Let me begin with saying that still, after a year of playing, I love this game. I fell in love with Orisa initially, then Roadhog, and I have been devout to Lucio and Tracer since then. They are fun heroes that consistently give me a positive experience when playing. And I have fun having a whole roster of heroes to master and apply on a ranked ladder. This is easily the best multiplayer FPS out right now, no offense to CS:GO. But after a while, the game’s holes have been starting to show. Let me just give you a timeline of my decreased faith with the game.
If you don’t feel like reading the full post, TL;DR, the game has been broken for a while and I am angry at the lack of developer response.
March 2017: I bought the game, started playing Winston. After buying it I didn’t touch it until Orisa came into the game, and that was when I initially fell in love with it.
April-May 2017: Anniversary and Uprising, my two favorite events, come out. My interest in OW peaks during this time. I have a full 6 stack of friends to play with, and enjoy messing around and making jokes over Discord.
June 2017: Roadhog nerfs announced. This wasn’t too big a blow to my experience, to be honest, but it meant my most played hero at the time was made irrelevant. I learned Lucio and Tracer in his place. One of the friends in my 6 stack left for good. Hit bottom rank of Silver in Season 5.
July 2017: Didn’t really play at all, other than Doomfist. Watched him go from powerhouse to low tier joke after hitbox nerf.
August 2017: Played Summer Games, Lucioball was a blast and super casual. Also at this time, Mercy rework and Junkrat buffs entered. At the time, I thought these were positive changes. I hated Mass Rez and I thought Junkrat could use a boost.
October 2017: Realized how broken Valkyrie Mercy was. Junkrat became spam everywhere. Hit my peak rank (so far) of plat. Got first gold gun (Lucio). Two of the friends in my six stack left for Rainbow Six.
November 2017: Moira enters the game (she’s pretty fun). World Cup becomes a Mercy Meta joke. We continue to see a lack of balance.
December 2017: Least favorite event (Christmas). Mercy begins to get nerfed into the ground and has many of her fun elements removed. Jeff first tells us about planned changes
January 2018: Mercy’s sledgehammering finishes. OWL begins, and I enjoy it at first. Lack of change continues.
February 2018: First balance changes (Doomfist, Mei, Sombra) are introduced. Sombra gets immediately put back in the trash bin, continuing a 10 month long meta. Lack of Hanzo, Torb, Sym changes continues. OWL begins becoming a meme.
March 2018: Zen and D.Va nerfed. Another friend in my 6 stack leaves, leaving only 2 of us. OWL shows how terrible it really is. Continued lack of Hanzo, Sym, Torb changes. There hasn’t been a comic in 3 months. Hasn’t been a cinematic in 4 months. No lore updates. No real positive balance. Brigitte enters, CC Cancer ensues. Comp begins to become a swamp of toxicity.
April 2018: Play Retribution, it’s okay, but I still have more fun with Uprising.
Brigitte begins to take over the game. Hanzo changes FINALLY implemented… in PTR… and Sym changes announced.
May 2018: Season 10 reaping the benefits of the grav dragon and the ever spreading cancer that is brigitte. About 7 characters are legit viable. Still waiting on Torb rework. Still waiting on “big social change”. No comics or lore.
June 2018: Continued stun/cancer meta. Same 7 characters. Competitive is a cesspool. Still waiting on Torb rework. Still waiting on “big social change”. No comics or lore.
July 2018: Season 11 is an improvement, with the LFG feature it is much easier to climb when you have people with the same mentality. More heroes are viable. No comics. No cinematics. Still waiting on Torb rework. Still waiting on “big social change”.
August 2018: TBA
It’s only me and one other friend left playing. Everyone else has left. And OW shows multiple, multiple holes. My friend that most recently left has gone back to League of Legends, the game we used to play before OW. And Blizzard, tell me why I shouldn’t when League offers:
-constant balance changes
-lore updates
-variety of play
-even more heroes to master
-possibility of every champion to be useful in ranked or in casual
-overall it is a well managed eSport
-has taken serious steps to block out its toxicity, not just “avoid as teammate” and dev updates on how many people they have taken actions against
-role select
-overall less throwers
Versus Overwatch, which has been plagued with problems, such as:
OWL: I was initially very excited for an Overwatch professional league, with locations and actual team names instead of brands serving as team names. But as time went on, it became clear how awful OWL really was. It’s just dive, played over and over and over again. Locations mean absolutely nothing to where teams play; they all just play in California. So much my idea of Uprising tickets. Same two teams have topped the standings and will continue to for a long, long time. Code of Conduct punishments range from overly harsh (xQc and Trihard7, Sinatraa’s FeelsBirthdayMan, lack of response to Taimou’s homophobic comments) to stupidly lenient. No variety, and the worst thing about it? The entire game is centered around OWL. A large reason for the lack of response from Devs is because of all the focus that OWL takes, taking away from comics and cinematics. Sombra was useful for a short time, then destroyed because of OWL feedback. Same with Mercy, and probably same with Brigitte in Stage 3. Anything that takes away from dive. I’m not one of those “lol nerf genji tracer blizz” on the contrary, Tracer is my second favorite hero after Lucio. But the comittment that these teams have to Dive is ridiculous. It’s been a year since tank meta ended, and we are still seeing the same 6 in every game. The worst is Seoul, I seriously doubt from watching them that they can play anything but dive.
Mercy: I am not a mercy main, nor have I every been a mercy main. But watching the way Blizz handled the Mercy changes is just appalling. Mass Rez was an unfun thing to play against and Mercy was too easy to climb with, so she definitely needed the changes. But then she went from the initial after rework state to getting 10 second rez during valk taken away to getting insta rez taken away to having valkyrie be broken to a 15 second ult where the speed during guardian angel got significantly nerfed, and the insta rez, and the additional rez charge. The worst part? All of this happened while Blizzard clearly ignored all of the feedback from outraged Mercy players. And I feel that shows a lack of respect on Blizzard’s part.
Ranked: 2 month seasons? More Cp per win? More accurate placements? These things are all fine, but we are still yet to see any changes to how ranked is played in game. There is no guild system, no role select, and not enough of a harsh penalty for leavers. The lack of all of these things and the lack of any preview to these things continue to make ranked less and less fun every day. There is no way to be rewarded for good teamwork, like the Honor System in League, and so you start to question why you even bother saying anything in voice chat.
Balance: The Dev team stated 4 months ago that Hanzo’s scatter was getting replaced, as well as giving us a list of heroes that were being changed (Sombra, Mei, Doomfist, Torb, Sym, Hanzo). 4 months later, and half of those heroes are still yet to be changed, Sombra was immediately nerfed after her change (despite them taking 5 months to finish changing Mercy), and the Sym changes aren’t coming anytime soon, and Torb probably won’t be changed until next year. Meanwhile Reinhardt, Ana, McCree, and Zarya are vastly underpowered and get more and more countered each day, yet no word on changes for them (but they find it appropriate to buff Reaper and nerf Zen?)
All talk, no results: Everything in Overwatch isn’t just slow, it doesn’t happen at all. There has been a lack of real changes, and the Devs keep saying “things are coming” but nothing really ever comes. There seems to be this sort of ignorance on their part. And Blizzard, as a game developer, is starting to fail as a result.
So why shouldn’t I play League? Why should I continue to waste my time waiting for things this game needs, when League is patched every week?
The most heartbreaking thing about this game is watching people leave even though I love it so much, and keeping my hopes up, but nothing changing. I have been watching the decay of Overwatch for a year now, and it’s just depressing.
Edit: After seeing the fact that Blizzard has finally produced new lore and a new map and that some more of my friends are joining, I would like to make this a thread more about the problems OW has as of the moment and less about my leaving overwatch.
Edit No. 2: LFG, honor system, Sym rework, and actual balance changes have been added ingame. The developers clearly care about the state of the game and I am impressed with their recent additions.