why ? new sound is so loud and confusing it makes you look around you thinking there is an enemy Genji jumping above you or something.
Edit: I don’t remember seeing it in patch notes either. Is it a bugg or intentionall
Sounds are getting changed for OW2. They’re also trying to change the active player count from a few million to zero, and it’s going well so far.
Seems odd to say that. Play numbers were up last month.
Overwatch was a fun game, but I think Blizzard has well and truly given up on it. They’ve been sabotaging it with bad updates to try and save the e-sport, but that hasn’t worked. OW2 is their last chance to try and get people back into the game, and from what we’ve seen it’s going to fail.
Of course they are doing less for it. It was a rushed out beta for a bigger game that is being built on a mostly new engine. Where content for the new game won’t function on the current one… So can’t be dropped early.
Team 4 (dev team) and OWL are 2 separate entities and have little to do with each other. Other than sharing chats about the game from time to time.
OWL viewing figures are going up too… as is ad and sponsorship revenues, so not sure what you mean by “hasn’t worked”
As for the last bit, that is just your opinion. I won’t try correct you. 5v5 and other OW2 stuff won’t be for everyone. But people like you who will go, will be replaced pretty quickly.
If you can’t admit the very severe decline in quality that’s happened over the past few years then there’s nothing I can do for you. But pretending there isn’t a problem is not going to solve anything. Blizzard just straight up isn’t good at making games. They’re good at design, maybe even the best at it. But they have no clue how to translate that into a fun game; and for the most part the executives don’t even see that as a problem.
Overwatch as a project only exists because the higher-ups wanted an e-sport. But it was so poorly managed that it’s failed to get off the ground, just like every other corporate e-sport: they have to be propped up. Again, some people really do like it, but that’s a small and shrinking market. Breaking the game to make OWL more entertaining only works to a point. Adding role queue, unbalancing the game: people stop caring. Blizzard will pretend that they’re succeeding right until they close down the servers.
The co-op mode seems like an escape hatch, so they don’t have to worry about balancing the game. They can keep up the microtransactions with that and judge ditch the PVP when it sinks. The question is whether co-op stays relevant for more than a few weeks, which I personally doubt given how they’ve handled the event game-modes for the past 5 years. No one is stopping you from liking the game, but you might want to think of a single reason to like it. Not the world, not the characters: the actual game.
I am not denying that.
I am just very aware of the reasons for it, and I am ok with that. They have a much bigger job to do.
OWL came way later based on the success of the 3rd party competitions and teams. Nothing to do with the plan, in fact I do believe they stated a few times, it was never intended to be an e-sport, they didn’t even want a competitive mode at first.
The co-op mode (PvE) is what they always wanted in the first place when it was meant to be Titan, before that got cancelled. That is why the initial game looked to rushed and heroes needed so many changes… because it was rushed, to get a game out to meet a window.
The event game modes were small tests to see if the concept worked. The full thing I believe is meant to be an ever evolving live service, more akin to how MMOs operate.
Whether it works, that is another question. It might completely flop. Who knows.
Project Titan was rejected precisely because it wasn’t able to be marketed as an e-sport, which is why Overwatch was made. Yes, they didn’t loudly announce their reasoning, I’m not sure that matters.
Given the sheer number of L4D clones it has to compete with, I’m very sceptical. I know I’m not buying into it, and I expect most people are going to ignore it without some major improvements that they just forgot to mention for the past year.
No it wasn’t.
It was cancelled (not rejected) because they didn’t think there was a market for it and they needed something commercially successful.
What do you think “commercially successful” means? It means profitable, which e-sports are. Every aspect of Overwatch’s development has been to make it more entertaining for OWL viewers.
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the OWL money isn’t covered in the Activision-Blizzard accounts as technically they are a separate business operating under licence.
But, if Apex can hit $500 million net profit this year (which is it expected to do), the OW2 should easily go well over that with a F2P model. Possibly WAAAAY over it.
It should easily get between Apex’s $500million and CoD $3billion…
Project Titan wasn’t believed to even to be even going to make a dent in those figures. So they changed for a broadly simple PvP game and used a bulk of the assets. The massive success of it has allowed them to take more time with sorting out what they wanted to game to be going forward. And now we are here, 5+ years later with a game on its way.
I think you’re really overestimating its chances. It would be super nice if Blizzard realised their mistakes and put everything into reverse, but they’re not going to. If anything this game will probably meet its final end precisely because of all the microtransactions getting in the way. The executives will see it as a success because they made a billion dollars, but I highly doubt it will reach the levels of popularity that Overwatch did when it came out. I’d love to be proven wrong, but more likely it’s going to be another Apex or Valorant: a quick cash grab with no soul that flounders when the next game comes out.
Look at TF2, the only game in this genre with any kind of self-respect; and it ended up as a hat shop because the developer stopped caring. I’m guessing OW2 is going to be the same thing. Certainly the story is not going to keep people coming back (that’s a problem with Overwatch in general tbf), and the gameplay doesn’t look like anything special. Once people realise that PVP is the same garbage they’ve hated for years most people will move on. The only thing keeping it afloat right now is that people expect it to fix everything (idk why, Blizzard doesn’t even understand the issue).
If it turns out to be a cash grab and makes them a lot of money… then it was successful.
But you can’t try that if you want long term success, while trying to negotiate loads of external licencing deals… those deals are currently their biggest earners. Followed by loot boxes.
The “soul” of the game is already there. Just look at the people who go mad over lore, fan fictions and all sorts.
They are hoping 5v5 smooths the process for PvP, which in theory it should do.
And the 4 player co-op, what they’ve shown looks ok, but the opportunities are limitless with that sort of thing, so best to reserve judgement.
5v5 with solo-tanking guarantees another mass exodus of tank players; who are already tired of being ignored. Solo tanking is the single worst possible experience in Overwatch, and this is a huge middle finger to the people who stuck with the game. It makes half the tanks borderline unplayable since they relied on synergy with another tank. The two biggest winners are (yet again) Zarya and Reinhardt. I get that the developers don’t personally like some heroes, but they really need to stop treating them like garbage because of it.
I don’t believe in reserving judgement. The best time to be critical is before people spend their money. If Blizzard wants to make their game look good they should start by making a good game.
It might. But those who hate double shield (including tank players) will come back to try.
F2P will mean a lot more people come to try… it is then in Team 4’s hands to carry on and not let the initial buzz fade away.
I get what you mean, but judging tanks in 5v5 based on how they are now, whilst totally understandable… is completely pointless.
For example… Solo tanking with current Orissa sounds horrendous… But she is getting totally reworked (hence why she wasn’t played in the test stream they did).
I think 5v5 is going to be radically different in terms of how heroes work, and how it is played that you will have nothing now to base a judgement on. So you can really only reserve judgement. They even said in that stream, that patch wasn’t even the current one they were testing… So even that stream gives little away,.
People who claim they dislike double shield should ask themselves why they are so angry about something that doesn’t happen.
F2P means that people will try, but they’ll also probably leave. Paladins is F2P and look at them. If the game was any good they wouldn’t have to give it away for free.
Changing tanks is terrible too, remember that experimental patch where Roadhog could heal. It’s disrespectful to fans of those heroes to change them. Can you imagine the anger if they reworked someone like Genji? No, it’s always Symmetra or something with a smaller fanbase.
Orisa not being played doesn’t imply that she’s getting reworked. I’m pretty sure it was the characters that have had their models and animations redone.
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It is even infecting gold/plat games now. Then you see people complaining their DPS “aren’t doing enough”… usually because they are spending the whole time shooting shields lol.
Times change, the game is fading as it is… they have to change.
So why not go balls out and make big changes.
Balancing tanks is the hardest thing they have to do… well this solves that, and they can be more radical with other changes now.
Orissa not being played was because she is being reworked, they said so. Same reason Bastion didn’t get shown off as he is getting a “bottom up rework”. They said at the beginning those 2 were unavailable, and were even blocked in hero selection.
Mei and Winston were played, but they werent the OW2 versions, just tweaked current versions. (winston was missing his new secondary fire)
You know, there is a chance you are right and it all turns in to a big steaming pile of poop. But there is very little to suggest that will be the case.,
The most common tanks are Rein and Zarya, as per usual. Sigma is in 5th place and Orisa is dead last. Double shield was only a thing for a month, and that was a year ago. Shields are comically weak now anyway, so DPS should have no trouble shredding them.
The game does need to change, but Blizzard have consistently made the wrong changes, which is why we’re still in such a mess. You can’t get out of a hole by digging deeper.
It’s really not that hard to balance the game, there was a time when it actually was well-balanced. It was several years ago, and OWL viewers were angry, but the game used to have a strong balance between its tanks.
If Bastion and Orisa get reworked then that’s another insult to the community.
There’s no reason to believe that anything will change with OW2. Everything they’ve shown proves they have no idea what the problems are, and have no interest in fixing them.
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I played like 10ish tank games.
Hog is in nearly every game at some point. Rein gets a lot of play, but mostly to stop people crying.
But just because it isn’t played in gold, doesn’t means its not oppressive and boring to play/watch. Something that can never happen again.
Just as role que killed 3-4 tank comps, 5v5 will kill double shield.
Things have to evolve somehow. And everyone is getting some change. Be it a tiny tweak, to a new ability (winston) or a change in how current abilities work (double fire strike, zarya bubbles, meis primary) or complete reworks. I suspect there will be more than the 2 reworks.
The thing is, they know exaclty what the problems are. Your problems are probably something different.
Ive noticed this too, its really annoying and too loud