At the core, Overwatch is a game about hero switching, unstructured team comps and counters. It’s how the game was created and meant to be played.
Have we, as the player base, moved away from that? Do we want the game to be something that it isn’t?
I would say that for the most part, we always have had a different view from the devs since day 1. Just look at “mains” or “1 tricks”. Players connect with certain heroes for whatever reason (lore wise or gameplay) and players want to play those heroes regardless of team comp or counters.
No one really likes to be told to switch over to another hero that they may not even enjoy playing just so they can stand a chance at playing the game.
I think Overwatch has been flawed in design since day 1. Look at us now, the majority of the community is screaming for a 2-2-2 role lock because people are hoping that it will allow them a chance to play the heroes they really want to play.
“Counters” have created some pretty huge problems and has made “niche” heroes even harder to play. There should be no such thing as a “niche” hero in a game that is suppose to be all about the heroes.
If that was the case, you should have called the game “Heroes and Sidekicks!”
The game is such a mess. Burst damage and healing, power creep, ults that are too strong and charge too fast, counters, poor poor hero balance, etc.
It might be time to take a long hard look at the game and try to fundamentally change it from the ground up to ensure a long healthy game life.
That is correct. The whole thing felt rushed. I am even thinking that they were trying to make a “Hearthstone with heroes”, with mercy’s mass rez being the most obvious example.
The issue is, heroes aren’t card since they are not played by the same person but many.
I am certain they do it a lot. In such complex system as a competitive multiplayer game things rarely go exactly as planned and players will always find some unintended things.
Remember how “no hero limits” was a core game feature?
I think that Overwatch at its core is a wacky-crazy-amazing, inspiring auperhero action game FPS-MOBA crossover with lovable heroes and amazing lore.
The Overwatch that I want is that and that’s what the team gave us three years ago.
The more and more gritty, esport-focused gane that introduces rework after rework to break in outlier heroes?
Making the game more mainstream and losing the unique aspects that no other games have?
I’m 100% certain that they didn’t intend for world’s best DPS players to be relegated to playing Brigitte in OWL for the last year. I think that gives an indication of how far off the rails the project has got.
i think the game is an experiment which did pay off in a way, could they have gone a different route and made it more blizzard like, absolutly.
but i think this is also giving blizzard experience in an area where they lack a lot knowledge and expertise which is actually really beneficial for them in the long run.
I knew this was going to happen even when I was still playing the beta. Which makes me wonder what they were even thinking.
Did they honestly though this was going to work or they were just too hard pressed with the time (cuz OW still feels like beta even now)
Yes and then what the devs want is different from what management wants.
h ttps://www.engadget.com/2019/06/23/blizzard-global-esports-director-quits/
h ttps://www.dexerto.com/esports/sources-high-profile-blizzard-staff-leave-morale-problems-678944
“People are really getting tired of working for Pete Vlastelica,” one source said. “The focus has become commercializing the esports titles instead of making good programs for the community. Many people internally are laying that on Pete, and it has crushed morale among the Call of Duty and Overwatch teams especially.”
Same. In fact it’s the imbalances that make Overwatch fun to play in the first place. The mass-murdering Reaper ults. But then also those deny-moments where you eat that whole ult as a D.Va. But then also that moment where you try that and an enemy Reinhardt suicide-charges you off a cliff. But then also when your Hammond knocks him over you and he goes off the cliff alone.
And so on, and so on.
Overwatch is an absolutely silly over-the-top team FPS with slow gameplay but intentionally (I assume) overtuned abilities. It’s a lot of fun as a result of that, in spite of or maybe because it is so unbalanced.
Yeah I want Overwatch to be fair and all the heroes be at least almost viable at high tier GM gameplay so they can be balanced around their realistic potential, but they clearly don’t agree with me at all since they NERFED TORBJÖRN
Even the playerbase itself doesn’t know what it wants:
Some want a CoD clone
Some want a Moba clone
Some want something that’s in essence more akin to a card game
Some want a pillow fight where nothing ever dies
One of the main issues with Overwatch is that it attracted way too different demographics that will constantly clash with each other, much more than in most other games.
And yeah, it’s basically a core design flaw that the game is built around switching to counter, yet other systems like how ults work just incentivize maining and/or one-tricking. Nothing to do about that though, because you pretty much need to rebuild the game from the ground up if you want to change that.
It really shows that Blizzard is just not used to making PvP games.
The game the OW devs wanted is fundamentally incompatible with the Ranking system they created. The ranking system has always compared players to other players of the same hero, at least up to Diamond, so spreading oneself out over multiple heroes is counterproductive.
They may have wanted a game where players dabble in multiple roles and heroes but the game is designed to reward One Tricking so many players will naturally play that way.
Similarly, they do most of their balancing with 2-2-2 in mind yet they leave compositions completely open which has led to them having to break heroes in 2-2-2 to prevent them from being overeffective in off-kilter “creative” comps.
I don’t know where the disconnect between ideology and execution is but the game Blizzard has wanted to make has never once been the game they were making.