highly likely we will have a support and a dps. then maybe a support again.
from a functional point of view it could concern the way in which you position yourself in the ranking, perhaps contextualizing the logic of the number that goes up and down. it would be truly revolutionary if we were talking about the clan system… but if we are talking about the umpteenth stupid comp or recolor weapon reward… no thanks.
for now it seems to me something that needs to be contextualized based on the functional innovations of the comp mode (if they are really functional things). we must always remember how toxic it has been to treat tournament balance (especially OwLeague) as the best direction for the entire community for all ranks.
i don’t think they would develop other gamemodes, where already clash, push and flashpoint modes will probably have a lot of attention in having new maps. hypothetically we could already say that atlantic arcology will be a flashpoint mode, from the short story of symmetra and lifeweaver the ideal landscape proportion is exactly that of a flashpoint. and it’s been too long in not having any new flash points, the rules they introduced in the mode like speed at respawn work better. for Marocco (visible in numbani’s posters)… maybe a push mode. in any case, i think it might be time to experiment with an ideal recovery of the assault maps (hanamura, volskaya etc.), i still think that clash modes are not exactly the kind of recycling they were talking about for those maps, if not from the exclusively stylistic point of view of the props.
unless they say they changed their minds for reaper, I think that the research they did for her shadowstep could still be useful in deciding how to handle the use of Symmetra’s TP, an ability that requires a more serious quality of life just like they did for Lifeweaver’s petal platformer. I’m obviously talking about practical things like the summon directory or the way it is so interceptable by enemies.
then I think that generally we will have:
- yet another rethink on Sombra’s stealth mode,
- maybe a change on Cassidy’s somersault which is objectively an ability that has not been used or practiced much in the cowboy’s gameplay in recent years;
- I imagine a little tuning to wrecking ball, sharing shields hasn’t made much of a difference with the problems he has in helping his companions intuitively;
- some exploration for Lucio, who after the arrival of Juno seems to have lost much of his uniqueness in the game.
- in my opinion they will address the “problem” of widowmaker’s oneshotting with more practical elements than the simple (and senseless in my opinion) damage nerfs requested by the community: a laser when it reaches maximum damage in ultimate, for example. I personally do not accept that the sniper does not do his job as a sniper in most cases, at this point the players’ attention on how they move on the map against her should be improved (already heavily nerfed in the falloff, and I say this without her being a main pick of mine), not the opposite.
- I don’t know why, but I have some thoughts about the way they will handle mei’s frost, torb’s turret, and junkrat’s mines, always treated extremely cautiously in the patch notes but never with a real technology that solves their pros and cons.
I imagine two possible paths:
- if 6v6 is even minimally convincing, it could replace at least one of the current two competitive systems (and this could be the competitive novelty mentioned above). BUT… I absolutely do not believe that they would implement a third or even a fourth type of competitive mode (6v6 roleq and 6v6 openq) because this would affect too much the flow of players connected simultaneously during the day, and today the game really has fewer players than before to allow for such safety. I imagine instead that we will sacrifice (temporarily) the openq 5v5 to introduce a 6v6 with hybrid queues: you can queue like an open q but there is a limit of roles to the first one who chooses what to play. this all depends on the next experimentation;
- regardless of whether 6v6 is taken seriously in the competitive context… it is legitimate to expect it to become an unranked / arcade mode. no matter how much the community complains about “but that’s not how we wanted it”, we have to accept that 6v6 is hard to balance… but still fun for some in its basic issues/logic. bringing it back is still legit, but persisting in the “5v5 or 6v6” feud is stupid.
i think 2024 was great in terms of experimentation (real experimentation) and update/bug fixes. regardless of the popularity of some heroes treated better or worse, i can definitely play a bit of everything today, and the game has a very honest pvp pace. but that doesn’t make it worthy of that “2” on the title yet, it’s just behaving like ow1 should have always done before it went into maintenance mode. it fixed most of ow2’s technical issues at its debut, but it’s definitely not a game that has made significant progress in the duties it had before, when it was called ow1. if 2024 was a very technical year, 2025 needs to be a year where we need to prove why we should call it “2”. no one will ever accept it until they actually prove it with… well, we already know what they denied us from old promises, right?
any kind of “plan B” for a real story mode that doesn’t include too inconclusive coming soons like invasion. I’m not even mentioning the pve formula anymore, even a single player story campaign expansion pack like starcraft 2 would be fine, but the narrative must reach a point of order and of “here’s a franchise that makes itself known for what it is, not just as a tournament machine”. a defined timeline, a narrative hub, something useful for those who have always seen the lore ordered only by lore nerds (wikia, youtube) … but never by the game itself.
also, trivially a revolution to the tutorial. and it’s really embarrassing that the intro with soldier 76 is the only thing to learn the basics before throwing players into the lions’ den, I keep seeing “main symmetra” who have no idea about the extra effects of primary fire (and the game doesn’t even explain them, you have to read them in the wikia) or new Ana players who don’t realize they have healing from primary fire. the tabs explaining how to play the heroes are stupid.
