WARNING: This thread will be long. TL;DR at the bottom. Anyone averse to reading a long thread, or even a simple TL;DR, please close this window and go try French opera instead.
Today, I present to you a 5-step plan to fix Overwatch. Forget 5v5/6v6, buffing/nerfing/reworking heroes, etc. Here’s the plan:
1: Make a post-paid SMS phone number, or some kind of MFA, a requirement to play Overwatch. Restore the SMS requirement to what it was before Blizzard caved to the idiots that cried uncle about it. Or at least make some kind of MFA a requirement. Right now, any idiot with an email address (that’s easy, go to Gmail or Yahoo and create a free one) can create a fake Facebook page that disguises them as a Grocery Store and proceed to scam folks out of their money, trick them into downloading malware, or worse - with virtually no oversight/intervention by Meta. Blizzard at least requires a phone number, but it’s easily circumvented and transferable and is little better than Meta’s verification. That needs to be fixed. We don’t need to go the extreme route of Real ID, but requiring more than an email address and a single phone number that can authenticate multiple Battlenet accounts on its own would be nice. And spare me the “anti-discrimination law” comments - pretty sure those laws is meant to prevent discriminating against race, gender, etc. Last I checked, “people intending to commit fraud/scam/other ill-advised conduct” is not a covered category. And “people not wanting to work/seeking handouts” is also not a covered category. And if you do live in a jurisdiction that covers those categories, please let me know where said jurisdiction is so I can make sure I don’t move/work in those areas.
2: Slap a $5 price tag on to OW2. Not $60. Not $40. Not $20. Not $10. $5. One time for each Battlenet account. Whether FPS, MOBA, MMO, RTS, or other genre, free-to-play games all have one thing in common - they have a massive neon sign that says “BOTS, CHEATERS, AND OTHER NEVER-DO-WELLERS - COME PLAY THIS GAME”. And like moths to a candle, they come running. Want to turn off that neon sign? Slap a one-time paywall on to your game. It doesn’t need to be big, it just has to be there. Keep the in-game shop if your heart desires.
3: Don’t be afraid to take a leap of faith, even if that means making QP: Hacked your new Experimental card. Mike Ybarra recently suggested other studios are copying off of Blizzard games.
(insert Star Wars “Ironic” gif here)
Anybody else find that funny? Blizzard may have once been a pool of innovation and invention - but nowadays Blizzard plays it too safe and copies ideas from other games. World of Warcraft even blatantly admits this (when previewing Torghast as part of the Shadowlands, the preview video explicitly said it was “inspired by roguelikes”). There is too much playing it safe and stepping back into comfort zones, when right now they need to put the fire back into their belly and INNOVATE. In the case of Overwatch, now that QP: Hacked is a thing, Blizzard could make that their new experimental card and test changes - some of which could be good, some could be bad, and some - which mayhaps should have stayed buried. Earlier today, a fellow forumgoer, Garrett, suggested his idea to fix Overwatch by changing the following:
With the goal of:
An excellent idea for a QP: Hacked card, don’t you think? Not every leap of faith may work - but playing it safe only gets you so far.
4: Private profiles - rework them. If you want to hide your profile in arcade/quick play, I don’t really care. You want to go out as JQ in quick play even though you have no clue what you’re doing, who am I to argue. In competitive mode, however, at the bare minimum, I and your teammates need to know what heroes you can play for your given role. It would make no sense to have someone play Zenyatta if they have zero playtime on Zen and their top 3 is Kiriko, Mercy, Lucio. So depending on the competitive mode, I should be able to see my teammates top 3 heroes for the role they are in by time played (role queue) or top 5 heroes overall by time played (open queue) - no matter if their profile is public/private. This would apply only to competitive mode. Everything else about the profile is none of my business and if you don’t want anyone to see it, that’s your choice. Reset the Top 3/Top 5 on the profile every season.
5: Forum auto-locks: institute them. With every Overwatch 2 season making at least some feedback obsolete every 9 weeks (based on hero/map changes), I’m not sure letting threads be necroed after 6 months - particularly if said necro pertains to feedback that is no longer current/relevant - is a good idea, even if the necro is a complete accident (Google, stop recommending 2 year old threads that aren’t relevant to Overwatch anymore). After 3 months, auto lock threads. Even in the 5% chance the feedback is still relevant after 3 months, it’s going to be better to start up a new thread versus resurrecting that kind of thread.
TL;DR Toughen SMS/MFA requirements. Slap a $5 price tag on to OW2 to act as a bad behavior deterrent. Make more leaps of faith rather than playing it safe - even if that means turning QP: Hacked into your new experimental card. Slightly nerf private profiles for competitive mode (with safeguards that allow you to go a new direction in terms of hero choice for each season if your heart desires). Institute auto-locks for these forums once and for all. 5 steps. Just like that, without nerfing/buffing/reworking any heroes, or dabbling in the 5v5/6v6 debate, Overwatch will be in a better spot.
Let’s see how long this thread lasts. My money is on this thread barely making it to 3 hours before it’s derailed or flagged to oblivion.
