Give us more than sprays and icons for achieving higher ranks in competitive mode.
Its getting to the point where matches are saturated with accounts that just don’t care about ranking up (sr). Its hard to blame people in 2019 honestly. No point busting out of your comfort zone and achieve some personal best only to have it farmed away because the ladder integrity is at an all time low (and most ppl know why).
There are two really cool ways to re-incentivize the competitive spirit:
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Fix the algorithms behind ladder progression and matchmaking (not gonna happen).
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Offer better rewards - a new weapon tier perhaps? Platinum colored or diamond adorned guns to flaunt your efforts/success/skill. Be currently ranked e.g. diamond and you can buy a diamond weapon!
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Make the hardcore grind worthwhile. If rank-based guns are just too elitist, you could potentially upgrade the golden gun to a higher tier ‘diamond gun’ (or whatever) after a further comp points purchase. For example - 3000 unlocks a golden gun, and another 3000 beyond that unlocks the diamond skinning.
Just an idea. I mostly just do comp for golden guns now since rank carries much less weight.
2 Likes
Each rank receives a spray from that rank with the exception for bronze, you also obtain all sprays below you so people don’t throw to obtain a spray below them. If a player obtained over 30hrs on a hero in a given season they will receive a spray for that season that includes that hero (And maybe even rank) this can work for profile pictures, too.
Achievement sprays for certain accomplishments, such as over 500k healing done in a season, or 2 million damage blocked in a given season, etc. That would give incentive to improve someone, work towards something, and put into perspective what they did when they really tried. “Wow, I just stopped 2 million damage this season.” And keep that mentality to keep doing it.
2 Likes
I agree with everything you said except the achievement rewards.
If you incentivize anything in a game other than simply to win the game, then there will always be people that only play to get that incentive. It happened with the old PBSR system, and it would happen again if they gave achievements in comp more rewards.
Incentivizing/rewarding people to play the game incorrectly, or to play for any reason other than to win is simply bad game design for a competitive game mode.
3 Likes
My incentive to rank up used to be to get better games.
But after seeing masters and GM games where most games still have at least one player who does not want to play as a team and is just doing their own thing i have given up on it. I am more busy becoming better on other heroes then ranking up my main heroes. So i can carry games even if i have incompetent team mates who can or wont do their job.
Yes i dont care much about rank, since it isn’t a real skill ranking but has to much luck factor in it. Especially when you don’t play so many comp games. It is mostly based on a rating determined by win/losses where in a lot of games this is out side of your control (yes you can carry bad players/leavers by playing 2 times better then the rank you are in , or play enough(farm) so those games where you had no chance do not matter)
I dont know if having more sprays, guns, skins etc would work for me.
Only thing that would actually work for me to climb again, farm all those hours, is a promise of better games. I am not a farmer that spend hours farming to get better loot. Already hated it in WOW.
Jeff Kaplan already said he regrets adding golden guns, but I think we need more. We need bronze guns so I can finally represent my true skill on Widow.
7 Likes
ima get a t500 brig shield
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It should just be given out for free to anyone that plays Brig.
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I play around GM. I basically ignore CP points and just burn them on whatever each season; who actually cares about that? I play because I want to get better and climb the last few rungs on the ladder to Top 500. I want to be consistently crazy good at the game. And I like playing it; it’s fun when the teamfight goes as planned, or when you make a crazy hard play to win the match. Sometimes it’s just fun playing with the weird people you meet online.
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Yes what could go wrong with incentivizing people to heal alot or block alot of damage. Gosh maybe they’ll start healing more, the horror.
The incentive should be gaining SR. Competitive is playing to win, and win more. Golden guns should never have existed in the first place because it attracts the wrong crowd.
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My issue is playing to win consistently enough to rank up or maintain a higher sr. Playing to win is fine, but hard won 2-3 matches then soft throwing because you can’t be arsed to rank up further is basically what most burner accounts do to the ladder.
Few care anymore about maintaining a high sr because there isn’t any prestige in keeping a high sr. You’d get a lot less plats/diamonds in bronze if being 2000 sr higher had a tangible aesthetic to go with the more meaningful end-goal.
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I do like how Rocket League gives out end of season rewards based on rank. It would be cool to add to OW. Only downside is it encourages boosting even more.
I think you should have to enter your credit card, and for each day you spend in Bronze, you have to pay money. As you rank up, you pay less and eventually start earning money.
;p
Didn’t they promise new rewards for CPs ages ago?
I’d pay for a seasonal competitive pass that promises a much better ladder experience: soft resets, placements that matter, a skin/icon, better patrolling/policing, and server priority.
Right now many feel like they have nothing to strive for. I care about getting better, but not about getting THAT much better - i.e. faster than the rate the ladder environment decays around you. Its just a cesspool with no in-game payoff.
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This isn’t an arcade game. You’re not meant to farm up a “personal high score”.
It’s called a ranking system for a reason. You find where you belong and stick around there.
Besides, not caring about ranking up and not caring about winning are two different things. I will try my damndest to win. But if my damndest isn’t good enough, then… oh well, I guess. No point in getting obsessed over it.
Honestly I just hate how they set up comp. The mode itself is good, but there are so many little things that promote the obsessive “gotta improve” mindset, which in turn just fuels frustration and eventual toxicity when you hit your natural plateau.
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How about hero and weapon skins for reaching certain Ranks? Oh wait… to much work and not everyone would be able to get those juicy Top500 skins and Blizzards policy = everyone should get everything for doing nothing.
As long this policy exists we wont get real competitive rewards and this leads to people dont caring about competitive at all since the rewards are dogpoop.
Except most people realize the ranking system is half a joke? At least if there was something more to fight for, we might find things less stale. I’d certainly care about improving an entire tier and maybe swallow a few more losses due to trolls, if i could unlock something the normies don’t have.
And even if we forget the ranks, the idea of a golden gun upgrade to reflect the perserverence and dedication seems extremely relevant for esports 2019. I have ~12 golden guns at this point and don’t know what to spend the comp points on. Give me an option to upgrade to some weapon flair!
uhhhhhh… did you play this game in the early seasons?
That should be enough to answer your question.
If you didn’t:
The original PBSR (Performance Based SR) system that was in the game until around season 9 or 10 was in all ranks, it also valued personal performance much more heavily in terms of the SR adjustments it added.
This created an environment where a majority of the player base simply didn’t care about winning or losing, as it was easier to just farm for high stats and climb from solely the PBSR adjustments. Reins were standing still with their shield up until it broke regardless of their teams position, DPS were just spamming tanks rather than trying to get picks because it gave them a higher overall damage number, and healers would much rather DPS because it gave them more favorable adjustments than good healing stats would.
The winners of a game of Overwatch are rarely the ones with the highest stats.
I get that you don’t know much about game design; but it is a widely accepted fact that incentivizing people to do something other than win the game, leads to most lobbies having 2 or 3 people that only care about that incentive. And that is objectively bad game design for a competitive game mode.