Counterpicking has always been a major part of ow. It is just easier to counter 1 tank now, and they don’t have the other tank that might actually be a good pick into the hero trying to counter them. For example, sym can be good into Dva, but often Dva was played with Winston as well, who is good vs sym.
Tanks are still the strongest heroes by a wide margin atm, and stopping them from getting value by swapping to a bunch of counters seems to be the easiest way to win games. So it is done frequently. Killing their tank first in a fight and without a bunch of ults from the enemy, your team pretty much wins that fight.
Wait… so if you are getting hard countered you stay on that character because you enjoy it? Why not switch and hard counter them forcing them to switch or lose?
Don’t worry it’ll be removed soon since people want OW to continue to remain bad and dead. Just go back to 6v6 and you don’t have to swap half as often if you’re casual/average. The only reason you have to do it more often now is because 5v5 is flawed in every single way.
This, lmao. People complained about it so often they even said their goal was to move away from the need to do it. Not that we’ve seen it happen, but these are words the dev team have said.
Tanks needs to be balanced properly against each other so at least tank vs tank matchups are fair. If you have clear counters in the same role like Zarya vs D.Va or Orisa vs Hog/Rein then game is badly balanced.
Team effort to counter one guy sucks but it can also be exploited. Countering your tank with Bastion Reaper or some cancer like that may be exploited by your own Pharah Mercy. Tank will have a boring game of survival but it’s not necessarily a loss for him if his team adapts. What sucks is when they don’t. Then enemy is free to just swap again whenever you swap to answer their counterpick and ruin your day. I had those games where whenever I went to spawn enemies would swap 3 heroes to answer that and I’m like bruh can we play the game.
Easy counters ruin the game. Stuff like Sombra vs Ball is unacceptable.
While I agree with your statement, I don’t think that was OP’s point - So also have to agree with OP that the game is pretty much rock paper scissors now, which unfortunately makes mechanical skill less relevant and swapping heroes essential.
I can play half the roster to rank, but the last thing i wanna do, when i want to play something, is get forced off and instantly have less fun.
Saying OW is counterpicking is just saying OW is a bad game…
2 of the biggest sins of gaming are;
1 - Forcing people to play in ways they don’t enjoy.
Doom Eternal crossed this like and even though it’s a good game, there are a lot of unhappy long term Doom fans.
2 - Making several people unhappy of 1 to have fun.
It just leaves a huge deficit of fun, there will only ever be more unhappy, than happy.
Kinda what the whole ‘if everything is OP’ garbage has done, nothing is impressive anymore, nothing is interesting, it’s just lol button click, that makes 5 people roll their eyes so 1 person can be like ‘lol button click’
Because its 1 tank with very obvious weakneses. Like the second someone picks a tank they are telling the enemy team exactly how to disable them. Same would happen if it eas 1 support or 1 dps. Ow was designed to have hard counters, youre sipposed to be able to overcome them with teamwork except no 2nd tank
Not being able to play what I want whenever I want is detrimental; what else would you call it? I should be able to outperform my counters if I’m good enough; that’s what gives the game its depth. You can’t do that anymore with this cancerously oppressive counterpicking.
Limiting my experience to just a select few heroes because X player picked Y, making the gamplay experience rock, paper, scissors is just lame; it doesn’t matter if the developers intended for this or not; if they did, then they made a poor decision, but I don’t believe they wanted the rock, paper, scissors, for the game.
Why would they want to severely limit playstyles and player experiences when that is literally what Overwatch is all about? I think this severely oppressive counter picking is happening as a result of 5 vs. 5 and poor balance, not because it was their intent on making it this way.
It’s called Overwatch, not Counterwatch. Heroes being unique doesn’t automatically mean countering can be effective, but bad hero design and balance for the 5v5 format has made the game unplayable for people who enjoy mastering certain characters, especially in the tank role.
It also doesn’t help that Team 4 always seems to resort to cheap tricks to balance the game like adding the ability to sustain healing and erase mistakes for supports, adding CC back after promising to reduce it, and now making supports so powerful that they literally are off-tanks (I am a support main, I know that from personal experience over 1,300 hours in the role).
Many of you are too hung up on the idea that countering is a “skill”, but all it means is you operate on simple logic and have unidimensional gameplay. That’s sad, because this game is supposed to allow skill expression through unique characters that have little overlap, not “they have Ball I go Sombra and spend the game hacking, hacking, hacking Hammond, walk from spawn, hack the Hammond , try to translocate before dying, rinse and repeat.” That also means you reduce your interactions with enemy characters because you set your focus to the character you think you need to be “countering”. Yes, it can make things easier for your team and it does…but that means you throw away the chance to limit test and learn from playing X team composition into Y team composition.
This season I didn’t play tank much, but when I did I completely demolished teams playing Orisa, Bastion, Mei and Symmetra into Doom and Rammatra. Sometimes the enemy team would start with some interesting picks like Dva or Winston and Genji, Echo, etc. only to immediately swap to the “meta” cancer after getting rolled for an entire round or a few fights. That’s boring, you swap because you don’t have the skills to deal with me and my team and want the easy way out. You’re playing for the instant gratification of using the character selection screen and getting free value, some of us are playing to overcome challenges and get better. You stay in Gold/Play and we march towards the Sun, taking a few kicks in the groin along the way but learning how to deal with Counterwatch aficionados.
Again, the core design of the game is to be able to create combos and exploit synergies that require the same measures on the enemy team to counter play. You should NOT be able to outperform your counters my dude, thats the whole point. Because pressing H at the spawn, doesn’t magically make you proficient with that hero.
If you are way better than your opponents then sure, those counters are not “magically” more effective. If a Diamond Dva plays against a Gold Zarya, Dva is still going to make the rounds and destroy.
You can say that, but then again the game has been based on this core element since the beginning my dude, you are complaining the sky is blue.
There are many games that don’t have this or even “counters” at all, quite weird that you came specifically to the one that is built like that. Sorry if you thought this was an RPG that happened to be in first person but no, this is an FPS with RPG elements. Its the other way around.
Because , and this is going to shock you and many others, versatility IS a skill that needs to be rewarded AND developed.
Its not oppressive my dude, you are not your hero. You are a player with several tools within a role to perform said role functions and counter the enemy when possible. Thats literally the whole point.
If you just wanted to play Support and don’t care about anything, MMO RPGs are the stuff. You pick your class, you are that hero, you do whatever you can and move on. MOBAs would work too, you pick your hero, stick to your function/role and don’t care about the enemy, just do your thing to the best of your ability.
This is Overwatch so if you are as skilled as your opponent but more versatile , you should WIN … by counter picking appropriately and taking advantage of your versatility. Not having versatility and complaining about those who have it and use it against you, saying its “oppressive” is a coping mechanism mate.
I would argue that by the end of OW1 you could skilfully play your way around your counters, now that is MUCH harder to do, counters are much harder counters now which is bad for the game in general.
I absolutely agree with this. I’ve switched “main” so many times since the release of the game and i find it really enjoyable - when they released Ball, it felt like playing an entirely new game!
However, Ball is so easily hard countered now i’ve basically given up on him completely.
I dont think anyone’s saying counterpicking is bad, i think its more OW2 has waaay harder counterpicks, sometimes to entire roles. 5v5 and less protection just makes counterpicking more impactful
Switching to another character to counter your enemy is not skillful; there’s nothing skillful about going back to spawn, pressing a button, and then proceeding to oppressive whatever you’re countering to the point where they’re forced to swap to something else or they lose.
What is skillful is being able to outperform and play against your counters even though you’re at a disadvantage, which is how it literally always was up until recently.
You shouldn’t be allowed to swap characters and automatically win; that’s lame. Why’s it lame? It’s because you lose all of the depth and unique interactions the game has.
A perfect example of what I’m talking about is how, back in Overwatch 1, if you were playing Rein and you were playing against a McCree and the McCree threw a flashbang above your shield, you could flick your shield up and block the flashbang, but if the McCree was smart, he could bait you to flick up your shield and throw it at your feet.
In Overwatch 2, countering is like if McCree from Overwatch 1 could just throw his flashbang straight through your shield as Rein; it’s like, damn, I guess I just can’t play this character then because your character makes it impossible to do so.
There’s no depth, and there’s no critical thinking. There are no unique interactions when the counterplay is this oppressive.
… did you read the post you responded to or are you dishonestly nitpicking parts and responding something that has been addressed and refuted already?
Never said thats not skillful, but if I am as good as you (same rank) and I am able to play more heroes at that effective level than you, I am, OBJECTIVELY a better player and I should win. Proven again, that I have developed my versatility and experience/performance with multiple heroes.
Literally the opposite
My dude if no one switched ever, you lose ALL the depth and unique interactions the game has, because you NEVER switch to anything else and you always play the same.
The depth is LITERALLY being able to use, counter and adapt to multiple compositions, maps, and enemy/ally combos in 1 match.
There’s no depth, and zero critical thinking when you are just an OTP playing the same thing over and over and over. With no counterplay, theres ZERO need to use different heroes, which would make this, a Moba or an RPG.
It is a trillion %.
Poor gameplay is only being able to use 1 hero, and not develop your ability to use as many tools you have to win a game. Complaining about people who develop those skills is childish and calling them “crutch” or “oppressive” is deflecting accountability for your lack of versatility.
I’m a flex player. Always have been. I can play every hero on the roster to a certain degree, with a couple of exceptions. My skill is knowing the opportunities to counter and being able to effectively play enough heroes to take advantage of those opportunities.
I can respect someone with a thousand hours on a single hero, but that doesn’t mean they are more skilled than someone whose thousand hours is spread over twenty heroes, it’s just a different type of skill.
