When I play a former “OW” killer like Apex legends I look at their hero roster and they have like one-third the heroes OW does? Yes that game hasn’t been out as long but they still only released so few heroes compared to OW and you only play on the same map for months on end. Yet the game still feels more fresh and rewarding than OW?
I see people on these forums (fellow support mains in particular) argue for more hero released but I don’t know if that will really solve anything. There is something about this game that makes all the content seem somewhat shallow. Is the over reliance on teamwork too much to the point where It bores people unless there is constantly new updates? I think OW really needs to change to have those carry moments other games do otherwise people will leave. Valorant is just the beginning. Before that we had the BR phenomenon and I think games with individual carry potential will continue to come out and leave OW in the dust.
Funny thing is I don’t remember OW being like this when It first came out. I think all the new hero additions turned the game into a constant battle of hard counters. I used to feel like I had such impact on a Ana for example and I still do but It’s so easy now for the enemy to just switch to doomfist, press Q and send me back to spawn. Feels like this game has little counter play now and it’s all just about hero picks without really thinking about how to play those heroes all that much.
Just my little rant. This game isn’t as exhilarating as it once was because you can;t really carry anymore, or at least It doesn’t really feel like you can. And yes, I did get a Valorant beta invite and the game is amazing. I’m getting early OW beta vibes from it and riot has the advantage of being able to learn from blizzards mistakes. Anyone thinking it poses no threat to OW is in for a rough surprise…
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game would’ve been fine if we just stopped releasing heroes after ana tbh
everything after was CC nightmare
sombra, doomfist, brig, ashe, ball, sigma, orisa
literally all of them have one or more CC abilities lol
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So true. Ana cc is on a super long cooldown and is a skill shot. All these new heroes feel so easy to play and get value with. And it feels like they all hard counter something
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The Crux of the problem begins with forced teamwork/ forced mechanic restrictions. and then Genji/Tracer -they are the genesis of balance problems. End of story.
all of it spiraled out of control trying to bring in new experiences but failed everyone.
they could’ve just released new skins for existing heroes and changed the balance every few months just to keep it feeling fresh, adding new “exciting” (broken) heroes isn’t healthy
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Small battle royales like Apex will always have different character and map amounts than a hero shooter like Overwatch which usually always end up around 30-45 total at the end of these kinda game’s life cycles
There’s less room for error than there used to be, culling out heroes who can’t succeed in those situations
As well as pretty much every DPS hero having a better replacement since launch or being buffed to the point they make other heroes null
Why play Tracer or Genji, who when they mess up get killed almost instantly, when you can play someone like Doomfist who has plenty of tools to undo mistakes
McCree used to be weak to sustained damage since his burst was slower, and he needed to be more careful with his shots, now that’s gone and you can just pew pew pew cutting out heroes like Soldier and even Ashe
You have Sniper characters who are still top tier regardless
Burst damage is higher and more consistent than ever
All while culling Tanks and Supports anytime they’re effective, to keep the same handful of DPS in the top spots
I just think OW has been going a little overboard with the MOBA stuff. FPS and MOBA are two great genres on their own but mixing them up too much kinda creates a Frankenstein beast no one likes. It was ok on release because the heroes who had these moba elements were kinda niche picks so the game still felt like an fps but sometimes I have no idea what I’m playing now with all the annoying clutter/vfx on my screen lol
If by “MOBA” stuff you mean non-gun skills and abilities, including CC, then that’s kinda what you sign up for in a game like this, it just gets more noticeable over time when more heroes are added to the mix
You’d probably enjoy Paladins by the sounds of it. It has a lot less CC, way less reliance on tanks and shields since everyone can spec their character in-match to get lifesteal on their weapon and self-heal on elims, or spec to be a deployable/summon killer, or be more tanky, really anything you want,
so the rigid tank-dps-healer system is far less prevalent, there’s no oneshots (even for snipers) outside of ults or very specific setups against the game’s lowest HP characters
I’m not super against cc as long as it’s used in a skillful way. I just think the game kinda went bad when they started releasing heroes as a way to balance the game instead of just making cool heroes who felt impactful and fun to play with/against. imo Ana and Ashe are the only good heroes released because they felt like they were made just to be good heroes. All the others feel like they were made to specifically counter something which seems like bad design to me.
I think it’s something inherent to the BR format that makes matches extremely variable. The duration alone of each game is already incredibly variable. Some matches you die almost at the get-go, while in other matches you get to the very end. Then there’s also the matter that you’ll likely have a completely different loadout every match simply due to random chances. And then also the location where you drop can also have a massive effect on how the rest of the game will play out.
Now look at Overwatch. Like you said: there’s an overreliance on teamplay. Couple that with all maps being actually extemely similar if you ignore the visuals and the games being objective based (and these objectives being static and consistent entities, that is, there’s no randomization of objectives) and you have a game that really funnels players into a very stringent playstyle if they want to have a good chance at winning.
You can basically summarize the course of an Overwatch match as the following:
- Move as team to choke
- Try to push through choke, preferably with ults
- If succeed, capture objective
- Otherwise rinse and repeat
This is already a really specific way of playing and it basically applies to every Overwatch match ever as long as people try to win. No wonder that this game gets stale really fast.
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To many low effort / high rewards heros and they are buffing low effort heros with no any mechanic change.
I think it felt more fresh before because the devs didn’t hold my hand as a support. It was fun playing against flankers as Ana because it felt like a skillful matchup and If I was losing I felt like I had something to improve. And when I landed my sleeps it felt amazing. Where now I can kinda just pick an anti-flanker and relax. The game feels like there are no skill matchups anymore and it’s all about hard counters
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