shell.
Or juno just wipes the entire team with one ability use.

Every match is either zarya, rein or jq. All capable of just deleting you instantly regardless of your survival build.
I had 600+ hp with armor and jq pretty much just killed me with a knifepull.
And i’m still in rookie ranks!

Either some purchasables need nerfing (a
Lot) or the devs need to rethink their approach to how stadium plays.

Also, just add the options to mute the announcer and the crowd.

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The Other Game™ has a volume control specifically to turn down their very annoying announcer. I don’t think it’s been needed in this game so far, but it sounds like its time has finally arrived!

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Soldier invalidates almost every character and build in the game.

My biggest complaint about the mode is that they’ve somehow made hitscan even more dominant.

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Hi chat gpt, how are you doing today?

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She’s not present here. Or did you perhaps mean to type this elsewhere? No biggie, it happens.

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oh we both know, she?, is…toodles

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I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say to convince you, but I just want to be clear that I have not, and will not ever use chat gpt, or any other chat bot or AI or whatever to write my posts. I like putting my own thoughts and ideas out using my own words. If an AI wrote them instead, there would be no point.

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Honestly i never looked at those. I just look at my team and their team. However i really hate the announcer. It’s distract my focus. Which already sucks lol.

I would love to see a option to remove all the stadium stuff like announcer, screens, drones, circular object on top, even bigger object that looks like a spaceship and flags. There is too much noise.

I also wished they was a unranked that last about 10-16 mins. I played a 45 mins match yesterday. After it was over. I was just tired and exhausted. Apart from having body pain finger, shoulder and eye ache. I did not have strength to move to another match. What is worst is all they give is 10 comp for that.

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When there’s a mode where the announcer keeps yelling stuff between matches and disrupting peoples perk reading it grates on my nerves.

And when announcing gamemodes his next comment frequently cuts off the last sentence midway through.

And hearing about a “miraculous play” gets annoying when all you did was just happen to be in the right place at the right time and do you job.
The only comment i’ve liked from the announcer so far is “that’s enough of that” when you stun someone mid ability or ult (pulsar, deathblossom and deadeye for example). That takes a bit more skill than just doing the barest minimum of your role.

“A miraculous play by mercy” oh yay… just ga’d in and pressed one button that saved a teammate from burning to death. That’s not a miraculous play, that’s an avarage tuesday XD

Now if she manages to rez a tank on point in the middle of the enemy team and not die, that’s a miraculous play, but gets no mention.

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I think maps like that push version of Paris and that watchpoint looking place are just compacted versions of push maps that will release later. For example look at how much smaller colosseo feels

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i dont wanna read an essay can someone translate to unga bunga for me

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Touster share opinion on Stadium.

Touster think Stadium not perfect.

Touster think Stadium still fun.

Touster think fun only temporary.

Touster say to try Stadium now if curious.

Touster wish you happy day :blue_heart:

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I love the tiny tournament concept of stadium but what I dislike is that its another low skill encourageing sustainfest which is just not enjoyable.

I mean builds like soldiers tell you enough.
I don’t see how any build that isn’t a form of cheese will make it to be viable.

on top of the mentiond low hero roaster and tze selected heroes just add salt to the wound imho. Only the most low skill heroes got added. Sweet.

if it Atleast had banns. I wouldn’t be forced to face the same team over and over.

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It cracks me up every time when I’m on Mercy and standing there just healing. Yes, what miraculous play by Mercy! Personally, I find it funny and like it.

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Ashe buff confirmed.

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