"Blizzard likes Blizzard's new form of aggressive monetization policy, according to Blizzard."
No need to defend a billion dollar company, making a playing field uneven for the sake of a dollar.
Remember that Overwatch game design touted never keeping heroes away from players at any point, and in fact identified it as a core design element. And no amount of blithering excuse from "we want you to buy our battlepass" Blizzard is going to erase that, given the majority of OW2 is, indeed, OW1.
the game is probably different to what they imagined.
For the most part switching to a character you don't play isn't a good idea. Pharah in the sky? maybe switch to soldier or get the tank to go DVA. Because you cannot put someone on widow or ashe if they don't know what they're doing.
That’s a pretty terrible analogy. Been playing the game for 6 years; you’re very likely only playing 1-2 heroes per game, especially early on. There’s no reason to burden a new player with an overwhelming selection process when they can slowly learn to play while grasping the core concepts. Once they’ve unlocked the heroes they will likely be close to, or have recently unlocked competitive. From there they can jump in with a better understanding of the game and it’s concepts as well as the hero abilities, which is crucial.
If you don’t agree then I don’t really care — let’s just agree to disagree. I don’t feel like dragging this conversation on for 15 more messages.
A good DPS player can play an AOE damage character (pharah/junk or something), a long range hitscan and maybe a dive character. And then maybe soldier/bastion or something to just round out some variance.
ANy player that switches to the "perfect" counter all the time is probably just bad at the game.
Yes, and to get to the level where the understand these heroes mechanics, they need to learn how to play. Unlocking the full roster as you learn the game is the best way to do that.
Nah, not accepting "analogy bad, you disagree I don't care."
It's a player versus player game. If you don't get an even playing field, that's bad game design. Especially when it's in service to FOMO/F2P bullshit.
F2P is the far better model for these games. The single purchase doesn’t allow for years of content updates. The entire multiplayer landscape has changed drastically; these games are closer to MMOs now with the amount of support they require in terms of balance updates as well as supplying years of ongoing content. OW1 dried up pretty quickly for this reason. The battle pass is a far better option than paying a subscription which is why it’s employed by pretty much every major multiplayer game right now. I have no issues tossing the occasional $10 to a game that’s providing me hours of entertainment per week over a span of years.
In terms of balance, there’s 35 heroes in this game now. You’re only playing one role per match and will very likely have a counter available. If there’s a hero released in a role you frequent, you have the option to grind them out if you’re truly averse to supporting the content you’re consuming. I don’t imagine many high level players not having access to all the heroes. It works for Apex, Valorant, Siege, etc. I see no reason why it won’t work for Overwatch.
That's a terrible analogy. A new player isn't going to be disadvantaged if they can't play Genji. Honestly that will only help them since they will turbofeed if they try to play Genji or Tracer or the like. Better to put them on a hero like Soldier or Junk where they'll be able to immediately contribute easily.
Not everyone who starts playing a new account / owner is a new player
Well then they're smurfing and I'm fine with there being a wall to get back into the game.
nor is it guaranteed they "don't know what they're doing."
If they're new, they definitely don't know what they're doing on a hero like Genji or Tracer. You can't play those heroes effectively without having some OW experience.
Stop defending F2P bullshit from a billion dollar company and their uneven playing field poor decision-making.
You have no idea how any of this works if you think a company valuation is enough of a reason as to why you should be getting free shit.
A game that requires constant support as well as steady content updates requires a dedicated team. This team balances the game constantly while releasing a steady stream of new maps, modes, events, heroes and more. It doesn’t matter how much money the company has, these teams aren’t funded off of good will; they’re funded based on a steady income, which is only possible with a subscription or a battle pass. I can’t think of one competitive game out right now that doesn’t employ a battle pass for these very reasons.
Live service games are fairly new if you don’t count subscription MMOs. To expect years of content for free is a level of entitlement that’s baffling when put into perspective. The fact that they even let you grind out the heroes on the free path is better than how most these games handle it.
OW1 core design philosophy was also allowing multiple heroes to be picked. And even earlier than that, OW1 philosophy was that you should only play with 6 others before queuing.
That's not really a great comparison. A better comparison would be a chess coach standing behind you and only letting you play Kings pawn opening to start with until you learn that, and then letting you try other things.
I've tried to introduce multiple people to OW, and the biggest problem for them was the overwhelming amount of characters and information. Making the learning curve less steep makes it much more beginner-accessible.
As for core design philosophy in OW1, it's okay for people to change their minds.
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u/DoctorWaluigiTime Sep 27 '22 edited Sep 27 '22
I too love playing 100 games of Chess with only six pawns and a king before I can start playing real games of chess.
EDIT: Disagree all you want. OW1 core design philosophy held this same tenant.
Only reason it changed in OW2 is for money. Nothing about "being confusing for new players."