Yup, that’s certainly a big concern…
You’d think think they’d have more hype going for the Support role than “We’re gonna nerf Flankers a bit”.
Tbh I’m not that worried. Could they be doing more for OW2? Yes. But the changes they made to OW2 already make it better than OW1 ever was post RQ imo. Even if they make slow balance changes I expect OW2 to have a very healthy player population. And at the end of the day that’s all that really matters.
Sauce? I have a hard time believing one of the unpopulars is getting a mythic skin before 2077
Indications are that Rammatra has some sort of “grounding” ability that (at the very least) forces flying heroes to land, but potentially “Grounds” heroes by making it so they can’t use mobility moves.
This is from the images they showed, which had the icon indicating a “grounding” effect and highlighted the ability being used on Tracer, Pharah, and Echo specifically.
It’s honestly hilarious how their justification for heroes in the BP is that they are “moving away from counterpicks” and then they keep releasing heroes that are DIRECT counterpicks (and, if this theory is correct, a direct counterpick to hypermobility, which is currently dominating the game).
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They already have in so many ways.
Not even trying to be negative here, but im very confident in saying that out of that massive launch day crowd, they’ve probably already lost like 80% of it.
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You’d think they’d really be trying to smooth out that bottleneck. Get that Support pop as high as they reasonably can and maintain it.
I understand their updating tool or something is busted, but if the Genji/Sombra nerfs aren’t enough and they don’t have something on the table to make Support more palatable or enjoyable the game is on course to crash.
Especially if the next addition is some mix of Doom and Genji with a tank healthpool.
I’m sure that won’t backfire in the slightest.
There’s things that can be done to lessen the severity. Such as:
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Actually reward people for queuing Flex.
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Keep improving Support’s auditory and visual feedback so their impact is more visible. They’ve made some progress on that score with 2, but they can still do a lot more on that score.
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Tell their Esports division to stop ignoring the Support players and their contribution.
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Improve Mercy and get some of her mains back. They’ve always been a reliable core but Blizzard’s lack of care has lost a very large portion of them.
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Actually put the time and effort and get Moira reworked and whatever Brig changes they keep saying they’re making.
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Rework Sym or Sombra to Support.
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General balance shift towards improving Support survivability/independence a tad.
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Stop making the role and its player’s feel like an afterthought.
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I think it’s possible, if you forfeit the idea that either:
- Overwatch Roles need to be designed like MMORPG Roles.
- Overwatch Roles need to be designed like Role Limits don’t exist.
So basically step 1, is reducing counters to Supports. Step 2 is probably a bunch of QoL fixes. Step 3 is more skins and incentives. But Step 4 is probably just going to be slowly powercreeping the Support role until something breaks in a “too much” sort of way.
dont even think, they are going down the phone game route
I am seriously expecting some P2W in their PVE part
Short term thought seems to be the thought of so many companies nowadays. Amazing how many no longer care about the goodwill of their customers.
You aren’t afraid that Overwatch will lose its signature feeling? At that point, every character would just be “Shooter” and teamplay would be devalued even more.
The worst part is I think people would legitimately be driven away. People play Overwatch for how it feels now, and that even includes the supports that feel like they’re getting shafted. Changing the game feel that much would essentially be saying “Goodbye old audience, we’re going after new people!”.
…And so far that hasn’t worked with a single company that’s tried that now. We do have evidence of people trying to reach a new audience, like Marvel and DC catering towards people who believe in diversity first and foremost. Without judging that opinion, we can prove that this isn’t working well just by looking at sales.
I really think we should focus on the audience we have, and not some new audience.
Should preach for better monetization. All they care about is money so the only language they understand is money. They are being manipulative so be manipulative in return. Fight fire with fire. Though it won’t really work no one is honestly playing this game now. All the new players have quit, and any returning players have all left already. Nothing was retained!
This new hero our first evil omnic is locked behind a pay wall or play wall and because too many around here were complacent with that terrible idea, everyone else suffers that consequence along with the other terrible aspects of the monetization which is literally guiding the entire direction of OW2.
If you want things to be fixed, it starts by not abusing customers for their time and money.
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They already lost the signature feeling of OW1 from 2016/2017. They are regaining it by reversing a lot of the “MOBA Creep”.
Especially after the Pandora’s box they unleashed of OWL creating really unforgiving metas that suck the fun out of the game. 4 years of GOATs/DoubleBarrier isn’t really the “Signature Feel” the devs or the Community were after.
By comparison, even many of OW2’s harshest critics are “But at least the gameplay is fun”.
If anything, the tiny minority group that actually LIKED all the MOBA Creep. Too bad, they are not the core audience for this game. Never have been. Never will be. And if devs are at all attached to reality, they have to accept the idea that you can’t make everybody happy. Losing some amount of players is inevitable if they want to do anything significant.
And given all the success that FPSMOBAs have had, and all the failure that MOBAFPS games have had.
You’re basically trying to use backwards revisionist history to justify deliberately NOT appealing to the playerbase they have now, the playerbase they had in 2017, or the players they are likely to get.
Really your perspective is like maybe 5% of the total playerbase, and you’re trying to act like it’s the majority.
And realistically, the devs could easily justify losing 5% of the playerbase, if in return they were able to gain/maintain and additional 20%. Or heck, even just “Not lose 5% from bad queue times and poor matchmaker quality”.
And heck, in the long run, the vast majority of the players who actually DO want a more MMORPG style experience, they are mostly all going to quit out to PVE when it launches. So it kinda doesn’t make any sense to bother worrying about a small minority group, that will eventually be an extremely tiny minority group.
…sorry but people are vastly overreacting to one hero being behind a temporary time-wall (not paywall).
The reality is, most players are unlikely to even want to play the new hero in comp/qp anyway (or try it out but find it doesn’t ‘gel’ with their preferred playstyle)… 
It actually makes sense to put an unpopular hero mythic on the same pass as the new hero, especially now that the new hero is going to be locked for everyone rather than just for nooblets. Sales will be huge due to that fact alone. So personally I think it’s an intelligent decision money-wise, because they can save the popular hero mythics for seasons with no new heroes, basically ensuring that there’s something to boost the BP sale numbers every season.
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How hard would it be to do a few different Battle passes and thus let people pick which mythic skin they want on their Battle pass ?
I thought 5v5 and f2p was supposed to fix queue times and make it a better game? All the Twitch streamers were saying it!!! You mean to tell me twitch streamers don’t know what they’re talking about!!???
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where was hype for OW2 the past yr up to day it launched?
nobody was hyped.
we knew it was gonna be bad & a regression of what we had.
also hoping blizzard to change their BP plans this soon? lul they gotta milk the ppl willing to pay before they lose em.
7 Likes
Stating the obvious here but it almost feels like maybe… just MAYBE… the game wasn’t ready yet and they shouldn’t have released it like this. 
I personally would’ve happily waited for the PvE, because the PvP sure as heck isn’t doing anything for me right now.
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The very first time I see a hero locked behind a battlepass is probably the same day I uninstall Overwatch permanently and that’s depressing for me to think about as someone who’s been here since OW1’s beta. It’s been pretty clear since launch that Blizzard doesn’t care about anyone who isn’t actively giving them money, but I can only take so much spite from a game I’m trying to enjoy and everything in OW2 feels like a big ol ‘**** you, pay me.’
1 Like