So, during the marketing campaign for Overwatch 2, to build hype for the sequel, the Overwatch League Pro Teams played Exhibition Matches. We got to see 5v5, and I believe some reworks for heroes going into OW2.
I’ve found videos that show the very first iterations of Overwatch 2’s balance states, where I think they pretty much just put the 6v6 heroes into 5v5 format with a few DPS reworks and tank adjustments.
The very first game ever showed, I believe is this one:
After watching it, I realised that I enjoyed watching this more than gameplay in OWCS today.
So, I wanted to open up a discussion about balancing. After watching this, or from memory, do we think OW2 should literally go right back to the drawing board with balancing and go in a new direction, or keep trying with the current state of the game?
I know we have new heroes, they would need adjusting of course as they’ve been balanced around the current state of the game, but I actually really like how impactful everyone feels in the version of the game shown above.
Could be blind nostalgia for how exciting it felt to watch Overwatch 2 for the first time, but I’m interested to gather opinions on this.
I don’t know about nostalgia….but there is something to be said about looking at something through the “new” lens
it’s a big part of why OW was so popular initially and why for example everybody thinks rivals is so good…opinions are quite different after they are taken off and experience and strategy and techniques and such are given time to influence those opinions
OW1 had that happen, OW2 had the same…and we’ll see where rivals ends up a few months from now
By the way also works in the opposite direction too - “this is the worst thing ever” 3 secs after a patch hits…and then doesn’t seem so bad a week or 2 later
Definitely contributes to looking at this state of the game and thinking it looks somewhat more fun. Rivals is a really interesting competitor, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that all goes, since the hype train is huge
I mostly agree, and I genuinely think Season 9 has pushed the game down a very dark balancing path unfortunately.
The crazy amount of sustain and visual clutter in current OW2 is really unattractive as a player. I think a big numbers adjustment is needed (reverting Season 9 changes for starters) is needed first and foremost.
Ironically, the S9 changes to HP and hitboxes are one fo the few things I’m actually kind of indifferent towards. No super strong opinion either way.
That said, I do think the game has been power crept into oblivion. This was true even during OW1 days, but I think OW2’s hero design has made it considerably worse. I actually want the game to have much higher base TTK, but to do so they absolutely need to drastically nerf damage, healing, and mobility across the board. OW2 in its current state is a mess of “everything dies instantly, or nothing dies at all” because of how much power every hero has now. Damage and healing are both at pretty much all time highs so everything either explodes or gets pocketed to be invulnerable. Add on all the new invulnerability mechanics like suzu and life grip (on top of lamp). They’ve added so much mobility and displacement CC while simultaneously nerfing hard CC like mei freeze, flashbang, shield bash, and hack, so high mobility heroes often feel uncontested – especially the tanks.
Like I literally hate everything about what they’ve done to the game. They’ve done such a poor job designing new heroes and reworks and everything just feels like this generic deathmatch shooter with no real strategy or teamwork. You just get hard bullied by a bunch of unfair mechanics.
Everything will started falling apart when they nerfed ow2 Mercy. Also in that time feel of "novelty " for 5v5 faded and people started seeing how predictable 5v5 games are . #imho
You definitely put what I’ve been feeling for a while into words there, and it’s such a massive shame. I think early OW2, despite the rock/paper/scissors tank swapping, was OW2’s best balance state.
I honestly wish they’d take one of OW1’s peak patches, one of the very few patches where nearly everyone felt more or less viable, and build on from there. OW2 feels needlessly complicated…
It’s strange how it really did begin to feel worse once Mercy was nerfed into oblivion. I think maybe we all miss seeing the most iconic original heroes being played rather than busted new heroes like Mauga/Juno taking over the entire competitive scene.
Even with just one healer it’s impossible to kill a tank and when it is the outcome of the fight is clear who will win. I had noticed this last few days clearly when i was playing rank and trust me it’s impossible to carry the team and that’s a complete myth.
The first i knew when 5v5 was announced is toxicity will blast to the roof and it seems i as well as anyone else was right.
In most matches that i lost in rank, i had the most eliminations and damage points on the whole team and few times even more then the enemy. This means i have carried the game and had proven that this is a big conspiracy theory equal to that saying that the earth is flat.
Ya i would say for ow 1 that’s true, for ow2 not really apart from login issues , server lags, a bloated shop bad ui , missing one tank there really wasn’t anything omg this is so new interms of experience.
I don’t think people who liked ow2 launch for cause it was new .
It’s just there was more of ow1 gameplay still left in ow2 launch
Which has been demolished since s9 patch
The half measures to revert aren’t good enough they need to totally go back on that including all passives and aimbox hp reverts.
I would also ban mauga and rework him fully
Sombra to pre virus state and rework her in meanwhile.
Tanks can keep headshot passives but that’s about it.
I mean, what are the devs even trying to accomplish? Even if they rework balancing they still introduced characters like Mauga and Venture to the game, making it substantially worse.
Ever since Mauga’s release the game has swung wildly from playable to unplayable (not due to him except his release, that’s just when it all started going very wrong imo) then S9 killed the game completely for me.
Ideally what happens is 6v6 comes out, is successful so they make that its own thing and then FINALLY take 5v5 further away from its roots which is what they should have done all along.
But unless the devs actually have a vision for the game the only fun to be had going forward will be OWC patches. ‘Lure free players in with cute new characters and trap them with FOMO’ is not a vision.
This really early version of OW2 definitely looks and plays a lot differently to now.
The biggest difference is actually the fact that Tanks aren’t raid bosses in this video. They seem to largely have their old HP before they were buffed generically for OW2.
Do they have the “DPS” passive in this vid as well? I know they experimented with everybody having an in combat healing reduction or something. Just not sure if it had been scrapped during this play test.
The game has become either absolutely nothing dies because sustain is way too much or things get blown up on 0.2 seconds
I was referring to the in combat heal reduction they were testing before launch. Where practically everybody had the current DPS passive. I think it was something like if you took damage your healing was reduced by 20% for 4 seconds. Or was it 25%? I can’t remember.
But everyone had that at the time. Not just DPS.
I just can’t remember if it had been scrapped by this playtest is all. But they definitely tested it.
Oh I had no idea that was a thing, but it’s definitely not live in this build, it was just flat-out OW1 ported into OW2 5v5 with the changes I mentioned before.
The only passives that may have been included were DPS moving faster, tanks having CC reduction and all supports healing while out of combat
