Seriously, if any of you guys have any insight about peaks of enjoyment + valleys of frustration vs. a more even competitive experience, I'd love to know.
Apparently it’s worse to have higher highs -> lower lows but it has a lot to do with expectations. You expect to get ice cream and you’re super exited -> the ice cream place is closed / your parents take you to the dentist lol. That low you feel is lower than if you didn’t get ice cream at all or just randomly checked if the ice cream place was open, but found out it was closed, because you had the expectation to go. A way to deal with this is to lower expectations. If you go in expecting nothing, then when nothing happens it’s no surprise and the crash doesn’t happen. For OW classic that could be “this map is defensive af, it’s gonna suck for our attack but our defense will feel good” so you don’t expect your attack to feel good. Idk how this plays into balance just wanted to give my shot at the peaks and troughs.
i like a more even competitive experience, which means i like more versatile and perhaps more homogenized heroes. but i dislike when that's achieved through free value and thoughtless abilities (examples in ow2: hog vape, lifeweaver heal on dash, ram nemesis block, all of torb's kit, etc) anything you can mess up adds nuance which is a huge portion of what makes heroes fun to play over and over in an effort to improve
I think peaks of enjoy is better because the lower is almost the same on any format ( a thrower, a troll, a team swep where You can do shit) so having the oportunity to get a better experience is the Best
I'm not even close to a psychologist, but my take is that higher highs and lower lows is better. Those higher highs almost become an addiction. You want to chase those great highs again. Whereas I feel like you're more likely to become apathetic or indifferent to those medium highs. Like, sure that felt great, but is it really worth playing just to get that slight high every now and then? An example I can give is Bloodborne. It's my favorite game of all time. It's known for having really high highs when it comes to boss fights (Gherman, Ludwig, Lady Maria, Orphan of Kos, and more), but it also has some extremely low lows when it comes to boss fights (Rom, Micolash, One Reborn etc.). But despite all those lows, I absolutely love the game to the point where I don't even care about those lows. The highs are worth the lows. And I know Bloodbrone is a single-player, non competitive game, but I feel the same way. Massive highs are worth sacrificing slight competitiveness imo
Mei’s freeze time and overall hero identity along with other heroes, is what made OW1 so fun. It feels like YOUR skill, timing, and positioning ACTUALLY matter. And mistakes are punished. Most fun I’ve had in a while, no lie lol.
Yeah I had a game last night with junkrat where I mined on to the hanamura high ground and used riptire from directly on top of the enemy. I killed 4-5 people. The mercy rezzes everyone and we lost the game. I took an off angle, at a good timing, and positioned in a way I could abuse the strengths of my ult while also maybe not dying. They clumped up into a small corner right outside their spawn room and let a junkrat pipe them from high ground, they also didn't notice me using loud bombs to send myself flying directly over their heads. Like 5-6 people on their team made every basic overwatch mistake all at once and not only got away but won the game lol. I'm not saying OW2 isnt broken but 2016 OW had some WAY more broken stuff, hands down. Like bruh I'm literally hooking genjis behind me XD.
One of the problems with high highs and low lows is that we humans don't equate these two things, even if they objectively equal. Meaning, a really high high doesn't negate a low low. We don't feel satisfied that it gets balanced. We feel the low lows as if they are much lower than the highs. Therefore, there is always this feeling that you are getting robbed in some way, or that something isn't fair. Another example would be about percentages of success in gaming. Pretend you are playing a game where you have two ships fighting each other. Let's say that when you shoot the other ship, there is a 70% chance that your hit is successful and does damage. That also means that you miss 30% of the time. Human beings hate failing, so that 30% feels way more than 30%. It feels unfair and you might chuck your remote on the ground when you miss. Knowing this, what a game designer might do is tell you (the player) that it has a 70% success rate, but in actuality, in the programming code, they set the number at a 95% success rate. What is fascinating about this is that the player will NEVER question that they are only missing 5% of the time when they are told they should miss 30%. Human beings don't like feeling that things are unfair and we are simultaneously bad at discerning what is fair or not.
I disagree with your statement that we feel low lows as lower than high highs. That fact is actually the entire point of gambling. You will remember the win much much better than all of the losses.
@@PoeticMistakesthis is the perfect counterpoint to this argument. Gambling has the lowest of lows that everyone is aware of but millions and millions of people still gamble
@@PoeticMistakes it's a studied thing we feel negatives more. It's why a mean comment for many sticks in the mind more than the one million nice comments. In the retrospect when things are over for things we love we may remember those highs better but at least in the immediate or when it affects something on going like a project you're working on you feel those negatives adding up much more than the positives. I.e. an active project with alot of feedback with constant changes as opposed to something one and done.
@@PoeticMistakes That's because in gambling the highs are higher than the lows are low. You put in one dollar, get back five, or, you lose the one dollar. In the case where you win you get 500% back, and it feels much better than losing 100%. There are also several other factors to consider: the impacts of addiction, gambling culture, societal normalization, etc.
@@jennysipher3839 This is a big point people are missing. This high highs in gambling are nowhere near the low lows. That is actually how gambling tricks you into liking it: You can only lose so much, but you can more than double what you can lose.
I feel like the ability to change hero mid game was a staple in the game design process, with your thoughts of Sharp Edges, I feel that the whole point was that some sharpe edges are good against some heroes and some other sharp edges are made to directly deal with other sharp edges. I definitely feel that Genji and Tracer were developed quite a bit before Cass, and he seems to be an addition to the cast to directly deal with those heros.
The one thing that Overwatch classic really made me realize is that modern Overwatch has WAY too much healing. Despite the obvious flaws in balance of classic it really does feel good to have damage actually matter. In OW2 you can pump 1000 damage into a tank and watch their healthbar not even move, in classic you hit one ability and it actually matters. Healthpacks and the payload heals are suddenly way more important. Classic might be too far in the opposite direction but in current OW2 especially post season 9, numbers are just so drastically inflated that it really feels like it dumbs down the game. I really almost feel like you could just take almost every source of healing in the game and reduce it by something like 50% and the game would feel way better to play.
As someone who played Mercy then and plays Mercy now, I see the main issue being that every character has a healing passive. This means that if my DPS gets shot, I don't need to care because they will heal back up automatically anyway, so I can keep pumping heals on the tank and they will never die. In OW1, you need to juggle the whole team all the time so even if the character technically outputs more healing per second, it needs to get more spread out. They need to get back to this, imo.
The thing that this points out very clearly to me is that in old OW positioning was key and with how strong healing has become over the years it started to matter less and less. There was no threat in OW2 that could destroy Orisa or Sigma for standing out in the open. I enjoyed old overwatch more cuz it felt like my impact mattered. If you died you knew why it happened, "i was standing out in the open and got bodied by widow." Or whatever.
As someone who's played OW since its beta, this initial iteration of the game is obviously rough compared to what we have now in OW2. Even with role lock. A lot of people's nostalgia comes from the fact that the game was fun, novel, and people hadn't optimized the game at that point. As for the psychological aspect of this old form vs the current 5vs5 version, you're right that psychologists have figured out what's more effective, at least in education and learning. From what I learned from my psych degree, there needs to be just the right amount of challenge in a problem to promote motivation to learn (in this case, to play/problem solve). For example, the temple of Anubis choke with the defenders advantage would be a poor example of that. It's not enough challenge for one side and too much of a hurdle for the other. While this kind of thing was fixed throughout OW1 history (like by reconstructing the whole "defense" character archetype), OW2 has less of these moments. In your dev QandA, they even said that OW1 design was originally thought to have this "line in the battlefield" that teams had to fight to hold or cross. Almost more like a tower defense game that was much more focused on tight teamplay. Like they've said, the philosophy has shifted massively since then. Having said this, I'm still a believer in 6vs6 if the devs can use what they've learned from OW2. I have to admit, I personally miss the teamplay that would come from 2 tanks and having those big moments of ult combos and so on (zarya offtank player here). Though, I still think it can also be done in OW2, with the correct adjustments to tanks and healing output. Thanks for inspiring these thoughts Spilo! Love your content!
The line you had about tower defense is SPOT ON! This is why I’m so adamant that 2cp was clearly intended to be a primary mode in overwatch. It’s so obvious, even the best map design is in 2cp. Sidelining it for other various modes in my opinion has only hurt the game. Because it no longer has that initial tower defense vision. It becomes run & gun, tug of war, or just something else entirely.
I think shifting away from that "line in the battlefield" sort of style doesn't discourage overcoming challenges or negates the reward of problem solving, it just changes the problems and challenges players perceive. Instead of looking at a line of defense and saying "how do I crack this (with my team)?" OW2 has a player ask questions like "what can I do about that server admin Widow?" or "how can I protect my team from this very aggressive Doomfist?" They basically swapped from a very methodical and team based problem solving approach to more of a hectic, individual one, and say what you will about it from a game design perspective, online competitive games need to allow for solo queue individual playmakers to keep player count up.
I think regardless of 5v5 or 6v6, modern OW could stand to slow down A LITTLE BIT, mobility creep is real. And if we go 6v6 I think leaning a bit more into the sharp corners is good, mostly because it can be hard to break through and create space and I personally like having more obvious win conditions that are baked into character design. "X char just used this, now I know I can punish that." This still exists in OW2 but I feel like most chars have a kit that is robust enough that even if they mess up a big CD, they can play there way out of the mistake.
long ramble ahead that may or may not be completely related... There is a pretty famous quote by one of the TF2 devs, basically saying TF2 was made like a "single player" game in a multiplayer environment. Teamplay happens almost accidentally by virtue of the different classes being limited in what they can do, and the enjoyment comes from being a cog in a machine so to speak. There's less space for individual impact, at least more so than the shooters that preceded tf2. Most class-based shooters follow this, even going to the extreme of Battlefield with its 64 and 128 player modes Overwatch in 2016 resembled more of that style of game, it was fundamentally casual even though teamplay was a primary focus, it mostly didn't happen as actively as people might've hoped. Then it slowly shifted to more flexible heroes, individual impact, competitiveness and active teamplay. I think it was mostly for the better, OW was already leaning into this competitive direction anyways, and it had to evolve to keep up with competitors like Apex, Varolant, Siege etc. where this is has been the standart, and they are all super successful games both commercially and as esports.
This mode kinda reminds me of Junkenstien's lab in the sense that everyone has broken OP abilities, so it just works in a weird way. And when you take away everyone's power and homogenise them, you start to lose a bit of that magic. I think we need a fun goofy mode in the game permanently to compliment the main sweaty mode.
This. I miss that kind of Overwatch where it was fun in a goofy way. Overwatch classic made me realize how serious the game has gotten. With the game now being more competitive, it is necessarily evil to keep everyone in line. Games, even in unranked modes, feels sweaty most of the time. This is coming from someone who rarely plays comp.
Everypne being broken is what keeps TF2 alive, everyone can just 2 tap you some way or another and even those who cant can still random crit for 1000 damage
@@ninthfriend3347 Last season I played a ton of comp and put a lot of time on Juno which was fun, but it really burnt me out for this season. But these silly modes have really been a nice change of pace and a break from that
@@Celtic_Mav This, this is why when I go back to TF2 I stick around for 2-3 months at a time enjoying the random goofy stuff that randomly happens Versus OW2, where I try the new thing for a day or 2 and fall off until the next thing happens. Been having a blast with classic rn
Pros and high ladder players have ruined the idea or OW imo. It was always meant to be fun. And recently, its lost a lot of the fun. 5v5 ruined the “fun” gamemodes because tanks are either useless or OP. Theres still a certain level of balance to fun game modes, 5v5 doesn’t compliment it because they were all made with weaker tanks in mind
the key takeaway ive had from overwatch classic is that i really enjoy a lower mitigation lower healing environment where a lot of the power creep dlc heroes are gone and a lot of the get out of jail free cards are gone and mistakes mean death. i do think the healing is too low in classic because ana doesnt exist, and lucio wallride being terrible is so unfortunate, as well as 8 years of missing quality of life updates but its really close to being a great time for me
I think your answer is highlighted in the words you used, when you were talking about min maxing OW classic. That’s why some people are having more fun with classic because it’s not an Uber competitive mode that is SUPPOSED to be min maxxed. It’s not as rounded as OW2, but people play classic because they just want to have fun with the distinct hero identities or maybe play their favorite hero. OW didn’t launch as a competitive game, and the freedom of choice gives people in classic a ton of fun if they aren’t so worried about winning every game with the optimal comp. Basically it’s fun because it’s not meant to be min maxxed strategically, it’s meant to be a fun mode to have fun.
This is unrelated to overwatch but on the broader topic of being blind to game design by nostalgia. This "old is better" topic comes up in fighting game discourse whenever a new entry into a big series comes out. "X street fighter/tekken/GG was the best and after that it fell off since they watered it down to appeal to casuals" being the general doomer sentiment. Obvious pros of patch culture aside I can empathize a bit with the loss in identity (angular strengths, which feel powerful but can be frustrating to face) but all and all speaking from a pure design perspective we've grown so much. Actual unwinable matchups and bloated wonky kits are largely a thing of the past (this means the death of joke characters but progress demands a price.), modern characters are now designed around certain defining strengths and have clear win conditions. I feel a lot of this carries over to movement based shooters generally and especially overwatch. Knowing how slow and questionable their balance choices were back in the 2010s and how much more basic a lot of these original character designs were is very eye opening as to how roleplaying games, regardless of genre evolve.
There's a lot of bad that comes with classic but honestly there's parts of it I certainly enjoy more. It is a really tough unbalanced mode, but there's something to be said about every kill feeling earned. Aside from mercy mass rez, there are no immortality abilities, so while there's a lot that certainly feels bad to play against, (some characters feel slow and clunky, others feel way too strong) it feels nice to earn my kill and make plays that end up getting value outside of forcing lamp, suzu, or whatever invulnerability.
The only consistent answer to "What's good game design?" is "it depends." The feeling Necros comes from a a sharpness and regaining of the characters identity. Genji melts people AND gets a busted blade. It's stupid and broken but it's cool and fufills the fantasy that Genji had in his mind. My main example for this would be Torb. Torb is interesting because his modern design fits a more competitive game but I know so many people annecdotely want his classic design back, level 3 turret and all. There can be a certain level of sharpness because that creates that "identity" that you're shying away from here. The reason classic is fun is because of those identities. Also something feeling bad doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. There's nothing more satisfying than breaking that bastion bunker off spawn and that comes from knowing how that motherfucker treated you, and now you've got their ass. I'm not saying we should go back to this, not even close, but classic is fun because these hero's haven't been sanded down. Limiting a players choices (in certain cases) makes for a more engaging experience. Genji has to be aware of his weakness to Winston and has to make sure the monkey is gone before he can counter dive - the Genji has been given less choices on when and how to engage but he's been given more to think about which makes finding the right answer all the more satisfying.
Classic, and ultimately 6v6, strongly highlights the difference in goals and ideals for both versions of the game. Overwatch 1 was very, very team oriented. Positioning, map awareness, cooldowns, ult tracking, all the facets of the game matter so much more. Overwatch 2 is about individual playmaking. You can get away with some cheeky angles or just outright being in the middle of nowhere sometimes because more likely than not, there's an ability that will either keep you up or get you out. I also think anyone that's using Classic as a judgement for how 6v6 would work is crazy. This is 2016 OW, this is not how the game was playing in like 2019-2020. Personally, I wish they dropped the game with the very last patch that Overwatch 1 had, because that's a far closer look at 6v6. People forget that until role lock, it was like a 40-50% chance you were getting either 1 or no supports on your team EVEN IN COMP. People just didn't like playing the role (that's what got us OW2). Classic has been pretty fun though when you don't take it seriously. If they have 2 Widows, fuck it lock in 6 Winston. Dorado defense? Pick like 3 Symms and setup the car wash. The game just feels like it has so much more freedom, but you can definitely tell there's no real competitive nature to it.
I personally a fan of the more consistent experience, while the most fun I have had in this game is probably with less structured open queue, most of the time it just ends up being 4 DPS 1 Support and it feels awful and almost hopeless. At the end of the day, I just want to boot up Overwatch and know exactly what I am going to get.
ive always preferred the ups and downs and sharper edges (even though they were far too sharp in early overwatch) that characterised ow1 for essentially its whole existence over the relative sameness of overwatch 2, where it really feels like most characters, most maps, most teamfights, most team compositions and metas, all play out the same on a macro level. i think the main cause of the really samey gameplay is all the 5v5 super tanks with free mitigation, which paradoxically also causes really sharp edges for tank players as the rock paper scissors becomes way too intense. my personal opinion is the right balance between ups and downs, dynamic gameplay, and consistent games was had around 2021 and 2022 ow1
I think the core issue is that you expect there to be one true answer to your questions. But Overwatch is played by people, people are emotional and may enjoy things that are not objectivly logical. Back in the day in TFC and TF2, 90% of the games I played was on 24/7 2fort servers. I loved the stalemate, I loved turtling and I loved trying to crack the enemy line. It probably comes as no surprise that I am a 2cp enjoyer. From a competitive viewpoint, you would logically argue against stalemates, you would to reward skill expression. And I feel that is the route that OW has taken throughout its history. It tried balancing from a competitive viewpoint. And by doing so, they have lost MANY casual players who found their own joy in the jank that is classic OW. These past few days, I have played OW:Classic non stop, and it is probably the most joy I have felt playing this OW in perhaps the past 4 years. Based on comments online, I do believe I am not alone. And I believe we have seen a similar enjoyment with a section of the playerbase of the junkenstein event that prioritised the experience over competitive balance.
I feel it was better when support kits were more oriented to damage or utility like Lucio or zen the amount of bail out abilities or healing dump is the main factor contributing to high ttk and little amount of elims.
People forget that for almost all of OW1, several heroes were just a throw pick. In OW2, there may be suboptimal picks on some maps. But in OW1, you often lost games in the spawn room. Especially pre role lock, but even after as well.
Throw picks are going to exist. Saying OW2 doesnt have throw picks is really just changing the word. The games shift to a more deathmatch style of gameplay just means caring/relying on anyone to really pick anything. Your comp is just more ass as a result at times so someone of the 5 has to really pick up that slack. If you got LW Mercy then DPS have to pop off twice as hard while tank works twice as hard to not take damage as an example. Its still throw picks but much less obvious to the average player so they dont complain.
Not what I experienced back then at all, its only a throw pick if the person who chose a certain character didnt put value. Like how hanzo was a throw pick, yet he was to carry in the right hands. I do not recall being stomped as badly as I do now in OW2. One persons incompetence can equal a loss, unlike overwatch1 where you can compensate with your own skill.
I think a lot of that has to do with player knowledge. Back in the day Torb, Symmetra, and even Hanzo was considered throw picks. But even then, I remember we had some dedicated mains that would really pop off with those heroes. Playing classics again today, I would say those heroes are not throw picks at all, and they are the same heroes design/stats. The only thing that has changed is that people have learned how to play these heroes. Torb and Symmetra especially are position heavy and knowing where to place turrets to get maximum effectiveness. Symmetra is about getting that teleporter setup in a place that is close to the objective, but not easy to find. I had some big games in classics where I absolutely dominated with these heroes. I can do that now because I know how to play those characters, whereas back then not so much. Hanzo is another character where people are just mechanically better at playing the hero. Also a lot of the maps have changed, so we're playing day 1 OW1 heroes with modern day iterations of these maps.
I started playing around the release of Ashe in ow1, so I don't really have that much nostalgia for this version of the game. Something which I really noticed and really liked was how rare healing is compared to the power crept version of the game I've always played, it makes the game feel like TF2. Both teams usually only had one support on our team (not counting symetra), and that meant that when I had a duel it was mostly in my own hands. In the later version of the game, where healing is everywhere, every fight involves a support. I can deal more damage to my opponent, but if they have more heals/negations they win the duel. This makes winning or loosing a fight for dps or tanks feel random and causes the blame game, as well as making team fights last forever. There were times in OW classic where the enemy I was trying to kill got pocketed by mercy, but since that means that the rest of the team is not getting healed it still feels fair. 40% of the players dishing out lots of AOI healing and two negation cooldowns being cycled just feels so bad in comparison. To get this feeling in the live game I think we should have max one support per team, and give dps a passive where they regain health when they get elims. With one support per team the support cannot be everywhere all the time. This would mean people aren't reliant on supports constantly keeping their health up, but actually feel responsible when they loose the duel. The other option is to nerf supports, and take away all that power creep from the last six years. That is an option, but that would make supports feel useless and unfun, and since 40% of the players in a game need to play support we would have massive que time issues.
imo the support power creep could be adressed with a big set of reworks where they gear them away from healing and towards utility but they wont do that.if healing was a rare resource and only certain characters even had it (im thinking smth like ana, moira, mercy, lw and illari) then a character having healing is a boon on its own, which is good for the characters who "only" heal for their support. ana would still need some tweaks to not completely dominate the meta, but moving certain supports to utility over heals per second makes them a lot more interesting in my opinion, especially now all characters can self heal passively. theres so much nuance to it i think it could be yet another endless debate, but i hope the ideas are interesting
The way I look at it is that we remember the high's way more than the low's but we feel the lows far more than the high's in the moment. We all remember that game where we popped off or had great synergy but we don't remember the next game where our tank was throwing. The counter to this is that in the moment we feel the lows way more than the high's. I have had amazing games and then had awful games right after each other and the awful game felt way worse. I think this dynamic leads to "peaky" game design seeming better when looking back on it but being less fun as an active game. To back this up I have seen a ton of people say they were excited for classic and then play it and realize why so many things were changed. While the peaks are amazing the second to second, game to game experience is worse than smoother game design. This is also in my opinion part of the reason so many people like 6v6 since it provides higher peaks than 5v5 and people forget the very low lows. Anyway that's just my thoughts
I definitely see the peaks and valleys in OW Classic. The wins feel amazing, and the losses feel horrendous. Had a Kings Row attack where the enemy was all Widow for A, then swapping to all Bastion by C, and it was a constant struggle. Our team went through many hero swaps, counter picks, ult combinations. By the end the win didn't feel as great, and was so taxing we took a break. I think 6v6 can work; it just needs these softer edges. No one was asking for 1.0 6v6, but I believe the ability for players old and new to experience where it started is necessary. Tweak the damage and healing numbers, boost health, give some mobility to these heroes, change the kit again, self healing passive, etc. Blizzard can find a way to make both team sizes viable in core gameplay. I also really wanted to play old 6v6 in the new modes, Push, Flashpoint, and Clash for fun.
A friend recently sent me one of your videos, that's how I came across your channel. I came back to OW2 earlier this spring, around March I would guess, after quitting OW1 somewhere just after Echo had gotten released. Played a tiny bit of OW2 on release but only for a week, then quit because of the Blizzard drama and the game just not clicking with me. I will admit, I absolutely adore OW2 in it's current state. I think it's a phenomenal PvP game at the core and have very little things I would wanna change about the concept as a whole. Watching your videos help me get a broader perspective on things, especially since you're a coach and so well versed in a lot of things mechanically and so on. I peaked 3.3k Diamond in OW1 as Genji onetrick (mostly didn't climb higher 'cause I stopped trying as hard) but I still learn so much when I watch your videos. Even videos like this one are super interesting because I think there is a lot of things to be learned from having these sort of conversations. So from someone who's been subbed for only a few weeks: Keep up the great work, man! Loving all the content u put out! ♥ PS. I don't really know if I have any interesting insight about peaks of enoyment + valleys of frustation. The only thing I can contribute to that would be that I think it's very important to make sure the valleys of frustration are not too low or you risk losing players. But you also sometimes need that frustration because some people (me for example) use that frustration in trying to learn and get better, and that in turn can lead to some potential peaks of enjoyment further down the line!
It's a really interesting mode to compare and contrast what we have now versus what it was, I play a lot of junkrat and he seems completely horrible to me in ow1, the lack of mobility the clunkier bomb projectile speed etc, however a character like soldier that I think is really bad in ow2 feels really good in ow1, the lack of recoil makes a huge difference combined with the lower HP pools having his helix burst actually feeling impactful immediately unlike in ow2 where is more of a damage over time character which is just atrocious in a game with that much healing
My favorite part about playing overwatch 1 competitively was filling in for my team's weaknesses. Sharper character kits meant as 1 person I could identify what my team was most missing and pick a character whose identity most aligned with what we needed. Crafting a viable team comp from my random teammates strengths and weaknesses was one of my biggest strengths, and the switch to 222 largely removed the need for someone like me. So I stopped playing OW1 when role q released. also flexing to a different role when I was having a bad game in the middle of a game felt great, Like i had given my team a second chance at winning by not ego'ing my current mechanical performance level.
Best state the game was ever in was the time where they didnt release any new updates for ow1 due to working on ow2. Only issue was there was almost noone playing but the game was so so balanced you could literally play almost every character into their counters and still have fun
From a psychology perspective, we tend to remember the metaphorical sharp valleys more than the peaks of enjoyment. I have more fun in a game that's close, but I also burn out faster because of how hard I have to sweat in games like that
I was on day OW1 player and played religiously for the first few years it was out. I like characters having very distinct strengths and weaknesses; it makes them stand out and leaves a lasting impact on me as a player. It also, personally, feels good being rewarded for the knowledge of your own character's strengths and weaknesses and knowing how to use them or mitigate them respectively. To me, the biggest difference between OW1 and OW2 isn't even 5v5 vs 6v6; its a fundamental game design shift between being a team game to being just a 5v5. I like team building to be part of the game and it feels like a lot of that has been lost as they have flattened the characters. Finding synergies and covering weaknesses as a team is what I enjoy.
Something I’ve noticed is that even for a casual mode people are a loooot more toxic in this mode. Maybe it’s the lesser feel of agency, but I’ve seen a lot more people blaming or flaming people than normal.
People picking terrible comps like quad dps didn't happen nearly as much as people say it did. I remember even as early as season 2 ow1 there was a pretty defined meta that most people played into. Especially in season 3 and onwards. I still remember the triple tank meta of season 3 where 99% of games were rein, dva, zarya, soldier, ana, and lucio. Even in plat and diamond this was the case. Then season 4 was monkey, dva, and moth every game. Up until role queue there was always some kind of meta that people followed and those dreadful games when you would get a torb on hanamura attack were very much the exception and those players would rightfully get flamed with tons of sarcastic "understood"s and "thank you"s. Its dishonest to compare the classic mode with the actual early days of overwatch. People that play classic aren't going into it to win. They're playing to troll as hard as possible with meme strats you cant use anymore. And to all the people saying that classic proves how shit early overwatch was. Remember that half of the shit that is blatantly wrong with it like dvas matrix or mcrees insane right click were fixed after like a month if not sooner.
The #1 thing that stood out was the lethality of OW classic. Shooting someone always feels meaningful. It really stood out when I realized you can almost 2-clip a Reinhardt as tracer. I remember devs said in OW2, they wanted to let you shoot people more, which made sense coming off so many shield-centric meta in the late stages of OW1. However, to achieve this, they made it so shooting people is generally less valuable. More health, more and stronger armor, more healing, more damage mitigation abilities... I think it leads to a lot of situations where you're shooting someone (especially tanks) with no ability or intention to actually kill them unless your teammates help. In the end it feels like a different flavor of shooting shields again. I personally wish they'd find a way to bring back more of the individual value to shooting someone. 6v6 inherently brings this since they'll have to drastically reduce the survivability of tanks for it, but I don't think that solves it alone
Ow classic is worst competitive game and that's fact, but damn it's way more fun and much of that fun comes with mindset that classic promotes. its the shark mindset, the mind set of waiting and setting up for your moment and then boom, you go in you do the thing enemy dies or all your team gets back and in that moment you feel like you are the guy, you are the hero of that moment and if you fail, no matter you try again. and if we don't include the horrible balance wise ones like Dva every other one that have that moment feels great. and I feel less complaining about Widow one shot when I know as Mccree I have my flashbang fan the hammer or as Hanzo I have scatter or as rein I have huge shatters or even as Zen I have that trans that can save the day vs Zarya Hanzo combo.
The thing that ruined Ow was with the introduction of so many new heroes they messed up with what edge new characters had and stacking some of those edges made every other edge useless like goats or double shield, then they removed every high all these characters have and just made them numerically strong and now we have heroes that we only pick because they have number advantage, not that moment of glory that we all loved and the ones that somehow retained that high like Widow, don't fit in the new format because when enemy have that moment and you don't have it, it feels really bad.
I'm getting a psych degree, and while it may not be completely accurate, varied experiences versus more consistent experiences depend on the game, and on the player but there are things to consider The "hedonic treadmill" concept argues that it doesn't matter how good or bad an individual thing is, humans naturally return to their baseline over time, just w/ it in mind. That includes even lottery winners and quadrapoligics.
OW Classic kinda sucks the moment someone starts seriously trying to win. It's only really fun as a chaotic slugfest imo, and it's all extremely dependent on teammates doing a certain minimum.
Even with so called High highs and low lows, what made it fun and satisfying was having playmaking options and some control even in lows, low healing less hp tank is better, and 2 Max per role can address queue times
I'm not sure about specific heroes in classics. The mode itself feels way more engaging and fun than post-sustain meta 6v6 and super tank 5v5. The fact that I can duel a Roadhog with Genji and win as long as I dodge the hook feels amazing. In later iterations of Overwatch, we lost that to the point where characters like Genji are not playable against certain heroes and have become very niche. Classics mode has a lot of warts missing some of the QOL changes. And we have Mercy super resurrect ultimate. But even with these warts, classics feels more fun than modern Overwatch. When the sustain metas started and especially when 5v5 was released, I dropped off and stopped playing the game, and I did not have the desire to play. Playing classics, that obsessiveness of wanting to play the game returned. I played 2 days this week non stop and I'm just having a blast. Part of that is remembering how things used to be, and rediscovering that, but it feels much more than that. It feels like I can actually do things and make plays whereas in modern Overwatch I can't do that. It's more than nostalgia for me, but simply how game plays overall. I think player agency and high risk reward is what was lost in the game. They say that 5v5 was supposed to give players agency, but in reality it has done the opposite in taking it away.
I want to add - The Mercy resurrection ultimate, Mei freezing may be slightly annoying, but I am having more fun with the game than I have in years. If there was any detractor to the mode, it's the map rotation. I keep getting Hanamura, Volskaya, Anubus, and Dorado constantly. I sometimes get Lijiang/Illios/Nepal and I don't mind those as much. Gibraltar and Numbani less frequently. But I have gotten Kings Row like 2 times total in 2 days. It seems like the 2CP maps are weighed more heavily. Which I don't mind playing them ever once in a while as long as I get Kings Row more often. It's getting to the point that I am getting Hanamura, Volskaya, and Anubus so much that I just leave. It's not that I particular hate the maps or modes, but the rotation needs to be more even. Also since these maps are not even the 2016 versions and are updated, why not add some of the other maps in rotation, like Eichenwalde? I know it's not a launch map, but it was later in 2016. It would also be interesting to see how the classic characters play on some of the more "modern" maps.
Forever ago DougDoug had a video that was called "Explaining Overwatch With Food" or something similar. It was very similar to what you, Spilo, had to say when you were making your cake analogy. Kind thought it was funny how they were both food analogies and trying to put the same point across, but DougDoug was coming from an entertainment angle and Spilo was coming from an education angle.
Even though it was frustrating playing into a junk defense on anubis, once you broke that and snowballed it was pretty satisfying. I feel that overwatch 2 doesnt allow a meta to develop then be countered.
sym was so bad though 😫. Slow orbs slow turret deployment extremely close range beam. Tp as ult too high value and easy to destroy. Her supprot shield ability felt like a chore. Also the hard counter againts pharah. Im not excited to play her 💠👌🏾
ow classic reminded me how easy it was to get ults, and i really do miss that, the chaotic nature of ult being used every single fight was so much fun for me, also i fogot tracer's ult used to actually get value lmao
I was on 5v5 side, but im having so much more fun in classic ow, so i completely changed my mind. It feels old in its mechanics but fun factor is much higher, balance feels more honest, 1v1 dps and tank feels fair both can win a duel in 6v6 mode, every hero feels more distinct from each other, not like every hero is jack of all trades so it has everything. It also feels slower and i like it more, you can actually make kills. 5v5 is more speedy but noone dies, everyone just doing pointless damage until they use ult
Playing Overwatch Classic gave me an overwhelming feeling of relief, that some of the things added later in Overwatch's life were not there to be a thorn in my side. Especially in the tank role, even with less healing, I felt like I had more freedom to make the choices I wanted, rather than constantly waiting to react to my enemy's choices. But when it comes to the individual characters themselves, I think it's hard to deny that these past iterations of them are objectively less fun. Sure there are some things I miss here and there, but almost across the board, I feel like the changes made to those core 21 characters were massive improvements.
2 things i think we can learn from overwatch classic: How does it feel without the crazy burst sustain cooldowns of modern overwatch (to me it feels SO MUCH BETTER) and The power of silly. I know you guys are all about the competitives but hear me out. No hero limits is "bad", sure. But not for casual play with the original cast, I don't think so. For arcade and event modes I think the dynamics of ogwatch work very well and that harsh sorta character design with super unbalanced power levels can actually be more fun in a low stakes environment. For me it's the same reason fighting game and card game "bad options" make a game better and i'd summarize it as something like "empowering the narrative". Overwatch gamemodes and maps (especially in classic) generally work against low stakes environments by having very limited options in positioning and very punishing objectives but it's still an effect worth exploring to make more fun secondary modes.
It's worth noting that the game only stayed with this "no-limits" mode for like, about two weeks. When people think about launch Overwatch, they probably want the game with a little more updates than this, like with DVa already being playable for example. That being said, the difference in philosophy with both games is pretty clear - they were made with very different objectives and by replaying this version (even if it's not 1:1 to what the game was when it came out) we can clearly see what was the vision of the team and believe when they say that this was not supposed to be a live service. We were supposed to get a couple of patches just to smooth out the rougher edges and maybe a couple of characts, which is why they always said we wouldn't have to pay for anything else post-launch (as there wasn't supposed to be much of it anyway). Launch Overwatch is a video game with a vision, a work of art that is intended to be a fun, unserious game to play with your friends (hence why it's so focused on teamwork to the point that even ranked was only possible in a six-stack at first), while Overwatch 2 feels less like art and more like a product, a vehicle to maximize engagement to drive in-app purchases. By going this route, it's inevitable that the game gets blander and blander, because it needs to appeal to more people in order to maximize profits so releasing a truly unique character is much harder. If you look at the mechanics we had in OW1, it's pretty clear that the game was less an FPS and more of a MOBA, with things like Torbjorn needing to collect scrap in order to make armor packs or Reaper dropping souls from enemies to heal himself. Is it better than what the characters do in OW2? Probably not (most likely not, tbh), but it *is* more unique, and this possibility of something unique is what we're missing now.
All it really did was remind me was even at its launch overwatch 1 was way more interesting and had uniqueness, then overwatch 2 has in its entirety pinky toe, I'm sorry but i fell in love with the game that offered unique charaters, each offering a different play styles not similar to each other, overwatch was so much more then your traditional fps and in the end to me at least it devolved right back into another bland run and gun
I feel like character identities were a lot more sharply defined, while nowadays quite a lot of characters are doing approximately the same thing with only slight variation
I was going to post this as a reply to someone, but it got too big so I figured i'd post it on it's own, generally the suggestion is that there's too much healing and too much sustain that offensive plays dont feel as impactful and that most of that comes from healing output. A suggestion is that reducing healing by ~50% (seems high to me) would bring things more into line with how classic and it's heady heights of high highs feels. Let's say that's right. All healing being reduced by 50% is the sweet spot for making offensive plays more impactful. The numbers themselves arent really that important, it's the side-effects of this line of thinking that I dont think people are actually considering. So. Now, you've taken ~25-40% of every support character's contributed output out of the game. If high amounts of healing and protection is what makes support play so impactful to the point that it cancels out the offenseive plays leading to a less compelling experience, that's not longer there for them; What do you give support characters so that their contribution now feels as impactful as damage and tank heroes? Because we want all roles to feel like they matter and have impact, right? The same applies with a reduction to tank sustainability, but for sake of brevity lets only consider support because it seems like the argument generally is aimed at the support role. If you compare the numbers only, support heroes already deal 25-50% less damage with their primary fire than damage heroes, and similar to some tanks; Depending on who you compare and not counting the extra damaging abilities most damage/tank heroes have to supplement their primary fire. If you bump support damage that lessens the identify of a damage hero and probably wouldnt be enough to create an identity that has enough impact compared to the lethality of a damage hero. If you bump their CC it's the same: You take away from the tank role and likely dont give enough for it to matter. If you increase both a small amount you give them NO identity at all and they become generalists that arent really capable of doing anything impactful individually. And if you do something else like give them more mobility and/or debuffs they become more frustrating to deal with generally or they enable higher damage numbers across the board. Tricky. The reason I think this is the way it is because Overwatch heroes weren't designed as FPS shooter heroes. They were designed around the holy MMO trifecta of tank, damage and healer. Those are the identities. And in those games there are classes that straddle those roles and they are fine most of the time, but don't have those high highs; If you want anything to really matter, to do something big, you need those defined extremes in order for it to work. This is why the trifecta is mostly gone from modern gaming. it's too polarizing and too reliant on every piece being played exactly right and without the necessary pieces in play the system doesn't work. However, If you look at something like Guild Wars where every class has so much versatility, every hero has signature abilities, they all have a self heal, they all have mobility, it's not all equal but the options are there and you still need a build that leans more towards the trifecta roles to succeed in content, but it's designed in such a way that every class CAN do high damage they CAN have high sustain and they CAN heal others and it works and is a better team game for it because the pieces are more malleable.
Based off the little bit I know, a more consistent mental loop offers less "off-ramps." Meaning people won't get so upset they leave. I think a relevant topic is "spiky vs smooth" game design. Smooth wants to offer no barrier and consequence to that element (tank boop debuff) and spiky is looking for engagement through trade off. I think older game design values spiky (dva DM in classic comes to mind) and they have turned that down to resource bars which is still spiky, but much less so
I once jokingly picked Torb back in OW1 Hanamura in a masters/GM comp lobby (the time where Torb could throw his turret) while we were trapped in our spawn but my team was totally ok with it and we managed to win both points in 1 fight each by throwing my turret in a place where it would put pressure on the other team’s backline due to LoS issues with their frontline. I was EXTREMELY shot-caller-y but in a bit of a joking manner but when it went as well as it did, we had like 6:30 to go in a round 2 if there was gonna be one (which, no… because torb 2CP defense) both my team and myself were absolutely flabbergasted
I like both 5s and 6s. I think peak was around season 2-4 for OW1 when alot of things were cleaned up. Then it was all down hill, completely busted heroes, balance decisions that were questionable, little to no updates. Why was armor left like that until ow2? Ow2 has been up and down but overall climing upwards more than not. I do think ow2 needs a heal and burst damage crunch though because for some reason they keep undoing the health increase and things feel like they die too fast not because healing is less effective but because damage is too overtuned from some sources. Alot of what we have now, had they kept updating 6v6 would have still come out eventually. bastion turret, mei freeze, doom combo, torb core, widow 1 shot, all gone. Sombra, mercy, and sym reworks. All of these would be what they are now or something achieving or striving for a similar result.
Classic Overwatch feels like it was designed around the average player with fun in mind. Less mobility for almost all heroes, lower health pools, and overall less healing options makes for a more fast paced and fun experience Modern Overwatch feels like it's designed around the top 1% with competitive in mind. Almost every hero has a "get out of jail free card" by being able to escape death easily combined with the higher health pools makes the game take more teamwork and strategy creating a slower paced and more sweaty experience. They are not the same game.
Historically higher highs trumps all. Prime example, call of duty. When you're kicking butt it is the greatest feeling ever. You have streaks after streaks, dropping air support and everyone in the lobby knows you're a threat. It's why it has lasted so long despite being a repeat experience. Getting that high of a nuke (moab) is thrilling. And the diverse amount of ways to get one is also fun. Everyone wants to have the opportunity to carry and classic showed us that it really was a dps game at launch. Tanks and supports were trash. But a genji blade getting 5 is an amazing feeling. High noon killing 4 and then flashbang and 1 tap a tracer is beautiful. But at the time other than rein shatter you didn't get those highs and that's why dps was the longest queued role throughout all of OW1. And this is coming from a 500 hour Ana main with my next hero being 100 hours bap and zen. Dps is gives the higher high and I think that will always trump "balanced" game play
I've believed this for a while, but the OW Classic test has made it all the more apparent: Support needs a total rework. "Support not healer" needs to actually become reality.
I wouldn't mind that outlook if those supports that follow it dont also come stacking a buttload of heals. 60% support 40% heals would be nice but they're not overhauling the game enough to do that. Currently it does feel like 65% support 65% heals to break the scale of the game.
For the upcoming trials, I know there's going to be unfun and unbalanced aspects of each, but I also know I will enjoy it more. 1) Open queue hits different for me, because I can run fun comboes with my friends while role swapping to boost our team as needed. But I also know how shit it is to solo queue get 3-4 dps players who are both bad at the role and unwilling to swap/adapt their gameplay or 2-3 Mercy players who cannot play another hero. Idk how you can balance that outside of actually forcing the playerbase to learn the game. 2) As a metal rank Ana main in OW1, I enjoyed figuring out aggressive positions against 2 tanks and weaving in abilities to impact the fight (yes, even against double shield v2 & 3 or Winston-Dva; OG double shield can burn in Hell though). In OW2 (especially with literally all the new tanks) has the freest nades and sleeps of your life, so she's both way easier to get value out of and worse to play against. It's literally the opposite of rose tinted glasses here, but again I realize this doesn't apply to everyone's heroes/playstyles.
When it comes to the maps don't allow or design maps with tunnel vision that you can only go down mid on the choke just remove the walls and make it more wider dynamic for you to engage
I am certain, that the best way to check what's the best variation of 6v6 is better better, between let's call it pre mei freeze change and after, should be decided by statistics of preference of one mode over the other. Both versions should be online at a same time -neither should contain Mauga-
Invoking a lot of relf with the focus of sharp designs in this. Relf mentions plenty about how he enjoys the fact 6v6 allows for more extreme/sharp designs in kits & maps (even though I like the dorado change, iirc he was very hesitant in his opinion given the generalization of Dorado away from its more extreme design) However the question of whether the sharpness should be a good in-of-itself is absolutely on the table. I love Relf (I know you do too... maybe a bit too much) but I DO like some generalization away from extreme designs, especially those that feel more trouble than its worth letting the design stay that extreme. It's also necessary as part of OW's transition away from a TF2-like casual shooter to a Valorant-like competitive shooter. The reason however I still prefer 6v6 is that it really gave OW that identity away from other 5v5 competitive games (like valorant, league, cs, r6, dota, i think you get the message...). Sure, the more extreme designs sometimes spelled for a more frustrating game overall (lower lows are just remembered more than higher highs) it did however offer something beautiful that 5v5 just doesn't. If we were to return to 6v6, changes like removing Mei's freeze (which is the generalization away from her fantasy and more extreme design) are healthy, however 6v6 allows for us to even see these designs to begin with, which is also healthy! One of the worst parts of valorant is that every new character doesn't really play all that differently from others, which is necessary given its focus on gunplay, but it does in its uniqueness & freshness (which is why CS players take every chance they get to attack the faux-freshness of valorant). 5v5 forces OW into a similar place that 6v6 doesn't, and that alone IMO makes 6v6 better. It allows OW to be its own game.
I'm getting a degree for psych, but still take what I'm saying w/ a grain of salt. I think the logic is well, but I'd love to see some holes poked if I'm wrong. As far as what's better between peaks (& valleys) or consistent experience, it probably depends on the person, unfortunately. But there's things worth noting: 1. The hedonic treadmill. This states that it doesn't matter what events happen in your life, humans always trend towards their baseline of contentness. This actually has been done in studies, and shows that this even applies to lottery winners and people who've lost limbs, so even at the extremes, this still applies. If a person tends to play individual games for a long time (say, competitive players), and still tends to improve in rewarding, fun way, then they probably will stave this off and see the game as better than if they were stuck at the same level. Why? because... 2. Humans tend to remember bad experiences more than good ones, unfortunately. If you're stuck at the same level, you may never reach that high that comes w/ competitive success or consistent victory again. This is why in plenty of competitive scenes (sports or jobs even, not just games), people who've seemingly maxed out their skill, or had bad experiences turn to more casual scenes (content creation, coaching, maybe jobs that pay less but have more freedom). Final point, as this is were old professionals go: 3. Casual players don't care about higher highs. A person who barely understands the systems he's using with the game, and barely cares beyond the timewasting element, may never experience the *true* higher highs possible within a game. So for them, consistent fun and timewasting is way more important. That's why cod will never not outsell or have more space in mind for most gamers than something like, chess, blackjack, or 3rd strike (csgo being the exception, due to far lower spec requirements).
Just commenting to tell you that both of your comments are still up. You replied to spilos comment worrying about these getting removed. Though, they are pretty far down in the comment section. (I loaded all comments and ctrl + F) Fun read btw :)
@@notfranklin4916 Actually, let me give you a bit more since you found it interesting. In terms of this dynamic between "peaks & valleys" and consistency, I think 5v5 and 6v6 could both have their reasons for being better or worse based around it. The peak of 5v5 and the avg 5v5 game are closer to together, and the lows aren't as bad (unless you otp winston). So the avg player (maybe with, maybe without tank players) will probably enjoy 5v5 more than 6v6 *if we we only basing it on this angle alone.* 6v6 is better for competitive-minded people (probably) for the exact opposite reasons. Another aspect I didn't go over in the original comment is control. 5v5 allows for more control over the game, and more felt consistency (since the result matches more to your skill level, as each player has more of an individual impact) which may also make it appeal to the casual crowd more than 6v6 (assuming you play solo). If this aspect is important, I'd expect to see incredibly fast support queue times in ow2, and slower ow1 support queue times (idk how fast the support ow1 queue times were, personally, and I don't think the data is out there)
I REALLY miss Scatter-Arrow. I understand that it’s hard to balance with its one shot potential, but it allows for so much more expression than Spam-er… I mean Storm Arrow
I think, perhaps, that one important factor is how much you enjoy playing the game, not just how good it is to win. Say you played a game that you felt happy with even though you lost. Wouldn't that be the best of both worlds? We treat this as if it's a zero sum game, but isn't that putting the bar too low?
The best way to make the game fun from both sides win or lose is more variability and skill expression. There are certain characters that make people mad when they die to and some where they accept it. Its hard to get mad at a death where either the enemy made a really good play or you made a bad play. The more decisions you have to make the higher the difficulty the character or game is and the more rewarding and less frustrating it is to lose. Abilities need to have multiple uses or purposes instead of being very one dimensional and just something you always click because its free value with no drawback like he mentioned with hog vape. OW has mostly only expanded on this dynamic aspect through mobility abilities which is good and a great form of skill expression but can only go on so many characters before it gets overused. Ana is a great example of a character that people really like even though she has no mobility she has a lot of decision making in her abilities more than just use them. Other ability games and mobas ive played have very complex abilities with paragraphs of text and you can use the same character in many different ways while still keeping the characters identity. Many of the hated characters in OW only have one playstyle and are very limited by that which can be frustrating to play as and against.
I think a big part of why people enjoy Classic is that the skill floor for mechanically performing most heroes is much much lower. I play Classic mode because Cassidy's flash bang/fan the hammer combo being so ridiculously strong while also super easy is fun and hilarious. Mei has an easy set up for free headshots. Bastion isn't tied to a long cooldown for his turret form. Ult charge across the board is much higher while there's less mobility in general, so you get ults way faster. Classic is not better, it's just easier as long as you know some pretty basic techniques. And that's not to say anyone who enjoys Classic more than modern needs to get good. Just realize that Classic's design was pretty low skill ceiling, which is bad for player retention and competitive play.
My take on the Nostalgiawatch vs OW2: I think overwatch 2016 was meant to be enjoyed like an arcade game, the rushed development, the sharp edges everywhere in its design, but with very unique characters. Which on a base level is amazing, very plug and play. You want to be a giant man with a rocket hammer? You can do that and feel powerful, I think ow2016 does a great job of doing that with most of its heroes. But then overwatch blew up, the nature of fps games gave the game a competitive twang, more heroes were added and as a result the roles and unique player fantasy each hero provided became more diluted. The competitiveness of the game turned hitscan heroes from being these cool sharp shooters into anti air heroes, which doesnt seem like a major problem, but it conflicts with what I believe the nature of the game was supposed to be. Now with a cast of 35+? heroes the individuality of some heroes have merely just become a flavour of other heroes, while some heroes were merely introduced as a bandaid solution more over than to create another top of the line hero fantasy. An example I like is lifeweaver, fundamentally is in the same boat as mercy and was designed to be that way, managing heals and damage, retracting mistakes with pull / rez, and ultimate that increases your teams effectiveness without adding much individual value. Now if you put Overwatch into the hypothetical lens of it being stuck in the 2016 version, but they kept updating the game, adding heroes, etc. Do you think they would add Lifeweaver to begin with? Now, with a new dev team and assumingly a new approach, we're seeing heroes with these sharp edges again, these defined characteristics and strong player fantasies. Mauga is a classic example of this. On paper he seems like an absolute blast in this sharp edged arcade-esque game. But competitive players hate him, while if you look at how well those infamous mauga 1v1 clips, those typically get a heartwarming laugh out of the casual players, because its silly, they dont care too much. But, ofcourse overwatch has shifted into a competitive and major changes had to be made, and now the devs have seemingly found a good balance between strong player fantasies and competitive balance, venture and juno being good examples.
I personally find classic comically bad, almost every character feels so much worse, even the strong ones. It's a good reminder not to take modern OW for granted.
I don't know. Sounds kind of "dumb" to me. The game back in 2016 with 8 years of hindsight gives you the take away that "I shouldn't take modern OW for granted" sounds like Stockholm syndrome. OW classic had its issues but they do not absolve OW2 of its issues as some kind of "lesser evil".
Heavily disagree, Modern overwatch is so boring, just another lame run and gun at least with ow1 there were so many ways to play the game, a different play style for everyone, each character was broken in their own unique way but fuck that, lets make them all generalists
You asked if higher highs/lower lows were better than a more even experience and I'm pretty sure it's universally understood that the former is better if your goal is to keep someone engaged, league of legends and gambling are great examples of this lol. People will suffer for hours just to get that one amazingly fun game
I guess I like Overwatch 1 Esports a whole lot more and working with those really distinct hero identities, building comps, etc. In terms of actual ranked I’d say I watch OW2 so much more, it feels leagues better than in OW1. As for casual play I think competitive shooters have come so long since 2016 that I think casual gamers like my boyfriend will always be put off by games like this these days, so it’s not really worth changing the game to appease them as sad as that is.
Truth being said, I haven't played this mode enough to comment (about 4~5 games?), but at the very least I liked this version of hanzo. He seems to be more consistent than in OW2, but this is also because of the lack of mobility in this version. A lot of heroes are pretty much dull compared to today's OW. Yep my personnal score to this would be 20/100 for me, who never played OW1.
is it just me or does rein feel WAY better in classic? His hammer and firestrike feel way more chunky cause of the lack of big healing and escape cooldownds on the other team. His shield actually feels important to use instead of feeling like a parry button.
"character identity" is always used to support the point of who's saying. Truth is, people want to preserve the "identity" of the characters the like but they want to destroy the "identities" of the characters they hate. OW Classic is here to prove to people that the game is in a better place today than it was at the beginning
Honestly, I had a great time playing ow classic, mostly because each match felt so much more different. There was less homogenization in the different heroes, which led to much more diverse (and frankly chaotic) results. Overwatch classic is awful for competitive play, but it feels GREAT for more casual and wacky play.
feel like classic ow has broad, easy appeal by virtue of the stakes being different - its sharp, but silly because of it. its easily understood by the average player to not be a fair experience, so its in some ways easier to accept losses because there are no stakes to an unbalanced game. the way ow has evolved tho, i think too many people now enjoy playing ow competitively to go back to that environment permanently. at the very least i dont think i can. but that does mean that a competitive fairer game means its a little more crushing when u lose, and more stressful to play during, because the match outcomes say more about you as a player and your teams ability to be Good at the game
Im a newer OW2 player and absolutely hate going against the new versions of the tanks like Dva, Orisa, & Zarya. I need them highly nerfed, but not as bad as their OW1 counterparts tho
13:02 I don't agree. I started playing OW2 S1 and i really enjoy the classic mode. After 100+ games I've almost never complained about teammates. In 5v5 every game there is someone to blame. Who agrees?
I don't consider Overwatch a Strategy game. It's a shooty-shooty-death-death game with Hero abilities, so the less "sharp edges" the better. I don't want my hero pick, or anyone else's hero pick to be a throw because of what the other team is running. I like the current dynamic hero kits from a fun aspect. More things to do is better.
I came into this game in 2017, so I didn't experience all the launch madness. First time i booted this up and tried Lucio it was hilariously awful. I couldn't do my rollouts, trying to climb up surfaces was an exercise in futility, and the truth excessive ttk there seemed like little point in dueling DPS. Heck, half the time I benched him for Reaper. I chafed against it a lot, but in playing more it's become a moment of acceptance where you have to understand this was simply the beginning of a project Team Four wasn't even sure would do well. It's a basic start, almost tech demo-y, and thus charming in a way. I'm okay playing my little cheerleader now that I'm accustomed to the bounds and rules of 1.0 It's still fun. But it has made me appreciate OW2 all the more where I can actually do something about Widow besides mirror her.
high peaks and deep valleys. A great experience or upsetting experience at least you CARE. The more middling, consistent experience of Overwatch 2 seems to coincide with player apathy
The fact is that the quit rate of the classic mode is sooooo much higher than in qp, just based off of what I've played. I have quitters literally almost every single game. The highs are definitely high, but if the lows result I people leaving so often, the game almost becomes unplayable. I'd love to team up with a stack and play this mode, but it's been mostly solo q for me
Been saying this for awhile…… tanks need to be SMALLER (so not so easy to hit) And have more RANGE… while having their hp/sustain reduced…. But you will be harder to hit so it evens out
I have been really enjoying overwatch lately, and generally have preferred ow2 to ow1. I say all of this as a tank player which seems uncommon from a lot of the people ive seen, I much prefer 1 tank and it personally fulfills the role fantasy better. People have a major negativity bias as well, we see this all the time, and I am very aware of this myself. If I have a session of overwatch where I got 5 and 10, dead even but it was alternating wins and losses I will probably feel like I lost more than I won over that play time, even though it is objectively untrue. This is especially doubled if either I have games where I was carrying our team but we still lost, or where I am the odd player out on the team doing absolutely nothing. Both of those instances of losing feel terrible and far outway any win I might get. This discussion in overwatch is very interesting to me as I also play a lot of Tekken 8 and that games ranked has a similar problem. Even though I have a near 70% win rate in Tekken 8 ranked it feels terrible to play because often times when you lose in that game you lose really hard getting beat by something you have no idea how to deal with. I think that consistency in game difficulty is where you see the best matchmaking, the nights I have the most fun are where all the games are close. I have rambled a lot but the biggest point I want to make is that games where it was very close and I feel not only I but my whole team played well, I don't care very much about the outcome. Games that are not close, however, only matter to me based on the result of the game. If it's a stomp either way then it doesn't feel great becausse I didn't get to play in a game where I could feel my abilities shine.
just thought of another good point about one sides matches. In a one sided match in my experience regardless of what side you are on, it ends up feeling like your decisions don't really matter. When I am destroying the enemy team it feels like pretty much any decision I make will end up in a positive result, this can be fun because you can get really wacky and creative and push your weird strategies to the limit. On the other side though, it is much worse. When I am getting absolutely smoked I usually feel like no matter what decision I make it will have a negative outcome, it's extremely defeating and unpleasant resulting in the desire to just give up. I don't have these games too often but the other I for some reason ran into a t500 doomfist and ashe duo in qp with friends and we got totally rolled. While this instance is an outlier in my play experience I feel it is a good example of not feeling like any decision I make will matter.
Seriously, if any of you guys have any insight about peaks of enjoyment + valleys of frustration vs. a more even competitive experience, I'd love to know.
The more extremes might be better since people tend to remember the good experiences over the bad ones but just my take
Apparently it’s worse to have higher highs -> lower lows but it has a lot to do with expectations. You expect to get ice cream and you’re super exited -> the ice cream place is closed / your parents take you to the dentist lol. That low you feel is lower than if you didn’t get ice cream at all or just randomly checked if the ice cream place was open, but found out it was closed, because you had the expectation to go.
A way to deal with this is to lower expectations. If you go in expecting nothing, then when nothing happens it’s no surprise and the crash doesn’t happen. For OW classic that could be “this map is defensive af, it’s gonna suck for our attack but our defense will feel good” so you don’t expect your attack to feel good. Idk how this plays into balance just wanted to give my shot at the peaks and troughs.
i like a more even competitive experience, which means i like more versatile and perhaps more homogenized heroes. but i dislike when that's achieved through free value and thoughtless abilities (examples in ow2: hog vape, lifeweaver heal on dash, ram nemesis block, all of torb's kit, etc)
anything you can mess up adds nuance which is a huge portion of what makes heroes fun to play over and over in an effort to improve
I think peaks of enjoy is better because the lower is almost the same on any format ( a thrower, a troll, a team swep where You can do shit) so having the oportunity to get a better experience is the Best
I'm not even close to a psychologist, but my take is that higher highs and lower lows is better. Those higher highs almost become an addiction. You want to chase those great highs again. Whereas I feel like you're more likely to become apathetic or indifferent to those medium highs. Like, sure that felt great, but is it really worth playing just to get that slight high every now and then?
An example I can give is Bloodborne. It's my favorite game of all time. It's known for having really high highs when it comes to boss fights (Gherman, Ludwig, Lady Maria, Orphan of Kos, and more), but it also has some extremely low lows when it comes to boss fights (Rom, Micolash, One Reborn etc.). But despite all those lows, I absolutely love the game to the point where I don't even care about those lows. The highs are worth the lows. And I know Bloodbrone is a single-player, non competitive game, but I feel the same way. Massive highs are worth sacrificing slight competitiveness imo
Mei’s freeze time and overall hero identity along with other heroes, is what made OW1 so fun.
It feels like YOUR skill, timing, and positioning ACTUALLY matter.
And mistakes are punished. Most fun I’ve had in a while, no lie lol.
Yeah I had a game last night with junkrat where I mined on to the hanamura high ground and used riptire from directly on top of the enemy. I killed 4-5 people. The mercy rezzes everyone and we lost the game.
I took an off angle, at a good timing, and positioned in a way I could abuse the strengths of my ult while also maybe not dying. They clumped up into a small corner right outside their spawn room and let a junkrat pipe them from high ground, they also didn't notice me using loud bombs to send myself flying directly over their heads. Like 5-6 people on their team made every basic overwatch mistake all at once and not only got away but won the game lol. I'm not saying OW2 isnt broken but 2016 OW had some WAY more broken stuff, hands down.
Like bruh I'm literally hooking genjis behind me XD.
One of the problems with high highs and low lows is that we humans don't equate these two things, even if they objectively equal. Meaning, a really high high doesn't negate a low low. We don't feel satisfied that it gets balanced. We feel the low lows as if they are much lower than the highs. Therefore, there is always this feeling that you are getting robbed in some way, or that something isn't fair.
Another example would be about percentages of success in gaming. Pretend you are playing a game where you have two ships fighting each other. Let's say that when you shoot the other ship, there is a 70% chance that your hit is successful and does damage. That also means that you miss 30% of the time. Human beings hate failing, so that 30% feels way more than 30%. It feels unfair and you might chuck your remote on the ground when you miss. Knowing this, what a game designer might do is tell you (the player) that it has a 70% success rate, but in actuality, in the programming code, they set the number at a 95% success rate. What is fascinating about this is that the player will NEVER question that they are only missing 5% of the time when they are told they should miss 30%. Human beings don't like feeling that things are unfair and we are simultaneously bad at discerning what is fair or not.
I disagree with your statement that we feel low lows as lower than high highs. That fact is actually the entire point of gambling. You will remember the win much much better than all of the losses.
@@PoeticMistakesthis is the perfect counterpoint to this argument. Gambling has the lowest of lows that everyone is aware of but millions and millions of people still gamble
@@PoeticMistakes it's a studied thing we feel negatives more. It's why a mean comment for many sticks in the mind more than the one million nice comments. In the retrospect when things are over for things we love we may remember those highs better but at least in the immediate or when it affects something on going like a project you're working on you feel those negatives adding up much more than the positives.
I.e. an active project with alot of feedback with constant changes as opposed to something one and done.
@@PoeticMistakes That's because in gambling the highs are higher than the lows are low. You put in one dollar, get back five, or, you lose the one dollar. In the case where you win you get 500% back, and it feels much better than losing 100%. There are also several other factors to consider: the impacts of addiction, gambling culture, societal normalization, etc.
@@jennysipher3839 This is a big point people are missing. This high highs in gambling are nowhere near the low lows. That is actually how gambling tricks you into liking it: You can only lose so much, but you can more than double what you can lose.
“Brother-in-law and his wife…” It’s like Spilo has a closer relationship with his in-law than his own sister 😂😂
hes married bro, prob his wife's brother
It could be his wife’s brother.
@@lemonologist95 The two of you are so true I forgot about that. I look silly now 😅
Its like me with my wifes' boyfriend. He like board games too
I've never used this many health packs in my entire OW2 playtime compared to OW Classic lmao
I feel like the ability to change hero mid game was a staple in the game design process, with your thoughts of Sharp Edges, I feel that the whole point was that some sharpe edges are good against some heroes and some other sharp edges are made to directly deal with other sharp edges. I definitely feel that Genji and Tracer were developed quite a bit before Cass, and he seems to be an addition to the cast to directly deal with those heros.
The one thing that Overwatch classic really made me realize is that modern Overwatch has WAY too much healing. Despite the obvious flaws in balance of classic it really does feel good to have damage actually matter. In OW2 you can pump 1000 damage into a tank and watch their healthbar not even move, in classic you hit one ability and it actually matters. Healthpacks and the payload heals are suddenly way more important. Classic might be too far in the opposite direction but in current OW2 especially post season 9, numbers are just so drastically inflated that it really feels like it dumbs down the game. I really almost feel like you could just take almost every source of healing in the game and reduce it by something like 50% and the game would feel way better to play.
As someone who played Mercy then and plays Mercy now, I see the main issue being that every character has a healing passive. This means that if my DPS gets shot, I don't need to care because they will heal back up automatically anyway, so I can keep pumping heals on the tank and they will never die. In OW1, you need to juggle the whole team all the time so even if the character technically outputs more healing per second, it needs to get more spread out. They need to get back to this, imo.
Just compare the ending match damage for everyone compared to a ow2.
healing is a bit pointless in overwatch classic when roadhog has the power to one shot every tank including himself.
The thing that this points out very clearly to me is that in old OW positioning was key and with how strong healing has become over the years it started to matter less and less. There was no threat in OW2 that could destroy Orisa or Sigma for standing out in the open. I enjoyed old overwatch more cuz it felt like my impact mattered. If you died you knew why it happened, "i was standing out in the open and got bodied by widow." Or whatever.
As someone who's played OW since its beta, this initial iteration of the game is obviously rough compared to what we have now in OW2. Even with role lock. A lot of people's nostalgia comes from the fact that the game was fun, novel, and people hadn't optimized the game at that point.
As for the psychological aspect of this old form vs the current 5vs5 version, you're right that psychologists have figured out what's more effective, at least in education and learning. From what I learned from my psych degree, there needs to be just the right amount of challenge in a problem to promote motivation to learn (in this case, to play/problem solve). For example, the temple of Anubis choke with the defenders advantage would be a poor example of that. It's not enough challenge for one side and too much of a hurdle for the other. While this kind of thing was fixed throughout OW1 history (like by reconstructing the whole "defense" character archetype), OW2 has less of these moments. In your dev QandA, they even said that OW1 design was originally thought to have this "line in the battlefield" that teams had to fight to hold or cross. Almost more like a tower defense game that was much more focused on tight teamplay. Like they've said, the philosophy has shifted massively since then.
Having said this, I'm still a believer in 6vs6 if the devs can use what they've learned from OW2. I have to admit, I personally miss the teamplay that would come from 2 tanks and having those big moments of ult combos and so on (zarya offtank player here). Though, I still think it can also be done in OW2, with the correct adjustments to tanks and healing output.
Thanks for inspiring these thoughts Spilo! Love your content!
The line you had about tower defense is SPOT ON! This is why I’m so adamant that 2cp was clearly intended to be a primary mode in overwatch. It’s so obvious, even the best map design is in 2cp.
Sidelining it for other various modes in my opinion has only hurt the game. Because it no longer has that initial tower defense vision.
It becomes run & gun, tug of war, or just something else entirely.
I think shifting away from that "line in the battlefield" sort of style doesn't discourage overcoming challenges or negates the reward of problem solving, it just changes the problems and challenges players perceive. Instead of looking at a line of defense and saying "how do I crack this (with my team)?" OW2 has a player ask questions like "what can I do about that server admin Widow?" or "how can I protect my team from this very aggressive Doomfist?" They basically swapped from a very methodical and team based problem solving approach to more of a hectic, individual one, and say what you will about it from a game design perspective, online competitive games need to allow for solo queue individual playmakers to keep player count up.
I think regardless of 5v5 or 6v6, modern OW could stand to slow down A LITTLE BIT, mobility creep is real. And if we go 6v6 I think leaning a bit more into the sharp corners is good, mostly because it can be hard to break through and create space and I personally like having more obvious win conditions that are baked into character design. "X char just used this, now I know I can punish that." This still exists in OW2 but I feel like most chars have a kit that is robust enough that even if they mess up a big CD, they can play there way out of the mistake.
long ramble ahead that may or may not be completely related...
There is a pretty famous quote by one of the TF2 devs, basically saying TF2 was made like a "single player" game in a multiplayer environment. Teamplay happens almost accidentally by virtue of the different classes being limited in what they can do, and the enjoyment comes from being a cog in a machine so to speak. There's less space for individual impact, at least more so than the shooters that preceded tf2. Most class-based shooters follow this, even going to the extreme of Battlefield with its 64 and 128 player modes
Overwatch in 2016 resembled more of that style of game, it was fundamentally casual even though teamplay was a primary focus, it mostly didn't happen as actively as people might've hoped. Then it slowly shifted to more flexible heroes, individual impact, competitiveness and active teamplay. I think it was mostly for the better, OW was already leaning into this competitive direction anyways, and it had to evolve to keep up with competitors like Apex, Varolant, Siege etc. where this is has been the standart, and they are all super successful games both commercially and as esports.
The biggest lesson Overwatch classic provided to me is that the game is more fun with less healing. Damage matters and poor positioning is punished.
Disagree
This mode kinda reminds me of Junkenstien's lab in the sense that everyone has broken OP abilities, so it just works in a weird way.
And when you take away everyone's power and homogenise them, you start to lose a bit of that magic. I think we need a fun goofy mode in the game permanently to compliment the main sweaty mode.
This.
I miss that kind of Overwatch where it was fun in a goofy way. Overwatch classic made me realize how serious the game has gotten. With the game now being more competitive, it is necessarily evil to keep everyone in line. Games, even in unranked modes, feels sweaty most of the time.
This is coming from someone who rarely plays comp.
Everypne being broken is what keeps TF2 alive, everyone can just 2 tap you some way or another and even those who cant can still random crit for 1000 damage
@@ninthfriend3347 Last season I played a ton of comp and put a lot of time on Juno which was fun, but it really burnt me out for this season.
But these silly modes have really been a nice change of pace and a break from that
@@Celtic_Mav
This, this is why when I go back to TF2 I stick around for 2-3 months at a time enjoying the random goofy stuff that randomly happens
Versus OW2, where I try the new thing for a day or 2 and fall off until the next thing happens. Been having a blast with classic rn
Pros and high ladder players have ruined the idea or OW imo. It was always meant to be fun. And recently, its lost a lot of the fun. 5v5 ruined the “fun” gamemodes because tanks are either useless or OP. Theres still a certain level of balance to fun game modes, 5v5 doesn’t compliment it because they were all made with weaker tanks in mind
The thing i realized is thank fuck ow2 made getting ults harder. Every single game in classic was an ult per 15 seconds for me
the key takeaway ive had from overwatch classic is that i really enjoy a lower mitigation lower healing environment where a lot of the power creep dlc heroes are gone and a lot of the get out of jail free cards are gone and mistakes mean death. i do think the healing is too low in classic because ana doesnt exist, and lucio wallride being terrible is so unfortunate, as well as 8 years of missing quality of life updates but its really close to being a great time for me
I think your answer is highlighted in the words you used, when you were talking about min maxing OW classic. That’s why some people are having more fun with classic because it’s not an Uber competitive mode that is SUPPOSED to be min maxxed. It’s not as rounded as OW2, but people play classic because they just want to have fun with the distinct hero identities or maybe play their favorite hero. OW didn’t launch as a competitive game, and the freedom of choice gives people in classic a ton of fun if they aren’t so worried about winning every game with the optimal comp. Basically it’s fun because it’s not meant to be min maxxed strategically, it’s meant to be a fun mode to have fun.
I'd forgotten how much I used to LOVE Overwatch. Classic isn't perfect, but even in it's raw state, 6v6 was better. I'm converted.
This is unrelated to overwatch but on the broader topic of being blind to game design by nostalgia. This "old is better" topic comes up in fighting game discourse whenever a new entry into a big series comes out. "X street fighter/tekken/GG was the best and after that it fell off since they watered it down to appeal to casuals" being the general doomer sentiment. Obvious pros of patch culture aside I can empathize a bit with the loss in identity (angular strengths, which feel powerful but can be frustrating to face) but all and all speaking from a pure design perspective we've grown so much. Actual unwinable matchups and bloated wonky kits are largely a thing of the past (this means the death of joke characters but progress demands a price.), modern characters are now designed around certain defining strengths and have clear win conditions. I feel a lot of this carries over to movement based shooters generally and especially overwatch. Knowing how slow and questionable their balance choices were back in the 2010s and how much more basic a lot of these original character designs were is very eye opening as to how roleplaying games, regardless of genre evolve.
There's a lot of bad that comes with classic but honestly there's parts of it I certainly enjoy more. It is a really tough unbalanced mode, but there's something to be said about every kill feeling earned. Aside from mercy mass rez, there are no immortality abilities, so while there's a lot that certainly feels bad to play against, (some characters feel slow and clunky, others feel way too strong) it feels nice to earn my kill and make plays that end up getting value outside of forcing lamp, suzu, or whatever invulnerability.
The only consistent answer to "What's good game design?" is "it depends." The feeling Necros comes from a a sharpness and regaining of the characters identity. Genji melts people AND gets a busted blade. It's stupid and broken but it's cool and fufills the fantasy that Genji had in his mind. My main example for this would be Torb. Torb is interesting because his modern design fits a more competitive game but I know so many people annecdotely want his classic design back, level 3 turret and all. There can be a certain level of sharpness because that creates that "identity" that you're shying away from here. The reason classic is fun is because of those identities.
Also something feeling bad doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. There's nothing more satisfying than breaking that bastion bunker off spawn and that comes from knowing how that motherfucker treated you, and now you've got their ass. I'm not saying we should go back to this, not even close, but classic is fun because these hero's haven't been sanded down. Limiting a players choices (in certain cases) makes for a more engaging experience. Genji has to be aware of his weakness to Winston and has to make sure the monkey is gone before he can counter dive - the Genji has been given less choices on when and how to engage but he's been given more to think about which makes finding the right answer all the more satisfying.
At 6:19 notice how he pulls up Widow when speaking of “eating cake” 🤭 I see what you did there Spilo
Classic, and ultimately 6v6, strongly highlights the difference in goals and ideals for both versions of the game. Overwatch 1 was very, very team oriented. Positioning, map awareness, cooldowns, ult tracking, all the facets of the game matter so much more. Overwatch 2 is about individual playmaking. You can get away with some cheeky angles or just outright being in the middle of nowhere sometimes because more likely than not, there's an ability that will either keep you up or get you out. I also think anyone that's using Classic as a judgement for how 6v6 would work is crazy. This is 2016 OW, this is not how the game was playing in like 2019-2020. Personally, I wish they dropped the game with the very last patch that Overwatch 1 had, because that's a far closer look at 6v6. People forget that until role lock, it was like a 40-50% chance you were getting either 1 or no supports on your team EVEN IN COMP. People just didn't like playing the role (that's what got us OW2). Classic has been pretty fun though when you don't take it seriously. If they have 2 Widows, fuck it lock in 6 Winston. Dorado defense? Pick like 3 Symms and setup the car wash. The game just feels like it has so much more freedom, but you can definitely tell there's no real competitive nature to it.
played a really fun game where both teams had 1 healer and 5 reins. it was hammer time
I was so excited to play it but got so fucking bored so quickly. I really appreciate the game more after playing it lol
I personally a fan of the more consistent experience, while the most fun I have had in this game is probably with less structured open queue, most of the time it just ends up being 4 DPS 1 Support and it feels awful and almost hopeless.
At the end of the day, I just want to boot up Overwatch and know exactly what I am going to get.
ive always preferred the ups and downs and sharper edges (even though they were far too sharp in early overwatch) that characterised ow1 for essentially its whole existence over the relative sameness of overwatch 2, where it really feels like most characters, most maps, most teamfights, most team compositions and metas, all play out the same on a macro level. i think the main cause of the really samey gameplay is all the 5v5 super tanks with free mitigation, which paradoxically also causes really sharp edges for tank players as the rock paper scissors becomes way too intense.
my personal opinion is the right balance between ups and downs, dynamic gameplay, and consistent games was had around 2021 and 2022 ow1
I think the core issue is that you expect there to be one true answer to your questions. But Overwatch is played by people, people are emotional and may enjoy things that are not objectivly logical. Back in the day in TFC and TF2, 90% of the games I played was on 24/7 2fort servers. I loved the stalemate, I loved turtling and I loved trying to crack the enemy line. It probably comes as no surprise that I am a 2cp enjoyer.
From a competitive viewpoint, you would logically argue against stalemates, you would to reward skill expression. And I feel that is the route that OW has taken throughout its history. It tried balancing from a competitive viewpoint. And by doing so, they have lost MANY casual players who found their own joy in the jank that is classic OW.
These past few days, I have played OW:Classic non stop, and it is probably the most joy I have felt playing this OW in perhaps the past 4 years. Based on comments online, I do believe I am not alone. And I believe we have seen a similar enjoyment with a section of the playerbase of the junkenstein event that prioritised the experience over competitive balance.
I feel it was better when support kits were more oriented to damage or utility like Lucio or zen the amount of bail out abilities or healing dump is the main factor contributing to high ttk and little amount of elims.
People forget that for almost all of OW1, several heroes were just a throw pick. In OW2, there may be suboptimal picks on some maps. But in OW1, you often lost games in the spawn room. Especially pre role lock, but even after as well.
Throw picks are going to exist. Saying OW2 doesnt have throw picks is really just changing the word. The games shift to a more deathmatch style of gameplay just means caring/relying on anyone to really pick anything. Your comp is just more ass as a result at times so someone of the 5 has to really pick up that slack. If you got LW Mercy then DPS have to pop off twice as hard while tank works twice as hard to not take damage as an example. Its still throw picks but much less obvious to the average player so they dont complain.
Not what I experienced back then at all, its only a throw pick if the person who chose a certain character didnt put value.
Like how hanzo was a throw pick, yet he was to carry in the right hands.
I do not recall being stomped as badly as I do now in OW2.
One persons incompetence can equal a loss, unlike overwatch1 where you can compensate with your own skill.
I think a lot of that has to do with player knowledge. Back in the day Torb, Symmetra, and even Hanzo was considered throw picks. But even then, I remember we had some dedicated mains that would really pop off with those heroes. Playing classics again today, I would say those heroes are not throw picks at all, and they are the same heroes design/stats. The only thing that has changed is that people have learned how to play these heroes. Torb and Symmetra especially are position heavy and knowing where to place turrets to get maximum effectiveness. Symmetra is about getting that teleporter setup in a place that is close to the objective, but not easy to find. I had some big games in classics where I absolutely dominated with these heroes. I can do that now because I know how to play those characters, whereas back then not so much. Hanzo is another character where people are just mechanically better at playing the hero. Also a lot of the maps have changed, so we're playing day 1 OW1 heroes with modern day iterations of these maps.
@@aerostrafe1075 You don't think ow classic plays like deathmatch for most players? I'd argue ow2 plays less deathmatchey for most players
This entire season if you don't had a Juno on your team, your supports were throw picking. tho
It still exists on OW 2
I started playing around the release of Ashe in ow1, so I don't really have that much nostalgia for this version of the game. Something which I really noticed and really liked was how rare healing is compared to the power crept version of the game I've always played, it makes the game feel like TF2. Both teams usually only had one support on our team (not counting symetra), and that meant that when I had a duel it was mostly in my own hands. In the later version of the game, where healing is everywhere, every fight involves a support. I can deal more damage to my opponent, but if they have more heals/negations they win the duel. This makes winning or loosing a fight for dps or tanks feel random and causes the blame game, as well as making team fights last forever. There were times in OW classic where the enemy I was trying to kill got pocketed by mercy, but since that means that the rest of the team is not getting healed it still feels fair. 40% of the players dishing out lots of AOI healing and two negation cooldowns being cycled just feels so bad in comparison.
To get this feeling in the live game I think we should have max one support per team, and give dps a passive where they regain health when they get elims. With one support per team the support cannot be everywhere all the time. This would mean people aren't reliant on supports constantly keeping their health up, but actually feel responsible when they loose the duel.
The other option is to nerf supports, and take away all that power creep from the last six years. That is an option, but that would make supports feel useless and unfun, and since 40% of the players in a game need to play support we would have massive que time issues.
imo the support power creep could be adressed with a big set of reworks where they gear them away from healing and towards utility but they wont do that.if healing was a rare resource and only certain characters even had it (im thinking smth like ana, moira, mercy, lw and illari) then a character having healing is a boon on its own, which is good for the characters who "only" heal for their support. ana would still need some tweaks to not completely dominate the meta, but moving certain supports to utility over heals per second makes them a lot more interesting in my opinion, especially now all characters can self heal passively. theres so much nuance to it i think it could be yet another endless debate, but i hope the ideas are interesting
The way I look at it is that we remember the high's way more than the low's but we feel the lows far more than the high's in the moment. We all remember that game where we popped off or had great synergy but we don't remember the next game where our tank was throwing. The counter to this is that in the moment we feel the lows way more than the high's. I have had amazing games and then had awful games right after each other and the awful game felt way worse. I think this dynamic leads to "peaky" game design seeming better when looking back on it but being less fun as an active game. To back this up I have seen a ton of people say they were excited for classic and then play it and realize why so many things were changed. While the peaks are amazing the second to second, game to game experience is worse than smoother game design. This is also in my opinion part of the reason so many people like 6v6 since it provides higher peaks than 5v5 and people forget the very low lows. Anyway that's just my thoughts
I definitely see the peaks and valleys in OW Classic. The wins feel amazing, and the losses feel horrendous. Had a Kings Row attack where the enemy was all Widow for A, then swapping to all Bastion by C, and it was a constant struggle. Our team went through many hero swaps, counter picks, ult combinations. By the end the win didn't feel as great, and was so taxing we took a break.
I think 6v6 can work; it just needs these softer edges. No one was asking for 1.0 6v6, but I believe the ability for players old and new to experience where it started is necessary. Tweak the damage and healing numbers, boost health, give some mobility to these heroes, change the kit again, self healing passive, etc. Blizzard can find a way to make both team sizes viable in core gameplay.
I also really wanted to play old 6v6 in the new modes, Push, Flashpoint, and Clash for fun.
A friend recently sent me one of your videos, that's how I came across your channel. I came back to OW2 earlier this spring, around March I would guess, after quitting OW1 somewhere just after Echo had gotten released. Played a tiny bit of OW2 on release but only for a week, then quit because of the Blizzard drama and the game just not clicking with me.
I will admit, I absolutely adore OW2 in it's current state. I think it's a phenomenal PvP game at the core and have very little things I would wanna change about the concept as a whole. Watching your videos help me get a broader perspective on things, especially since you're a coach and so well versed in a lot of things mechanically and so on. I peaked 3.3k Diamond in OW1 as Genji onetrick (mostly didn't climb higher 'cause I stopped trying as hard) but I still learn so much when I watch your videos. Even videos like this one are super interesting because I think there is a lot of things to be learned from having these sort of conversations.
So from someone who's been subbed for only a few weeks: Keep up the great work, man! Loving all the content u put out! ♥
PS. I don't really know if I have any interesting insight about peaks of enoyment + valleys of frustation. The only thing I can contribute to that would be that I think it's very important to make sure the valleys of frustration are not too low or you risk losing players. But you also sometimes need that frustration because some people (me for example) use that frustration in trying to learn and get better, and that in turn can lead to some potential peaks of enjoyment further down the line!
It's a really interesting mode to compare and contrast what we have now versus what it was, I play a lot of junkrat and he seems completely horrible to me in ow1, the lack of mobility the clunkier bomb projectile speed etc, however a character like soldier that I think is really bad in ow2 feels really good in ow1, the lack of recoil makes a huge difference combined with the lower HP pools having his helix burst actually feeling impactful immediately unlike in ow2 where is more of a damage over time character which is just atrocious in a game with that much healing
My favorite part about playing overwatch 1 competitively was filling in for my team's weaknesses.
Sharper character kits meant as 1 person I could identify what my team was most missing and pick a character whose identity most aligned with what we needed.
Crafting a viable team comp from my random teammates strengths and weaknesses was one of my biggest strengths, and the switch to 222 largely removed the need for someone like me. So I stopped playing OW1 when role q released.
also flexing to a different role when I was having a bad game in the middle of a game felt great, Like i had given my team a second chance at winning by not ego'ing my current mechanical performance level.
Best state the game was ever in was the time where they didnt release any new updates for ow1 due to working on ow2. Only issue was there was almost noone playing but the game was so so balanced you could literally play almost every character into their counters and still have fun
From a psychology perspective, we tend to remember the metaphorical sharp valleys more than the peaks of enjoyment. I have more fun in a game that's close, but I also burn out faster because of how hard I have to sweat in games like that
I think going back into 6v6 with the lessons we’ve learned from 5v5 will make the game feel fresh again and bring it back into a golden age.
I wouldn't say a "golden age" but it'll definitely feel better
I was on day OW1 player and played religiously for the first few years it was out. I like characters having very distinct strengths and weaknesses; it makes them stand out and leaves a lasting impact on me as a player. It also, personally, feels good being rewarded for the knowledge of your own character's strengths and weaknesses and knowing how to use them or mitigate them respectively. To me, the biggest difference between OW1 and OW2 isn't even 5v5 vs 6v6; its a fundamental game design shift between being a team game to being just a 5v5. I like team building to be part of the game and it feels like a lot of that has been lost as they have flattened the characters. Finding synergies and covering weaknesses as a team is what I enjoy.
Something I’ve noticed is that even for a casual mode people are a loooot more toxic in this mode. Maybe it’s the lesser feel of agency, but I’ve seen a lot more people blaming or flaming people than normal.
People picking terrible comps like quad dps didn't happen nearly as much as people say it did. I remember even as early as season 2 ow1 there was a pretty defined meta that most people played into. Especially in season 3 and onwards. I still remember the triple tank meta of season 3 where 99% of games were rein, dva, zarya, soldier, ana, and lucio. Even in plat and diamond this was the case. Then season 4 was monkey, dva, and moth every game. Up until role queue there was always some kind of meta that people followed and those dreadful games when you would get a torb on hanamura attack were very much the exception and those players would rightfully get flamed with tons of sarcastic "understood"s and "thank you"s.
Its dishonest to compare the classic mode with the actual early days of overwatch. People that play classic aren't going into it to win. They're playing to troll as hard as possible with meme strats you cant use anymore.
And to all the people saying that classic proves how shit early overwatch was. Remember that half of the shit that is blatantly wrong with it like dvas matrix or mcrees insane right click were fixed after like a month if not sooner.
The #1 thing that stood out was the lethality of OW classic. Shooting someone always feels meaningful. It really stood out when I realized you can almost 2-clip a Reinhardt as tracer.
I remember devs said in OW2, they wanted to let you shoot people more, which made sense coming off so many shield-centric meta in the late stages of OW1. However, to achieve this, they made it so shooting people is generally less valuable. More health, more and stronger armor, more healing, more damage mitigation abilities... I think it leads to a lot of situations where you're shooting someone (especially tanks) with no ability or intention to actually kill them unless your teammates help. In the end it feels like a different flavor of shooting shields again.
I personally wish they'd find a way to bring back more of the individual value to shooting someone. 6v6 inherently brings this since they'll have to drastically reduce the survivability of tanks for it, but I don't think that solves it alone
Ow classic is worst competitive game and that's fact, but damn it's way more fun and much of that fun comes with mindset that classic promotes. its the shark mindset, the mind set of waiting and setting up for your moment and then boom, you go in you do the thing enemy dies or all your team gets back and in that moment you feel like you are the guy, you are the hero of that moment and if you fail, no matter you try again. and if we don't include the horrible balance wise ones like Dva every other one that have that moment feels great.
and I feel less complaining about Widow one shot when I know as Mccree I have my flashbang fan the hammer or as Hanzo I have scatter or as rein I have huge shatters or even as Zen I have that trans that can save the day vs Zarya Hanzo combo.
The thing that ruined Ow was with the introduction of so many new heroes they messed up with what edge new characters had and stacking some of those edges made every other edge useless like goats or double shield, then they removed every high all these characters have and just made them numerically strong and now we have heroes that we only pick because they have number advantage, not that moment of glory that we all loved and the ones that somehow retained that high like Widow, don't fit in the new format because when enemy have that moment and you don't have it, it feels really bad.
I'm getting a psych degree, and while it may not be completely accurate, varied experiences versus more consistent experiences depend on the game, and on the player but there are things to consider
The "hedonic treadmill" concept argues that it doesn't matter how good or bad an individual thing is, humans naturally return to their baseline over time, just w/ it in mind. That includes even lottery winners and quadrapoligics.
OW Classic kinda sucks the moment someone starts seriously trying to win. It's only really fun as a chaotic slugfest imo, and it's all extremely dependent on teammates doing a certain minimum.
Even with so called High highs and low lows, what made it fun and satisfying was having playmaking options and some control even in lows, low healing less hp tank is better, and 2 Max per role can address queue times
I'm not sure about specific heroes in classics. The mode itself feels way more engaging and fun than post-sustain meta 6v6 and super tank 5v5. The fact that I can duel a Roadhog with Genji and win as long as I dodge the hook feels amazing. In later iterations of Overwatch, we lost that to the point where characters like Genji are not playable against certain heroes and have become very niche. Classics mode has a lot of warts missing some of the QOL changes. And we have Mercy super resurrect ultimate. But even with these warts, classics feels more fun than modern Overwatch. When the sustain metas started and especially when 5v5 was released, I dropped off and stopped playing the game, and I did not have the desire to play. Playing classics, that obsessiveness of wanting to play the game returned. I played 2 days this week non stop and I'm just having a blast. Part of that is remembering how things used to be, and rediscovering that, but it feels much more than that. It feels like I can actually do things and make plays whereas in modern Overwatch I can't do that. It's more than nostalgia for me, but simply how game plays overall. I think player agency and high risk reward is what was lost in the game. They say that 5v5 was supposed to give players agency, but in reality it has done the opposite in taking it away.
I want to add - The Mercy resurrection ultimate, Mei freezing may be slightly annoying, but I am having more fun with the game than I have in years. If there was any detractor to the mode, it's the map rotation. I keep getting Hanamura, Volskaya, Anubus, and Dorado constantly. I sometimes get Lijiang/Illios/Nepal and I don't mind those as much. Gibraltar and Numbani less frequently. But I have gotten Kings Row like 2 times total in 2 days. It seems like the 2CP maps are weighed more heavily. Which I don't mind playing them ever once in a while as long as I get Kings Row more often. It's getting to the point that I am getting Hanamura, Volskaya, and Anubus so much that I just leave. It's not that I particular hate the maps or modes, but the rotation needs to be more even. Also since these maps are not even the 2016 versions and are updated, why not add some of the other maps in rotation, like Eichenwalde? I know it's not a launch map, but it was later in 2016. It would also be interesting to see how the classic characters play on some of the more "modern" maps.
Ow classic has almost made me appreciate ow2 much more despite its flaws
Shill detected.
@@Projekt1251Official having an opinion doesnt make you a shill
@@Projekt1251Official Samito drone detected
@@Projekt1251Official i hope u know that u sound like a drone
@@AntivenomOW you mad.
Forever ago DougDoug had a video that was called "Explaining Overwatch With Food" or something similar. It was very similar to what you, Spilo, had to say when you were making your cake analogy. Kind thought it was funny how they were both food analogies and trying to put the same point across, but DougDoug was coming from an entertainment angle and Spilo was coming from an education angle.
Even though it was frustrating playing into a junk defense on anubis, once you broke that and snowballed it was pretty satisfying. I feel that overwatch 2 doesnt allow a meta to develop then be countered.
sym was so bad though 😫. Slow orbs slow turret deployment extremely close range beam. Tp as ult too high value and easy to destroy. Her supprot shield ability felt like a chore. Also the hard counter againts pharah. Im not excited to play her 💠👌🏾
ow classic reminded me how easy it was to get ults, and i really do miss that, the chaotic nature of ult being used every single fight was so much fun for me, also i fogot tracer's ult used to actually get value lmao
I was on 5v5 side, but im having so much more fun in classic ow, so i completely changed my mind. It feels old in its mechanics but fun factor is much higher, balance feels more honest, 1v1 dps and tank feels fair both can win a duel in 6v6 mode, every hero feels more distinct from each other, not like every hero is jack of all trades so it has everything. It also feels slower and i like it more, you can actually make kills. 5v5 is more speedy but noone dies, everyone just doing pointless damage until they use ult
Playing Overwatch Classic gave me an overwhelming feeling of relief, that some of the things added later in Overwatch's life were not there to be a thorn in my side. Especially in the tank role, even with less healing, I felt like I had more freedom to make the choices I wanted, rather than constantly waiting to react to my enemy's choices. But when it comes to the individual characters themselves, I think it's hard to deny that these past iterations of them are objectively less fun. Sure there are some things I miss here and there, but almost across the board, I feel like the changes made to those core 21 characters were massive improvements.
2 things i think we can learn from overwatch classic:
How does it feel without the crazy burst sustain cooldowns of modern overwatch (to me it feels SO MUCH BETTER) and
The power of silly. I know you guys are all about the competitives but hear me out. No hero limits is "bad", sure. But not for casual play with the original cast, I don't think so. For arcade and event modes I think the dynamics of ogwatch work very well and that harsh sorta character design with super unbalanced power levels can actually be more fun in a low stakes environment. For me it's the same reason fighting game and card game "bad options" make a game better and i'd summarize it as something like "empowering the narrative". Overwatch gamemodes and maps (especially in classic) generally work against low stakes environments by having very limited options in positioning and very punishing objectives but it's still an effect worth exploring to make more fun secondary modes.
It's worth noting that the game only stayed with this "no-limits" mode for like, about two weeks. When people think about launch Overwatch, they probably want the game with a little more updates than this, like with DVa already being playable for example.
That being said, the difference in philosophy with both games is pretty clear - they were made with very different objectives and by replaying this version (even if it's not 1:1 to what the game was when it came out) we can clearly see what was the vision of the team and believe when they say that this was not supposed to be a live service. We were supposed to get a couple of patches just to smooth out the rougher edges and maybe a couple of characts, which is why they always said we wouldn't have to pay for anything else post-launch (as there wasn't supposed to be much of it anyway).
Launch Overwatch is a video game with a vision, a work of art that is intended to be a fun, unserious game to play with your friends (hence why it's so focused on teamwork to the point that even ranked was only possible in a six-stack at first), while Overwatch 2 feels less like art and more like a product, a vehicle to maximize engagement to drive in-app purchases. By going this route, it's inevitable that the game gets blander and blander, because it needs to appeal to more people in order to maximize profits so releasing a truly unique character is much harder. If you look at the mechanics we had in OW1, it's pretty clear that the game was less an FPS and more of a MOBA, with things like Torbjorn needing to collect scrap in order to make armor packs or Reaper dropping souls from enemies to heal himself. Is it better than what the characters do in OW2? Probably not (most likely not, tbh), but it *is* more unique, and this possibility of something unique is what we're missing now.
All it really did was remind me was even at its launch overwatch 1 was way more interesting and had uniqueness, then overwatch 2 has in its entirety pinky toe, I'm sorry but i fell in love with the game that offered unique charaters, each offering a different play styles not similar to each other, overwatch was so much more then your traditional fps and in the end to me at least it devolved right back into another bland run and gun
I feel like character identities were a lot more sharply defined, while nowadays quite a lot of characters are doing approximately the same thing with only slight variation
As a pharah fan I found out id trade in the additional mobility we got in exchange for old splash damage and concussive blast power.
I was going to post this as a reply to someone, but it got too big so I figured i'd post it on it's own, generally the suggestion is that there's too much healing and too much sustain that offensive plays dont feel as impactful and that most of that comes from healing output. A suggestion is that reducing healing by ~50% (seems high to me) would bring things more into line with how classic and it's heady heights of high highs feels.
Let's say that's right. All healing being reduced by 50% is the sweet spot for making offensive plays more impactful. The numbers themselves arent really that important, it's the side-effects of this line of thinking that I dont think people are actually considering. So. Now, you've taken ~25-40% of every support character's contributed output out of the game. If high amounts of healing and protection is what makes support play so impactful to the point that it cancels out the offenseive plays leading to a less compelling experience, that's not longer there for them; What do you give support characters so that their contribution now feels as impactful as damage and tank heroes? Because we want all roles to feel like they matter and have impact, right? The same applies with a reduction to tank sustainability, but for sake of brevity lets only consider support because it seems like the argument generally is aimed at the support role.
If you compare the numbers only, support heroes already deal 25-50% less damage with their primary fire than damage heroes, and similar to some tanks; Depending on who you compare and not counting the extra damaging abilities most damage/tank heroes have to supplement their primary fire. If you bump support damage that lessens the identify of a damage hero and probably wouldnt be enough to create an identity that has enough impact compared to the lethality of a damage hero. If you bump their CC it's the same: You take away from the tank role and likely dont give enough for it to matter. If you increase both a small amount you give them NO identity at all and they become generalists that arent really capable of doing anything impactful individually. And if you do something else like give them more mobility and/or debuffs they become more frustrating to deal with generally or they enable higher damage numbers across the board. Tricky.
The reason I think this is the way it is because Overwatch heroes weren't designed as FPS shooter heroes. They were designed around the holy MMO trifecta of tank, damage and healer. Those are the identities. And in those games there are classes that straddle those roles and they are fine most of the time, but don't have those high highs; If you want anything to really matter, to do something big, you need those defined extremes in order for it to work.
This is why the trifecta is mostly gone from modern gaming. it's too polarizing and too reliant on every piece being played exactly right and without the necessary pieces in play the system doesn't work. However, If you look at something like Guild Wars where every class has so much versatility, every hero has signature abilities, they all have a self heal, they all have mobility, it's not all equal but the options are there and you still need a build that leans more towards the trifecta roles to succeed in content, but it's designed in such a way that every class CAN do high damage they CAN have high sustain and they CAN heal others and it works and is a better team game for it because the pieces are more malleable.
The thing I find most refreshing is the TTK. Things don’t die in OW2.
Based off the little bit I know, a more consistent mental loop offers less "off-ramps." Meaning people won't get so upset they leave. I think a relevant topic is "spiky vs smooth" game design. Smooth wants to offer no barrier and consequence to that element (tank boop debuff) and spiky is looking for engagement through trade off. I think older game design values spiky (dva DM in classic comes to mind) and they have turned that down to resource bars which is still spiky, but much less so
I once jokingly picked Torb back in OW1 Hanamura in a masters/GM comp lobby (the time where Torb could throw his turret) while we were trapped in our spawn but my team was totally ok with it and we managed to win both points in 1 fight each by throwing my turret in a place where it would put pressure on the other team’s backline due to LoS issues with their frontline.
I was EXTREMELY shot-caller-y but in a bit of a joking manner but when it went as well as it did, we had like 6:30 to go in a round 2 if there was gonna be one (which, no… because torb 2CP defense) both my team and myself were absolutely flabbergasted
I like both 5s and 6s. I think peak was around season 2-4 for OW1 when alot of things were cleaned up. Then it was all down hill, completely busted heroes, balance decisions that were questionable, little to no updates. Why was armor left like that until ow2?
Ow2 has been up and down but overall climing upwards more than not.
I do think ow2 needs a heal and burst damage crunch though because for some reason they keep undoing the health increase and things feel like they die too fast not because healing is less effective but because damage is too overtuned from some sources.
Alot of what we have now, had they kept updating 6v6 would have still come out eventually. bastion turret, mei freeze, doom combo, torb core, widow 1 shot, all gone. Sombra, mercy, and sym reworks. All of these would be what they are now or something achieving or striving for a similar result.
Overwatch classic is busted and fun, 5v5 is boring and depressing.
Classic Overwatch feels like it was designed around the average player with fun in mind. Less mobility for almost all heroes, lower health pools, and overall less healing options makes for a more fast paced and fun experience
Modern Overwatch feels like it's designed around the top 1% with competitive in mind. Almost every hero has a "get out of jail free card" by being able to escape death easily combined with the higher health pools makes the game take more teamwork and strategy creating a slower paced and more sweaty experience.
They are not the same game.
Historically higher highs trumps all. Prime example, call of duty. When you're kicking butt it is the greatest feeling ever. You have streaks after streaks, dropping air support and everyone in the lobby knows you're a threat. It's why it has lasted so long despite being a repeat experience. Getting that high of a nuke (moab) is thrilling. And the diverse amount of ways to get one is also fun.
Everyone wants to have the opportunity to carry and classic showed us that it really was a dps game at launch. Tanks and supports were trash. But a genji blade getting 5 is an amazing feeling. High noon killing 4 and then flashbang and 1 tap a tracer is beautiful. But at the time other than rein shatter you didn't get those highs and that's why dps was the longest queued role throughout all of OW1. And this is coming from a 500 hour Ana main with my next hero being 100 hours bap and zen. Dps is gives the higher high and I think that will always trump "balanced" game play
I've believed this for a while, but the OW Classic test has made it all the more apparent:
Support needs a total rework.
"Support not healer" needs to actually become reality.
I wouldn't mind that outlook if those supports that follow it dont also come stacking a buttload of heals. 60% support 40% heals would be nice but they're not overhauling the game enough to do that. Currently it does feel like 65% support 65% heals to break the scale of the game.
For the upcoming trials, I know there's going to be unfun and unbalanced aspects of each, but I also know I will enjoy it more.
1) Open queue hits different for me, because I can run fun comboes with my friends while role swapping to boost our team as needed. But I also know how shit it is to solo queue get 3-4 dps players who are both bad at the role and unwilling to swap/adapt their gameplay or 2-3 Mercy players who cannot play another hero. Idk how you can balance that outside of actually forcing the playerbase to learn the game.
2) As a metal rank Ana main in OW1, I enjoyed figuring out aggressive positions against 2 tanks and weaving in abilities to impact the fight (yes, even against double shield v2 & 3 or Winston-Dva; OG double shield can burn in Hell though). In OW2 (especially with literally all the new tanks) has the freest nades and sleeps of your life, so she's both way easier to get value out of and worse to play against. It's literally the opposite of rose tinted glasses here, but again I realize this doesn't apply to everyone's heroes/playstyles.
"my brother in law.... and his wife" wouldn't that be your sister lmao
Wife's brother and wife's brother's wife
Probably his wife's brother and his wife.
That’s what i thought too which i though was a hilarious way of saying it but i think the people above me are right
Bros before... Well, you know the rest.
When it comes to the maps don't allow or design maps with tunnel vision that you can only go down mid on the choke just remove the walls and make it more wider dynamic for you to engage
I think the fast paced gameplay was the biggest positive take away, classic mode. Lower time to kill, fast respawns, no free value abilities.
I am certain, that the best way to check what's the best variation of 6v6 is better better, between let's call it pre mei freeze change and after, should be decided by statistics of preference of one mode over the other. Both versions should be online at a same time -neither should contain Mauga-
Invoking a lot of relf with the focus of sharp designs in this. Relf mentions plenty about how he enjoys the fact 6v6 allows for more extreme/sharp designs in kits & maps (even though I like the dorado change, iirc he was very hesitant in his opinion given the generalization of Dorado away from its more extreme design) However the question of whether the sharpness should be a good in-of-itself is absolutely on the table. I love Relf (I know you do too... maybe a bit too much) but I DO like some generalization away from extreme designs, especially those that feel more trouble than its worth letting the design stay that extreme. It's also necessary as part of OW's transition away from a TF2-like casual shooter to a Valorant-like competitive shooter.
The reason however I still prefer 6v6 is that it really gave OW that identity away from other 5v5 competitive games (like valorant, league, cs, r6, dota, i think you get the message...). Sure, the more extreme designs sometimes spelled for a more frustrating game overall (lower lows are just remembered more than higher highs) it did however offer something beautiful that 5v5 just doesn't. If we were to return to 6v6, changes like removing Mei's freeze (which is the generalization away from her fantasy and more extreme design) are healthy, however 6v6 allows for us to even see these designs to begin with, which is also healthy! One of the worst parts of valorant is that every new character doesn't really play all that differently from others, which is necessary given its focus on gunplay, but it does in its uniqueness & freshness (which is why CS players take every chance they get to attack the faux-freshness of valorant). 5v5 forces OW into a similar place that 6v6 doesn't, and that alone IMO makes 6v6 better. It allows OW to be its own game.
I'm getting a degree for psych, but still take what I'm saying w/ a grain of salt. I think the logic is well, but I'd love to see some holes poked if I'm wrong. As far as what's better between peaks (& valleys) or consistent experience, it probably depends on the person, unfortunately. But there's things worth noting:
1. The hedonic treadmill. This states that it doesn't matter what events happen in your life, humans always trend towards their baseline of contentness. This actually has been done in studies, and shows that this even applies to lottery winners and people who've lost limbs, so even at the extremes, this still applies. If a person tends to play individual games for a long time (say, competitive players), and still tends to improve in rewarding, fun way, then they probably will stave this off and see the game as better than if they were stuck at the same level. Why? because...
2. Humans tend to remember bad experiences more than good ones, unfortunately. If you're stuck at the same level, you may never reach that high that comes w/ competitive success or consistent victory again. This is why in plenty of competitive scenes (sports or jobs even, not just games), people who've seemingly maxed out their skill, or had bad experiences turn to more casual scenes (content creation, coaching, maybe jobs that pay less but have more freedom). Final point, as this is were old professionals go:
3. Casual players don't care about higher highs. A person who barely understands the systems he's using with the game, and barely cares beyond the timewasting element, may never experience the *true* higher highs possible within a game. So for them, consistent fun and timewasting is way more important. That's why cod will never not outsell or have more space in mind for most gamers than something like, chess, blackjack, or 3rd strike (csgo being the exception, due to far lower spec requirements).
Just commenting to tell you that both of your comments are still up. You replied to spilos comment worrying about these getting removed. Though, they are pretty far down in the comment section. (I loaded all comments and ctrl + F)
Fun read btw :)
@notfranklin4916 Thank you! 😁👍
@@notfranklin4916 Actually, let me give you a bit more since you found it interesting.
In terms of this dynamic between "peaks & valleys" and consistency, I think 5v5 and 6v6 could both have their reasons for being better or worse based around it. The peak of 5v5 and the avg 5v5 game are closer to together, and the lows aren't as bad (unless you otp winston). So the avg player (maybe with, maybe without tank players) will probably enjoy 5v5 more than 6v6 *if we we only basing it on this angle alone.* 6v6 is better for competitive-minded people (probably) for the exact opposite reasons.
Another aspect I didn't go over in the original comment is control. 5v5 allows for more control over the game, and more felt consistency (since the result matches more to your skill level, as each player has more of an individual impact) which may also make it appeal to the casual crowd more than 6v6 (assuming you play solo). If this aspect is important, I'd expect to see incredibly fast support queue times in ow2, and slower ow1 support queue times (idk how fast the support ow1 queue times were, personally, and I don't think the data is out there)
I REALLY miss Scatter-Arrow. I understand that it’s hard to balance with its one shot potential, but it allows for so much more expression than Spam-er… I mean Storm Arrow
What's the alternate expression? Storm arrows also ricochet, no?
I think, perhaps, that one important factor is how much you enjoy playing the game, not just how good it is to win. Say you played a game that you felt happy with even though you lost. Wouldn't that be the best of both worlds? We treat this as if it's a zero sum game, but isn't that putting the bar too low?
The best way to make the game fun from both sides win or lose is more variability and skill expression. There are certain characters that make people mad when they die to and some where they accept it. Its hard to get mad at a death where either the enemy made a really good play or you made a bad play.
The more decisions you have to make the higher the difficulty the character or game is and the more rewarding and less frustrating it is to lose.
Abilities need to have multiple uses or purposes instead of being very one dimensional and just something you always click because its free value with no drawback like he mentioned with hog vape. OW has mostly only expanded on this dynamic aspect through mobility abilities which is good and a great form of skill expression but can only go on so many characters before it gets overused. Ana is a great example of a character that people really like even though she has no mobility she has a lot of decision making in her abilities more than just use them. Other ability games and mobas ive played have very complex abilities with paragraphs of text and you can use the same character in many different ways while still keeping the characters identity. Many of the hated characters in OW only have one playstyle and are very limited by that which can be frustrating to play as and against.
I think a big part of why people enjoy Classic is that the skill floor for mechanically performing most heroes is much much lower. I play Classic mode because Cassidy's flash bang/fan the hammer combo being so ridiculously strong while also super easy is fun and hilarious. Mei has an easy set up for free headshots. Bastion isn't tied to a long cooldown for his turret form. Ult charge across the board is much higher while there's less mobility in general, so you get ults way faster. Classic is not better, it's just easier as long as you know some pretty basic techniques. And that's not to say anyone who enjoys Classic more than modern needs to get good. Just realize that Classic's design was pretty low skill ceiling, which is bad for player retention and competitive play.
My take on the Nostalgiawatch vs OW2:
I think overwatch 2016 was meant to be enjoyed like an arcade game, the rushed development, the sharp edges everywhere in its design, but with very unique characters. Which on a base level is amazing, very plug and play. You want to be a giant man with a rocket hammer? You can do that and feel powerful, I think ow2016 does a great job of doing that with most of its heroes.
But then overwatch blew up, the nature of fps games gave the game a competitive twang, more heroes were added and as a result the roles and unique player fantasy each hero provided became more diluted. The competitiveness of the game turned hitscan heroes from being these cool sharp shooters into anti air heroes, which doesnt seem like a major problem, but it conflicts with what I believe the nature of the game was supposed to be.
Now with a cast of 35+? heroes the individuality of some heroes have merely just become a flavour of other heroes, while some heroes were merely introduced as a bandaid solution more over than to create another top of the line hero fantasy. An example I like is lifeweaver, fundamentally is in the same boat as mercy and was designed to be that way, managing heals and damage, retracting mistakes with pull / rez, and ultimate that increases your teams effectiveness without adding much individual value.
Now if you put Overwatch into the hypothetical lens of it being stuck in the 2016 version, but they kept updating the game, adding heroes, etc. Do you think they would add Lifeweaver to begin with?
Now, with a new dev team and assumingly a new approach, we're seeing heroes with these sharp edges again, these defined characteristics and strong player fantasies. Mauga is a classic example of this. On paper he seems like an absolute blast in this sharp edged arcade-esque game. But competitive players hate him, while if you look at how well those infamous mauga 1v1 clips, those typically get a heartwarming laugh out of the casual players, because its silly, they dont care too much. But, ofcourse overwatch has shifted into a competitive and major changes had to be made, and now the devs have seemingly found a good balance between strong player fantasies and competitive balance, venture and juno being good examples.
It just can’t be a coincidence that he stops on widowmaker when he he starts talking about cake
I personally find classic comically bad, almost every character feels so much worse, even the strong ones. It's a good reminder not to take modern OW for granted.
Idk it felt nice to actually kill things without the presence of busted support kits.
I don't know. Sounds kind of "dumb" to me. The game back in 2016 with 8 years of hindsight gives you the take away that "I shouldn't take modern OW for granted" sounds like Stockholm syndrome. OW classic had its issues but they do not absolve OW2 of its issues as some kind of "lesser evil".
“Not to take modern ow for granted” it’s not even the same game philosophy they had back then with what they have now, basically apples and oranges.
@@aerostrafe1075 Maybe not so much "taking for granted", what I meant is I appreciate it more in retrospect.
Heavily disagree, Modern overwatch is so boring, just another lame run and gun at least with ow1 there were so many ways to play the game, a different play style for everyone, each character was broken in their own unique way but fuck that, lets make them all generalists
You asked if higher highs/lower lows were better than a more even experience and I'm pretty sure it's universally understood that the former is better if your goal is to keep someone engaged, league of legends and gambling are great examples of this lol. People will suffer for hours just to get that one amazingly fun game
I guess I like Overwatch 1 Esports a whole lot more and working with those really distinct hero identities, building comps, etc. In terms of actual ranked I’d say I watch OW2 so much more, it feels leagues better than in OW1. As for casual play I think competitive shooters have come so long since 2016 that I think casual gamers like my boyfriend will always be put off by games like this these days, so it’s not really worth changing the game to appease them as sad as that is.
Truth being said, I haven't played this mode enough to comment (about 4~5 games?), but at the very least I liked this version of hanzo. He seems to be more consistent than in OW2, but this is also because of the lack of mobility in this version. A lot of heroes are pretty much dull compared to today's OW. Yep my personnal score to this would be 20/100 for me, who never played OW1.
is it just me or does rein feel WAY better in classic? His hammer and firestrike feel way more chunky cause of the lack of big healing and escape cooldownds on the other team. His shield actually feels important to use instead of feeling like a parry button.
"character identity" is always used to support the point of who's saying. Truth is, people want to preserve the "identity" of the characters the like but they want to destroy the "identities" of the characters they hate. OW Classic is here to prove to people that the game is in a better place today than it was at the beginning
October 2020 Patch.
Honestly, I had a great time playing ow classic, mostly because each match felt so much more different. There was less homogenization in the different heroes, which led to much more diverse (and frankly chaotic) results.
Overwatch classic is awful for competitive play, but it feels GREAT for more casual and wacky play.
Genji can actually fight hog without blade in this game mode
feel like classic ow has broad, easy appeal by virtue of the stakes being different - its sharp, but silly because of it. its easily understood by the average player to not be a fair experience, so its in some ways easier to accept losses because there are no stakes to an unbalanced game. the way ow has evolved tho, i think too many people now enjoy playing ow competitively to go back to that environment permanently. at the very least i dont think i can. but that does mean that a competitive fairer game means its a little more crushing when u lose, and more stressful to play during, because the match outcomes say more about you as a player and your teams ability to be Good at the game
Im a newer OW2 player and absolutely hate going against the new versions of the tanks like Dva, Orisa, & Zarya. I need them highly nerfed, but not as bad as their OW1 counterparts tho
Honestly, if i had to pick two things it would be the maps and loot boxes :P
13:02 I don't agree. I started playing OW2 S1 and i really enjoy the classic mode. After 100+ games I've almost never complained about teammates. In 5v5 every game there is someone to blame. Who agrees?
I don't consider Overwatch a Strategy game. It's a shooty-shooty-death-death game with Hero abilities, so the less "sharp edges" the better. I don't want my hero pick, or anyone else's hero pick to be a throw because of what the other team is running. I like the current dynamic hero kits from a fun aspect. More things to do is better.
I came into this game in 2017, so I didn't experience all the launch madness. First time i booted this up and tried Lucio it was hilariously awful. I couldn't do my rollouts, trying to climb up surfaces was an exercise in futility, and the truth excessive ttk there seemed like little point in dueling DPS. Heck, half the time I benched him for Reaper.
I chafed against it a lot, but in playing more it's become a moment of acceptance where you have to understand this was simply the beginning of a project Team Four wasn't even sure would do well. It's a basic start, almost tech demo-y, and thus charming in a way. I'm okay playing my little cheerleader now that I'm accustomed to the bounds and rules of 1.0
It's still fun. But it has made me appreciate OW2 all the more where I can actually do something about Widow besides mirror her.
October 2020 Patch.
high peaks and deep valleys. A great experience or upsetting experience at least you CARE. The more middling, consistent experience of Overwatch 2 seems to coincide with player apathy
The fact is that the quit rate of the classic mode is sooooo much higher than in qp, just based off of what I've played. I have quitters literally almost every single game. The highs are definitely high, but if the lows result I people leaving so often, the game almost becomes unplayable. I'd love to team up with a stack and play this mode, but it's been mostly solo q for me
I just want to compare current OW2 patch with the OW1 patch before brig release and feel the difference.
Been saying this for awhile…… tanks need to be SMALLER (so not so easy to hit)
And have more RANGE… while having their hp/sustain reduced…. But you will be harder to hit so it evens out
I have been really enjoying overwatch lately, and generally have preferred ow2 to ow1. I say all of this as a tank player which seems uncommon from a lot of the people ive seen, I much prefer 1 tank and it personally fulfills the role fantasy better. People have a major negativity bias as well, we see this all the time, and I am very aware of this myself. If I have a session of overwatch where I got 5 and 10, dead even but it was alternating wins and losses I will probably feel like I lost more than I won over that play time, even though it is objectively untrue. This is especially doubled if either I have games where I was carrying our team but we still lost, or where I am the odd player out on the team doing absolutely nothing. Both of those instances of losing feel terrible and far outway any win I might get. This discussion in overwatch is very interesting to me as I also play a lot of Tekken 8 and that games ranked has a similar problem. Even though I have a near 70% win rate in Tekken 8 ranked it feels terrible to play because often times when you lose in that game you lose really hard getting beat by something you have no idea how to deal with. I think that consistency in game difficulty is where you see the best matchmaking, the nights I have the most fun are where all the games are close. I have rambled a lot but the biggest point I want to make is that games where it was very close and I feel not only I but my whole team played well, I don't care very much about the outcome. Games that are not close, however, only matter to me based on the result of the game. If it's a stomp either way then it doesn't feel great becausse I didn't get to play in a game where I could feel my abilities shine.
just thought of another good point about one sides matches. In a one sided match in my experience regardless of what side you are on, it ends up feeling like your decisions don't really matter. When I am destroying the enemy team it feels like pretty much any decision I make will end up in a positive result, this can be fun because you can get really wacky and creative and push your weird strategies to the limit. On the other side though, it is much worse. When I am getting absolutely smoked I usually feel like no matter what decision I make it will have a negative outcome, it's extremely defeating and unpleasant resulting in the desire to just give up. I don't have these games too often but the other I for some reason ran into a t500 doomfist and ashe duo in qp with friends and we got totally rolled. While this instance is an outlier in my play experience I feel it is a good example of not feeling like any decision I make will matter.