Hello again fellow forum dwellers
Today we gather here for my inevitable big post complaining about overwatch in general
Tiny bit of disclaimers:
Yes i will talk about the mercy rework
Yes i will talk about the lore around soldiers sexuality
Yes i will talk about D.vas nerfs
Yes i will talk about Brigitte
If you dont want to see those, you can use the section thing once again conveniently put in this post to skip through the topics you dont wish to read.
Here you can find the Sections
So without further ado, lets get right into it!Gameplay
The meta in the game changes all the time, no one can deny that, but the reason, and way it changes is highly dictated by Blizzard.
Goats now, is maybe the second most hated meta of all time, right after the stun meta and the reason why Goats came to be was, that they added in brig, and nerfed Dive, the old biggest meta right before Goats.
And there wouldnt be an issue with meta changes with new heroes, if it was just that, new heroes. But the reason the meta changes often, is because of buffs/nerfs to heroes that really dont need it.
The newest Armor nerfs show what blizzard is trying to do with it, theyre trying to get rid of Goats as fast as possible, because generally just like the Stun meta, people really seem to not like Goats, which i understand. Probably a good 40-50% of the games players are DPS mains, and goats pushes those people away because goats is more focused on healers and tanks, and doesnt really give DPS any attention, and to an extent, it works worse with any dps than it does with tanks and healers only.
Next to that, the gameplay is shortly growin stale, as heroes like Ana, Rein, Dva, and Zarya have spent their times in glory for so long, rein in particular has been in the spotlight since beyblade meta ended, while heroes like dva, who has been in the meta for quite long aswell, have started to receive a pounding from both the community and the devs now.
The devs seem to be quite out of touch with the community at this point, where they seem they have given up on us already, with every update seemingly being worse, ever since the mercy rework.
The metas grow more boring by the day, every meta somehow beating the other by being even more boring. People hated Dive, but even the people who did hate dive want dive back just to get rid of goats.
A lot of the poor decisions made by the dev team seem to be very harshly damage control.
“We nerfed mercy, have brigitte, a new healer you can play”
“Brigitte is too strong? We should nerf her into oblivion”
“Brigitte is too weak? We should buff other heroes to make her indirectly strong again”
Which is getting very tiring for people who have played for ages. From the times when overwatch was just a game that everyone loved, no one said it had useless updates, and no one said that it was that toxic.
But since the additions of brig, goats, armor nerfs, mercy rework, torb rework, symm rework’s. It really seems like theyre not listening to the communitys wishes at all to what we want. Which in a game where they praise the communications between devs and the community, is really bad.
Hence this post in the first place. Even if they wont read this, or pay any attention to this, i want to put it out there. That the game has some HUGE issues in it, and it needs to be fixed. Gameplay wise atleast.
The former glory of the game is something the devs can fix if they tried hard enough, but at the very moment, theyre not trying that hard. Theyre dishing out update after update with filler content and nothing that catches anyones eye.
Lore
They were amazing, as they were something that no other game really had, atleast on the online shooter scene, the next biggest contender would probably have to be League, with its lore, but again, its not a shooter.
But 3 years in and weve about had as many new shorts in the next 2 years, as we had the first year, when the game launched. To which some were somewhat underwhelming, such as the rising star one, which is a common theme with overwatches lore at the moment, that it seems rushed, and not fitting. Although reunion was an amazing short, it was slowly compensated to with the addition of the Short Story, which caused an uproar on the forums.
The short story, where it was shown that soldier was somehow in the LGBTQ+, not directly saying which part of it, also, like the updates recently seems like damage control, or attention seeking. It seems like theyre trying to get more confirmation from the press, and in general people by trying to make the game even more all inclusive than it already is.
My own side to it would be that if they implemented the story into the game better, inside an animated short, or a comic, or anything else than the short story they did put out, it couldve been a good reveal, the same way the tracer reveal back in the reflections comic, which was well thought out, although it did receive backlash, as any type of reveal would, it was pure. Nothing bad continued from it, but this reveal just seems that it was pushed out, at a very bad timing plus it seems rushed out.
Next to having close to no lore in a while, and then having that added in at a seemingly random time, just feels a bit bad, it feels like damage control to try to help their bad stuff thats pouring into the forums at a rapid pace, and they remembered that the reflections comic had very good feedback, and probably thought that it was about the sexuality part of tracer, and not that it was generally a good comic.
So they seemed to try to do it with the short story aswell, but this time they didnt spend so much time with the actual story instead of that, they seemed to just push the sexuality thing out.
again, if it was well put out, i would understand why it was made, but at the very moment, it seems forced. Without much backstory to it, you can differ in opinion to me, but thats how ive seen it thus far.
Similar story, that goes along with the Bastet short story, was the talk of “reapers family” although it wasnt a big part of the forums and it didnt make any noise, but the same way soldiers stuff was put out , its just kind of filler information that we cant do much with, like they wanted the story to be longer but couldnt by any other way, but to talk about random stuff. Hence Reyes and Jack’s previous lives being talked about.
It just seems like a big big filler text, poorly written piece of story, which i wish was better.
Heroes
There are multiple of these “heroes” that seem to be fully ignored by blizzard, either lore wise, or gameplay wise. Hence why i added this section, so i can discuss heroes on both in this one point, instead of adding them in the older sections.
The most prominent heroes would probably be Lore wise: Zenyatta
and from gameplay wise:Bastion
Both have their ups and downs. Zen has good gameplay with a great kit that compliments itself. Not too strong or too weak.
Meanwhile bastion has a great animated short and in general the lore around him is intriguing
But neither have both, good lore and good gameplay.
people have been asking for bastion buffs/reworks for ages,
and people have been asking for Zenyatta lore for ages and ages. Since the beginning, since all we really have is knowing that he took genji under his wing, and taught him how to come to peace with his body. But that ties in more with genjis lore than Zen’s.
With bastion, the only thing thats happened was the ironclad update, the recoil buff, recon mode buff, and the transformation buff.
But the issues with those are, they dont fix bastion, he needs a rework, not a buff.
His kit is the reason hes a bad hero, not just because of a single point in his kit.
more info on bastions kit etc here
I dont want to make this post too long, but i want to be sure about that i had his issues here.
Another hero thats been relatively ignored for ages is Sombra, she has been in the game for ages, and is still a bad hero to play, with the worst winrate in the entire game, being only 47% at the moment of creating this post.
her kit is far too weak to be good, it has nearly no redeeming qualities to it, aside from hack, which her kit revolves around, but the duration of hack, and how to use it gets worse and worse the higher you go, since people are more aware of their surroundings, if they hear you start to hack, a lot of them will instantly turn around to hit you. Or if its a rein, their teammate would do that.
Other that those, there are heroes that are in the spotlight too often, such as mercy, rein, dva, etc. You can see them in the patch notes every other patch fixing something or the other, either negative=mercy nerfs
or positive=brig “buffs”
Which lead me to my next section.
Reworks
And that was symmetras first “rework”, where they added in the shield gen, and removed the shield function from her kit and added the photon barrier.
But this was short lived as she was reworked again, but this time changing her core gameplay completely, meanwhile all other heroes core gameplays stayed the same, mercys healing, torbs gun, etc.
But symmetra had a change to every single ability she had. Teleporter, sentry turrets, both abilities on her gun. Which outraged quite a bit of people because all the old symmetra mains hero basically changed completely to another hero fully.
Meanwhile someone like torb, who probably got the best part of the rework game, only had small things about his gun changed, his ult and his turret.
The turret was essentially the same, except it had no level 1 or 3 anymore, and deployed faster than before, his gun was buffed quite a bit and does a lot more damage, next to that he has overload now which gives him even more survivability, both on the damage from and the amount of armor he gets, his ult is the only really different thing from him, aside from sym who had her kit fully changed.
And probably the most infamous rework, the mercy rework.
ill try not to touch too much on this topic because its been addressed so many times on the forums, but ill briefly say that it has been the worst rework thus far, and the most well known one.
Mercy’s kit wasnt changed that much, but what was changed was the biggest impact she had in the game, and that was made into an ability that at first had great impact in the game, but over time, it was made into an “eh, okay” ability instead. As in “oh someone died right when the game started, eh, okay”
But more knowingly, the forums were in rage about it. And still are, the forums are still in rage about the rework, to which blizzard doesnt really give a straight answer to, which upsets people, as most people want some form of explanation to why mercy had such a poor treatment cycle.
Although blizzard has indirectly said why she got it, and why they wont revert it, from streams, etc, they havent given a direct answer, or as it seems at least.
Which is why things like the raid happened, blizzard not really listening.
Although mercy is technically “balanced” right now, i agree with most of the old mercy mains, in saying that she isnt nearly as fun to play, and she doesnt feel nearly as impactful. As her ult looks and seems like just using a normal ability, not an ultimate. And her ult is at the very moment the worst of the support ults.
And a big part of the frustrations behind mercys rework are that theres not much context behind it, they said “hide n rez was unhealthy” and “the mass rez is a bad thing” without giving real examples as in to why its so, or at least thats how ive read it from the forums thus far, not saying its my opinion, or my right to even speak about her, in the position i am in right now, not being a mercy main. So ill leave the actual talk to them, visit Titaniums post about the Hide N Rez thing, if you want a well written post about that general concept.
Buffs
But a lot of people dont understand how often they come around, as a buff can be put out every day on the PTR or even live servers, as they change things internally constantly.
But this part is more so to talk about the buffs theyve put out recently, that we know of.
And those two being ,the mccree fan the hammer buff, and the reaper lifesteal buff, which makes it seem like blizzard are even more disconnected from the game than we thought before, as these specific buffs arent something anyone has asked for, or needed in general.
lets start with FTH.
The ability in itself, is good, it didnt need a buff in any way, it did its job as a way to oneshot , or 6shot depending on how precise you are with your terms, an enemy when flashbanged. but still leaving it that players who go for headshots get better damage. In doing 280 for 2 headshots in a row, killing any squishy, or even a lot of the higher health dps or healer heroes. Such as Mei, or Reaper.
But now that the fan the hammer Buff is online, no one uses normal shots anymore, and a lot of people only use fan the hammer, and dont even bother to try to aim in general.
As in, they fan the hammer no matter the situation, and still get kills. Which really isnt fun to die to, a random mccree running around fan the hammering everyone, the whole buff in its entirety was a bad idea, mccrees left click, flashbang, or roll shouldve been buffed, or even his poor ultimate. But not fan the hammer, its nothing we needed.
Then next up, the Reaper Buff.
We have been asking for a real Reaper buff for ages now, probably years, and somehow even though weve said exactly what weve wanted ,they managed to mess it up by putting up a buff that just doesnt work that well.
And i dont mean doesnt work that well as in hes still in a bad state no, hes in a good state now, but the bad thing is, hes OP in lower ranks. I could even say up until diamond.
The buffs weve asked for are better wraith form, and far far far better shadow step, the one thing that prevents reaper from being a flanker/proper killing machine, but no, they gave us more lifesteal.
The reaper buff wasnt as bad as the mccree one, but still quite impactful to the community, enough so that it got tons and tons of posts about it. Such as “Welcome To Reaperwatch” etc. Blizzard shouldve either given him more ammo, buffed his wraith, shadow step, or even ult. his ult is quite underwhelming aswell.
Another big buff from the past would be the infamous hanzo storm arrow buff.
Everyone seems to hate it, from hanzo mains to mercy mains.
And we can agree quite fully that they made storm arrows a bit too powerful, you can kill 3 full HP squishies with storm arrows, which shoot quite fast, people seem to hate him more now than when he had his scatter arrow.
since they complained he could 1shot tanks. Well he still can, just with using 1 ability instead of 1 shot.
But hanzos storm arrows is the least of the buffs on this thread, its not that big of a deal atleast anymore.
Nerfs
and for a good reason, but they werent until the onslaught of mercy nerfs that happened right after her rework happened. Which spawned in the phrase “Mercy Treatment” Which essentially means getting nerfed tons of times so far into the ground that you have to wonder if theyre playable anymore, im not going in detail what the nerfs were, since the post will be long enough without them.
But knowing well that the nerfs werent needed, atleast the later ones. When valk was put out initially along with the res ability on E with instant res and the ability to double res in the middle of a fight. Was quite overpowered. But now since they nerfed it so many times, mercy was at a point, barely viable, before her long due buffs.
but thats not the end, other heroes such as Brigitte received the “Mercy Treatment” quite right after her addition, since she was considered widely over powered, so patch after patch after patch she got nerfs, until now the only thing keeping her alive is Goats. Nothing else, if goats dies, brig goes down with it.
Which isnt really fair for her, and for her players.
since blizzard didnt take these steps the way they shouldve
- Put her into PTR
- Let people test her for long enough of a time to get some evidence if shes too powerful or not
- Put her to the live servers after the initial nerfs have been put up
- Put her to comp when youre sure shes fine.
- Put her into ptr
- Let people see how strong she is
- put her into live servers with barely any changes
- Put her into comp with barely any changes
Then theres the D.va nerfs.
While i do agree D.va shouldve been nerfed, i think this was a wrong nerf on her.
her DM is the only defence ability she has, so making that less accessible for her, makes it far far easier for people like reaper or mccree to kill her.
Something like a nerf to her armor, or health wouldve been good, or maybe making her do a tiny bit less damage, with her guns and micro missiles.
But the DM nerf was just a bad call.
Even though, the forums make it seem far worse than what it actually is. its not the end of the world, or the end of D.va, but its a bad nerf, and not very well thought out one at that.
New Content
But nowadays its running thin.
Events are being recycled for a 3rd year in a row, skins are getting less and less detailed, new gamemodes havent been put out for a good year. And new heroes are getting less and less well made.
Although Ashe is a good hero, heroes like Moira and Brig just seem very lazy, especially for brig, shes just a combination of other heroes abilities.
The lack of content is alarming for a game like overwatch which used to pull insane amount of numbers when events go up, now its about the same as normally. As theres nothing special with the events anymore.
Same with new heroes, all new heroes used to be hyped up like crazy by both the community and by blizzard, with Doomfist’s arc, and sombras arc, and Ana’s arc.
We got some of the best heroes then, and blizzard kind of gave up with the Arc things, they dont hint heroes that much anymore, they straight up say the heroes, what theyre going to be, and when theyre coming out now(figuratively, and literally now that the bastet short story is out yikes)
The overwatch community has been dying for new content for a long long time, and its no lie that the overwatch devs know this, and i really do wish that they start to put out more overwatch related content out very soon, or the community will start to scram even more than they already have. We need more Lore, we need more Events, and we need more heroes. But most importantly of those, the events.
Weve kept coming for them for years, and now theyre just ehh, theyre more of a nuisance in some cases knowing that you have to see a potentially very annoying map for a whole month before you can get back to normal overwatch.
The old events dont have that much going for them anymore. Which is upsetting.
Conclusion
if they just tried hard enough, but at the very moment, theyre not trying, at all.
I want personally overwatch to be amazing again, like it was in 2016-2017, and i want the Dev team to listen up to the community more, since we are what keeps the game alive.
And i want one thing from the community aswell. I want the community to be a bit more critical about Overwatch, rather than fullout toxic to it. Since criticism can help the devs, if they read the posts, but saying how bad it is, and how the devs are bad, and not giving examples on why, and what are bad in detail. You wont achieve anything.
-Nixon
A Casual Player For Equality<3