Today, I’m officially done with Overwatch.
I’m not a content creator, I’m not a pro, and I know most of you don’t care about who I am, and why I’m quitting. But because the game was legitimately fun for the past two years, I think it’s good manners to at least give the community and the devs my point of view of what one of the games I loved since isn’t engaging anymore for me.
FIrst, some background. And that’s really important. I’m not a FPS player. I did play a lot of Doom, Counter Strike 1.6, Goldeneye 007, Medal of Honor and its sequels (on PS1), and more in my teen years. Most of them, I found the gameplay boring after I was done with the story missions, and in case of CS, I played because it was a LAN House fever in Brazil at the time, and all my friends played too. But if I was alone, I would mostly go to Warcraft 3 and RPG stuff.
There is only two FPS games that caught my attention for more than that bare minimum. Team Fortress 2, and Overwatch. And both, for the same main reason. The game was engaging for players like me, that weren’t attracted by the mechanics of clicking heads. I found my ground in TF2 on Engineer and Pyro (I was a decent Medic/Spy as well), and I found my ground on OW in Symmetra and Torbjörn (I am a decent Brigitte, Pharah and all-tanks player as well).
I know some people will already be thinking about the “git gud” and “learn 2 aim” situation with Symmetra, but if that was the case, I would not play Torb. Torb requires decent aim to get good value, and I can land my cheetos. I don’t enjoy the aspect of aiming, but I understand it being part of the game, just like I don’t enjoy grinding XP in JRPGs, but I do it anyway.
The issue that hit me like a truck was triggered when I was asked to answer a question for Nathan Grayson, about what were my feeling on the rework and the effect it had on the community for Symmetra players. (He did a nice article of that, I recommend reading it). At the time, I was adapting to the rework, and I knew that my Sym3 gameplay was miles behind what I could do with Sym2. The rework itself is not the matter being discussed here, but for some reason, I started to write a very long reply. One that was a lot more emotional than I expected, but filled with personal insight I didn’t thought until I was asked.
And the last part that I wrote, was the hammer that broke my view of the game. One message that never crossed my mind before because it was one of the initial aspects of Overwatch that sold me to the game. One single phrase that was even quoted as the closing argument of that article.
That’s the message that the rework sent my way. Blizzard said they don’t want my favorite hero to play as she is supposed to be played. They are saying, ‘If you enjoy this kind of gameplay, we don’t want you in Overwatch.’
After I wrote this, Overwatch started losing its luster. What I considered before a minor annoyance because of the genre, started looking like another hint at that message. The enforced chokepoints, the focus on high mobility/reaction in new heroes and reworks, OWL downplaying support/tank feats and focusing on DPS plays, etc.
At that point, it was hard to justify to myself that I could focus in teamwork, strategic mindset and overall game knowledge to cover for my lack of aiming skills. Because everywhere I looked, it pointed to the game becoming less strategic and more aim-focused. Every engagement I lost, my mind would credit to me not being good at aiming. Every plan I shared with my team was thrown out of the window because I wasn’t playing an aim-intensive character (not even when I went Reinhardt or Winston). And my time in the game was slowly diminishing.
Two weeks ago, I decided that I would stop playing until Halloween, and if the event didn’t reignited my passion for the game, that would be the end. And since you all are reading this thread, you already know the outcome of that bet.
Junkenstein is the same as the last two years. Torb rework did felt like old Torb with a new ult (unlike Symmetra, that became a whole new character), and I still have friends that play the game almost on a daily basis. Yet, I didn’t played any match since wednesday, and I refused one of my friend’s invite to fill in as the 4th member of their Junkenstein Legendary team because I was busy watching something on Netflix that I don’t even remember the title.
Those were two fun years. I bought 50 boxes in 4 different occasions (2016 Winter Wonderland, Uprising, 2017 Anniversary, Retribution), I have all Funko toys (the standard ones, not the limited) and the artbook, I bought the all-access pass for the OWL on Twitch, and it introduced me to a bunch of cool streamers that I’ll miss in the future. Especially OAM (14 months of Twitch Prime on this one, good coach) and SlyTradesman (best relaxed Sym stream in the world).
There is a lot of good people in the forums as well, and if I start listing them, I’m sure I’ll forget someone important. There is at least one dozen people I remember by name, and that I hope keep the good fight to make the game better on the future for everyone, especially off-meta players.
This is still a great game, and OWL is the most successful e-sport league in the world and is a groundbreaker for e-sports in the future. I just realized the game isn’t my cup of tea anymore. I bear no ill intend towards the devs or Blizzard in general.
Thanks everyone for reading this far, and hope you all keep enjoying Overwatch as much as possible.
