I played Overwatch classic and it brought back many memories, and I kept playing it and not for the nostalgia, but because it was actually good.
After playing it for a couple of hours my heart broke… I knew that once the event is over the good old game will not come back, we end up with the new version of the game which is (sorry but I have to be honest) so bad. I do not enjoy it at all.
I closed the game and I remembered Winston’s monologue… BRING BACK OVERWATCH THE WORLD NEEDS US so I decided to write this long topic for just the small chance the right people will read it. This is the actual fix to the awesome game, if done correctly, overwatch can jump back to its prime days.
List of problems with overwatch2.
- Everything is a bullet sponge, nothing dies (you can compare kills per 10 minutes today, to kills per 10 minutes in overwatch 1 and you see it drops drastically)
- Gameplay is boring and less exciting. It feels very random at times, very unfair at other times
- Long queue times (we meet again, but now for supports)
To understand how to fix the problems with the game we need to go back to the decisions that were made that brought us into this and why those decisions were made.
The bullet sponge is very easily explained. When the game dropped from 6v6 to 5v5, 1 tank was dropped, so now the healers instead of healing 2 tanks they only heal 1 tank, on top of that, tanks got sustainability buff so they need even less heals, so supports can heal other characters, so you almost constantly fighting a pocketed target. The only time you are not fighting a pocketed target is if that target is completely out of position.
You might say, if it’s hard to play against pocketed healers, just focus the healers. WRONG, the healers got buffed quite a lot, they all posses special mobility (except for ana who has sleep, and zenyatta), which gets them away from divers, on top of that, they are better than dpss in dueling. It’s very common to see supports take 1v1 with dpss and win quite easily because of the power creep.
On top of that, almost every hero has this “special movement” ability that bails them out, the self healing they posses allow them to go back into combat as soon as the cooldown on the mobility is refreshed. So if in overwatch 1 you would have to fight for the healthpack in overwatch 2 it’s fine to just chill for a moment, get your cooldowns refreshed and not even bother the healer that is pocketing someone who is fighting.
My second issue was gameplay was not exciting, when it’s about spam, things don’t die, and you don’t get as much value for a headshot as you used to the game feels in large portions of it like whoever spams more wins.
The hard counters is also a reason why we got here. Here’s an example, so in the past if a team had a great widow player, well positioned that manage the cooldown to dodge divers, it would have required a team effort to deal with that widow player, today an invisible sombra can kill the game, sneak to the window, hack, throw that virus dead, move on…
When the game started revolving around “hard counters” to anything strong or fun to play we end up playing only characters that do not have “hard counters”, and this experience is equivalent to Moira 1v1s… if you work for this game, and you have some free time, please take a Moira, and find another Moira, and 1v1. When you realize it’s not fun, and we didn’t have those in overwatch 1 (even winston 1v1s were fun because of how jumping on each other work), you will understand that the game collapsed into this experience, and it’s the main reason for players leaving for other games.
From my experience, I played Ana, got hacked and died a couple of times by a sombra player, had to swap to Moira, then when the Sombra dived me I just got enough sustain to wait out the hack time, fade away, and heal myself, the Sombra then left. It was like that on repeat, the game was terrible. I couldn’t play Ana which is fun and exciting, because someone decided to play Sombra and focus me, forcing me into going Moira.
Peeling was not an option because of Sombra’s cooldowns. If the team wanted to peel for me they had to stop their game and revolve around me, then I’d become the VIP they need to escort which isn’t a very strong strategy overall…
Why Overwatch classic was better? because there were no “hard counters”, there were match ups, mccree was considered tracer’s counter, because 1 flash + headshot = tracer dead, however, if the tracer used his blinks correctly he could bait out the flash and still win. So the “counter” wasn’t a “hard counter”.
Supports’ queue time in diamond and above is just awful. Nothing to elaborate on here…
What is the root cause of everything? power creeping… supports got power creeped into being stronger than dpss, sometimes even more than tanks. The amount of value you can get out of a support is 4 times the value you can get from dps and almost the same value of a tank, so people don’t want to play dpss anymore, they feel irrelevant.
Time to talk about solutions…
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nerf supports, a lot, get rid of all immortality abilities (you can keep it as an ultimate) it’s an ability that cannot be abused in a casual 1v1 between a support and a dps. The fact that supports have a “way out” of almost ANYTHING is a bit problematic. Reduce healing!!! I look at the top10 table, funny astro sits on 14k heal per 10… (with 1 tank, not even 2) just imagine the frustration to play against it, especially when the average dps deals around 8k dmg per 10…
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nerf tanks. tanks are too strong, it feels like their value is disproportionate to other roles. If I’m a support and I can keep up 2 dpss, or 1 tank, I’d go for the tank.
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reduce mobility abilities. It’s not okay that every hero now has this crazy press 1 button get away with your life option. It makes reaper’s ult obsolete, genji’s ult, dva ult… In general it makes the game very frustrating, fights take forever and we are stuck in the Moira 1v1 scenario I mentioned earlier. The game needs to be around the tradeoff, you either have massive damage (like bastion turret mode) or you have burst damage and one shot potential (widow/ hanzo), or you have crazy mobility (like tracer genji) which allows you to get in, get out, or you have stuns (like old mei/mccree). You cannot have it all, ALL THE TIME it breaks the game.
Venture feels terrible to play against as anything without mobility. Venture can hit the combo and get an easy kill, and the cooldowns are so low it can get out unpunished… It’s just insane to think that it’s a good addition, this character again forces you to reduce the gameplay into something that is boring but sustainable.
Role Queue is a great addition to the game, however, the tank role needs to be split into 2 categories, main tanks and off tanks, you cannot have 2 main tanks, the double shield meta was terrible, it promoted awful gameplay and we don’t want that
Bottom line, and a small recap.
Game got destroyed by power creeping and hard counters.
To fix the game EVERYTHING needs to get nerfed.
No-skill hard counters need to be removed from the game COMPLETELY.
Game philosophy is either or, not all together. And a baseline hero, You cannot buff any character to be much stronger than the baseline, or much weaker than it. It would stop the creeping powers.
Metas are okay! DO NOT TRY TO FIGHT THE METAS!!! keep adding things, and the players will think of a new meta and new ways to play the game.
And with any further decision you guys are making ALWAYS REMEMBER that it’s NOT a question of 6v6 or 5v5, or any “this or that”, it’s a fundamental question of IS THE GAME FUN, or is it a Moira 1v1.