Among the things changing in ow to ow2, there are some things that the devs have put their eggs in the basket for.
I didn’t get to play the tank role enough in ow2 to get a feel for that dynamic - due to the 10+ minute queue times, which frankly seems absurd to me. I’m glad the open queue was available, and players would tend to look for a balance, although everyone was just dying to get a taste of the new heroes of course. but with less tanky tanks, the game felt like a shooting gallery.
ow2 turned into a “fast paced shooter”, which doesn’t really make all that much sense when you still have healers trying to keep up with the damage being dealt and tanks that are now more focused on doing damage than keeping their team safe.
they can keep making adjustments to help the other roles keep up but i feel that the essence of the game kind of changed in that aspect. there’s less room for strategy and a bigger focus on just dealing more damage.
the new heroes really felt like they were modeled after apex characters. and in theory, that’s not really a bad thing, but it’s a bad premonition for future updates if they follow suit.
I think “strategy” is vastly overestimated in importance for +99% of players, and that the it’s more of a euphemism for “Supports feel bad”. Which is a lot more understandable.
Can’t speak for the DPS role, but tanks and support require twice the amount of aggression in OW2 to avoid being constantly mowed over. Which leads to less tanking and less supporting overall; more of the run and gun TDM style of Apex or Paladins, than the slow campy style of Valorant or CS:GO.
Most of the OW2 beta players I was matched with completely disregarded this phase, lol; Just trickled in 1 by 1. If the team grouped up, it was a coincidence.
I wouldn’t call OW2 fast paced at all. Unless you’re playing Tracer or Soldier it’s actually a walking simulator. 5v5 makes those maps big ghost towns.
There seems to be this misconception that supports are supposed to keep their teammates alive indefinitely. The problem with that is both teams have supports which would lead to nothing dying at all and neither team being able to actually win a fight or take an objective. People have to die in order for the match to progress. They can try to balance a good healing to damage ratio, but I’m not sure there’s a perfect answer that won’t upset one role or another and ultimately people do have to die.
For aggressive players the supports in OW2 feel pretty good. The players who have a more passive play style or just want to heal aren’t having as much fun.
Because all we got to try was a beta we not only had a new game to adjust to but also a smaller pool of people queuing. Each role has to adjust to new maps, new heroes, new balance changes, new play styles. There was no way average players were going to figure out optimal play in such a short beta. People also seem to forget that tanks in OW1 do a lot of damage. While it may take some time to adjust to only having one tank on your team, the other team is also putting out significantly less pressure since they don’t have a second tank either.
True, that’s why I think they should remove roles altogether for F2P OW if they don’t reconsider going 5v5.
Tank doesn’t feel like tank anymore. “Brawler” is a vague term not to say “just like DPS heroes but slightly different” and not tweaking / reworking supports and keeping the same abilities as in OW1 simply doesn’t make sense.
5v5 could work for Overwatch in the future but it needs 70% (if not more) reworking in terms of game modes, heroes, abilities and maps. Only 1/3 of the current heroes belong in F2P OW for now.
Still can’t believe they’re actually releasing the 5v5 update in October when so much work is more that needed to make the game functional.
Now you mention, that is true.
In particular the new maps. They are huge!, but not you are dead more time than in OW1 and spend more time walking to the point/enemy.
And now the gmae is too fast and a bit crazy. with one tank less, less barriers and almost no cc also is a hell for supports. You are much less time alive and keep alive people is harder than in ow1 too because heals feels super weask now.
5vs5 also means that if a member of your team dies, your team is on huge problems. and if the one dying is the tank, you are done.
All OW2 does is move the point up the ladder where team coordination is required, basically from Diamond into Masters. Literally, all it does. “Teams” in OW1 for the most part operated on the bum rush principle and its no different in OW2 really.