The next patch will bring a short revival which will die down after a month or so after it becomes apparent that there are further, fundamental and insurmountable problems with balance that won’t get solved.
Ranked is worse than ever, queue times just make it worse. Also, plenty of people playing roles that they don’t usually play so that they get lower queue times but they really don’t actually play those roles as they should be and they end up mostly throwing instead. Almost no one cares anymore. Also, there seems to be an influx of people playing in stacks, probably to get lower Q times or to just get better teammates but that ends up being a horrible experience because there is plenty of stacks that just don’t care at all. Oh, inb4 “you can’t see stacks”, yes you can, just attempt to invite every player on your team to a group while in comp, if they are already stacking, you will receive “player already in group” and if they are not, you will receive “not able to invite while in comp”
Match quality has been worse than ever which indicates a shrinking active playerbase so there are more mismatched games than ever in an effort to keep Q time reasonable. Game is well aware of this because on your next game, it will usually put you on the opposite side of what you were in your last game on that role (eg if you were favoured in game 1, you will be disfavoured in game 2)
Another thing that reeks of a dying game is the massive influx of cheaters and very slow or no reaction on Blizzard’s part. This game used to have a very sophisticated anti-debugging measures and that made it very difficult to make sophisticated memory hacks. That seems to be not the case anymore as there is a hacker or two in every 3rd game or so and they are really smart hacks. Also, various arcade modes seem to be a place where cheaters and cheat developers go to calibrate hacks because they likely think it will have less chance of being actioned.
Why did this occur?
Horrible balance and very late implementation of role queue, after playerbase already drastically diminished due to GOATS-era and MOTH prior to that. Those 2 were likely the two biggest mistakes alongside with allowing Orisa to ever become meta. Introduction of Brig and refusal to balance Brig for the first 12 or so months has been the single worst mistake Blizzard ever made. MOTH comes somewhere close to that but it was less oppressive because other than Mercy, you could play anything else with it. Another mistake was keeping D.Va broken for a very long time. Almost all issues with metas stemmed from the fact that D.Va was incredibly oppressive and broken for almost a year after her rework. End effect of all those changes was to further reduce the impact of DPS role and promote static, ult-dependant playstyles that were later on replaced by sustain creep. A role that was already the least important despite the fact that the vast majority of players were DPS players.
Why things won’t change? Because they don’t actually want to fix it. This is how they want their game to be. If it wasn’t that way, then fixes would be applied much more quickly, healing would’ve been nerfed across the board 9 months ago and MOTH era wouldn’t last almost 6 months. They are not incompetent. They just appear to be at times because it’s better for them that you think that they are incompetent rather than they are intentionally keeping game in a disbalanced state for months because they want to have “memorable phases”. If it was incompetency then Geoff Goodman would already be fired and so would Jeff for not firing Goodman earlier.
I think it’s funny how people complain about role queue and people playing something they don’t normally play. But I recall a lot of speed picking in classic whereas the last two people are often expected to heal. TBH, that whole scenario is what should be put in the dictionary for the word “stupid” for everyone involved (unless the last to pick do not pick healers). Not to mention, people get stuck playing roles they don’t want to play. Circular arguments are the worst!
Not complaying about role queue, complaining about role queue being implemented too late + horrible balance = long queue times and a lot of people throwing + poor match quality
Also, Blizzard games generally have a huge rush at release then the player base trickles off as people get bored. Not only Blizzard games, but most games in popular culture. If this is a concern of yours, I would find a niche interest that has other people you can share with because they will be more dedicated to that niche interest.
It’s not about getting bored, it’s about Blizzard ruining the game with horrible balance. It’s very hard to get bored of this game if the balance is right, every game is fresh. Almost no one that I know quit because “they were bored”, they quit because the balance is horrible and the resulting metas end up being braindead and that’s when they get bored.
Believe me, the real world is bigger than your world. If you would like data, look at Warcraft’s subscribers in relation to expansion releases as well as patch releases.
If you play on PS4, you can also look under “Players Met” and see their trophy levels are often under ten. This is indicative of a very casual player base.
Also, for your future reference. If you expect people to arrive at your conclusion based on your experience, most people are intelligent enough to understand that it’s dismissible because it is anecdotal.
Died is a weird term. Games don’t die until no one plays them.
Obviously a lot of people still play Overwatch.
Obviously, too, the game was a success, even if it ‘died’ yesterday, it made plenty of money.
What is more true is that a lot less people are playing Overwatch since role queue, according to Twitch, which is a metric Blizzard uses itself. It was always a risk limiting the ability to play the most popular role in the game, and a risk that did not pan out well whether you like the game or not.
Since it is here to stay, though, it’s really a personal decision whether to join the people moving on or stick with it. It’s not dead. It’s declined.
Funny how almost everything he said is true thou, not all but a lot, definitely in regards to the problem child heroes. Double shield is oppressive for the game, and the flow of the game, whom was the first perpetrator? D.va you say? Oh that is right a shield that not only shield but gobbles up every offensive ult in the game.
Funny how they double down on that when d.va was nerfed. With sigma. Funny how dmg reduction abilities are beyond broken but yet they keep stuffing them in there orisa… Funny how orisa was already bonkers broken due to her DMG, which was even nerfed when she was first introduced but than the double down on it buffing it, more so with sigma, cause shield tanks with DMG like an off tank works so well. Worked perfectly with d.v.a right?..
Than we have got the constant healing/support dps creep. Started out with ana that just did it all, damage, healing you name it. Than it just continued with buffs across the board, with every new support brining more healing and damage. Finally the support creep cumulates in completely bonkers sustain abilities like ress and immortality (jUsT ShOt ThE LaNtErn, yea we heard you bot…) as abilities when they so clearly should be ults if anything. Game always broken for obvious reasons, why they do not fix it is only cause they do not want to, no other reasonable explanation. It is like saying tracer DPS was fine in dive meta, or genji before the nerfs he got to his current state were fine. He was not. Especially not the first versions of him, I mean you baffel at how they could gut widow before comp but genji and tracer both remained the same.
Right on the money here. Apparently, AAA companies are now applying the good ol’ tune of : Divide Et Impera and try to inflict as much damage as possible. And you know what: It works, worked and will work in the future. Congrats. Mankind is not only vicious and cruel, it is dumb and credulous easy to manipulate.
Same corporate strategy that Apple uses: Make a new $1200 phone each year, while actively setting previous models to run slower and slower. Blizzard has zero interest in fixing their own game, because the worse this game appears, the more intriguing OW2 looks. And when you buy OW2, which will incorporate OW1, you’ll have given them $40, and then they can take a steamy poop on that game too.
Basically, set your computer on fire, give Blizzard the finger, and go outside.
Mostly, i don’t think the games are any better with Role Queue than they were before. And before, i could play INSANTLY. I if i lose. Queue for another. And another! All night.