I apologize for my English and for the length of the topic. Hope you have a bathroom break to read it all.
Edit: thank you all for participating, I’ve read all the responses and I decided to add some footnotes to each point to better clarify what I tried to say. I’ll leave the original text, that was written “by heart” and maybe I didn’t explain everything as I wanted to, but that’s the first game I’ve ever played (and cared) for such a long time, I may have probably been a little bit passionate…
1 - Oneshot (or super-duper burst damage)
I know many of you like them, because “eih, it’s an FPS, every FPS has oneshots!”. Well, as Captain Obvious would say, this game is more moba/rpg-ish than FPS: different healthpools, different hitboxes, different weapons, different “accessories” (in the form of skills).
Now, if EVERY character had a way to oneshot or melt an opponent in almost a second, I would personally find it awful (and would have probably not buyed the game in the first place), but at least it would be “balancable”: like in every other FPS, each player can be the sniper or whatever class/weapon can guarantee you a oneshot, without limitations.
The problem here is that only few heroes have access to this privilege, and considering that oneshots/super-duper combos are able to deny the presence of any form of healing (and many times of tanking), it’s pretty clear that their value in the game is very high.
The other problem is that this game is probably not suitable for oneshot (or in general such a low TTK) at all, considering the long respawn mechanic, the lack of mount or something that speed up the return to the objective and, believe it or not, a solid mechanic to revive your teammates, like mostly any other FPS with classes (except the ones with almost instant respawns where reviving is not needed). Every oneshot, even the cheap ones that you can’t even predict, means 20-30 seconds out of the game. If you take in consideration that, unlike other games where you have “limited chances” of oneshotting (in the form of ammo pools or items limitation), here you can just spam and hopefully get value, well, as Kazoo Kid would say…
Footnote1
What I’m saying here is that one-shot/burst-damage-combo make the approach to the game more based on “prevention” instead of “action”. I’m not talking about playing safe or playing smart, that’s something you should always do and should be always rewarded. I’m talking about playing “limited”, in the form of being forced to use both what causes that damage and what can possibly prevent it. Hitting first and hitting hard should be a reward itself, but winning the contest at the first shot/second is simply overwhelming.
2 - Skill ceiling and balancement paradox n.1
This. This is an argument that always pops out and I always find it annoying for reasons I’m gonna explain. It pops out with Genji and Tracer in a way, it pops out with Mercy and Brigitte in another way. First of all, yes, there are Heroes where the skill ceiling is so high that very good players can get A LOT OF value from them. The real question is… why? I mean, what’s the point, for example, to invest time learning to play Reaper, when McCree, Hanzo, and even Mei can give you more value at high mastery levels? Let’s take Genji and Tracer, the King and Queen of Overwatch, for example: you learn to use this two guys, you don’t only become a god, you become god amongst gods. There is no reason, if your objective is to improve as much as possible, to invest time in other Heroes. You do because not everyone can be a Genji/Tracer main (unless you f-in love NO LIMITS), because you like other Heroes, whatever, the point is that there are characters that in the right hands can simply be… overwhelming. Now, I know people LOVE the concept that high skill should always be high reward, but in a balancement perspective, why this should be an exclusive of certain Heroes only? I mean, people like to bully Mercy or Brigitte players because their Heroes require “no skill” (let me LOL at that), but the point is: is the player’s fault that that character has no way to express any form of advanced skills? Should everyone play Ana and Zen as support? Or Zarya and d.Va as tank? I call this “balancing disaster”. Skilled players should have access to tactical advantage, not to PLAIN advantage like many Heroes does: you learn to be consistent at Headshot with Widow, is Game Over; you learn to be consistent at Dragonblade, is Game Over; you learn to be consistent as Tracer, is Uninstall Time for everybody else. Repeat this in a hierachical way and you get the point.
Footnote1:
The point is: I’m not asking for “high skill” Heroes to be toned down, I’m asking to make every Hero valuable, and make the “high peak” of that value hard to reach of course. If Heroes mastery could be divided in 3 steps, it’s ok to have Heroes easier to use at step 1, it’s not ok to have Heroes at step 3 that completely outshine the others even in their niche. In rock, paper, scissors, you should not be able to beat rock saying “my rock is bigger” or “I’m way too good at scissor to stop me!”.
3- Identity crisis and balancement paradox n.2
I love this point. Since the blending between Attackers and Defenders, there has been a lot of identity crisis for many characters. Now, there is no doubt that this game is going to turn into DPSwatch in every possible way. Tanks are less tankier and more like beefier DPSes, most of the times you achieve more valuable damage with a Zarya, a Rein or a d.Va than the dedicated Attackers.
The DPS class is a joke: there are Heroes that are almost mandatory, others that are “niche”, and others that are simply broken or useless. Heroes like Bastion or Reaper are simply hard to play, that doesn’t mean impossible, it means “why in the name of god should I pick them?”. Heroes like McCree or Hanzo have been buffed in a way that is simply impossible to understand, and Heroes like Mei have been bloated with a lot of changes (piercing freeze, instant slowdown, increased slowdown duration, increased area of ult, cooldown decreased, fall-off removed…) while others have been simply ignored. I know people like to defend Mei because “the pickrates, the winrate, the thicc bae LOL MEME!”, but she is the perfect example for how they change/rework the Heroes, and how it is questionable: it’s either “put Ult on E and give a new random one”, or “let’s overload the wrong aspect of that hero”.
In the meantime, Heroes like Reaper still belong to “an older Overwatch” and struggle to fit in, Pharah with all the hitscan buffs is more dependent to Mercy than ever, Symmetra has a lot of ramp-up/build-up mechanics that are heritage of a previous iteration where she had other things to compensate that (shield, auto-lock).
The list can go on, but we all know that the main problem is that many Heroes has no identity anymore: in the name of trying to make “all of them viable” (lie-detector is beeping), we now have anonymous stuff like Torbjorn or Mercy.
Footnote1:
This section is more about balancing and how it seems to be going about pure damage and less about diversity. Tanks are getting more relevant buff/rework on their damage part instead of their tanking abilities (and direct/indirect nerfs to survivability); DPS are simply getting raw damage buff or burst/high damage reworks/changes; even supports had small buff in this direction (Ana damage, Mercy infinite ammo, Lucio’s boop ammo-free), some QOL buff and nothing particular on their utility/effectiveness. There are Heroes that remanin broken (both in good and wrong way) for months or years, Heroes that are reworked to be something completely different (or anonymous), and situations that brings to “the flavour of the month” that repeat cyclically.
There is a PTR that could be used to test smaller things, there is a whole forum willing to help, even a weekly custom session with small changes suggested from the community could be a breath of fresh air.
4 - Community
Since now I’ve talked about the problem with the game, but now is time to point the finger to the other side, since the worst part of this game, is the community itself. I’m not talking about the forums, not for its entirety at least, I’m talking about the people you actually meet in game. I don’t wanna say “I’ve played every game in the world and this is the worst!1!”, but I’d like to point that this is one of the most selfish and self-centered community I’ve ever had the pleasure to play with. For each time you meet kind, cooperative and simply amazing people via LFG or simply randomly matched, there are at least 10 times where you meet the toxic-bully ones, the “it’s just a QP/game”
, and of course classic DPS-instalockers. This last category is my favourite, something science should study: they have the largest pool of Heroes in the game, they still manage to make the worst picks possible. That’s skill my friends.
Going on, there are the ones who complains about compositions and about how rare it is to find a Tank/Support nowadays. To most of them I say: hypocritical! Most of them are the people that when they pick Tank, they pick Zarya/Roadhog (the more DPSish ones) and refuse to take a shield one even if strongly needed, with the excuse “I don’t know how to play them”… well, there’s always a first time my friend!
And about DPS? Who cares we need a shieldbuster or a tankbuster, they want the shiny ones like Ashe or Widowmaker, or they are stuck to their mains no matter what.
But the most frightening experience is when they go healer: it’s time for DPS version of Moria/Lucio/Ana folks! May the others die and respawn with honor!
But hey, they paied the game and should be able to play the way they want, right? Newsflash: we all bought the game, and personally I’m sick and tired to flex for people who just want to have fun for themselves. This game is a team game, you should play to enable your team, not to elevate yourself to alpha male/female.
But hey, this whole game became a lie: thanks to smurfs, matchmaking is a lie; thanks to one-trick-pony and selfish people, having good compositions is a lie; endorsment system is a lie; since always the SR algorythms are broke, that’s another big lie; people who complain but do nothing actively to solve the problem, they are a HUGE lie.
Footnote1:
This is simple to explain: Overwatch is a different game in the eyes of different people. I tought I was buying a team-based game where switching and sinergy is the key to victory. The games you feel that this is true, they are simply amazing. Then there are the ones when there are smurfs, OTP, or people who want to be the next Youtube/Twitch sensation and pretend to be pocketed or simply play the Hero (not even the role, THE HERO) they want, even if it’s not of help. And this leads, of course, to toxicity. There are too many of them and simply outshine the good and awesome people that this game hosts.
Sometimes, as someone stated, it’s fault of the game, it simply doesn’t teach the players how to play and the core “philosophy”. 3 weekly quests, 1 for each Hero category, aviable for QP. Player is able to play only 2 of them: the one inherent to his/her least played class, and a bonus one for the second least. Give points by fullfilling this quests, give shiny items to reward them, and the way to flexing could have finally a start.
I can close this topic with the evergreen “this game is dying”. I don’t think it’s dying. I think this game is sick and instead of healing him, they made a fancy reality show on it (OWL).
).![:sweat:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/sweat.png?v=6" ":sweat:")