The game of Overwatch is in a sad state. Everywhere I go online, forums, reddit, tiktok comments, everywhere… there’s this venomous hatred for this game that goes beyond anything I’ve seen in all my years of gaming.
I feel that the game launched and had such amazing success, it has a great cast of heroes, the core gameplay is fun and like nothing else out there. So people became very attached to this IP. Now, it seems like so many players are extremely angry about the state of this game. Usually, you quit a game and, no big deal. It’s a game. Overwatch, however? This feels like a total betrayal. The disrespect toward the players, with the shop, the MMR that literally feels built to make you mad on purpose. This game has made a lot of players ANGRY.
I would think that a lot of players feel like I do. Like they took away one of my favorite games of all time, and replaced it with something I’ve tried to play over and over again, but just can’t. It is SO infuriating.
I’d like to try and pinpoint what is wrong with OW, and how they might fix it. I’m just typing off the top of my head, trying to sort through this mess because I do hope the game can become fun again.
First of all. The MMR system. They’ve always had it. But in OW2, it feels like a mean step father who slaps my face every time I do something good. “Oh yeah, you think you’re tough? How you like this? crack! Fight ME, you little punk. Not so tough now are you?” It feels abusive on purpose. Like they bought in to some old research that people will play a frustrating game even more because they’re mad! Until… like me, they finally say screw it and just leave.
Like, I had one excellent round, ONCE, and the game decided I needed to play against higher ranked people, with total noobs on my team, until I lost the 15 games and downranked two tiers. In helpless games where we were getting spawn camped half the time. I’ve never lost the 15 games, always won the 5, and i KNOW it was because of that round. My best round ever, only to be slapped back down by the system itself, as I sat and watched throwers, people jumping off the map. It was unbelievable. I would actually call it rigged. It was a MASSIVE, unfair, over reaction by the system. Every time they try and fix the matchmaker, they seem to crank the “screw you” dial up to 11 and hope that works. It actually feels like they hate the players, and try to screw them over because SOME people out there smurf, boost, etc. Well, they ruined the game for everyone with that crap. Turn it off.
As a player since launch, someone who’s thought a LOT about this matchmaker, checked every profile I could, added friends just to see their stats, experimented with it, toyed with it by playing off heroes, in 5 mans, everything… having a matchmaker that tries to do ANYTHING other than make random matches based on rank… ruins the game. The MMR system ruins the game. It’s unplayable, especially in a F2P game, with only 5 players on a team. I know Blizz clings to this precious MMR system because it probably looks extremely impressive when it can do anything they want it to do. However, it is NOT FUN to play in a duo who put one good stats once… you get hard mode. An aged account. Hard mode. Won a single game? Hard mode. The system is thinking too much, trying to counter this and that. It doesn’t work. You can’t control the experience and think people won’t feel that. Wins feel fake, losses feel fake. It seems like you’re just there, taking whatever the system thinks you deserve.
What’s worse is that I can see the queue times get longer, when it seems my MMR shoots up, and the game has to search harder to find what seems like the worst match of all time… on purpose.
I honestly think using rank would make for instant queues AND better matches.
I would turn the MMR OFF, and use rank. It would feel better in the long run. I mean, Smurfs happen. But I’d rather run across them occasionally, randomly, than be forced to play them every time I have a decent round because the system thinks I’m some pro all the sudden. Trying to control the smurfs actually perpetuates the problem. The system designed to combat smurfs… actually makes their presence worse!
Not only would I turn the MMR off (or vastly reduce it’s sway)… i would ADVERTISE that.
“ALL NEW MATCHMAKER!” Is all a lot of us would like to hear. I think a lot of players consider the matchmaker one of the biggest problems in the game, one of the worst, most frustrating systems of all time. I thought for OW2, they might revamp it. Instead, not a peep about it and it’s worse than ever. Change it, and make it known that the system itself won’t try and do much other than make random games based on rank.
Matchmaker changed. What’s next?
Well, I feel that 5v5 doesn’t work. It never will. I thought on Day 1 of OW2 that the matches snowballed too quickly. The tank was too powerful. Yet useless at the same time. They can’t push, peel, dive, etc. all at once. It’s an unchecked mess of a mode with very sloppy gameplay. Also, with less players on a team, there’s more chance that the ONE bad player will ruin the entire match. Everyone hates throwers, trolls, or simply bad players. But often times, it’s just a person trying to play the game. They didn’t ASK the matchmaker to stick them against a tank two ranks higher than them. But…
The main problem is, just not enough players in the match. 6v6, with two tanks, if one person was bad you could make up for it. I always thought, to help with queue times, they should try 7v7 but slow the game down. Either way, I don’t think 5v5 will ever work. The ONLY time I had fun in OW2 was when I played a season of mostly Open Queue and the comps were usually 2-1-2. Role queue with one tank? Limiting, frustrating, annoying. You NEED the Off Tank.
Matchmaker, and 5v5. To me, are the main problems.
If they put out a trailer, flashed up on the screen “new matchmaker” “return of 6v6” and then showed the OVERWATCH 2 logo… but the “2” shattered into pieces and what remained was simply “OVERWATCH” on screen… I think a lot of people would be excited.
If I had my wish, the Shop and the Battlepass would die as well. These already seem like old school things that gamers just hate. When a holiday comes, I’m actually MAD at the game just for taking the events away where you could earn skins for playing. We’d sit up and play for days, collecting the skins. Now? Nothing. Just some ridiculously over priced crap in the shop. Honestly, it’s hard to like a game that once had free skins, but now charges $25 for them. Some full GAMES don’t even cost that, and it makes it very easy to hate this game. Horrible, greedy decision to go that route, but hey… that’s gaming these days. I just don’t think it’s a good way to keep the players around.
They could also think about balancing OWL separate. I don’t play NFL rules football down at the park. There’s no pros. There’s not even a field goal post. Yet on Sunday, I can watch professional football and I don’t mind at all that it’s a totally different game than the football lite that I might play with friends. Balance OWL for pros. Balance the public game for non-pros. I don’t see why it all has to be the same.
I could go on forever. I don’t know why I need to get my thoughts out. This game is infuriating, just… how they did it. Took away OW1 and did this to it. Whatever. I’m done. I hope SOMEONE will make some changes and fix this game. I feel it can still work. But it needs another major re-work. Or, a semi REVERT.