I don’t really feel strongly about heroes being locked behind grind walls as it’s something that I’m used to and back in the day I enjoyed unlocking characters by playing the game in fighting games etc. You’d have to find out how to do things in a specific way to be able to get them.
As for the “the game was designed with hero swaps in mind”, yes it was. Doesn’t mean it’s how it’s being played by most. At top level of play you barely see hero swaps and at any other level of play it’s not being used effectively most of the time. People already don’t switch to what people want, so if you think there’s going to be more toxicity you are wrong.
Someone in another post said that if you miss out on the BP, the hero will be different once it’s available again, but that would be true regardless. If you aren’t able to play for the 9 weeks you could get it, what makes you think it wouldn’t have had balance changes by the time you’d start playing past those 9 weeks?
Anyway, if you don’t know how VALORANT does it. They basically have new agents locked and the way to unlock them is to select them as the one you want your EXP to go towards. Each agent has 10 tiers of rewards. The 5th is the one that unlocks the agent and the 10th is a weapon skin themed after that specific agent. It does take some time to unlock them but if you just play the game regularly you’ll get there.
For those who want instant access, you can money to unlock tiers but it caps out at 5 and everything beyond that you have to grind for.
You could do that, you’d just end up with a very bland game and heroes would still be either under or overpowered depending on how easy they are to use compared to others for the value they give.
Having heroes behind grindwalls doesn’t make the game lose depth. It works in every other game and people have the illusion that OW is a special case because mid game swapping. It isn’t, agents are very map specific in VALORANT and it still works in the game.
I think its dangerous to change a game just because most people are playing it wrong. GT_O is a game with a ton of stealthing involved. If I convinced the community to try and play it run and gun style (technically possible, but it’d be extremely difficult), does that mean the game should be changed to be a run and gun shooter?
You might think “Well, yeah. That’s what the community wants”, but think of its consequences:
1.) A large portion of the audience would be there explicitly because of the slower paced gameplay. To make it faster would instantly cause unrest in the community.
2.) The game was balanced around stealthy gameplay. To try and change that would mean you’d need to rebalance everything! I’m sure a lot of the game would be broken for a long time.
3.) Do we need yet another run n gun shooter?
With that in mind, Overwatch is tied to a similar line of thinking. These changes have been universally panned for as long as I can remember. We should stop changing Overwatch to suit people who are playing it wrong.
Having new heroes behind grind walls is not fundamentally changing the game system. Yes you won’t be able to play a certain hero for a bit, however the outcome of that is not much different to what people already experience when people refuse to swap.
I think it is by definition, but we’d have to see the ramifications of it when the game launches.
That’s probably true, but this could make that suck even more. Before, it was “I won’t switch”. But now, people like me could very well say “I CAN’T switch”, and personally that takes the switching problem, and takes it to comical new levels.
Interactions between people might be different but again, does it really matter? OW players don’t need to be taught how to be toxic, there’s no game system that’s going to make them more toxic.
You’re saying that this change is fine because that game does it as well while ignoring that the game is bland and boring. Completely relevant comment.
I don’t mind either way, like I said it doesn’t bother me. I think in many ways having a system similar to VALORANT’s agent unlock is better than having them tied to BPs.