Played since Beta and more recently off and on. No means do I think think that I’m a pro, but I hold opinions from playing after so long. This post is just some opinions after playing more again and a culmination of thoughts shared by roughly 8-10 people I play off and on with, with periods of playing that now have breaks here and there, feel free to disagree or ignore, w.e.
Going from 6 v 6 to 5 v 5 is a terrible idea. Playing with a core group of friends routinely, knowing full well that two of my friends who both main tanks and enjoy playing those role primarily. That we are going to lose one is pointless and result in us not playing as much and a loss in team function with the now lost synergy and knowing we will have to exclude a friend completely when full.
Secondly this game, along with the lazy catering to DPS with a minimalist scale back of damage creep after overclocking the role as a response to double shield meta is poor. Having 1 tank that will likely be more dps than tank like Hammond or Roadhog will further exacerbate the frustration of healers. You can already experience the reduced skill cap and now less needed team work for ults like high noon or the reduced delay before D.va’s mech ult that have made it easier guarantee kills in comparison to older states of the game where the grace periods were higher and were overcome through communication and coordination.
Buffing shield tanks and healers, having ults require more coordinate to succeed would allow other roles to become more rewarding again and increase player counts, I see many complain of the DPS queue times while the games direction has done nothing by seem to cater to Dive and DPS tanks while leaving shield tanks in the dust. Watching friends play Orisa and just express dismay after experiencing their measly 600 shield become melted by dps who’s output is grossly imbalanced and has remained the same. Seeing McCree having 25 more hp than a support/tank hybrid is a joke. The death of overshield from Sym, armor from Torb and the changes in armor for Brigitte only worsen this.
You can likely argue its the intent of blizzard to make the game faster paced or more lazily a shooter than can feel closer to competitor titles but it takes away the joy of the those hero’s and makes playing them feel as throw picks and outright miserable and is why the que times are increasingly longer even with the introduction of role que from a once completely open pick system and more recently, the priority passes in a half-baked attempt to bribe the community in roles they won’t actually address and fix to become more appealing.
Another issue is the absence of the lack of stalemates, in past you would experience what I consider “draws” in exchanges between heros and opponents where they could counter another and stave off actions. Examples could be a sleep dart from Ana to a Genji and a Genji deflecting to prevent the hit, or a Doom fist doing a rocketpunch and a reaper ghosting to avoid contact. In past both players would expend cooldowns and would allow both sides to regroup and or get another crack at attempts, with once again, the use of communication and team work being the means to overcome this if possible and the expenditure of a deflect would allow the window to succeed for another.
Now its non DPS roles just outright losing consistently in these exchanges with DPS getting away with what would otherwise be punished or left with a mutual tie in interactions. Once again making support roles miserable.
For arguments I sometimes read or hear for making the game more instant kill, reduced TTK, solo ults that now team wipe easier and less delays in earning wins through the toppling of wet paper bag shield tanks. Why? There are countless titles where everyone is a dps first and with perks that support mildly second. There was a more emphasized distinction in OW as a FPS with roles, even more especially when heros like Hanzo, Bastion, Torb were considered defense and not lumped into DPS category. It is nice that heros becoming more viable in offensive roles is nice, the mobility creep also takes away any interplayer dependency that was part of the teamwork that made this game in its infancy.
In my subjective opinion, the current state of the game is terrible as the vulnerabilities of certain characters have been altered if not outright removed, and so has their identity. Seeing healers being easily high nooned/mech wiped from unreactable ults, further heightened by routine tank picks that compose of Roadhog and Hammond are while the state of the game is worse off.
Moving Hammond, Zen, reworking some and rebuffing those whose main role and identity are more traditional in the lines of tanks and healers would help solve this issue and drought in the community and the current lack of enthusiasm and is seem through wait times being so disproportionate.
OW is the only game where someone like me who barely plays DPS can just hop to Junkrat and without any real skill ceiling, mindless melt and destroy enemy tanks and score kills by accident and flip a match to a victory with what feels like unearned kills. I feel he is poorly designed and overdue for reworks from his jarring state that has existed for literal years. I can run a controlled detonated ult after my character dies that can outlast counters that have times that are a fraction of my duration. Similar ults like Sigmas will end if he is killed yet his won’t if you find him and kill the player, imagine if Lucio’s break it down would go off if he was sniped mid air after he died and his team received it still? Old Torb’s molten core would end when he was defeated, other heros who channel and control actions are shut down but his remains.
In recollection of Sigma’s release, his initial state was like seeing a tank receive the equivalent buff creeps seen in the DPS category. To be able to actually handle several kind of ults temporarily felt like they were going to just make every class/hero over-powered, but then they took away blocking roadhogs hook and made his mainly self sustaining defensive tools (like Orisa’s gold skin) stronger, while reducing his benefits to his allies and supports in the process. Like hammond, any protection past the now frail shield has gone to completely self centered playing and the rest now suffer more as a result from the lack of protection with a state of easier ult and dmg outputs.
For the casual player base, it honestly feels like they’re trying to kill their own game and I don’t think I’ve felt as little enthusiasm for OW in all my years in respect to balancing, community stance, and directional intent from the dev’s. Ana will lose some ammo then get it back later as a “buff” while dps will get a partial nerf in one overbuffed aspect, and then additional given a buff in health or some other variance and it’s baffling why people have a surprised pikachu face when people are hating playing non-dps roles more and more.
Also can they do something about the smurf rampancy, and role throwing for priority tickets. Literally playing with a DPS moira who was clearly playing a healer to farm tickets while not healing and tossing dmg orbs. The tickets don’t address the underlying issues that they band aid and the community doesn’t even try in the other roles while farming them and others suffer defeats and wasted queued match times as a result.
If you’ve read this random mess of on the fly thought and opinions, thank you for your time.
P.S. It destroys and breaks my heart what happened to the poor employee’s and the woman who took her own life during this current lawsuit towards blizzard. Even if they unscrewed this mess I honestly don’t want to support a company that has hidden such atrocities under the rug.