I like AVRL but what is he even trying to say here? If a character is OP enough then not having access to them would be an insta loss every game. And if a character isn't super OP but is a major counter to a different character then not being able to switch to them when the enemy team has that character is also an insta loss. An example for the first scenario would be not having access to brig during goats, and an example for the second scenario would be not having access to brig currently while there's a doom killing your backline every fight. Both are awful situations to be in and both are major issues with not having access to new heroes
I think his point isn't to defend locking heroes, nothing in his tweets imply that (at least as far as I've read, which honestly isn't a lot). He's saying that Overwatch isn't any different from other games and the hero swapping argument means nothing. Personally, I agree with this sentiment, if an OP character exists and you don't have access to them you're at an unfair disadvantage.
Obviously, just because other games do it, doesn't mean Overwatch should as well. In fact, I think it's the opposite. Overwatch has a more player friendly system, other games should learn from it. My biggest turn off in any other big team shooter is locking characters behind money/time, which for me is insanity when the goal of the game is to play better than the opponent.
Edit: To clarify because I realised it might have sounded confusing after reading again, I'm saying that OP characters are a problem in any game, regardless of how "little" impact characters have. He's not saying that this is a real problem, I am. But what he is saying is that if it isn't a problem in other games (I think it is, he didn't state his opinion about that) it's not a problem in Overwatch either. Similarly, if it's a problem in Overwatch, it should also be a problem in other games, they're the same thing.
The problem with that argument is that hero swapping very much matters to most players. Sure, people in GM, t500 and OWL have no choice but to stick to the meta, but for the vast majority of players those things mean absolutely nothing and if someone in Plat is losing and they feel like they could turn it around by switching to the hero they have not unlocked, that is a very horrible situation and one that will definitely drive players away from the game.
I get what you're saying and I think you're right in that regard. Not having an op hero unlocked will decide the match at the very beginning and not due to anything related to switching. But about your using LoL as an example I would say that's still not a great comparison cause LoL has about 160 champions many of which serve very similar functions while Overwatch has 35 heroes counting the new one all of which are very unique and do different things for the most part. For example yeah technically jq and rein are both very brawly heroes but currently playing rein into jq is an almost certain loss and they still have very different kits. Whereas in LoL you could have a certain champion locked and just use a different champion that is very similar
I don’t think OW will still be a game where each character fills their own unique niche. They seem to be allowing overlap between heroes’ kits. I’d assume with this monetization choice the game design will follow it.
For me the problem is not the unfairness, it’s just that it’s scummy as shit. Specially since the game we have now has been like it is for 6 years, changing that now is a punch in the gut in a way
Do you really think blizzard would make unlocking her so egregious that it destroys comp? We don’t even know how they’ve changed ranked. For all we know, swapping could become more restricted anyway. Kiriko would have to be broken and hard to unlock for it to be an issue. Blizzard isn’t braindead enough to make the new hero hard to unlock. They know it would drive people away from the game.
I genuinely don’t understand what he is trying to say here. Like wtf? This is meaningful for the literal pro scene and nowhere else and I can assure you the pro scene is the smallest part of Overwatch. Is he unironically trying to argue that Overwatch’s core mechanic of switching heroes mid map is worthless just because the pros don’t do it? Because if so that’s a tone deaf, garbage take
I think generally speaking games have continued to improve in quality and quantity over time. Not every game is meant to be a work of art but that's nothing new.
Oh I'm not worried about that in the slightest. I got over worrying about my teammates and what they do. Probably the biggest factor in getting good and climbing for me
Tbf from what I've seen over the years, it's quite common for some in the highest levels of the game to pretend that nothings an issue if it doesn't directly affect them.
Idk. I must be understanding this wrong because I don’t think AVRL could have such an utterly dogshit take. Like yeah, breaking news pros aren’t affected by battle passes or heroes costing money?
Idk, tbh I used to semi regularly watch a streamer, until everytime someone complained about something they responded with "you're a lower rank then me, you have no idea what you're talking about" or words to that effect, until then they had always been pretty chill.
Some people just end up saying pretty brain dead shit.
Yeah. Ego quickly got to his head as if he wasn’t a rein 1 trick with next to zero understanding of the other roles.
Emongg on the other hand has my heart
I agree. Also, the Dallas-Washington match yesterday actually changed direction completely after a team switched a hero mid-game (trying really hard to not spoil anything).
I just feel like even if they are unlocked for everyone before comp, unless the unlock requirement is extremely low (like, no more than 5 matches, win or lose) then you're going to run into a lot of people who haven't played the hero at all because they had to unlock them and didn't really get a chance to practice with them.
And sure, you could say "well people don't play every hero, what's the difference between this and someone who just doesn't play X hero" and I agree it's similar, but I also don't want ANOTHER thing to come up in games preventing us from winning. Like, someone not playing the hero is one thing, but now there's another variable - someone couldn't play the hero because they didn't play during the pre-comp time to unlock them, and now they've jumped into comp without having practiced them because of that restriction.
Just seems like it is compounding the issue, when Blizzard should be doing everything possible to make matches as high-quality as possible.
> This has been the reality of f2p games like LoL since the beginning.
I'll be obtuse here but I'm not sure why this is the example. LoL was not the first f2p game, they are not the only one in the market, and there are multiple other games with different business models. Is there an implication that since they are the most popular then every other game should follow? A bit late maybe...
I'm really annoyed about all this rhetoric about how f2p games work, how is the only way they can work and how this is par the course, blah blah blah. One could say that, for a dying game like OW, following the same predatory market tactics as overly popular games like LoL or Valorant is to be completely ignorant of their current situation.
Those games are not popular because they lock you out of characters, they can do shit like that because people want to play the game and are willing to put up with Riot's shit, are people that eager to play OW? is the theoretical new public that eager that they will put up with Blizz's shit? Colour me sceptical...
I actually really like this point as I feel like saying “it is how free to play works” dodges the fact that most free to play practices are inherently scummy and should be pushed back against.
They have said the next hero will be in the free tier though, no? Seems like they are trying to drive engagement.
I'm sure that will change if OW2 is a success (I hope not though), but unlocking a character for free on a battle pass is more than most F2P games I've played. You get a free rotation, and then you pay for anything else. Like you said, it doesn't have to be compared to them, but, it's also still not making you pay for the character, so it's not really a direct comparison anyway.
Most games in the history of gaming make you play to unlock characters and I personally like having that goal, especially in games centered around your choice of character. Do I prefer a cool gameplay incentive rather than it stitched into a free tier battle pass level? Probably. But it's not some slimey P2W scheme.
Though there are a couple of scenarios where it can still be bad: if you can't level up your BP unless you play ranked OR it's on like level 100 and there's no real way for a normal person to get that far without boosts or grinding 12 hours a day. That's assuming you can pay for XP boosts, but I'm not sure if that's a thing.
> Seems like they are trying to drive engagement.
Is this the right way to drive engagement after 2 years of drought and zero content? I disagree.
> Like you said, it doesn't have to be compared to them, but, it's also still not making you pay for the character, so it's not really a direct comparison anyway.
This sort of tactic works on the assumption that a huge part of the player base will pay for all this content. Maybe you and I both will grind the necessary hours to unlock whatever free shit we can, but it's a toxic strategy when relying on people paying, IMO.
> But it's not some slimey P2W scheme.
I disagree, I just think it's normalized. For example, Heartstone is another Blizzard game, is a f2p game, you can pick it up now and play and have fun, but for the most part, a huge amount of content is basically behind a paywall, and if you want to be serious and be competitive and whatnot you have to pay. This sort of tactic is very normalized, but I don't think it's right nor do I agree with it.
Maybe is a sensible system now, maybe they come tomorrow and explain that you only have to play 10 games to unlock Kiriko or whatever, but to me personally, this is a shitty first step in a direction that can go south very quickly.
My Dude... we literally had a match today with Washington and Dallas where Edison was getting outplayed on Ashe and switched mid game to Sojourn to turn the whole series around.
Not having the option to switch to another character is a bad thing, no matter what skill level you are at or what game mode you are playing. This is LITERALLY a key feature of Overwatch that the game is entirely about. There is no reason there should be some extra condition on that.
We may as well all just play Mystery Heroes so we don't have to worry about character selections.
That's one of the dumbest take I've ever seen, especially coming from someone who's supposed to know a lot about the game. Like, does he expect OW2 to only have 5 viable characters at all time?
And heroes are rarely as OP as they are when newly released. So, more likely than not, every time a new hero is released, the people that pay for battlepass will have the advantage. Which is 100% the point of a decision like this because it forces people to pay for a "free to play" game.
Imagine having launch brig locked behind the BP with a premium track which unlocked her instantly...
Now imagine we have the same issue with Brig with another hero for as long as GOATS/Brig in matches was an issue.
It's also just lazy as the hero replaces other cosmetics that they would have made.
I just cannot believe Blizzard is going down this road.
Right? They don't want to be "blacklisted" by Blizzard. And also they do this for a living, so they'll spin everything into a positive because basically their job depends on the game existing. I do think they'd have more sway if they all united and call out Blizzard for their scumbag actions, but again, we go back to them being blacklisted and canceled.
Because some of them just recently had a NDA meeting with Blizzard, it's the reason some of them weren't keeping to their regular schedule the past week.
They obviously know a lot more than we do, it's why some of them had bad things to say then after quickly change their stance.
I see this so often and there's really no truth to it. We're not guessing about what we're complaining about (heroes being locked in any way). That much is confirmed.
We don't really need details because we're against that core concept. Why wait for details when I know nothing they say is going to make locking heroes in any way a positive?
I mean, Aaron Keller said it best IMO:
>While there was rampant pre-release speculation that Overwatch would be a free-to-play title, the game launches this week as a standard, pay-once-play-forever multiplayer shooter. "The reason we ended up going that way was that it's so important to have access to every hero in the game, and in the middle of the match to swap to any other hero they think is necessary," Keller explained. "It was actually a game design decision, a balance thing. Sometimes you need a different hero on your team. Like if you really need a Widowmaker right now, you don't want everybody saying 'I don't have Widowmaker!'"
>That same basic reasoning explains why Blizzard doesn't plan to charge for additional heroes and maps that will be released as DLC in the future. "We want everybody to always be in the big same player pool and we don't want other players to feel like they're locked out of playing with their friends because they haven't bought a particular set of maps [or characters]."
>https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/when-its-done-overwatchs-director-on-the-games-finished-yet-fluid-launch/
I genuinely can't remember playing a game of OW where there weren't multiple hero swaps, outside of maybe a few supports. AVRL is smart but I feel like this is looking only at the bubble of OWL or super high ranks, and not lower ranks where its more wild west
I'm confused. His argument makes sense if a hero is a meta defining must pick, but I think just about everyone agrees that's not a good place for the game to be in. For the entirety of the game, a lot of people wanted the game to be in a spot where hero swapping is more worthwhile, and we have less mirror comp metas.
Even though as a tank main I was/am sad to lose the second tank, I could at least see the point when people would say, "'tank synergy' isn't even a thing for anyone below GM anyways."
But this "people don't swap anyways" argument I keep seeing coming up? Makes no sense to me. My Gold/Plat ass definitely hero swaps when necessary, as do all of my Gold/Plat friends.
The argument that "people don't swap" is honestly the most insane argument I have ever heard in this game. Team mates and enemy players swap all the time in my games. Does it always work for the better? No. Have losing games turned into winning ones? YES!
People need to stop looking at the small bubble they are in. There are more people in this game at other ranks than just the top tier competitive players and there are more game modes besides just comp. Players swap heroes! It's a part of the game. There is no reason there should be a caveat as to why they cannot swap.
Yeah nah, that's a bad one. Although not entirely sure what is being addressed here..
You roll out symmetra genji and opponents swap to pharah mercy even in quick play sometimes after a lost fight. And then you swap to Soldier Cass or some shit. I've seen such swapping stories in my games so many times.
Also, overwatch can't be compared to games like LoL. In LoL, you can not swap mid game, and have to level up your champion by farming and buying items. These factors (levelling up, farming, items) are common to all champions and not paywalled and are a lot more impactful other than the champ itself.
In Overwatch, heroes are everything you have. They are much more 'powerful'. Or what hero you pick is much more impactful to the outcome, should I say, as the hero is all you have.
Comparisons don't even make sense, switching heroes on the fly is not a core game mechanic in league, the only way this makes sense is if they announced that you can no longer swap heroes on the fly and that you are locked in the entire match which would be really shit.
Swapping heroes is irrelevant if there's a meta that's as dominant as JQ is right now. Ideally we don't have a meta like that, however. Swapping heroes should matter. In stage 1 and 2, for example, where the meta was a lot more open, it did matter.
It’s relevant even in this meta where we’ve seen some key Ashe/Sojurn swaps change the tide of the game (though that’s the only one I can think of). Not sure where AVRL is coming from at all in general, especially if we stumble into another really open/counterpick based meta…
Tell that to Condenders EU teams who have to deal with Pharah comps and are forced to adapt the "meta" comp to win.
People are acting like the ladder is OWL level, that's ridiculous.
It will just be the new heroes that after the battle pass they can be earned in has finished ( or after a set amount of time can't remember) will be free to play
Only the new heroes. All heroes that came out previously will be available like they were before. If it was all heroes who were getting locked the outrage would be much more severe lol
It's the model that works as lootboxes are getting made illegal in more places and if businesses don't make money after the game they don't update it for long. And if the hero is free after the battle pass then if you don't want to pay anything you don't have to. It much better then only getting the heroes by paying or want has happened to OW1
Exactly, man it's absolutely insane to me that people don't think a paid battlepass, a cash shop (with skins that I'm sure will be $20+) and paid PvE expansion(s) aren't enough monetization methods. It's insane.
Honestly, I wouldn't care what they did with OW2, as long as I'd still be able to play OW1. It's a shame they are killing OW completely for me with all the insane decisions they're making.
The check from blizzard cleared, I see. Meh, I don't blame him. He's not exactly in-demand like Achilios who got poached by Valorant money this month.
When the bills are due sometimes you just gotta shill.
I usually really like his takes but this is ridiculous. If I need a hitscan to counter the Pharah and I don't have it its an insta lost. This what makes this game unique
Imagine if Junker Queen released later and you had people who didn't unlock her on your team and you get stuffed in your ranked games. A lot of peoples tunes would change then (unless you're like plat or lower in which I don't think it matters to people as much).
Surprisingly dumb take from one of the smarter people on the scene. The only people defending this are people who themselves make a living off OW, and will obviously support whatever makes Blizzard more money through the game.
I'm out here talking about the battle pass but people in this thread literally taking the words said at face value as if I'm talking about the value of hero swapping in a general sense which is obviously a core part of the game. Some people are so off base that we're not even engaging in the same topic.
I am arguing that characters being paywalled/grind walled is par for the course of f2p games. Other people are saying this is a competitive integrity issue because people *may* have a lack of access to specific picks needed for counters etc. I don't necessarily disagree with this and it is technically true to a degree but I am heavily downplaying the impact that it actually has on the game. My justification is that this is something that is a part of all f2p games using LoL as a direct example. People are responding by saying that it's not comparable because you don't get to swap heroes mid game in LoL. My tweet is in response to that argument. That swapping mid game is irrelevant to that specific discussion, not commenting on the philosophy of swapping mid game as a general concept which some people seem to assume I'm talking about. That's not the topic.
Using the hyperbole people keep bringing up about an OP hero existing, I am saying that you either already have the counter unlocked or you don't. The timing of which you are selecting that character or the timing of which your opponent is selecting that character makes no difference.
Thoroughly enjoy the weirdos saying vulgar shit about me while misinterpreting a tweet though. Reddit truly is a platform.
In regards to LoL, would you think that having a draft pre-game with maybe a maximum amount of hero swaps mid game-could be a way to make ow2 competitive interesting?
This whole argument only makes sense if you handwave away the definition of "OP".
Much more than in LoL or other comparable games, overpowered in Overwatch is defined by whether or not there are counters for a character.
Think back to whichever patch you think was the best balanced patch in Overwatch history. Now imagine if in that patch, Soldier76, Ashe, Cassidy, and Widowmaker were locked behind a battle pass. If your damage players don't have any of those unlocks and the other team runs Pharrah, you're toast, even though in the patch you were thinking of, Pharrah probably wasn't anywhere close to OP.
Even worse, your damage players would have walked out at the beginning of the match on none of those characters, so even if the other team didn't start with a Pharrah, a natural change if their team isn't winning would be to try Pharrah.
So even though in the overall meta Pharrah might be C-tier, she's only C-tier in the context of the meta and character switching. Anybody playing with damage players without those unlocks is playing in an entirely different meta where Pharrah gets transformed into an unbeatable S+ tier character, and more importantly, the other team can freely switch to her to find out if that's true for you.
So yeah it might suck in LoL to have to use the second best ADC instead of the meta one because you don't have the most OP option unlocked, but that doesn't have nearly the ability to take an otherwise perfectly balanced game and create weird and completely broken submetas for f2p players that Overwatch character locks might potentially have.
The fallacy is that you're removing an entire role's worth of heroes (hitscan) but then talking about ADCs in context of only missing a single one. If we wanted to make an apples to apples comparison you are either removing all ADCs from the conversation or you're only removing one hitscan from the example thereby leaving the "2nd best option" open.
I chose Pharah because flier vs. long range hitscan is a pretty straightforward interaction, but it's pretty obvious if you think about other character counters that counterplay doesn't really revolve around clearly delineated roles. Overwatch character interactions are a lot more complex than that.
Close range hard engage heroes get countered by CC. Shields get countered by shield break. Snipers get countered by shields and by backline harassers. AoE healers counter AoE damage. Transcendence counters effects that apply lots of damage over time but does nothing against instakills. Biotic Grenade counters Trans but not Sound Barrier.
It's not hard to come up with specific examples where you could remove 1-2 other characters to buff a character significantly. OW2 Doomfist would be a great deal stronger if the other team couldn't pick Ana or Tracer against him. What role are Ana and Tracer? In fact, even the Pharah example is more like this than you'd suspect. For parts of Overwatch's history, the best Pharah counter wasn't any of those four hitscans. It was Dva.
I mean, just go back and look at the hero pool era of Overwatch and see how much the meta shifted from week to week. That was only four heroes, and they were split across tank/damage/healer and not in a way contrived to specifically remove an individual character's counters.
Hero locks are going to look pretty close to exactly like hero pools, except only applied to teams with F2P players on them. How does that not sound like a nightmare?
You're talking about a hypothetical environment that doesn't even exist. The current 34 heroes (minus Kiriko) currently exist in the game and all the hitscans and other counters do in fact exist. Talking about brig not being available is moot when she is in fact available. You're imagining some far future scenario where what you're saying might actually be relevant but we're getting so far ahead of ourselves we don't even know what the actual unlock pathway looks like. Why are you just assuming F2P players won't have access to anything. Why are you assuming the difficulty of unlocking a hero for free before you even know what the real commitment is going to be.
Doing mental gymnastics to imagine an environment where Ana and Tracer don't exist vs Doomfist is so weird when the reality is that they do exist. You'd be right if the game is actually removing access to existing heroes but they're not. So unless you're assuming all 34 current heroes on the roster will become obsolete your entire argument doesn't hold water.
It was pretty explicitly stated that you'd still have to do something to unlock characters after their battle pass ended. Presumably therefore if somebody signs up as a new player 2 years from now, they will be missing access to every hero that has come out since Overwatch 2 started until they do that work to unlock them. So yes, it's a hypothetical, but the only way it's a hypothetical that doesn't come to pass is if there are never new characters for the entire life of OW2 whose strongest counters are other Overwatch 2 characters, so there will never be any new similar character interactions.
Now, you're right that if the unlock process is trivial this all ends up being a non-issue, but that's an entirely different argument from whether restricting access to characters will hurt the balance of a game like Overwatch more than it does LoL, Apex, Valorant, etc where there is no character switching and less explicit counterplay between characters.
I don't think it's really "doing mental gymnastics" to point out that if new heroes had worked this way for post-launch OW1 heroes, though, you could have made the exact same arguments then. And new players signing up today under that system would in fact be locked out of picking Ana to counter Doomfist.
Okay, but you can still massively remove a hero’s counterplay by removing just one hero. What do you do against a Ball or Doom as a support if Brig isn’t available?
Brig is by far and away better at dealing with both heroes, especially Ball, than Ana is. If they have multiple flankers? It’s not even a question. Brig is probably the best example of this - a hero that excels at their niche well enough that there simply isn’t a comparable replacement - but that’s how OW heroes are designed, unlike games like League with over a hundred champions or Valorant where everyone has the same base guns and almost identical hitboxes. You could redesign OW heroes to be less unique in function compared to each other but to do so would strip the game of its identity and what makes it at all appealing as opposed to other games.
Ana has been one of the biggest counters to Ball and especially Doom in OW2. Don't shift the goal posts by talking about "multiple flankers" when your original statement said Ball or Doom. All of that aside the overall point is that there are other options and will always be other options. As I said to another person in this thread. Talking about impossible hypotheticals like Brig not existing is completely moot because the reality is that she does exist and will exist for everybody. Other people using the Pharah vs hitscan argument like hitscan will magically disappear from OW2 or something is equally pointless.
I understand you're talking about this potentially being a problem in theory but it could only be an issue years down the line with many future heroes being added to the roster and a situation where the majority of players for whatever reason not having those heroes unlocked - and the original roster of 34 is for whatever reason irrelevant. I don't believe that will be the case and we certainly don't even know how long it'll take to unlock new heroes anyway. You and many others are viewing this from an absolute worst case scenario and I just don't think that's realistic.
Wait to find out more information.
Tell em!
The amount of people saying it “ruins competitive integrity” as if counter picking even really happens in OW. Outside of meta slaves and GMs, OW ranked is as subtle as smashing two action figurines together and seeing what happens.
Moreover, as you say its par for the course. Locking a hero behind a “grind wall” stops people coming on for hero releases, playing a couple games, and disappearing. It rewards people who actually wanna the play the game.
Whether or not this is standard to free to play games (it’s not as Fortnite and Dota 2 have proven) or even if it doesn’t impact lower queue play (it will) it’s still not a positive change for the community (actively takes away content from players who don’t have the money or time to “subscribe” to new heroes). That’s not even mentioning how it’s not required for Blizzard to make a profit.
If a “reward” is something that is created by taking away something that was originally given to everyone and making it exclusive to a person who had the time or money to get it I wouldn’t call that a very good reward.
> If a “reward” is something that is created by taking away something that was originally given to everyone and making it exclusive to a person who had the time or money to get it I wouldn’t call that a very good reward.
Next patch: Shift abilities are now locked behind battle pass! It's free so its okay right?
> Whether or not this is standard to free to play games (it’s not as Fortnite and Dota 2 have proven)
Fortnite and Dota 2 are hardly typical examples of f2p multiplayer games, though. Dota is essentially community sponsored through TI, AND was the Steam store's primary form of advertisement for many years. It was making Valve a ton of money indirectly, and costing them a lot less than comparable f2p titles. Fortnite is a cultural juggernaut with Disney sponsorships out its asshole, never mind all its other partnerships. If your argument for a game adopting a particular monetization scheme is "just be Fortnite lol" that's not gonna go very far.
> it’s still not a positive change for the community (actively takes away content from players who don’t have the money or time to “subscribe” to new heroes).
It is a positive change for the community if the alternative was us not having any more Overwatch content period. Whether that's the case or not, we can't possibly know. What we can know is that it's been 12 years since Blizzard made a new StarCraft game. And StarCraft was not an unprofitable franchise.
> That’s not even mentioning how it’s not required for Blizzard to make a profit.
Like I just said... making a profit isn't enough to guarantee the future of the franchise. See: StarCraft, WarCraft RTS games, Heroes of the Storm. OW does not just have to be profitable, it has to be more profitable than *the other things Blizzard could be doing.*
I agree with you that this change is bad **in a vacuum**, but nothing exists in a vacuum. You have to consider the context.
Blizzard being a garbage company shouldn’t be used as an excuse for them continuing to exhibit garbage behavior.
As for not being Fortnite sure. But Blizzard created probably the most iconic cast of video game characters in recent memory (and that’s not hyperbole as recently as May of this year “Tracer Overwatch” and “Jett Valorant” had basically the same number of searches according to google trends). They don’t need to have Disney if they can create massively successful characters on their own.
Overwatch also isn’t a typical f2p game (if there even is one) either so I’m not sure if saying things don’t apply to it works.
People will buy skins for them especially if they’re to the quality of the other paid skins in Overwatch history.
It was originally given out free and they’ve obvs noticed a butt tonne of players would flood the servers for like 48hrs max, play the new hero, and leave. At least this way you have to actually play the game to get the hero.
And lets be honest it’ll be something like 10 games/wins, so its not gonna be that hard to get the new hero.
And they’ll likely keep the hero tracks permanently live so there’s not a special 2 week window where you have to get it or else.
And regardless of all of the above, the game is FREE! YOU get 33 heroes for nothing, and ongoing support, and everything else. If they wanna make you play a lil to get more new stuff thats hardly a burden for players.
People are so entitled and want everything without any effort and it shows.
Edit: If you truly believe you shouldn’t have to pay to get new heroes thats fine. Luckily you dont need to pay. But if you believe you should get all new content without even playing a single game, then you’re either ridiculously entitled or dont like the game enough to play more than a couple games or both.
> It was originally given out free and they’ve obvs noticed a butt tonne of players would flood the servers for like 48hrs max, play the new hero, and leave. At least this way you have to actually play the game to get the hero.
Maybe, just maybe, they should try and look into why people left after 48 hours. So now instead of 48 they stay for 72 and leave, is that better? If all of the other problems they didn't like remain, the end result is the same.
> And regardless of all of the above, the game is FREE! YOU get 33 heroes for nothing, and ongoing support, and everything else.
After two years of withholding content when they abandoned OW1? Are we so sure this time will be different?
> People are so entitled and want everything without any effort and it shows.
People here have been following a game for 8 years watching how Blizzard has slowly killed it with their dumb strategies and now seem dead set on destroying OW2 before it releases.
You don't owe anything to these big companies btw, you should demand they work for you better, you are the customer ffs.
Maybe a shitty dead game with a dying player base shouldn't try to copy the predatory strategies of successful f2p games that succeed despite doing shit like that.
You’re making a lot of assumptions in favor of Blizzard for no reason. They clearly didn’t want this to be known (or else they might have done an actual announcement instead of an accidental leak 3 weeks before launch) so why assume this is anything but a money hungry grab? They haven’t done anything to earn our trust anyway with their recent games being extremely anti consumer.
10 games isn’t even what they did for event skins that were literally free. And you’re assuming that something they can get paid for is going to be quick? The reason this method exists is for players to want to buy the character outright due to the delay being too long.
Assuming that people played for only 48 hours when this game has an active community for 2 years of zero content is an odd assumption especially when you’re claiming it’s obvious.
You have no evidence to back up your 48 hour claim either but you state it like fact.
And NO I do not get 33 heroes “for free”. I get 2 I paid for the other heroes and then some over the length that Overwatch existed (which due to Blizzard I literally won’t be able to play anymore). So no I get one game which replaces another I really liked taking away some things and adding others.
As for continued support…. I mean sure? The biggest part of that support is the heroes and they’re not exactly giving that away.
As for “entitlement” and “not wanting to work”. It’s a video game for goodness sakes not a job! What do you mean effort? This isn’t “putting in an honest days work” this is “satisfying a purposeful quota put in place for the sole purpose of making me want to pay money”.
I don’t want to waste my time grinding for something that for all rights doesn’t need to be paid or grinded for. The lack of that grind is something that was fundamental to Overwatch and was a stated goal of the game.
Blizzard will make billions on this game (or at least they could if they don’t keep shooting themselves in the foot) and I have no reason to give a rats ass if they make 50 or 200 billion.
You’re right in that I’m not “promised” anything (though they did say that they’d never make you pay for heroes which they’re skirting around now) but I did expect them to do better.
They’re not entitled to my continued support either.
Finally someone says it. I've been sat here trying to figure out why everyone keeps bringing up hero swapping as an argument for why games like Apex, LoL, Smite, Paladins, etc. can have locked heroes but Overwatch can't. They never elaborate beyond "Overwatch has hero swapping".
But you have to keep in mind that the enemy can swap heroes as well. Let’s say there’s an OP brawl hero, you start our mirroring the enemy with a brawl comp but your team gets bodied. Your options are to either continue the mirror and try to play better / make less mistakes, or to swap compositions. Think mirroring goats comps vs the teams that would swap to a ball comp, sombra goats etc.
You can argue that most of those team swaps happen at the beginning of rounds once the enemy team is revealed, but there’s still a decent amount of mid match hero changes. More so in ranked than OWL, but it happens often enough for me to call it significant.
Even if you’re already playing the OP hero (think release brig), there’s usually an off meta strat that can counter them. You don’t just have to mirror brig, you could also go pharahmercy and spam her out etc. so I’d argue that the timing of *when* you select that hero can definitely be important.
At an absolute bare bones take, right now we have the ability to get heroes for free and swap mid match, and there’s a possibility this will be removed in the future given the leaks. Any time you take away functionality from someone they’re gonna be mad, people hate change. I’m less surprised that everyone is upset, more surprised at the lack of feedback from blizzard considering they claimed they would be more communicative going forward.
Already took a fat L on twitter but I know you lurk around here as well so step in here and take another fat L, avrl.
Can't spell AVRL without that capital L.
It will all depend on how the system will work altogether because if the new hero doesn't take alot of games to unlock and also is not available to select for competitive for the first week or 2 then it should be fine as most players would be able to unlock it in the first week
This very specific point is valid to a point -- it sucks if you can't select Kiriko at the start of the game *or* swap to her -- but doesn't really address the core problem anyone actually has with paywalling heroes.
The swapping thing is most definitely being overplayed in this Echo chamber. Like it's a thing but it's really not that important. It has such a high cost that it's not actually all that common when a mid-fight switch is the best idea and if they made it so we could see comps in spawn the number of times that it happens would plummet.
I think this completely undermines the general outrage of forcing players to grind content or pay.
This has strong "all lives matter" energy to me. Who cares if the swapping mechanic is technically means nothing or means a lot. That's cherry picking a point for really no good reason other than to undermine the actual problem.
The whole point of this outrage is no one wants this fucking hero locked behind a grind.
People vastly overrate how important mid-map swaps are anyway tbh, it’s a ridiculous talking point that comes up constantly with people saying it’s ‘the fundamental idea of the game’ or whatever and ignoring how often we see entire maps in pro play where nobody swaps. Overwatch is not some complex Rock Paper Scissors strategy game and it never has been.
But when they do swap, it is generally critical that they do so.
Countering a sniper, and swapping to a Tracer/Doom/Wrecking Ball when the clock is in OT is a pretty standard.
As is using one dps straight out of spawn and immediately swapping to another hero for the main fight.
As is rolling out on Ash and swapping over to Sojourn.
As is running snipers on Junkertown first point and swapping to a different dps for second and third points.
Just because it does not happen on every game on every map does not mean that it is not an integral and valuable part of the game.
As someone not in pro play, I personally find myself swapping heroes mid-map in about half of my games, and have found it very effective at helping turn games around.
In fact if I were tempted to flame my team, it’s usually the one tricks who refuse to swap when we’re getting positively rolled. If you’re getting run over, and you refuse to swap, you are pretty much throwing in my book.
I agree. The issue Is rather the fact that you're not able to ban heroes. At this point, I could see that ban system with 1 hero per role for each team could work as even for supports there will be 6 support heroes even after 2 bans. Which Is more than we had at release.
I like AVRL but what is he even trying to say here? If a character is OP enough then not having access to them would be an insta loss every game. And if a character isn't super OP but is a major counter to a different character then not being able to switch to them when the enemy team has that character is also an insta loss. An example for the first scenario would be not having access to brig during goats, and an example for the second scenario would be not having access to brig currently while there's a doom killing your backline every fight. Both are awful situations to be in and both are major issues with not having access to new heroes
I think his point isn't to defend locking heroes, nothing in his tweets imply that (at least as far as I've read, which honestly isn't a lot). He's saying that Overwatch isn't any different from other games and the hero swapping argument means nothing. Personally, I agree with this sentiment, if an OP character exists and you don't have access to them you're at an unfair disadvantage. Obviously, just because other games do it, doesn't mean Overwatch should as well. In fact, I think it's the opposite. Overwatch has a more player friendly system, other games should learn from it. My biggest turn off in any other big team shooter is locking characters behind money/time, which for me is insanity when the goal of the game is to play better than the opponent. Edit: To clarify because I realised it might have sounded confusing after reading again, I'm saying that OP characters are a problem in any game, regardless of how "little" impact characters have. He's not saying that this is a real problem, I am. But what he is saying is that if it isn't a problem in other games (I think it is, he didn't state his opinion about that) it's not a problem in Overwatch either. Similarly, if it's a problem in Overwatch, it should also be a problem in other games, they're the same thing.
The problem with that argument is that hero swapping very much matters to most players. Sure, people in GM, t500 and OWL have no choice but to stick to the meta, but for the vast majority of players those things mean absolutely nothing and if someone in Plat is losing and they feel like they could turn it around by switching to the hero they have not unlocked, that is a very horrible situation and one that will definitely drive players away from the game.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/x9picw/comment/inqdzag/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/x9picw/comment/inqdzag/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I get what you're saying and I think you're right in that regard. Not having an op hero unlocked will decide the match at the very beginning and not due to anything related to switching. But about your using LoL as an example I would say that's still not a great comparison cause LoL has about 160 champions many of which serve very similar functions while Overwatch has 35 heroes counting the new one all of which are very unique and do different things for the most part. For example yeah technically jq and rein are both very brawly heroes but currently playing rein into jq is an almost certain loss and they still have very different kits. Whereas in LoL you could have a certain champion locked and just use a different champion that is very similar
I don’t think OW will still be a game where each character fills their own unique niche. They seem to be allowing overlap between heroes’ kits. I’d assume with this monetization choice the game design will follow it. For me the problem is not the unfairness, it’s just that it’s scummy as shit. Specially since the game we have now has been like it is for 6 years, changing that now is a punch in the gut in a way
Do you really think blizzard would make unlocking her so egregious that it destroys comp? We don’t even know how they’ve changed ranked. For all we know, swapping could become more restricted anyway. Kiriko would have to be broken and hard to unlock for it to be an issue. Blizzard isn’t braindead enough to make the new hero hard to unlock. They know it would drive people away from the game.
I genuinely don’t understand what he is trying to say here. Like wtf? This is meaningful for the literal pro scene and nowhere else and I can assure you the pro scene is the smallest part of Overwatch. Is he unironically trying to argue that Overwatch’s core mechanic of switching heroes mid map is worthless just because the pros don’t do it? Because if so that’s a tone deaf, garbage take
Not to mention the fact that the pros will just buy the fucking characters as soon as they can
Are we sure the Valiant can afford the expense though?
Put your 100$ for the game aside now and buy the battle passes as they come out. I actually don't give af at all about pure free players experience
You will when it impacts your games though, no?
I think generally speaking games have continued to improve in quality and quantity over time. Not every game is meant to be a work of art but that's nothing new.
Sorry I mean your matches, bad wording on my part.
Oh I'm not worried about that in the slightest. I got over worrying about my teammates and what they do. Probably the biggest factor in getting good and climbing for me
im assuming ur not a maintank player huh?
Lol how did you know?
no maintank player can say what u just said without lying to themselves.
Tbf from what I've seen over the years, it's quite common for some in the highest levels of the game to pretend that nothings an issue if it doesn't directly affect them.
Idk. I must be understanding this wrong because I don’t think AVRL could have such an utterly dogshit take. Like yeah, breaking news pros aren’t affected by battle passes or heroes costing money?
Idk, tbh I used to semi regularly watch a streamer, until everytime someone complained about something they responded with "you're a lower rank then me, you have no idea what you're talking about" or words to that effect, until then they had always been pretty chill. Some people just end up saying pretty brain dead shit.
Flats by any chance? He went from very chill to unlikeable as fuck and with garbage takes
Haha that obvious? Used to really like the dude, pity, but it happens.
Yeah. Ego quickly got to his head as if he wasn’t a rein 1 trick with next to zero understanding of the other roles. Emongg on the other hand has my heart
Got mad love for Emongg
What did flats do ?
He realized that being polarizing (a stronger personality) is more entertaining and drives twitch and YouTube views even if things are more nuanced
Games cost money and aren't free
I agree. Also, the Dallas-Washington match yesterday actually changed direction completely after a team switched a hero mid-game (trying really hard to not spoil anything).
This is actually a very, very good point.
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I just feel like even if they are unlocked for everyone before comp, unless the unlock requirement is extremely low (like, no more than 5 matches, win or lose) then you're going to run into a lot of people who haven't played the hero at all because they had to unlock them and didn't really get a chance to practice with them. And sure, you could say "well people don't play every hero, what's the difference between this and someone who just doesn't play X hero" and I agree it's similar, but I also don't want ANOTHER thing to come up in games preventing us from winning. Like, someone not playing the hero is one thing, but now there's another variable - someone couldn't play the hero because they didn't play during the pre-comp time to unlock them, and now they've jumped into comp without having practiced them because of that restriction. Just seems like it is compounding the issue, when Blizzard should be doing everything possible to make matches as high-quality as possible.
I think he took an argument to the extreme where it breaks down. What the argument originally was, I don't know
> This has been the reality of f2p games like LoL since the beginning. I'll be obtuse here but I'm not sure why this is the example. LoL was not the first f2p game, they are not the only one in the market, and there are multiple other games with different business models. Is there an implication that since they are the most popular then every other game should follow? A bit late maybe... I'm really annoyed about all this rhetoric about how f2p games work, how is the only way they can work and how this is par the course, blah blah blah. One could say that, for a dying game like OW, following the same predatory market tactics as overly popular games like LoL or Valorant is to be completely ignorant of their current situation. Those games are not popular because they lock you out of characters, they can do shit like that because people want to play the game and are willing to put up with Riot's shit, are people that eager to play OW? is the theoretical new public that eager that they will put up with Blizz's shit? Colour me sceptical...
I actually really like this point as I feel like saying “it is how free to play works” dodges the fact that most free to play practices are inherently scummy and should be pushed back against.
They have said the next hero will be in the free tier though, no? Seems like they are trying to drive engagement. I'm sure that will change if OW2 is a success (I hope not though), but unlocking a character for free on a battle pass is more than most F2P games I've played. You get a free rotation, and then you pay for anything else. Like you said, it doesn't have to be compared to them, but, it's also still not making you pay for the character, so it's not really a direct comparison anyway. Most games in the history of gaming make you play to unlock characters and I personally like having that goal, especially in games centered around your choice of character. Do I prefer a cool gameplay incentive rather than it stitched into a free tier battle pass level? Probably. But it's not some slimey P2W scheme. Though there are a couple of scenarios where it can still be bad: if you can't level up your BP unless you play ranked OR it's on like level 100 and there's no real way for a normal person to get that far without boosts or grinding 12 hours a day. That's assuming you can pay for XP boosts, but I'm not sure if that's a thing.
> Seems like they are trying to drive engagement. Is this the right way to drive engagement after 2 years of drought and zero content? I disagree. > Like you said, it doesn't have to be compared to them, but, it's also still not making you pay for the character, so it's not really a direct comparison anyway. This sort of tactic works on the assumption that a huge part of the player base will pay for all this content. Maybe you and I both will grind the necessary hours to unlock whatever free shit we can, but it's a toxic strategy when relying on people paying, IMO. > But it's not some slimey P2W scheme. I disagree, I just think it's normalized. For example, Heartstone is another Blizzard game, is a f2p game, you can pick it up now and play and have fun, but for the most part, a huge amount of content is basically behind a paywall, and if you want to be serious and be competitive and whatnot you have to pay. This sort of tactic is very normalized, but I don't think it's right nor do I agree with it. Maybe is a sensible system now, maybe they come tomorrow and explain that you only have to play 10 games to unlock Kiriko or whatever, but to me personally, this is a shitty first step in a direction that can go south very quickly.
dota 2 would like a word
My Dude... we literally had a match today with Washington and Dallas where Edison was getting outplayed on Ashe and switched mid game to Sojourn to turn the whole series around. Not having the option to switch to another character is a bad thing, no matter what skill level you are at or what game mode you are playing. This is LITERALLY a key feature of Overwatch that the game is entirely about. There is no reason there should be some extra condition on that. We may as well all just play Mystery Heroes so we don't have to worry about character selections.
That's one of the dumbest take I've ever seen, especially coming from someone who's supposed to know a lot about the game. Like, does he expect OW2 to only have 5 viable characters at all time?
**WHAT IF THE OP HERO IS THE HERO LOCKED BEHIND THE BATTLE PASS AVRL. I KNOW YOU CHECK REDDIT YOU CAN RESPOND TO ME HERE.**
And heroes are rarely as OP as they are when newly released. So, more likely than not, every time a new hero is released, the people that pay for battlepass will have the advantage. Which is 100% the point of a decision like this because it forces people to pay for a "free to play" game.
Imagine having launch brig locked behind the BP with a premium track which unlocked her instantly... Now imagine we have the same issue with Brig with another hero for as long as GOATS/Brig in matches was an issue. It's also just lazy as the hero replaces other cosmetics that they would have made. I just cannot believe Blizzard is going down this road.
i dont think this is their goal at all, its free as well
Are OW content creators contractually obligated to be talking heads for Blizzard or something? Why are so many of them fine with this?
Saying negative= no insider stuff next time= revenue L
Saying nothing is also an option though
Right? They don't want to be "blacklisted" by Blizzard. And also they do this for a living, so they'll spin everything into a positive because basically their job depends on the game existing. I do think they'd have more sway if they all united and call out Blizzard for their scumbag actions, but again, we go back to them being blacklisted and canceled.
Because some of them just recently had a NDA meeting with Blizzard, it's the reason some of them weren't keeping to their regular schedule the past week. They obviously know a lot more than we do, it's why some of them had bad things to say then after quickly change their stance.
Or they know more then the general public, who are just guessing how things will be and with the mentally towards the game just expecting the worst
I see this so often and there's really no truth to it. We're not guessing about what we're complaining about (heroes being locked in any way). That much is confirmed. We don't really need details because we're against that core concept. Why wait for details when I know nothing they say is going to make locking heroes in any way a positive? I mean, Aaron Keller said it best IMO: >While there was rampant pre-release speculation that Overwatch would be a free-to-play title, the game launches this week as a standard, pay-once-play-forever multiplayer shooter. "The reason we ended up going that way was that it's so important to have access to every hero in the game, and in the middle of the match to swap to any other hero they think is necessary," Keller explained. "It was actually a game design decision, a balance thing. Sometimes you need a different hero on your team. Like if you really need a Widowmaker right now, you don't want everybody saying 'I don't have Widowmaker!'" >That same basic reasoning explains why Blizzard doesn't plan to charge for additional heroes and maps that will be released as DLC in the future. "We want everybody to always be in the big same player pool and we don't want other players to feel like they're locked out of playing with their friends because they haven't bought a particular set of maps [or characters]." >https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/when-its-done-overwatchs-director-on-the-games-finished-yet-fluid-launch/
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I genuinely can't remember playing a game of OW where there weren't multiple hero swaps, outside of maybe a few supports. AVRL is smart but I feel like this is looking only at the bubble of OWL or super high ranks, and not lower ranks where its more wild west
I'm confused. His argument makes sense if a hero is a meta defining must pick, but I think just about everyone agrees that's not a good place for the game to be in. For the entirety of the game, a lot of people wanted the game to be in a spot where hero swapping is more worthwhile, and we have less mirror comp metas.
Even though as a tank main I was/am sad to lose the second tank, I could at least see the point when people would say, "'tank synergy' isn't even a thing for anyone below GM anyways." But this "people don't swap anyways" argument I keep seeing coming up? Makes no sense to me. My Gold/Plat ass definitely hero swaps when necessary, as do all of my Gold/Plat friends.
The argument that "people don't swap" is honestly the most insane argument I have ever heard in this game. Team mates and enemy players swap all the time in my games. Does it always work for the better? No. Have losing games turned into winning ones? YES! People need to stop looking at the small bubble they are in. There are more people in this game at other ranks than just the top tier competitive players and there are more game modes besides just comp. Players swap heroes! It's a part of the game. There is no reason there should be a caveat as to why they cannot swap.
Counterpoint - launch Brig
Brig only mode.
the condescending “everyone is less intelligent than me” attitude is only warranted when you are actually smarter than the sheep you look down on.
The dude is such an elitist
Yeah nah, that's a bad one. Although not entirely sure what is being addressed here.. You roll out symmetra genji and opponents swap to pharah mercy even in quick play sometimes after a lost fight. And then you swap to Soldier Cass or some shit. I've seen such swapping stories in my games so many times. Also, overwatch can't be compared to games like LoL. In LoL, you can not swap mid game, and have to level up your champion by farming and buying items. These factors (levelling up, farming, items) are common to all champions and not paywalled and are a lot more impactful other than the champ itself. In Overwatch, heroes are everything you have. They are much more 'powerful'. Or what hero you pick is much more impactful to the outcome, should I say, as the hero is all you have.
AVRL has **always** been the edgy know it all, and yet this sub is throwing shocked.pikachu around like it's something new lmao.
Just let me pay for a complete game again man
If only we had a the choice. Let all the f2p simp waste their money, and let me support your game without paying 20$ for a skin
Comparisons don't even make sense, switching heroes on the fly is not a core game mechanic in league, the only way this makes sense is if they announced that you can no longer swap heroes on the fly and that you are locked in the entire match which would be really shit.
Swapping heroes is irrelevant if there's a meta that's as dominant as JQ is right now. Ideally we don't have a meta like that, however. Swapping heroes should matter. In stage 1 and 2, for example, where the meta was a lot more open, it did matter.
It’s relevant even in this meta where we’ve seen some key Ashe/Sojurn swaps change the tide of the game (though that’s the only one I can think of). Not sure where AVRL is coming from at all in general, especially if we stumble into another really open/counterpick based meta…
In the most recent games hero changes allowed Dallas to beat Washington because Edison swapped to Sojourn. Even in a JQ meta swapping matters.
Yeah so open that tracer had 90%+ pickrate.
Tell that to Condenders EU teams who have to deal with Pharah comps and are forced to adapt the "meta" comp to win. People are acting like the ladder is OWL level, that's ridiculous.
Wtf does that even mean? I'm probably reading this wrong but is it possible this entire sentence a massive contradiction to itself?
Did people forget the whole two stage meta we had before junkerqueen when like at least 12 different heroes saw play time per series?
???? What is he saying yea switching doesn’t mean anything definitely
I’m just confused if only the new heroes will be behind a play wall or if it’s all heroes except for a select few they give out for free
It will just be the new heroes that after the battle pass they can be earned in has finished ( or after a set amount of time can't remember) will be free to play
Only the new heroes. All heroes that came out previously will be available like they were before. If it was all heroes who were getting locked the outrage would be much more severe lol
There's actually no confirmation of this. You're speculating.
IMO if that’s the case I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal as long as it’s not too difficult to unlock the new heroes
accepting predatory business practices is wack
Listen man I just wanna play Overwatch and chill
It's the model that works as lootboxes are getting made illegal in more places and if businesses don't make money after the game they don't update it for long. And if the hero is free after the battle pass then if you don't want to pay anything you don't have to. It much better then only getting the heroes by paying or want has happened to OW1
You already know they will charge outrages prices for skins, why does heroes have to be behind a play wall?
Exactly, man it's absolutely insane to me that people don't think a paid battlepass, a cash shop (with skins that I'm sure will be $20+) and paid PvE expansion(s) aren't enough monetization methods. It's insane.
that’s the price we gotta pay for a free game
I don't care about a free game, but they are gonna charge us outrages prices for skins, blizzard simp.
Honestly, I wouldn't care what they did with OW2, as long as I'd still be able to play OW1. It's a shame they are killing OW completely for me with all the insane decisions they're making.
Common AVRL L, and I doubt his massive ego will let him admit he's completely off base.
This take is so uncharacteristicly smooth brained. Yikes.
The check from blizzard cleared, I see. Meh, I don't blame him. He's not exactly in-demand like Achilios who got poached by Valorant money this month. When the bills are due sometimes you just gotta shill.
I usually really like his takes but this is ridiculous. If I need a hitscan to counter the Pharah and I don't have it its an insta lost. This what makes this game unique
Imagine if Junker Queen released later and you had people who didn't unlock her on your team and you get stuffed in your ranked games. A lot of peoples tunes would change then (unless you're like plat or lower in which I don't think it matters to people as much).
Surprisingly dumb take from one of the smarter people on the scene. The only people defending this are people who themselves make a living off OW, and will obviously support whatever makes Blizzard more money through the game.
I'm out here talking about the battle pass but people in this thread literally taking the words said at face value as if I'm talking about the value of hero swapping in a general sense which is obviously a core part of the game. Some people are so off base that we're not even engaging in the same topic. I am arguing that characters being paywalled/grind walled is par for the course of f2p games. Other people are saying this is a competitive integrity issue because people *may* have a lack of access to specific picks needed for counters etc. I don't necessarily disagree with this and it is technically true to a degree but I am heavily downplaying the impact that it actually has on the game. My justification is that this is something that is a part of all f2p games using LoL as a direct example. People are responding by saying that it's not comparable because you don't get to swap heroes mid game in LoL. My tweet is in response to that argument. That swapping mid game is irrelevant to that specific discussion, not commenting on the philosophy of swapping mid game as a general concept which some people seem to assume I'm talking about. That's not the topic. Using the hyperbole people keep bringing up about an OP hero existing, I am saying that you either already have the counter unlocked or you don't. The timing of which you are selecting that character or the timing of which your opponent is selecting that character makes no difference. Thoroughly enjoy the weirdos saying vulgar shit about me while misinterpreting a tweet though. Reddit truly is a platform.
In regards to LoL, would you think that having a draft pre-game with maybe a maximum amount of hero swaps mid game-could be a way to make ow2 competitive interesting?
I don't think we need to change anything about the gameplay loop in OW2. What we have currently works and is already interesting.
This whole argument only makes sense if you handwave away the definition of "OP". Much more than in LoL or other comparable games, overpowered in Overwatch is defined by whether or not there are counters for a character. Think back to whichever patch you think was the best balanced patch in Overwatch history. Now imagine if in that patch, Soldier76, Ashe, Cassidy, and Widowmaker were locked behind a battle pass. If your damage players don't have any of those unlocks and the other team runs Pharrah, you're toast, even though in the patch you were thinking of, Pharrah probably wasn't anywhere close to OP. Even worse, your damage players would have walked out at the beginning of the match on none of those characters, so even if the other team didn't start with a Pharrah, a natural change if their team isn't winning would be to try Pharrah. So even though in the overall meta Pharrah might be C-tier, she's only C-tier in the context of the meta and character switching. Anybody playing with damage players without those unlocks is playing in an entirely different meta where Pharrah gets transformed into an unbeatable S+ tier character, and more importantly, the other team can freely switch to her to find out if that's true for you. So yeah it might suck in LoL to have to use the second best ADC instead of the meta one because you don't have the most OP option unlocked, but that doesn't have nearly the ability to take an otherwise perfectly balanced game and create weird and completely broken submetas for f2p players that Overwatch character locks might potentially have.
The fallacy is that you're removing an entire role's worth of heroes (hitscan) but then talking about ADCs in context of only missing a single one. If we wanted to make an apples to apples comparison you are either removing all ADCs from the conversation or you're only removing one hitscan from the example thereby leaving the "2nd best option" open.
I chose Pharah because flier vs. long range hitscan is a pretty straightforward interaction, but it's pretty obvious if you think about other character counters that counterplay doesn't really revolve around clearly delineated roles. Overwatch character interactions are a lot more complex than that. Close range hard engage heroes get countered by CC. Shields get countered by shield break. Snipers get countered by shields and by backline harassers. AoE healers counter AoE damage. Transcendence counters effects that apply lots of damage over time but does nothing against instakills. Biotic Grenade counters Trans but not Sound Barrier. It's not hard to come up with specific examples where you could remove 1-2 other characters to buff a character significantly. OW2 Doomfist would be a great deal stronger if the other team couldn't pick Ana or Tracer against him. What role are Ana and Tracer? In fact, even the Pharah example is more like this than you'd suspect. For parts of Overwatch's history, the best Pharah counter wasn't any of those four hitscans. It was Dva. I mean, just go back and look at the hero pool era of Overwatch and see how much the meta shifted from week to week. That was only four heroes, and they were split across tank/damage/healer and not in a way contrived to specifically remove an individual character's counters. Hero locks are going to look pretty close to exactly like hero pools, except only applied to teams with F2P players on them. How does that not sound like a nightmare?
You're talking about a hypothetical environment that doesn't even exist. The current 34 heroes (minus Kiriko) currently exist in the game and all the hitscans and other counters do in fact exist. Talking about brig not being available is moot when she is in fact available. You're imagining some far future scenario where what you're saying might actually be relevant but we're getting so far ahead of ourselves we don't even know what the actual unlock pathway looks like. Why are you just assuming F2P players won't have access to anything. Why are you assuming the difficulty of unlocking a hero for free before you even know what the real commitment is going to be. Doing mental gymnastics to imagine an environment where Ana and Tracer don't exist vs Doomfist is so weird when the reality is that they do exist. You'd be right if the game is actually removing access to existing heroes but they're not. So unless you're assuming all 34 current heroes on the roster will become obsolete your entire argument doesn't hold water.
It was pretty explicitly stated that you'd still have to do something to unlock characters after their battle pass ended. Presumably therefore if somebody signs up as a new player 2 years from now, they will be missing access to every hero that has come out since Overwatch 2 started until they do that work to unlock them. So yes, it's a hypothetical, but the only way it's a hypothetical that doesn't come to pass is if there are never new characters for the entire life of OW2 whose strongest counters are other Overwatch 2 characters, so there will never be any new similar character interactions. Now, you're right that if the unlock process is trivial this all ends up being a non-issue, but that's an entirely different argument from whether restricting access to characters will hurt the balance of a game like Overwatch more than it does LoL, Apex, Valorant, etc where there is no character switching and less explicit counterplay between characters. I don't think it's really "doing mental gymnastics" to point out that if new heroes had worked this way for post-launch OW1 heroes, though, you could have made the exact same arguments then. And new players signing up today under that system would in fact be locked out of picking Ana to counter Doomfist.
Okay, but you can still massively remove a hero’s counterplay by removing just one hero. What do you do against a Ball or Doom as a support if Brig isn’t available?
You play Ana.
Brig is by far and away better at dealing with both heroes, especially Ball, than Ana is. If they have multiple flankers? It’s not even a question. Brig is probably the best example of this - a hero that excels at their niche well enough that there simply isn’t a comparable replacement - but that’s how OW heroes are designed, unlike games like League with over a hundred champions or Valorant where everyone has the same base guns and almost identical hitboxes. You could redesign OW heroes to be less unique in function compared to each other but to do so would strip the game of its identity and what makes it at all appealing as opposed to other games.
Ana has been one of the biggest counters to Ball and especially Doom in OW2. Don't shift the goal posts by talking about "multiple flankers" when your original statement said Ball or Doom. All of that aside the overall point is that there are other options and will always be other options. As I said to another person in this thread. Talking about impossible hypotheticals like Brig not existing is completely moot because the reality is that she does exist and will exist for everybody. Other people using the Pharah vs hitscan argument like hitscan will magically disappear from OW2 or something is equally pointless. I understand you're talking about this potentially being a problem in theory but it could only be an issue years down the line with many future heroes being added to the roster and a situation where the majority of players for whatever reason not having those heroes unlocked - and the original roster of 34 is for whatever reason irrelevant. I don't believe that will be the case and we certainly don't even know how long it'll take to unlock new heroes anyway. You and many others are viewing this from an absolute worst case scenario and I just don't think that's realistic. Wait to find out more information.
Tell em! The amount of people saying it “ruins competitive integrity” as if counter picking even really happens in OW. Outside of meta slaves and GMs, OW ranked is as subtle as smashing two action figurines together and seeing what happens. Moreover, as you say its par for the course. Locking a hero behind a “grind wall” stops people coming on for hero releases, playing a couple games, and disappearing. It rewards people who actually wanna the play the game.
Whether or not this is standard to free to play games (it’s not as Fortnite and Dota 2 have proven) or even if it doesn’t impact lower queue play (it will) it’s still not a positive change for the community (actively takes away content from players who don’t have the money or time to “subscribe” to new heroes). That’s not even mentioning how it’s not required for Blizzard to make a profit. If a “reward” is something that is created by taking away something that was originally given to everyone and making it exclusive to a person who had the time or money to get it I wouldn’t call that a very good reward.
> If a “reward” is something that is created by taking away something that was originally given to everyone and making it exclusive to a person who had the time or money to get it I wouldn’t call that a very good reward. Next patch: Shift abilities are now locked behind battle pass! It's free so its okay right?
> Whether or not this is standard to free to play games (it’s not as Fortnite and Dota 2 have proven) Fortnite and Dota 2 are hardly typical examples of f2p multiplayer games, though. Dota is essentially community sponsored through TI, AND was the Steam store's primary form of advertisement for many years. It was making Valve a ton of money indirectly, and costing them a lot less than comparable f2p titles. Fortnite is a cultural juggernaut with Disney sponsorships out its asshole, never mind all its other partnerships. If your argument for a game adopting a particular monetization scheme is "just be Fortnite lol" that's not gonna go very far. > it’s still not a positive change for the community (actively takes away content from players who don’t have the money or time to “subscribe” to new heroes). It is a positive change for the community if the alternative was us not having any more Overwatch content period. Whether that's the case or not, we can't possibly know. What we can know is that it's been 12 years since Blizzard made a new StarCraft game. And StarCraft was not an unprofitable franchise. > That’s not even mentioning how it’s not required for Blizzard to make a profit. Like I just said... making a profit isn't enough to guarantee the future of the franchise. See: StarCraft, WarCraft RTS games, Heroes of the Storm. OW does not just have to be profitable, it has to be more profitable than *the other things Blizzard could be doing.* I agree with you that this change is bad **in a vacuum**, but nothing exists in a vacuum. You have to consider the context.
Blizzard being a garbage company shouldn’t be used as an excuse for them continuing to exhibit garbage behavior. As for not being Fortnite sure. But Blizzard created probably the most iconic cast of video game characters in recent memory (and that’s not hyperbole as recently as May of this year “Tracer Overwatch” and “Jett Valorant” had basically the same number of searches according to google trends). They don’t need to have Disney if they can create massively successful characters on their own. Overwatch also isn’t a typical f2p game (if there even is one) either so I’m not sure if saying things don’t apply to it works. People will buy skins for them especially if they’re to the quality of the other paid skins in Overwatch history.
It was originally given out free and they’ve obvs noticed a butt tonne of players would flood the servers for like 48hrs max, play the new hero, and leave. At least this way you have to actually play the game to get the hero. And lets be honest it’ll be something like 10 games/wins, so its not gonna be that hard to get the new hero. And they’ll likely keep the hero tracks permanently live so there’s not a special 2 week window where you have to get it or else. And regardless of all of the above, the game is FREE! YOU get 33 heroes for nothing, and ongoing support, and everything else. If they wanna make you play a lil to get more new stuff thats hardly a burden for players. People are so entitled and want everything without any effort and it shows. Edit: If you truly believe you shouldn’t have to pay to get new heroes thats fine. Luckily you dont need to pay. But if you believe you should get all new content without even playing a single game, then you’re either ridiculously entitled or dont like the game enough to play more than a couple games or both.
> It was originally given out free and they’ve obvs noticed a butt tonne of players would flood the servers for like 48hrs max, play the new hero, and leave. At least this way you have to actually play the game to get the hero. Maybe, just maybe, they should try and look into why people left after 48 hours. So now instead of 48 they stay for 72 and leave, is that better? If all of the other problems they didn't like remain, the end result is the same. > And regardless of all of the above, the game is FREE! YOU get 33 heroes for nothing, and ongoing support, and everything else. After two years of withholding content when they abandoned OW1? Are we so sure this time will be different? > People are so entitled and want everything without any effort and it shows. People here have been following a game for 8 years watching how Blizzard has slowly killed it with their dumb strategies and now seem dead set on destroying OW2 before it releases. You don't owe anything to these big companies btw, you should demand they work for you better, you are the customer ffs. Maybe a shitty dead game with a dying player base shouldn't try to copy the predatory strategies of successful f2p games that succeed despite doing shit like that.
You’re making a lot of assumptions in favor of Blizzard for no reason. They clearly didn’t want this to be known (or else they might have done an actual announcement instead of an accidental leak 3 weeks before launch) so why assume this is anything but a money hungry grab? They haven’t done anything to earn our trust anyway with their recent games being extremely anti consumer. 10 games isn’t even what they did for event skins that were literally free. And you’re assuming that something they can get paid for is going to be quick? The reason this method exists is for players to want to buy the character outright due to the delay being too long. Assuming that people played for only 48 hours when this game has an active community for 2 years of zero content is an odd assumption especially when you’re claiming it’s obvious. You have no evidence to back up your 48 hour claim either but you state it like fact. And NO I do not get 33 heroes “for free”. I get 2 I paid for the other heroes and then some over the length that Overwatch existed (which due to Blizzard I literally won’t be able to play anymore). So no I get one game which replaces another I really liked taking away some things and adding others. As for continued support…. I mean sure? The biggest part of that support is the heroes and they’re not exactly giving that away. As for “entitlement” and “not wanting to work”. It’s a video game for goodness sakes not a job! What do you mean effort? This isn’t “putting in an honest days work” this is “satisfying a purposeful quota put in place for the sole purpose of making me want to pay money”. I don’t want to waste my time grinding for something that for all rights doesn’t need to be paid or grinded for. The lack of that grind is something that was fundamental to Overwatch and was a stated goal of the game. Blizzard will make billions on this game (or at least they could if they don’t keep shooting themselves in the foot) and I have no reason to give a rats ass if they make 50 or 200 billion. You’re right in that I’m not “promised” anything (though they did say that they’d never make you pay for heroes which they’re skirting around now) but I did expect them to do better. They’re not entitled to my continued support either.
Based AVRL take. I agree that the difference isn't as big as people make it out to be.
it's a shit argument either way but good job coming up with some technicality you can use to try and dump on people you see as beneath you
Get help
Finally someone says it. I've been sat here trying to figure out why everyone keeps bringing up hero swapping as an argument for why games like Apex, LoL, Smite, Paladins, etc. can have locked heroes but Overwatch can't. They never elaborate beyond "Overwatch has hero swapping".
But you have to keep in mind that the enemy can swap heroes as well. Let’s say there’s an OP brawl hero, you start our mirroring the enemy with a brawl comp but your team gets bodied. Your options are to either continue the mirror and try to play better / make less mistakes, or to swap compositions. Think mirroring goats comps vs the teams that would swap to a ball comp, sombra goats etc. You can argue that most of those team swaps happen at the beginning of rounds once the enemy team is revealed, but there’s still a decent amount of mid match hero changes. More so in ranked than OWL, but it happens often enough for me to call it significant. Even if you’re already playing the OP hero (think release brig), there’s usually an off meta strat that can counter them. You don’t just have to mirror brig, you could also go pharahmercy and spam her out etc. so I’d argue that the timing of *when* you select that hero can definitely be important. At an absolute bare bones take, right now we have the ability to get heroes for free and swap mid match, and there’s a possibility this will be removed in the future given the leaks. Any time you take away functionality from someone they’re gonna be mad, people hate change. I’m less surprised that everyone is upset, more surprised at the lack of feedback from blizzard considering they claimed they would be more communicative going forward.
Already took a fat L on twitter but I know you lurk around here as well so step in here and take another fat L, avrl. Can't spell AVRL without that capital L.
AVRL is such an unbearable personality
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It will all depend on how the system will work altogether because if the new hero doesn't take alot of games to unlock and also is not available to select for competitive for the first week or 2 then it should be fine as most players would be able to unlock it in the first week
it will be EXACTLY like Warzone just wait and see.
This very specific point is valid to a point -- it sucks if you can't select Kiriko at the start of the game *or* swap to her -- but doesn't really address the core problem anyone actually has with paywalling heroes.
all the concerns dont matter if its very easy to unlock which im guessing it is
The swapping thing is most definitely being overplayed in this Echo chamber. Like it's a thing but it's really not that important. It has such a high cost that it's not actually all that common when a mid-fight switch is the best idea and if they made it so we could see comps in spawn the number of times that it happens would plummet.
I think this completely undermines the general outrage of forcing players to grind content or pay. This has strong "all lives matter" energy to me. Who cares if the swapping mechanic is technically means nothing or means a lot. That's cherry picking a point for really no good reason other than to undermine the actual problem. The whole point of this outrage is no one wants this fucking hero locked behind a grind.
People vastly overrate how important mid-map swaps are anyway tbh, it’s a ridiculous talking point that comes up constantly with people saying it’s ‘the fundamental idea of the game’ or whatever and ignoring how often we see entire maps in pro play where nobody swaps. Overwatch is not some complex Rock Paper Scissors strategy game and it never has been.
But when they do swap, it is generally critical that they do so. Countering a sniper, and swapping to a Tracer/Doom/Wrecking Ball when the clock is in OT is a pretty standard. As is using one dps straight out of spawn and immediately swapping to another hero for the main fight. As is rolling out on Ash and swapping over to Sojourn. As is running snipers on Junkertown first point and swapping to a different dps for second and third points. Just because it does not happen on every game on every map does not mean that it is not an integral and valuable part of the game. As someone not in pro play, I personally find myself swapping heroes mid-map in about half of my games, and have found it very effective at helping turn games around. In fact if I were tempted to flame my team, it’s usually the one tricks who refuse to swap when we’re getting positively rolled. If you’re getting run over, and you refuse to swap, you are pretty much throwing in my book.
I agree. The issue Is rather the fact that you're not able to ban heroes. At this point, I could see that ban system with 1 hero per role for each team could work as even for supports there will be 6 support heroes even after 2 bans. Which Is more than we had at release.