I still play TF2 from time to time. Still fun. Especially if you go to community servers, that ban bot accounts faster, than VAC does.
And competitive play had their own rules, that didn’t affect casuals mostly(restrictions of classes picked and weapons used). Modding allowed not only visual changes, but coming up with new gamemods, like Vs Saxton Hale(basically boss fight).
confirming this: my older bro bought me the game and i’ve been hooked ever since… but, he was an extremely casual player, he liked symm for the auto-lock primary attack because he doesnt have the time available to ‘get good’, he liked brigs extreme durability at her release. these heroes are nowhere near as acccesable for non-FPS players now, and he doesnt play anymore. the constant nerfs to the easier to play heroes really drove away the casual playerbase 
and it sucks
It is a party game…
Nobody has taken the OWL serious in 3-4 years. Not to mention how the overall competitive FPS community thinks overwatch is more or less a joke.
That definitely sounds more fun, but the game’s monetization is tied to the OWL marketing scheme so I don’t think they would do this for us. Are people going to go watch a party game at an arena IRL? Watch it streamed? I dunno…
Nah, you just find being cheesy fun. Most people don’t.
I mean just look at the numbers, despite blizzard doing everything to pander to competitive players as casual players left the game in droves, and with competitive mode unlocking exclusive items, only a minority of the playerbase is playing ranked.
Nobody who played overwatch near launch could say with a straight face that it was designed to be a highly competitive game
Well overwatch from the beginning was always meant to be a competitive title even titan was. It’s really cool to see how a casual player base has grown around overwatch who have absolutely no desire in comp however it’s a little frightening when you see the hardcore qp warriors
Thank you! This is my main argument, and why I hate when every hero is more skill-focused than the last. This is also my point with Dead By Daylight; just because some pros came in and found how to break it, ruined a lot of the fun. I’ll still play, but people like me just trying to have fun and not sweat are getting zoned out. Well, what can you do.
Or people with Diamond borders in Bronze comp lol.
i always thought this game should be some chuck e. cheese game but who knows what would have happened if it went that route?
you have party games like among us and fall guys while casual can be pretty hardcore with people wanting to win. i remember the toxicity of among us when it was popular. people really took that game seriously and it even wasnt competitive (probably kids trying to emulate xqc’s toxicity and competitiveness 
).
so could have overwatch actually emulated that… who knows i mean it is a six year old game… its old and competitive probably has people wanting to play for that reason. to compete. so i dont have a clue if overwatch never went competitive. i mean no content is no content so that 3 year period of trickling content REALLY HURT THE GAME. i think thats what really did it…
For the game that is older than all of the forum people, TF2 is still charting at the top 10 Valve games at this moment.
Valve games may not have the highest player counts, but they refuse to die.
OW 1 gutted the fun part about it the moment role queue was a thing. A role isn’t fun if you have to force people to play it. At the very least, there’s going to be Junker Queen in the tank role in OW 2 because I’m getting sick of playing shield.
No Limits is still my favorite game mode and will always be the real Overwatch as far as I’m concerned.
pretty much this, regardless of design intention launch overwatch was a fun casual game where you could jump into a match, pick a hero that looked cool and have hijinks ensue.
Sure it could be tilting but it still was fun and not a chore to play.
But they really, really wanted their esport, too bad blizzard balance philosophy is to rotate heroes with sledgehammer nerfs and ridiculous buffs (or let op heroes completely unchecked while pretending they are fine).
Overwatch is a game that is too tryhard for casuals and too casual for tryhards and killing all homegrown tournaments so they could have maximum control over the owl ensured an inorganic and gated pro scene that’s completely disconnected from everything.
Sadly the reason overwatch is succesfull is thanks to the characters, the polish, the sound design and the feedback loop. From a technical and game design standpoint this game is a marvel and so much fun to play, which is why it ropes people in.
And then when you play after a bit you notice all the stupid things that make the game not worth it, but by that point you are hook and you hope every patch is what will bring fun into the game
go play arcade then. its called COMPETITVE for a reason. its not supposed to be fun to lose. you are supposed to win
It can be what ever kind of game you want it to be.
I haven’t played comp since they introduced role queue. Since then, I’ve just stuck to QP and only play with groups of friends. In that sense… it is kind of a party game ha.
You want a serious game? Comp is for you. You like variety? Try arcade. You want to experiment or even create your own game types? Try custom games or work shop.
It’s all there, just play how you want to play.
Exactly this! If only Blizz didn’t focus more on OWL and catered to the casual players we could have gotten it
Blizzard : PvE for ya
The FPS equivalent of party games is Call of Duty.
Noob tube oneshots? 
Nukes that end the game early?
Martyrdom, which junk’s kit straight up copied?
Wall glitch meta?
Noscope derp gun builds?
Predator missiles and bombing runs for chaos and inescapable near random death?
Flying an AC130 and blowing up half the map?
The skill aspect is what stops us from spiraling down into such degeneracy.
