I’ve been an OW player for years, but took a break once I enrolled to University. Four years later, and I’m here again. I mainly play on unranked game modes, and I come across the same usernames repeatedly. Since that probably means that the amounts of players dropped since I’ve last played, I thought I would drop here some ideas for future development of the game.
1) Alternative Abilities to Existing Heroes
Overwatch is a game where any hero is unique and grants a special experience to the players. As such, there is probably a limit to how many new heroes can be added to the game without making them feel too similar to each other. A possible to bypass this would be to present alternative sets of abilities to existing heroes.
From a fantasy viewpoint, it doesn’t really makes sense that such experienced and professional fighters would have only a handful of skills they know. It also makes sense that in preparation for battle, they gear up according to the mission they facing.
This idea is an opportunity to reimagine Heroes, and adjusting their abilities a bit without changing their identities. This can also expand the viability of heroes in certain maps and matchups, since different kits might excel in different things. It’s similiar to the event Mirrorwatch, but you can choose whether to play the new or original set of abilities. Examples are added at the end of the post.
2) Heroes on Cooldown
As everyone knows, there is a counterpick problem in Overwatch. On the other hand, the unique hero experience also means that many players play the game for one hero only. This means that hero bans which many players support can actually hurt existing players. Instead, I would like to have some kind of cooldown system, such that when you switch a hero the hero you have just played goes into cooldown and you can’t pick it again for a while. That way, players should be mindful about their picks, and even more careful when they switch heroes. Since it’s a personal cooldown, it does not prevent dedicated players from playing their hero whatsoever, and instead discourages counterpicks. It might not answer the problem completely, but it’s a step in the right direction which finds a middle ground between the two motives.
Seasonal Lore Related Effects
Balancing in Overwatch is hard. The more heroes there are, the more difficult it is to balance the game without making it either chaotic or bland. Playing around with the numbers, which is the most common balance approach, doesn’t really change the game in a meaningful way, content wise. It doesn’t make things new and exciting.
For all the reasons above, I think adding seasonal effects can help the game greatly. What I mean by this is some kinds of hero specific interactions, which allow the game to change dynamically. One example could be an interaction between Ana and Widowmaker, which states that Ana can headshot Widow. This of course refers to the lore where Ana lost her eye to a headshot from Widow, which passed through her scope before hitting her eye. These kinds of effects are useful in balancing specific matchups or buffing specific teams, it can also be map related and not just hero related. Thus, the balancing team can buff or nerf a hero overall, while offsetting it in certain scenarios with those specific effects. It also gives a reason to continue developing Overwatch lore, since those affects are justified by the lore. Overall, it’s a simple way to create a streamline of content, and keep fans engaged and motivated to play. No meta will stick forever, since Lore effects expand the balance team’s tools. New lore can inform new effects, but also the need for balance can motivate new lore. Some lore can be cannon to the OW universe, some might be something like an alternative history. Even more goofy lore can be created, with fitting piece of casual media. Point 1) also motivates new lore, so those two changes can come hand in hand.
4) Competitive Arcade
When I played OW years ago, the arcade had an active playerbase and a lot of the fun came from taking a break in a 1v1 or in CTF, etc. I tried to queue to some of those a bunch of times recently, and some of the queue times were so long that I gave up without finding a match. I believe that today having so many modes divide the playerbase between them in a negative way. It doesn’t mean that the arcade should be neglected. Instead, making competitive game modes can reignite the interest of the players in the arcade. Instead of an established competitive though like we currently have, it is possible to make temporary competitive game modes which changes regularly. Sometimes it’s 1v1, sometimes Team Deathmatch, sometimes CTF and so on. That way, there is more incentive to play in the arcade in general, and it concentrate players on one specific mode at a time in particular.
5) More Rewards for Playing Competitive
There is no incentive to play competitive right now. Of course, trying to improve is something that drives most players to keep playing, but this kind of motivation is limited. It does not provide new experiences, and does not reward upon success. The competitive tokens are not enough either. Honestly, I don’t like neither gold nor emerald weapons. I also doubt that many care about them that much. Even if I’m wrong, it did not compel players who abandoned the game to keep playing. Instead, adding some rewards based on how high you climbed gives more reasons to play competitive. In particular, the game lacks currency sources to by skins, emotes and sprays which we used to get from loot boxes.
6) Organizations in Overwatch
Having a guild system in OW can go a long way. I called it organizations here because Overwatch is one in the lore, Talon as well, and it fits with the lore’s theme in general.
Those Organizations can compete with each other in events like tournaments, and they can also work together to get specialized achievements. In particular, it can be a new monetary avenue for Overwatch. Since OW is free today, I of course agree that it needs to make money through in game transactions. If possible, it’s better to make such appealing options such that regular players aren’t gatekeeped from the game’s content, but there is still an incentive to pay in game. Organizations are useful in that sense, since it can both increase the incentive to pay in game and to add new content worth paying for.
One way it might be possible is that if you are a member of an Organization, spending money in the game in any way will boost the entire guild is some way. Maybe it gives an XP boost in the battle pass, or increases the amount of normal rewards in competitive (point 5)), etc. On it’s surface, it might seem like it can reduce income since more people get rewards for the same amount of money. But actually, if an entire Organization pays a little bit of money, the boost incentive for every single player individually can be higher than what they would normally afford otherwise, making more people to be willing to pay on the game overall. It is also possible to allow players to pay for boosts or rewards for the entire guild, and by doing so giving another reason to pay in game.
None of the things I mentioned above are huge. They don’t fundamentally change anything in the game, and they probably would be minor on their own. My main goal in this post is to give motivation to the idea that many small changes, when done together, can bring more life to the game, make it exciting and fresh. For example tying the lore to the balance of the game, alongside reimagine existing heroes can expand the possible matchups and viable peaks so much that it can feel like playing OW for the first time again, all while keeping workload of the developer relatively low. I don’t assume that my ideas are necessarily good or should be implemented. But this kind of brainstorming is important, since even if the idea itself is bad it might inspire a good one by those reading it. And for my ideas to actually be useful, my focus was to come up with ways to maximize more fun and new content, while maintaining the game’s spirit and minimize expected costliness of implementing them so it would be actually profitable to Blizzard. With that being said, I am excited for the upcoming announcement next week, they must have cooked up something really good for us this time. Also, if you have similar ideas or re-imaginations of existing heroes like the ones I described bellow, you can comment them as well.
Some examples to what alternative abilities can look like
Zarya: Instead of a personal and ally bubbles, having a Reinhardt-like shield on the 1st ability, and a deployable shield like release date Orisa on her 2nd. Both still function like Zarya bubbles, but it allows her to skew more into a main-tank playstyle instead of off-tank one. The shields’ HP can be higher than the bubbles’, but have a lower conversion rate into weapon charge so it won’t be too OP. As for her ult, I really like what they did with her ult in Mirrorwatch, where instead of an attraction effect it had a repulsion one.
Zenyatta: Instead of his or charging ability, having the orbs rotate in a ring around him, dealing damage to enemies who they hit. Instead of discord orb, have a damage amplify orb attached to one ally. As for his Harmony orb, have a 2-3 of them which he can distribute between teammates or put all on the same teammate. Lastly, instead of AoE healing in his ult, any enemy inside his ult gets a discord effect (though the ult’s radius is probably smaller).
Since Zenyatta is a support which specializes increasing the team’s overall damage, while providing an effective healing mainly in his ult, this version improves Zenyatta’s healing while reducing his damage, but in return allows a damage burst is his ult.
Cassidy: Instead of Fan the Hammer, his secondary fire releases two consecutive rapid shots with a bit of a delay until he can fire again. This effect should be a middle ground between fan the hammer and regular shots, both in terms of recoil and cooldown. Instead of his Flashbang, he has an ability which changes the weapons effect from one high damage projectile into multiple lower damage projectiles, with higher damage in total. The idea behind this idea is to make Cassidy’s player to choose between shots that are better against squishies and at dealing damage from distance, to shots that are improved against armor hit points and barriers, or for targets in closer range. Lastly, instead of High Noon, his ult is quickly chargeable, and it empowers one bullet in a fully loaded gun (instant reload like in high noon). The point of the ult is that it plays like Russian roulette, you can’t know which one is the empowered one until you shoot it. In exchange for his high risk- high reward High Noon, he gets a more reliable ult though with lower impact. It also makes him more aggressive on average, in exchange of being worse against mobile Heroes.
Ashe: Even though it might be in contradiction to my statement about “slightly changing the abilities without changing the identity of the hero”, I think it would be dope if when playing Ashe you could either play as her or as Bob. Instead, it is possible to exchange between her dynamite ability and Bob, making Bob a turret ability and dynamite her ultimate. I imagine Bob as a melee turret which counts as a player, and is mainly used to hold choke points. I imagine her ult to be similar to Hazard, but with dynamite projectiles falling instead of his root effect.
Widowmaker: Her hook, instead of flinging her, grapples the wall it is attached to, and allows widow to take a sniping spot on the side of buildings and other terrain. She sticks to the wall until she shoots once, or until a certain time time period has passed. Since it reduces her mobility, her venom mine is replaced by a stun ability to improve her suitability when ganked. Her ult can be dropping a venom bomb which grants uncleansable vision on those affected by it.