Initial Thoughts RE: Perks

General Discussion
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Alright, so, here we go, new announcement, and boy was it a big one. But rather than talk about ALL the things (I have thoughts about quite a few), I want this to stay focused on the title mentioned topic that is the upcoming perk system.

So, back when folks first started speculating what the big announcements were going to be in this reveal, one of the things some people brought up, both positively and negatively, was talents. Some people wanted them; others didn’t. Personally, I felt that if Blizzard implemented them correctly, it would be a massive boon for the game. That it would make Overwatch stand out as a unique title, because as far as I can tell, no other hero shooter has talents that change how your hero plays.

The caveat there being ‘if they were implemented correctly,’ and I have to say, what I heard in the reveal isn’t it. The way I understand it, you pick a hero at the very start of your game, and then you play that hero through the match, leveling up as you play and unlocking one minor perk and one major perk before the match ends. This is, quite frankly, a horrible implementation. But why? For a few reasons, listed below.

Reason 1—Immersion Breaking

First, it will completely take me out of the game. Battles in Overwatch are chaotic, and every second matters, especially when you’re trying to contest a point or push/stop the payload/robot. What happens when I level up as a result of play? I have to open up a menu during a fight to select the perk I want for my character? That’s taking me out of the match; it’s distracting me, or worse, I completely miss it because I’m too focused on the match.

Reason 2—Massive Negative Impact on Team Fights.

Tying into reason 1 above but worth mentioning on its own, if I earn perks as I play the game and I earn one while I’m playing at a critical moment, I can’t waste time agonizing over what perk I might need. I’ll have to make a snap decision, which might not be the best one, because the game isn’t going to pause while I coordinate with my team on what I’m going to need. If my team is contesting a point in Junk City, they need me on that point contesting with them, not sitting in a corner picking my nose while I decide if I pick perk A or perk B. It could ultimately cost my team the match if I’m not participating because I’m deciding what perk to pick. Losing a team fight can easily make or break a match. Either setting the team back significantly or causing them to lose the game completely.

Reason 3—Perks Can’t be Swapped After Being Chosen.

From what I’ve come to understand watching the reveal of the perk system, these perks are permanent decisions that you’re making for the duration of the match. Once you’ve picked a perk, you’re locked in, with no way to change them at any other point during the game. If this is the case going into Season 15, this is horrible, and this comes down to how the game flows. Overwatch is, at its core, a very fluid game. Things are changing constantly during each match, most notably with hero selection, but also with how teams perform and what map is picked (especially for control games).

So what happens if, say, I’m playing Orisa and I pick Heat Dissipator and Charged Javelin for that extra oomph and then the enemy team adapts and doesn’t give me any opportunities to use Charged Javelin effectively? Or worse, they swap to heroes that would make it so that it would be more advantageous to pick Fleeting Bulwark or Protective Barrier? I could effectively be hard countered or locked out of being able to better assist my team because I picked perks based on how the game was at the time, but then the fluid nature of the game changed and made my decisions worthless.

Reason 4—It Effectively Penalizes Swapping.

One thing I have absolutely loved about Overwatch, and something that it has but no other hero shooter does, is its rock-paper-scissors style gameplay loop. Swapping and counter-swapping are at the very core of the game. Each hero has its strengths and weaknesses. Each hero’s weaknesses can be exploited by another hero, giving them a significant advantage over the others. Most of these counters are soft counters, and a skilled player can play around them and keep on trucking. But others are not and can massively impact the way a game plays out.

For example, Ana is effectively a hard counter to both Roadhog and Mauga, as neither of these tanks has defensive abilities they can use to shield themselves from damage. They are reliant on self-healing that Ana negates for a few seconds, making her extremely powerful against those two tanks in particular. Another example is playing Zarya into D.VA, as she cannot block beams with her defense, making Zarya the perfect tank to counter her in many situations.

Now currently in the game, in a situation where you’re being countered, you might consider swapping. Or if you see an opportunity to counter, you also might consider swapping. But once the perk system comes into play, you will not be incentivized to swap because doing so will mean you have to earn perks again on whatever hero you swap to. This will put you at a major disadvantage against the other team, as they will have their high-powered perks and you won’t. Now, supposedly it will be much easier to earn perks for heroes who don’t have them, especially once other heroes have already unlocked theirs. But as I said in Reason 2, team fights are often make-or-break moments where losing one can set you back for an entire game or cause you to lose a game. If you swap to counter and you lose perks, you’re no longer supporting your team at peak effectiveness, and your performance in team fights is going to be worse, causing your team to suffer.

Solutions?

So now that I’ve discussed the issues I see from my perspective, what would I honestly suggest when it comes to addressing them? Here are a few suggestions.

Instead of making the perks earned during a match and selectable during that match, have it be part of the hero gallery in the same way you customize mythic skins. Allow me to choose, before I even enter a match, what perks I want to pick. That way my immersion isn’t broken during the game while I’m actively trying to combat the enemy team. This addresses reasons 1 and 2. If you want to give players an opportunity to test out the perks in a game environment before going up against other players, you can throw them into a hero mastery course for that perk or into a game against the AI.

For reason 3, make it so that I am able to swap perks in a spawn point. Yes, this does slightly impact immersion, but that’s where I can bring up the hero menu, so why not allow me to bring up the perk menu as well and let me swap perks based on the way the game has flowed? This means that if the game flows in a way that makes my initial perk decisions worthless, I can swap at spawn and provide greater benefits to my team.

And finally, for reason 4, make it so that if I swap to another hero mid-game, I have all the perks unlocked already. This way, if I have to adjust on the fly to the enemy team, I’m not suddenly the weakest link in the team because I haven’t unlocked perks that my team (and more importantly, the enemy team) has.

So to wrap up, that’s really all the thoughts I have for the perk system so far. Now some of these may become invalidated as we learn more about the system. If that happens, then that’s fine by me. I just think the current system has too many issues to be implemented as is. Thanks for reading; feel free to comment below.

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League of Legends has level ups mid-game (though a lot more complex). I like the idea of being able to level up mid-fight and get a sudden advantage. Adds another layer of skill to those who learn the skills and memorize their orders.

You select the upgrade when you want. It’s not like a pop-up on your screen that appears the second you level up. On the bottom left, under your portrait it’ll say “Press L-Alt to upgrade.”

I agree. I like the fluidity of MOBA’s that allow you to sell and rebuy items. I think you should be able to sell your perks, but you should have to re-earn the XP required to purchase another one.

I wish they implemented this better. Perks should be things that allow you swap playstyles. If I want to play Reaper as a flanker, I should be given perks that give me mobility/lower cooldowns, that way I can swap up my playstyle if they pick a hero that counters me in order to prevent their counter from being as effective.

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Erm… no? Leveling up in League of Legends is not ‘more complex.’. You leveled up; click the + button on the ability you want to level up. If you’re familiar with how most people recommend you level a hero (guides exist for that reason), it’s a non-issue. Also, you will regularly be going back to town to buy items from the shop, so even if you don’t pick an ability to level right then at that moment? You’ll be fine.

I know how the menu is supposed to work, but it is a pop-up and a choice you have to make. Choices that can affect games should be given more thought, which you might not have if you earn a perk during a team fight. Imagine for a moment that you’re playing Tracer and you have a bit of trouble deciding which perk to choose. Congrats, you just made yourself a sitting duck for every single player on the enemy team that spotted you, assuming you weren’t in your own spawn. And during all that decision-making, you’re not helping your team.

So make the system worse than it already is? Because that’s what that suggestion would do. Especially if you accidentally refund a perk you had while you’re deciding if you want to swap or not.

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Hey, don’t knock it 'til you try it.

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Tell that to the tank players lol. Counterswapping is one of the biggest complaints with 5v5 right alongside needing to make tanks op just to offset the fact that they can so easily be counterswapped

Doomfist can get a parry on block. The doom warlords will have a way to outplay cc. I can only see this as a win and I don’t particularly like doom

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I think it’s important to get constructive feedback out now so Blizzard can take it in.

I’m not saying perks are horrible and should be removed, that the feature sucks, or that Blizzard sucks. If Blizzard decides to implement them as is, warts and all, then I’m sure folks will adjust. But having that feedback out now is important.

Considering that there is no PTR for Overwatch, there’s no way to ‘try’ the perks before release unless Blizzard does a preview test.

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Reason 1 and it’s already the most nothing burger complaint I’ve seen about a feature in a while.

Why are you acting like you need to drop everything and IMMEDIATELY select your perk? You know what hero you’re playing throughout that entire time before you even get to the level up, you should know what perks are best by then and know what perks you want by the time you get to the level up.

It shouldn’t be you playing nonchalant and then being like “omg I leveled up, what hero am I even playing! What do the perks do!!! I’m in the middle of a fight I MUST LEVEL UP NOW!!!”

???

Congrats. You are alone.

That’s been one of the biggest, if not THE biggest complaint with overwatch 2 and 5v5.

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Doom’s major drawback has always been the effort it takes to play him, in part largely due to there being so many counters for him.
The idea that ZBRA or Quaked will now be running around with a “No” button that negates some of those counters while gaining more overhealth is not something I’m overly fond of. Even that extra empowered punch reset would be terrifying in their hands, it can lead to 3 back to back punches, 4 if you slap in the ult.

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Gang don’t get it messed up. That’s the ONLY positive perk doom has.

It’s great, cool! Parry mechanic. But I’d rather have at least a choice instead of just “this will be the default option by a mile” meanwhile the other 3 perks are just reinforcing punchbotting more.

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Erm yes. Unlike in OW, League has a mana system as well as a AB/AP power scaling system that changes every time you level up an ability.

Waiting to level up an ability is used as a legitimate strat to preserve mana until you’ve casted the ability at a lower cost. I believe it’s also used to immediately reset cooldowns, but I might be misremembering that one as I haven’t played/watched anything league related in a while.

This is a learned process. This is what, in my opinion, makes games fun. After awhile, you’ll have memorized it and you could start concentrating on which compositions each ability is most useful in. A temporary issue.

Make it difficult to refund perks, so that accidents don’t happen. Do what Destiny does for selling items and make it a “Hold-to-refund” system.

I don’t think you should be rewarded for swapping it willy nilly. You should be punished for making the wrong choice. Leaving it open for unlimited swapping just runs the risk of doing what counter-swapping already allows for players to do.

At most, I’d be willing to have a discounted refund system where it returns some of the XP back after selling, but definitely not all.

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I would bet a significant amount that it will be bugged as f***, as is tradition for doom lol

I kind of agree but they if you’re that cracked at the hero you should be winning. Idk

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I won’t be shocked if for that first 1 second, it doesn’t charge empowered punch.

Empowered punch charge is based on damage TAKEN. So if it absorbs the damage instead… ???

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Progression in league is leagues (pun very much intended) more complex than OW. Early game changes everything. Theorically, you can get every skill level to the max, but the order you get them matters, and matters a lot, because they will determine the edge you have to farm the gold that will fuel another part of the very complex progression, itemization. MOBAs are economy games. If you have more gold than your opponents, you have better items than them earlier, meaning you will be killing them more easily and getting even more of an edge against them. Building your skills wrong early on can and will cost you a game and there’s no item that will fix that.

Choosing between two abilities is a no-brainer compared to this, really.

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Breaking immersion is hardly a nothing burger. Maybe it’s not important to you, but it is important to other players. It’s fine if you don’t care about it, but honestly? Respect those that do.

Because other players will be selecting their perks, especially if they’re in a position to do so (like, say, they just respawned) while you’re holding a point or pushing the payload/robot. And if you haven’t selected your major perk, for example, by the time the enemy team comes back with theirs, you’re at a significant disadvantage. You may even lose a critical team fight because of it. These are, after all, game-changing perks as the Overwatch 2 team described.

I am hardly alone. Every single thread complaining about swapping and counterswapping is filled with people arguing in favor of it.

And then when you’re in a pinch and actually need to swap a perk, whoops, you’ve got to stand still for several seconds holding a button to refund a perk.

Refunds are beyond the scope of this thread. Since you’re not ‘purchasing’ a perk with earned currency (except in the upcoming Stadium mode, which this thread is not discussing), there’s nothing to ‘refund,’ and forcing people to earn back what they already earned once will not only make the system feel worse, it will make team fights even harder, as I mentioned in Reason 4, because you won’t have a perk while everyone else who doesn’t ‘refund’ will, making you the weak link in the team.

I’m aware of this; however, your average League player is likely looking at a build for their chosen hero (or is familiar enough with their build that they don’t need a guide) so they’re going to know the exact order to level up their abilities, the exact order to get items, etc.

I know when I played League many years ago now, I had my ability order and item order written down beside me so I could quickly glance at it and then know exactly what I needed to do. This was back when dual monitor setups were not as common as they are now. Now? People can put a build on a second monitor and easily reference that with a glance.

Sure, in expert-level play, there are techniques you can use. Using an ability before you level up so you can minimize the amount of mana it uses, etc. But I’m not referring to expert-level play here. I’m talking about the majority of the player base, who are casual players and aren’t executing expert-level play strategies.

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And again…

It’s not like you just spawned in mid team fight on a random hero.

You should know already which perk you’re going to pick when the time comes.

Not nearly as many as you think.

Again, it’s not just a forum thing. It’s been one of the main complaints of the GAME as a whole across everywhere in OW2. The less swapping is rewarded, the better. The game shouldn’t be based on WHAT you play, it should be based on HOW you play.

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You won’t be choosing your perks at the start of the game with this system as it’s proposed currently; you will earn them while you’re playing, as in, during the middle of a match. Maybe during the middle of a team fight. And if you’re busy fighting the enemy team when the others on that team pick their perks and you don’t immediately pick yours, you’re in a bind.

As for ‘already deciding what you’re going to pick,’ maybe that’s true, but a smart player picks what is the best perk for the situation, because again with the current system as it’s been described to us, it’s a permanent choice. So if you just pick whichever perk you feel is awesome, you can potentially open yourself up to being hard countered because the perk you picked for the awesome is the pick the enemy plays to counter.

Literally every single one. Go and check, and you’ll find players in every single thread arguing in favor of swapping and counterswapping.

And if you think swapping is bad now? It was worse in Overwatch 1 when Blizzard had dozens of hard counters throughout the game, which meant that if you didn’t swap, you would just die over and over again (Blizzard even contemplated the idea of making one-tricking bannable but ultimately decided against it).

Again, as many people have pointed out. Swapping and counterswapping is a core game mechanic. It always has been, and it’s what people are used to. Overwatch 2 reduced the need to do it as often as was necessary during the Overwatch 1 days, but it’s still, even today, a core mechanic.

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My biggest worry is Perks being just another lever that the devs can use to play favorites and meta enforce.

Look at the perks that already strong heroes like Tracer/Ashe/Sojourn/Ana are getting.

Then look at perks of bad heroes like Sym and LW.

Tracer is getting full cooldown reset on rewind usage while Sym is getting minor healing if you hug a destructible object or conditional range increases that are just flat out not worthwhile.

1 Like
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Ehh, none of their bonuses are actually that powerful. They’re more utility-based, or they have drawbacks. Here, I’ll give you my opinions on them.

Tracer: Blink Packs is pure utility, and if you’re needing a medpack as Tracer, chances are you’re playing her wrong. Flashback and Quantum Entanglement are also pure utility, easy to overlook. Her best perk by far is Blast From The Past, but even that isn’t going to get much use. Sure, her ult is more powerful, but how often is that going to be reliably used in a game? It would also force Tracer to hold onto it for potential group play, and a Tracer blinking into the enemy team to drop a pulse bomb is extremely risky for her.

Ashe: Sidewinder is pure utility. Rapid Fire sounds good on paper, 30% increased speed, but with a penalty of -15% damage, that could come back to bite you. Viper’s Sting requires you to have really good aim for scoped shots, which you might not be able to land depending on who you’re trying to hit and the distance between you and the enemy. Airburst is perhaps the best perk she has, but it requires you to detonate her dynamite in the air to gain any positive effects from it aside from the ammo refresh, which is utility.

Sojourn: Sojourn wins and loses with her perks, although you wouldn’t know it by just reading the text. Her minor perks, Extended Mag and Overcharged, are good. But it really depends on how much use you want to get out of the perk. A perk that is useful all game by giving you an extra 15 ammo, or a perk that boosts the power of your ult when you use it (which won’t happen often in a game unless you’re absolutely dominating, in which case the perk isn’t really providing much value there). Her major perks are utility and a nerf. And the reason I say nerf there is because when you use Disruptor Shot, it acts as area denial. Players will either try to go around it, or they’ll avoid going through it. By making it stick to enemies it hits? You lose that area denial because that player can just move away from the rest of their team and have a healer heal them through the damage. Now the rest of the enemy team can progress without taking any damage from your ability.

Ana, on the other hand? Yeah, I’ll give you that; both her minor and major perks are very powerful.

Sym’s traits are actually really powerful. An extra turret can do a lot of damage to an unaware player who doesn’t try to destroy them. Her teleporter having an extra 50 yards of range is extremely strong utility. As for her major perks. Perfect Alignment is insanely powerful. Her beam weapon at full charge can melt through players just like Zarya’s beam. The biggest downside is her short range, 12 meters, which means it has a shorter range than Zarya’s beam. Which means you have to be really close to do decent damage with her (unless you’re charge shooting from a distance). With Perfect Alignment, you get an extra 15% range with each additional charge level. So at charge level 2 your beam increases to 14 meters, and then at charge 3 it should increase to 16 meters.

That means you outrange Zarya and a bunch of other short-range heroes like Tracer and Reaper, because Sym’s beam doesn’t have damage falloff. If you get hit at 16m, it’s the same as if you got hit at 10m.

As for LW, his are a mixed bag. Quite a bit of utility. The on-death heal is decent enough. Might save your team in the short term if you get killed first. But unless you get a rez or you can run back fast enough, you’re not going to keep your team up long term with that. Having a cleanse is an amazing utility, especially since it also yanks the player out of danger and makes them invulnerable to damage during said yank. His Lifeweaving perk is meh, but as for Superbloom? Oh boy, that’s a powerful one, and you’d know exactly why if you’ve ever played Halo and used the Needle gun.

Let’s say you manage to unload a Thorn Volley into your enemy. Assuming no heals and all your shots land? That’s 132 damage a second for 9 seconds. If enough of those Thorn Volley shots hit every 1.5 seconds, they explode for an additional 30. So even if you only get 5 seconds of Thorn Volley hitting your target, that’s 750 damage before damage reduction.

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Apex got perks 2 years ago and the gameplay improved massively.
The same thing will happen to overwatch.
Of course now some perks sucks but in time they will balance them.
I for one will start playing again regularly partly because kiri got some really nice ones.

The same can’t be said for ashe and bva but you know…baby steps.

20

I agree with everything you said. Honestly they need to at least have it as a separate mode. Like a hardcore (with perks), and a core (without perks).