The problem of having new players

Try inviting a friend of yours who has never played Overwatch, what exactly happens? There are several scenarios that can have a fairly important consequence:

  1. “what is this game about :kissing:?”: you could tell him the lore in broad terms, show him how beautiful the Pixar style cinematics are, but he will probably say “ok, but is there a plot in the game without someone else having to explain it to me?”. awkward silence over sobbing lore, and maybe he’ll pretend to understand that this is a G.I. Joe task force. good guys, bad guys (:rofl:)
  2. “let’s learn this game”: he does his tutorial with Soldier 76, but then he is hit by an absurd multitude of characters, roles, maps, objectives, communications, BP progression, etc. you can certainly try to help him face a team of bots, but… maybe the only instructions in the game are just those tabs that will appear every now and then and you who constantly correct him on how that character or that other should play. in short, so many instructions at the same time :face_with_spiral_eyes:;
  3. “Ok, maybe I understood this character”: but then the patch arrives and possible exceptions, and he no longer understands what has changed in the relationship with the other heroes. let’s take as an example when they changed the effects of kiriko’s suzu which previously cleansed everyone and now makes exceptions if it’s sleep, rein’s ultimate, etc. at that point either you, a veteran player, explain to him what happened and what happens now or he’s forced to read a wikia / a mythbuster video, etc. :nerd_face:
  4. “I’d like to play at my first rank”: but he doesn’t know anyone, he has difficulty playing players more or less of his level, and so he is thrown into the lions’ den, with possible players who have now mained particularly insidious heroes (ana, widow, zarya whoever you want) and he is defeated. :face_with_head_bandage:
  5. “why is it called 2, anyway?” and you, a veteran, explain to him a whole epic story of the success and tragedy of the game’s development, of 6v6, of monetization, of the lore… :smiling_face_with_tear:

:yawning_face: :yawning_face: :yawning_face:

at that point the new player might simply say to you “maybe it’s a game dedicated only to those who already knew it, I didn’t understand much about it and it’s asking too much of me to understand it and/or become fond of it like you do”. :man_shrugging: GLHF :wave: :sweat_smile:

generally the new player will not care at all about what 6v6 was, if there is a sad development story that prevented the promised PVE development, or if it’s a PVP game that (like many others) continues to update new heroes / maps, bugfixes or effectively fight cheating every day (These are literally its basic duties, right?): Overwatch is very prohibitive in creating an initial interest in a natural way in those who don’t know it. Not having invested well in the in-game narrative and especially in an introduction path to the gameplay is the biggest problem today.

can no longer afford the benefits it had in 2016: the media celebrity of being the first IP in years from Blizzard (when it was still respected by gamers), having a start with few features compared to today that could allow the “fail, learn, try again” approach (today you practically fail as soon as you turn the corner, and the tutorials are terrible), and above all the voicelines no longer create a new story but rather contextualize a lore that technically began years ago but which dissatisfies both those waiting for real news and those who are now learning to understand what the hell this guy is saying in my gameplay :sweat_smile:.

Let’s answer this very stupid question for 2025:

how does Overwatch appeal to those who don’t know it today without seeming too “exclusive” to those who know its past?

And yet I had no such issues as a new player to the game I gotta say. I just wanted to play a game that my friend was really into and it wasn’t really a problem that I didn’t understand much because I was playing with them. And this was not long after role queue I think though I didn’t really start playing a ton until a bit later.

Times I’ve played Halo infinite or TF2 or mcc with friends those games never got me interested even though playing with friends was fun; maybe they just don’t care

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I was talking about those who start literally now, two years after the start of OW2 or anyway almost 9 years after the start of OW1.

How long have you started here, if I may ask? :no_mouth: you still have over 4000 posts in the forum vs my almost 6000. :sweat_smile:

About halfway into overwatch, like I said after role queue and I think around when echo was released. That’s when overwatch became more than just a popular game with… Fanart that I’ve heard about

I didn’t start in 2016 nor did I start with ow2. I have under 2000 hours in the game still so quite a bit but I’m not an ancient sage either

Yeah, but I just like arguing and get bored while doing other things.

My girlfriend introduced it to me 5 years ago, when the game was already dead, lol.

I only knew some of the heroes cause of :corn:

Honestly didn’t even think it was a game, thought it was just a subcategory on the hub.

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Literally. I heard about overwatch 2 announcement and I thought wait that’s a meme right? Thats extremely funny. Because that was kind of what spawned the whole “add a 2” sequel meme that games like Stanley parable deluxe edition made fun of

oh, ok… but do you realize that this is already a huge contradiction with the topic I suggested? :sweat_smile:

I’m talking about TODAY, in less than 24 hours in the year 2025: what does a new player need to understand what Overwatch is?

we have to imagine a mental reset on the logic of this game, and… you understand that the game is organizationally a mess if you don’t have someone to guide you or explain it to you a little better. :grimacing:

I agree that OW is not very beginner-friendly.

It’s not that complicated to jump in, you just press play and you’re good to go.

But understanding all the nuances is quite challenging and requires time.

And there is no real PvE modes that help people get better and avoid the stress of PvP.

This is unfortunately another neglected aspect of the game that repels beginners and casuals.

The people in charge are a bunch of lazy people who barely have any passion for this game.

A tutorial for each character would be nice. Doesn’t seem like ANY game does it for some reason…

Oh ok fair I suppose. For me I simply didn’t care about those things so I didn’t ask or have to have them explained to me. I just played the game for the gameplay, and the friend that got me into it didn’t have such a hard time describing the basics.

Lore and the ow2 thing or a characters balance changes simply don’t really matter when I’m starting a new game. If the gameplay is good.

this is not even expected… but we will admit that the soldier 76 tutorial is excessively reductive on everything else, right? :sweat_smile:

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The Marvel Rivals tutorial made me appreciate the Soldier one. It literally just has you playing as the Punisher for about 30 seconds, shows you how to move your camera, how to shoot your left click, and how to move around the map. And that’s it… nothing about capturing points, nothing about other abilities or ultimates, zip.

Course they have a whole encyclopedia but why would I read what I should be able to just listen to?

Here’s what I would say to those scenarios:

It’s an FPS. Two teams of people try to kill each other to complete an objective

Choose one of the limited starting characters you have access to, and we will go play QP so you can learn them.

Okay, good! Now if you like them, you can keep playing with that one, or you can learn another one.

Well, you have to wait until I think 50 wins? So, have some patience while you learn the game!

Why is any game called 2? It is a sequel.

I doubt it, but if that person feels that way, they are going to only be able to play brand new games. And if it’s asking too much of them to learn how to play a game, then they may just never be able to play any game at all, ever.

I don’t think it DOES seem too exclusive, except in your mind. If I were a brand new player, this game would feel just as “exclusive” as any game that has been around for years.

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They don’t need to know anything, the heroes keep yapping about the lore in the spawn, and the player learns as they go. The automatic callouts help newcomers, and they can play Juno if they have no idea what is going on.

They just need to figure out what their own hero fantasy is, so they know who to main.

I think … as much as I hate to invoke MR, Their tutorial on the game MODES is so much better for new players than “here is this one character who is KINDA like all the other FPS’s you played” and then plunges you in to games with like 20 different types of character and points at the objective.

OW needs objective tutorials and a basic introduction to Tanking, Support AND DPS … not just DPS.
Maybe require running and 3 starring at least 1 hero from each role in the hero trials? Maybe just take the “easy” run from every hero and have them make a tutorial version with guidance prompts and examples.
It’s a LOT to dump on people.

It’s tough for me to play with new friends, because the tight matchmaking means they’re going to have to play against someone as good as me in my role on the other team. I try to just Mercy pocket them while they learn so they don’t get rolled by a high-level tank or DPS.

I get where youre coming from, but OW2 is an FPS PVP game. Story is secondary to gameplay, even though the story is quite large. Nobody needs to explain it to you thanks to said cinematics, by the way.

Theres a limited pool of characters for starters, and if theres no duo messing up the matchmaker, everyone in the lobby should be a starter. The multitude of heroes is great, actually, and what makes OW a hero shooter. Please compare to Apex Legends or R6S, two very comparable and popular games. By comparsion, Overwatch isnt even very complex to me. There are only three official roles to learn, maps and objectives have to be learned in every FPS game, communications are text- and voicechat next to pings everybody with elementary level education can read and the BP progression is completely passive.

Each season lasts several months and theres one midseason patch every time. Its lot like this is a fast evolving game. And even if you learned the game at a time where one such patch arrives, you neither have the deep understanding of “this bullet deals that amount of damage” nor the muscle memory to be messed up for more than 2 matches. Lets not kid ourselves. You decribe a player that doesnt know the “multitude of characters”. The basic understanding of the game would be shallow enough and if you “know” the example of kiriko, adjustment shouldnt be that hard. “Oh, i cant cleanse this status effect now? I will try to remember how it looks to not waste my ability!” - boom, hypothetical knowledge about sleep and shatter gained.

Which naturally happens and should happen. There is a learning curve for everyone. Being placed in a rank after some matches puts you into a position where you get to learn and rank up. Its a bottom to top experience and it should be.

Whoever decides not to play a game because of its title is a complete clown, i fear.

Naturally those will have an advantage. Id see that feeling occur more easily in, say, dead by daylight, because overwatch is much less grind dependant, but i see where youre coming from

I agree we could do with an updated tutorial. The game doesnt even teach you the difference between health and armour.

I hope you see i’m not just disagreeing to argue here, but i believe youre massively exaggerating. Perhaphs out of a place of frustration? Which i dont get since youre obviously not THAT new of a player?

This is a problem every hero shooter has faced. Over time the amount of knowledge needed to find the game accessible increases.

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It’s a multiplayer shooter. No one cares. No one cares about the lore in Counter Strike, Dota, LoL or Valorant.
Yes, forum weirdos, I said “no one” but I actually mean “not a significant amount of people, so few that it practically makes no difference”.

Same way every game does it and it works just fine. Turns out people aren’t stupid, even if most on the internet disagree with me on this. It works fine in MR. You play with and against new players at the start, they all don’t know how the game works. It’s fine. Maybe too many characters are too confusing, I can grant you that, but for now I don’t think Overwatch is firmly on that side of the spectrum.

Mental diff. No difference in any rank below GM unless it’s a rework.

Nor should he.

…because new players don’t care about OW1? What? Is this ChatGPT?

Its past literally doesn’t matter.

In short: made up problems.

this game is not getting new players, new accounts are only smurfs or people who lose their account due broken report system, in overwatch 1 when you make a new account you were paired with new players and you can notice because everyone was bad, thats why game was full of smurfs, they couldnt deal with comp, now in ow2 your first match with new account you are paired with tryhards full of skins and their username with a new color because they were playing comp