A while ago, a long, long while ago, at a time where the game’s players were particularly unhappy at how stagnated the game had become and I was finding it harder to appreciate OW over other games, I made a summary of what I thought was wrong with the game and the incorrect mentality of some of the developers.
Since then, it’s become one of the most upvoted posts of all time, and I am happy to say that a large majority of the issues brought up here were resolved, even if my experience around that time was negative. OWL and Overwatch as an esport is becoming less forced and more interesting, especially as dive came to a close and casters are becoming more watchable, not to mention OW was able to take home the honor for Best ESport at the Game Awards. Pro players are being taken seriously on certain issues and not on others, and I especially want to note that their claims that Doomfist was a useless hero, D.Va was much too strong, and Sombra was overpowered went rightfully ignored for the benefit of the 99% of the playerbase.
At this point, I think Mercy has been resolved. Her pickrates and winrates are solid (and I feel like the PotG algorithm has been changed to include her more?), and I know that there are still a large majority of Mercy players who feel ignored, but I think at this point, what looks like ignorance is really just the developers acknowledging that she is in a good place. Who knows, maybe she’ll get suprises in the future, but I am content at where Mercy is at.
All of the announced Balance changes I listed were implemented, and although some were crap, others were too good and some just okay, they all happened, didn’t they? All of the formerly underpowered heroes are now some of the best in the game, and although that’s mostly a result of meta shifts, it’s good to see them in the spotlight.
And lots about my own experience has changed since that time. I made it to diamond! and I have met others playing that I had a lot of fun playing with.
With that being said.
Overwatch is in a questionable place once again right now. Just like before, I still have a lot of love for this game but it feels like that love is being taken for granted or it’s being ignored. As does the love of others.
Why do these other games feel like there is still an objective, like there is still a drive behind those in charge of the game to make it the best it possibly can, but OW lacks that? Among my IRL friends who play PC with me, the game we all choose to play (together) is still League of Legends. This is a game with multiple metas at once, where every single game is almost guaranteed to be completely different from the last, where balance and content creation is constant, where there is still a large amount of communication from their developers, and it feels all the better for that. Among those who play off PC with me, Smash Bros. Ultimate is the choice. It just released, but it already feels like such a versatile game that supports a variety of playstyles and that there was so much time and effort placed into its creation.
Where is that in Overwatch?
Where is the soul that this game released with and promised to keep?
Versus Pt. 1, where it felt like there was still things that could be done to save the game, the situation now feels hopeless. When introducing friends into the game for the first time, I’ve gone from hearing “This game is awesome, dude!” to “This game is pretty fun.” to “Maybe this game will grow on me?” to “This isn’t fun, lol”. What do we do to solve the fact that this game is so difficult to pick up, how do you grow the playerbase past its flat change? I really don’t know what to say now.
What has gone wrong?
GOATS (The Meta Problem): We all know, GOATS itself is a rough way to play the game. It’s frantic but thoughtless, oppressive but unchallenging. At its dawn (when it first came in) it was practically an instant win button. At its current state, it’s not like that thanks to a couple of balance changes, but it is still more useful than anything else in the game, it’s unfun to play or play against, and it ruins the game as a spectator sport. Seriously, nothing else gives me a headache in the same way that GOATS does. But it’s not just this composition and its implications that have been bad for the game. Before, it was grav-dragonstrike, and before that, it was dive, and before that, it was triple tank… the point being, that each meta is frustrating, especially for those that don’t want to be forced into these heroes. The problem stems from the fact that there are too few heroes to have a healthy variety of ways to play the game. With so few choices for tanks and healers, there are bound to be some that dominate and others that don’t/suck. Metas suck not just because of how hard they are to play against without mirroring, but because in a game that prides itself on a diverse hero roster of 29 heroes, it encourages playing 6 of them, and if you don’t you lose. It’s a lose-lose situation, you either can’t take advantage of how many cool heroes are available or lose/anger the teammates who are meta elitists and only play the meta.
Content Releases: Geoff Goodman said once that he wanted a hero roster of around 100 heroes. We’re never getting there. How do you expect to do that when we release three heroes a year? You think this game will still be thriving in 25 years? The playerbase want more maps as to create different landscapes that can be played in differently. Are we ever getting them? We’ve released two maps this year. 2 CP is still BS. Payload still has a bunch of gamebreaking bugs, as rare as they are. Unlike most of these forums, I’m pretty happy with what we get each event and I like the precedent of 6 legendaries and 3 epics. But League releases new skins every month, not to mention that each of these skins has unique interactions with their abilities, instead of just being a cool recoloring of the hero. I’m fine with the event gamemodes we get, but I wish we’d switch it up once in a while, like what we did with competitve CTF and Lucioball.
The Graveyard Dwellers: Don’t you love that there are some heroes in this game with a dedicated audience that are completely ignored? Oh, but of course, one Bastion buff makes him so much better. It’s fine to give Reaper arbitrary buffs without any proof that they did anything at all to increase his viability. It’s fine to leave Sym in such a garbage state when it would be so simple to give her a few numbers changes. It’s fine to put Orisa somewhere where there is no reason to pick her over Reinhardt. Please. Do you know how much buffs change the game? Especially considering that none of the meta defining heroes right now are oppressive, it’s more important to buff these heroes to balance the game than to nerf others. Nerfs just make it harder for people to play the game. Buffs solve power creep and make everyone satisfied instead of angry. And actual buffs, where it’s clear that things are improving for those heroes.
Toxicity: This is the first thing that will send everyone through the roof and punish those trying to play the game by ruining their experience and do nothing of real effect to the perpetrators. I get that toxicity is a personal problem, not a game problem and so there’s no real solution to stop people from being dicks, but at least take a real stand against it. A zero-tolerance policy for those being toxic, because guess what? If they did it once, they’re going to do it again. And I’m not talking about trash talking the other team, I’m talking about players on your team who insult others and make them question why they’re even playing the game in the first place.
Guilds: Please, PLEASE introduce this. Until we do, the discord in this community will be more rampant than facing a team of 6 zenyattas. No one ever agrees and LFG never ensures you will have a team that cooperates. We have guilds, we have unity in small communities and we have a way to find people with similar mindsets. I can only hope that the “last big social change” Jeff referred to is guilds, because this game needs it or we’re looking down a tunnel of confusion.
Communication: This is what it all stems from. What are we allowed to know? What can we even hear about? Can we even expect developers to show up? Jeff’s recent post just reflects the whole lotta nothing we get from our devs. It’s pathetic when there are small indie companies out there that are in constant talks with their audience, like Smite, the late TF2, Warframe, and especially League of Legends, but with this “small indie company” we’ll be lucky to get any source of news each month. We’ll be lucky to get patch notes that actually fixes the problems with the roster. We’re lucky to get anything at all. It’s unacceptable if you expect to harbor a competitive game with lots of possibilities and aspects, you need to give the community something. I know people get toxic anytime a developer comes in here but please, drown out the hate and keep at it.
Overwatch is a game with so much possibility to be incredible, a game with so much potential to get out to a larger audience, but it’s being wasted when the game is trapped in stone and doesn’t move. We need our developers to take advantage of the potential and make the best game possible for their fans before alienating the people that made their game possible in the first place.