I would like to make a small reflection on the franchise and its narrative. Archives was undoubtedly one of the best experiments for the game, but it was also a huge concern from a replayability point of view. PVE confirmed this concern for us, having remained completely empty of players and dominated by AI. and frankly trials of sanctuary just confirmed to me that a talent tree would only delay the abandonment in PVE by a month or two. indeed, perhaps paradoxically it would have obsessed the community in saying “we have the technology, give this ability to this hero also in PVP”.
Having said that, I now feel like saying that the only way Overwatch’s narrative (which has great potential) is to convert it to single player. I really wish Overwatch would invest better in the narrative instead of leaving it on hold to “analyze the best approach to bring it back” as they said in the latest reddit AMA. few necessary rules:
- cancellation of the 4 difficulty queues looking for players: you enter directly into the mission, choose a hero and play against an AI designed to play alone;
- You can invite your friends if you want. inviting a friend increases the difficulty of the AI (as in cuphead when two players play);
- Simplify all achievements to what you can do alone during the mission);
- In order not to complicate the balancing of the AI of the teammates on each level design of the missions, restore the old logic of “4 specific heroes” (like Gotheborg) instead of 4 heroes to choose like in Rio and Toronto;
- sell the story campaign in really consistent packs, as done with Stacraft 2;
I wouldn’t mind a single player mode. Thinking back, I would rather go with that mode. It could allow for each character to exploer his or her own lore. Hero mastery was fun.
Can you clarify this one with examples?
Meaning that there are only the 4 heroes. Like the old archive modes.
You can’t choose anyone outside of those four.
Like the gothenburg mission only has torbjorn, brigitte, reinhard and bastion to choose from.
Like junkenstein’s bride only has soujourn, ashe, kiriko and the junker queen to choose from.
(Instead of the original junkenstein’s revenge where you choose from several heroes)
That way the maps are only balanced for a few heroes, instead of having to build a map to fit every single hero. Like if there aren’t any heroes that can get high up into the air, the buildings don’t neccassarily need roofs as no one will see them.
It being single player would be interesting… But it wouldn’t be OW. It is meant to be a team game you play with friends and like minded strangers.
I see what she means now. The levels would have to be designed in a way where a character’s kit will not make it unreasonably difficult or easy. If needed, they may consider tailoring the bots or the map to a picked character.
2 Likes
Exactly what I mean. It would also make the narrative more canon when it’s said “during this mission, there were these heroes.”
I know… but how do you save the narrative potential if you HAVE to guarantee the presence of 4 players to enjoy a story? Let’s look at the Archives: everywhere in the lore the King’s Row revolt or the Venice incident are continually mentioned, but no new OW2 player has ever played those narratively canonical game modes or there are OW1 players who in their “occasionality”, they never pay this mode during the Archives period. On the contrary, we have seen how the PVE sold with always available access is only an AI experience with 4 types of difficulty queues. 
For this reason I thought that perhaps the best approach could be the “single player with difficulty decided by the number of players” treatment: if you are alone you experience a standard difficulty. but if you participate with a friend of yours the difficulty of the AI (damage and resistance) increases, just like in cuphead when you’'re 2 players.
We need a real functional compromise to make Overwatch narratively valid, they are wasting too much time deciding how to make it as replayable as possible in the exclusively cooperative formula. and trials of sactuary only showed that with a skill tree you would only get a delaying effect of abandoning the mode. it wouldn’t make it infinitely replayable, and would instead generate endless discussions about how cool it would be to use those technologies on heroes in PVP.
This is a working method in multiple other games already as you mentioned (monsterhunter games being one along with cuphead). There’s no reason why it wouldn’t work.
Even the pve missions now work as a single player experience for the most part.
The toronto mission being the only one that’s super difficult to get through alone.
(Due to npc’s separating)
Even that could easily be rectified if one or two subjucators were removed on the easiest difficulty from the train station, to make it possible to finish alone at least on that difficulty. Which would be nice to the people who are forced to play these maps alone
(Comparing to rio, which is easy to finish alone on all difficulties and any hero available. Even gothenburg is finishable alone on the easiest two, but you basically have to play torbjorn or bastion)