I like the idea of your toon changing a little in ways that can shift their play-style to fit your power fantasy better, for that character.
I don’t like the current way they activate though. The UX feels clunky. The charged meter can exacerbate poor match-making. And the perks have too great a power disparity between all the characters.
If I had my druthers…
…I could pre-rank a character’s ability before a match, and have them auto-activate whenever the requirement is met for their availability.
…Perks would activate faster, but completely vanish upon death; so each team’s power is constantly fluctuating.
…All the perks would feel more fairly balanced across all the characters.
It’s only 2 heroes banned at a time, but my point is the teams are still not mirroring comps, which has been common in ow history. Seeing teams playing different dps, tanks, support line ups is nice.
Nothing in pro play this weekend seems too dominant. I’m sure they will figure it out more. But for now the variety is great.
Perks are a neat idea and I like the concept. Could be done better.
Short term: I hope they add an option to pre-select perks so they activate automatically when you reach the appropriate level. 80% of the heroes I play I’ve basically ‘solved’. I know what perks I like on them and I will pick them every time. It’s already getting a bit annoying to manually choose them each game.
Long term:
-I hope they move more perks towards being playstyle changes and/or ways to build around your hero’s counters. Some perks do this now, but most are just simple buffs to something the hero already does, and aren’t super interesting.
-I wish perks were more like tradeoffs, where they buff you in one way and nerf you in another. A few perks do this, but 90% of them are straight buffs, so its a lot of power creep.
-Assuming the above two points were addressed, I think perks would work better if the whole leveling aspect of it was scrapped. Just give people their perks out of spawn.
I use the same perks for the heroes I play, and I assume most players do the same.
It’s mainly about what perk you prefer more, then you stick with it.
What perks provide however is adding more depth to the existing heroes in a way or another. That’s something I like.
Overwatch can benefit a lot from adding depth to the hero kits, without the need to make things complicated or hard to use.
The current implementation is a successful one in this regard. You don’t need to press more buttons for most heroes, while having more versatily.
Well done . I hope they double down on this path and refine things even further.
Overwatch still suffers from hard counters. The gameplay needs to become more solo-friendly.
1 week in and people have found the best perks already and if you don’t pick them you’re kinda throwing. That’s how it was always gonna be with Perks. There’s very few perks where it’s they both provide a) a meaningful boost and b) actually change gameplay so you want to decide between 2 perks.
The main benefit of Perks is that it gives developers more levels and knobs to pull. It means more ways to balance characters that have the thinnest line between Overpowered and Useless (Tracer, Widow, D.VA). They can tune characters to be weaker earlier and more powerful later or vice-versa, so that their balance curves throughout the match is more dynamic.
That said, the whole thing is poorly implemented in a game that snowballs hard. Ult Charge is already a huge snowball factor, and adding Perks means that the winners keep winning.
The idea Perks were gonna be something you use to switch up your playstyle to counter something specific was never ever how they were gonna play out. Woulda been great if they were but they were obviously never going to be able to balance it!! Like painfully obvious there would be good and bad perks and people start the game knowing what perks you they will play and will do that 90% of games.
5vs5 is the same trash as always, even worst, if thats even possible, very very minor twearks that range from nothing happens to more frustration, reinhard perks are useless but he has an increase on his healing passive, like tanks need more survivality
I think they are good ideas implemented very poorly.
Selecting perks in the heat of battle is too risky.
All these perks, being activated at different times, make it harder to predict incoming damage.
The perks are way too uneven within roles. e.g. Ana/Moira perks are WAY better than Brig/Lucio.
The side that loses the first team fight is put at an even bigger disadvantage than before, as the enemy team will have more ult gain and more perk progress.
This is what Blizz should have done:
The two level 1 perks for each hero should be built-in automatically.
The two level 2 perks should be selectable whenever you pick a hero or swap to a new one.
One week later and everyone moved on again. The novelty wore off by day 2 and most people just want them gone or automatically selected so they don’t have to think about them.
Trash idea through and through. It was never meant to be in PVP.
People I know(a good 200+) played for one day and they all went back to wherever they moved on to. This game is far beyond cooked.
It’s fun but I just enjoy the changes themselves for now, so Idk how it would work in the long term.
It doesn’t change the core gameplay of most heroes, so it often feels like QoL or a luck bonus. I think many QoL perks could just be implemented to the characters, not made as a perk.
Also, I’m convinced that 1-2 more abilities for all heroes would have been much better than perks.
Meta has not yet formed, but it will, and then the game is dead again, even more dead than before. Balancing for fun simply doesn’t work for the games with competitive nature. Balancing for value to effort ratio is required.
It doesn’t really change the gameplay for most heroes, or match ups between heroes. Most perks are just small QoL improvements, except few outliers like sojourn ult perk. I think perks should open up new playing style rather than power creep the hero. Heroes who have been reworked before have part of their old kit back is a neat idea, e.g. orisa barrier, wish more perks are done in this way.
Overall I don’t find it more fun or less fun with perks, it’s just another factor you have to consider, but nearly as important as things like ult economy or counters match ups. It is still the same game, I’m just gald this time the “shake up” doesn’t completely change match up and create huge disparity between heroes like s9 did.
I know the game needed something new to bring the player count up, but I hope perks aren’t here to stay. I enjoy this game more when it’s less chaotic.
An implementation done in haste and panic, which explains its many flaws.
It would have been necessary to go through a test phase instead of throwing everything directly and using the players as free beta testers.
For the return of 6vs6 this is what was done, to have a good idea of the modifications and adaptations that had to be made compared to 5vs5.
For the perks none of that, because it was necessary to hurry to counter Marvel Rivals and its significant theft of players.
If we go to consult the steamchart we notice an effect of return of the players at the launch of season 15, who came to see if the game that they had left for various reasons was worth coming back, then a week later we find the level before this launch.
Some who took this temporary increase as significant will obviously say that it is no longer significant when it decreases again.
Either you consider it significant, or you consider it not. It does not change value depending on whether it goes in the direction of your speech, or against. Otherwise it is hypocrisy.
In the current state of perks and their activation during the match
the good counter remains more important than perks
it only amplifies the imbalances between teams, not reduces them. The dominant dominates faster and stronger.
it will not save Overwatch 2, it does not put it back on the same level as Marvel Rivals, it is not enough to return to this level.
You know the speech: personal opinion which only commits me and which is not an immutable truth, just one point of view among an infinity of different points of view.
I like the idea of perks and I even like the mechanical implementation of most of them. The sticking point as always, is balance.
In a perfect world, strong heroes would get bad perks and weaker heroes would get strong perks. Adds an extra set of tuning levers to the game.
But the implementation seems to be more along the lines of “popular heroes get strong perks. Unpopular heroes get whatever we can think of in 20 minutes”.
Realistically though it’s kind of whatever. This season is more or less just a waiting room until bans get implemented and we actually get a tiny fraction of agency over how the playerbase can deal with imbalances.
. I hope they double down on this path and refine things even further.