I think the point is that they are referencing to the current OW and not some moba or mmo. They like what we have now and are concerned about the changes.
Except it isn’t. At least it didn’t start out that way.
Did you forget again that OW started from a failed MMO RPG named Titan? Overwatch 1 was designed to adhere to the Trinity of Tank, DPS, Healer. OW2 on the other hand seems to be chopping off 2 legs of the triangle and you’re surprised that people are upset about that? Really?
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Most games where they have a support character is maybe a minor difference in damage but the support abilities are support focused and the damage characters have damage focused abilities.
This is also in games where the damage type is almost all hitscan instead of limiting some heroes to mostly projectiles or easily healed damage. Ana was specifically given a DoT for this reason even though it also can’t headshot.
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I’d argue that Apex Legends has healers and tanks.
And even more than Team Fortress 2, there was another game that was more like what Overwatch launched as, called Dirty Bomb.
With abilities, healers, tanks, and ultimates.
That’s definitely a way to look at it, but it’s not the only way. The best frame of reference for Overwatch 2 is not the genre of class based shooters. The best comparison is Overwatch 1.
Overwatch has been out for a long time. It’s its own game, with its own play style. When it was initially conceived, the devs had the RPG holy trinity very much in mind, and it shows in how Overwatch was designed and how it played out. Regardless of how healers function in similar games, in Overwatch 1 many of them have been very focused on healing. This is part of Overwatch’s philosophical DNA. It may not share this property with some other class based shooters, but that’s not entirely relevant here.
Overwatch fans are not looking to play a different game. If they were, there are plenty other such games on the market. They’re looking to play an updated version of Overwatch. It makes perfect sense for them to use that as their frame of reference.
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The game launched with the main healer in the game being nearly a ripoff of the TF2 Healer.
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Wrong.
Here is an interview from 2015 were Jeff states OW is nothing like Titan.
“There is definitely inspiration from Titan,” Kaplan told me during an interview earlier this month. "There are definitely some similarities between Titan and Overwatch. But Overwatch really is its own project built from the ground up.
“We learned mostly what not to do while working on Titan.”
Kaplan, who worked on Titan for five years, called that game a gigantic MMO that was designed to be like World of Warcraft.
“Overwatch is the opposite of that,” he said. "This is a six-versus-six competitive shooter at its core. The games were infinite oceans apart in terms of scope.
“When the reboot happened we started Overwatch from scratch.”
Emphasis on this line…
This is a six-versus-six competitive shooter at its core
The arguments they’ve stated about a great source of damage being removed(the second tank), and that support focus is not being split between keeping two tanks alive allowing more time to focus on other team members don’t make sense?
If you affect the balance of the game so much, how would it make sense to keep healing at the current level?
For plenty of the support heros (the majority of them), part of being an effective support, not healer, is doing damage as well.
I don’t understand where you are taking the concept of supports being flat out worse in OW2. I’m a GM support player and I’ve been tracking the OW2 news and, if you’re up to date, they’re looking good so far.
You seem to be confusing the idea of support with healer. They’re two totally different things. You can support your team without being a significant source of ‘heals’. In fact, supports are going into OW2 from a position of more strength, because with one less tank you have one less huge health pool hero to focus on -and are therefore able to split your resources better-, and one less difficult to kill target diving you, so you can focus on your given role better.
The game is trending towards faster, brawlier fights. Less drawn-out, and less time between fights. Less about ults and more about individual contributions and impacts. The supports have always been the strongest role, and even the devs have said in OW2 they continue to feel like they’re the strongest and most impactful role.
Sure. Overwatch was heavily inspired by other class based shooters, as well as from other sources. But this is a discussion of whether or not healers should focus on healing in Overwatch 2 or whether they should be shifted to more dps like heroes with some healing utility.
Launch Mercy was very much conceived as a healing focused healer, and she played out that way (more so, I think, than in TF2, thought I’m not an expert). The next healer they released was also designed in a similar way. The one after that was too. Healers have always had a strong healing focus in the game.
It’s perfectly reasonable for people to want Overwatch 2 healer to have a similar style of play to what they had in Overwatch 1. What happens in other games that are similar to it matters less.
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The TF2 medic basically had a Mei icicle that also healed.
And his melee saw had an absurdly high crit rate. It could oneshot most enemies.
As for atheistic, let’s see if this looks familiar:
Impactful does not correlate to satisfaction or enjoyment of a role as seen with tanks.
Many like the way supports are currently and are not in favor of the changes in OW2. What looks good to you may look terrible to someone else.
I remember a thread about how that person actually liked long drawn out fights.
The arguments make some amount of sense. I think they’re likely overstating the case because 5v5 fights in OW1 are not long drawn out slogs and the fights in their first showcase weren’t either, but that’s besides the point.
It’s likely that some sources of healing need to be nerfed in 5v5. When you’re a Rein fighting another Rein, you’ll feel much less pressure when there’s not a Zarya there as well. You’ll definitely need less healing. Tank healing should probably be nerfed. Aoe healing should probably be nerfed.
The problem people have is that the devs don’t seem to be differentiating, and they’re nerfing all healing. The lack of a second tank on the enemy team doesn’t affect all healer equally and all sources of healing equally. If Tracer and Genji dive your Ana and you want to peel for her, it doesn’t matter if the enemy team has Rein/Zarya or just Rein. The healing output you need is still the same.
Some healing should be nerfed. Some healing can’t be. People will complain less when the devs balance with this in mind.
I think I’m not understanding the heart of your argument.
Are you contesting the claim that Overwatch 1 is the best frame of reference for understanding how Overwatch 2 should play out?
Is your claim that Overwatch 2 should have more dps focused healers because the Medic in TF2 has some similarities with Mercy?
Are you claiming that all healers in Overwatch 1 have not been healing focused?
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I’m not super familiar with either Apex or Dirty Bomb, however I am familiar with the game that Dirty Bomb is the spiritual successor to… Wolfenstein Enemy Territory.
That game was 100% a class based shooter. Each class had access to similar raw damage output, similar mobility, similar model size. Then each class had a few extra abilities to set them apart from each other. Soldier had heavy weapons that spiked your damage output but hindered your mobility. Medic had access to healing and revives. Field Ops could call in airstrikes and artillery barrages. Engineer had the tools to build/destroy all the objectives in the game and also landmines. Covert Ops were kind of an amalgamation of the TF2 Sniper and Spy but worse at it but a much better backup plan if things went sideways.
If Dirty Bomb is even a bit similar to what I described, then it is nothing like Overwatch. In that game everybody is supposed to be gunning for frags and using their extra features when applicable.
Now TF2… is indeed a Class Based Shooter, but here’s the deal with TF2. There’s really only 1 Merc in that game that I couldn’t describe as a DPS. That is obviously the Medic. Everybody else is supposed to kill the other Mercs on the enemy team with the tools at their disposal.
What I’m getting at is that… unless I’m mistaken, every example you gave has had almost each “class” as DPS with a twist. Overwatch 1 did not work that way. It looks like Overwatch 2 is headed that way.
That doesn’t mean that they didn’t either on purpose or by accident bring across the classic MMO Trinity of Tank, DPS, Healer. The fact that the game shipped with Rein and Mercy 1.0 should make it pretty obvious that that did in fact come across.
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It does not matter if someone likes it if as a whole it is not good for the health of the game. Longer fights mean longer games, means longer down time, means less focus.
There are people out there who like the generally hated double-shield meta too. It’s going to happen, of course. But you have to look at majority, and you have to look at what is overall good for the long-term of the game’s health and survivability.
And you’re right, impactful might not directly correlate to enjoyment of a role…but that goes for anything…but enjoyment or satisfaction is totally objective, but impactful is not.
What change in particular are you referring to for OW2 that ‘many people’ do not like? Brig’s rework is mostly met with positive feelings all around. People who do not like something will always be more vocal about it, but in terms of looking at the trend for OW2 -removing stuns to make the game more playable-, it feels better for the health of the game, and makes her seem more fun and versatile a hero to pick.
It looks to me that the support role as a whole is having a skill-ceiling raise. You will always, with one less enemy, be dove less, so you will be able to survive more, but you have to be able to negotiate your own survival to some degree when you are dove. On top of that the new support passive means that, after an attempted dive -or even chip damage-, you no longer have to waste valuable support CDs on self-heal, and they can instead be utilized focusing on your team. It’ll be a lot more on the supports own ability to preform, which I think is awesome.
Most DPS can’t either.
Some supports also come pretty close. Baptiste actually can if you count each burst as “one tap”, and Ana can three shot body shoot any 200HP hero. With Discord Zen can double tap on headshot – in close range it’s is actually easier than on hitscan since projectile travel time becomes negligible and projectile size gives a huge advantage. I’ve also seen some pretty insane Lucios that can get up in your face and burn you down really fast.
I’m not sure why people have this impression that supports are so weak and frail and DPS are these big mighty unmatched damage machines that burn you down in a quarter of a second.
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The concerns so far
- healing reduction may be taken too far since hp bars are pretty much the same.
- Self healing was seen as not as impactful during the pro game play where the the self healing did not really save any supports.
- Reduction of cc and possibly removing some depth and replacing it with damage. Some people like the decision choices involved with shield bash stun,
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I’d argue Ana, Zen, and Baptiste worked that way. And for lower ELOs you got Moira doing the same. Brig at some point could out-duel almost any hero.
Lucio his mobility is highly reminiscent of Titanfall 2 Pilots.
Mercy didn’t work that way. But even then she’s basically just a ripoff of Team Fortress 2 Medic. Minus the combat capabilities.
No people don’t think they are weak, its just people are aware of the support design restrictions where damage is curtailed to a degree. People feel if healing is reduced severely then that restriction should be broken and like some other Poster said, support could be like the medic in battlefield.