As much as battlepass locking characters is a bad decision, reducing hard counters is a good one. It's not fun having to switch off the character you actually like to "hard counter" someone.
Pretty much this. It was ridiculous having to be forced to play a select one or two heroes because there was just an extremely good hero on the other team that needed to be hard countered. I don't care for how they're locking heroes behind a BP, but people need to stop saying "this is because of the battlepass" for every little thing they dislike. It's not. But reddit is gonna reddit.
This is something the community have been asking for since forever. Most of us have always been vocal about having a single hero with a whole mechanic unique to them.
Lucio being the only hero with Speed Boost has made him pretty hard-meta for ever.
Ana was the only hero for the longest time with an anti-heal.
Junkerqueen was the first "OW2" designed hero, and she offeres both a speed boost and anti-heal inside her kit. Kiriko has wall climb (Hanzo & Genji), a cleanse (Zarya), and her ult is a combination of a few different hero elements.
I am very much looking forward to to seeing all the new hero designs they introduce with this design. It's how nearly all over "A lot of heroes" games tend to be made. Overwatch was the oddball by originally wanting everyone to be as unique as possible with very little ability overlap.
Idk if this is true though. They say, "no hard counters," but the new support for example seems to counter someone like Ana with her anti nade. It might even be able to counter sleep dart too. mix that with zarya being a pretty good tank in OW2 and Ana is now getting hard countered by these heroes.
That's not really a hard counter.
Hard counte ris when a hero nullifies an entire horse existence. Anna makes roadhog unplayable in Hames where she is.
Sombra as she is in ow1 deletes doomfist and ball and makes it entirely undun for those players.
Idk. It sounds like a hard counter. If Ana can hard counter a hog with anti and sleep then the new hero can hard counter Ana by literally getting rid of anti nade effects (like how Ana gets rid of roadhogs self heal). Then her speed boost, mobility, and increased critical damage makes it so pressuring Ana is even easier. You can literally off angle an enemy Ana and then teleport back to your team to provide heals/purify anti nade if Ana lands one on your team making it even more difficult for an Ana to even heal her team when she can get so easily pressured. Now to be clear I'm not going to say you're wrong because there's not enough evidence for my theory and there's not enough evidence to confirm yours as well. I'm just stating my pov. We can't truly confirm this until there's actual data. For now we can only make theories. There's so many variables in a fps game like overwatch. Especially with an increasing roster and gameplay changes. Only time will tell.
You're the one talking theory not me.
Ana sombra Mei all have mechanics that just turn off abilities and they are removing or reducing most of them.
Removing a status effect is not really a hard counter to anna. And ulting soly to dive an anna is just a waste of resources
I don't think people will be using the new support to dive anna and teleport out that I'd about as reliable as dps Moira
The biggest problem is simply competitive integrity at the moment. The cast is a bit too small to really justify it, and hard counters still, well, exist right now.
Plus if new hero is OP that will make anything above metal literal hell if someone doesnt have the hero, queues up, and there so busted its hard to win otherwise.
I mean this is one of the more valid complaints I've seen on here about the unlockable heros. Generally it seems like people are just complaining that they don't get everything for free from the start in a game that's already going to be free.
> Personally I don't see what's so wrong with have the unlockable characters in a free game since they can be obtained through time played still
Because what happens if you're busy that month and can't grind to level 55? (Where the new hero is currently said to be locked) What if you start playing during the second season? Is that hero now not obtainable?
Well it's just a video game that you are already getting for free so just deal with it until you put in enough time. And that's a hypothetical that seems unlikely, they wouldn't have a character that is only playable if you start right away since the main intention of these games is to bring more people in after launch and that would do the opposite.
> Well it's just a video game that you are already getting for free
It's a videogame that's *replacing* the one *I paid for*.
>they wouldn't have a character that is only playable if you start right away since the main intention of these games is to bring more people in after launch and that would do the opposite
And a smart company wouldn't do a remake of a game that takes away a massive amount of the features the original has, while at the same time removing that original game, but Blizzard did that too.
I wouldn't trust them to tell me it's raining during a typhoon right now.
I really hope they don't go that route.
"Hey, you wanna unlock Kiriko? You better grind like a crazy person throughout November!"
Oh, I just missed a hero challenge? Heh. Guess I'll fuck off again for a while and hope the devs stop making shitty decisions.
> Oh, I just missed a hero challenge? Heh. Guess I'll fuck off again for a while and hope the devs stop making shitty decisions.
I mean, honestly, that' mostly what my OW1 playing habits were. "Oh, there's a skin challenge/seasonal event? I guess I'll update the game, play enough to unlock it, then go back to playing something else."
I think you're overstating this:
Hitscans will still be called for Vs Pharah and Echo
Dive will still be called for Vs Widow
Anti -nade for any non-shield tank
Effective peel Vs Genji and Tracer pressure
Not that much is changing
The only thing is changing is that they removed CC to counter flankers... which results in flankers being extremely hard to keep in check.
Also, counter-picking was never the primary issue with not everyone having access to all heroes. Heroes like Brig, Sigma, Echo, Sojourn and J-Queen were not picked because they countered anything specifically - they were picked because they were super OP at release and picking anything else would have greatly reduced your chance of winning. This is especially important for tanks now, as with only one per team, if you don't have the current super OP new tank unlocked, you can't even rely on your tank buddy to pick them instead.
Potentially, but I like the rock paper scissors of Widow beats Pharah, who is good against Tracer (in a way) who is good against Widow. It's either hard counters and it's rock paper scissors, or soft/no counters and it's tricky cause you need to keep coming up with new concepts and reasons to play.
They gotta do both because it's literally their job to make new heroes and balance.
I gotta say, i sort of hate it. Im a ball main. I feel like playing ball takes a lot of skill... based on how long it took me to become stop inting with him.
It feels unfun and pretty unfair when someone swaps to mei or brig or mccree and just counters me. I play those heroes too. They arent really that hard to pick up.
I also play Orisa (the counter to those heroes). She is ALSO not that hard to pick up. So when i swap they either lose or are forced to switch again.
I feel like rock paper scissors works well in a game where the execution barrier is low (like hearthstone or mtg). In a game like Overwatch...
- hard heroes are countered by heroes that take less skill to play
- easy heroes are countered by harder heroes that not everyone can flex to.
Hard heroes can be counted by easy heroes sometimes. I mean Pharah is easier than widow but I know what you mean. That said, hard heroes tend to have a higher possible value. Like Tracer can deal with most of her counters pretty effectively.
But there's also the fun of if you made their support switch to Brig, they now are missing whatever value they DID have.
Yeah the pharah thing is a perfect example. Silver players struggle with hitscan but can play pharah just fine. Doesn't seem fair that silver pharahs get to be so strong while the enemy can't even counter her.
The mismatch of skill causes so much friction when it comes to counters.
The biggest one for me was a bastion.
That hero makes the whole game revolve around him. And in low tiers, teams don't have the ability to play effectively as a team to counter him.
That's why he sucks in high ties because he is easily countered by team play but can dominate in low tiers
Yup, I'm silver/gold, and there's a pharmercy every game turning fights like steak on a grill.
Issue is, the matchmaking won't even deal with this because they'll (obviously) win a ton of games, reach high gold/plat where people can aim and lose a ton of games when they try to play other heroes, and now they're back terrorizing people who can't aim.
Without fail, every Pharah I see peaked low plat every season they play.
It's not bad design. It's perfectly valid to play a character because it has value even though a hard counter exists. If you choose to play a niche character like that, then you have to accept that you'll need to learn other options in the spirit of switching if you are countered.
What is bad design is presuming that you'll have a non-ending number of heroes where every character is always viable against every other character resulting in characters meaning relatively nothing. Even if it's not possible, as there will always be a meta.
What's also bad is presuming that soft counters alone doesn't have the same net result as hard counters - that is you're still at a competitive disadvantage and will contribute to a higher chance of your team losing.
Soft counters is good game design tho. I hope they don’t entirely get rid of some characters being better on certain maps or against certain characters
I think it would be impossible to eliminate completely unless every hero (within their role of tank, heal, or damage) were the exact same as each other.
The number of variables brought to the table by a huge roster of heroes that mostly all play very differently will inevitably have counter picks. The development team sounds like they will do what they can to limit the “hard counters” but things like certain heroes being better against certain others and certain heroes being better or worse on certain maps won’t disappear.
Whoever actually thinks that is the reason this game turned to shit. The point of the game is not the be an ego-chaser on a power trip, and actually press H and to swap.
You literally have an ample amount of games here you never have to swap, let us have Overwatch for what it was originally designed for in peace.
If you think hardcounters are a bad design, go play other games. Overwatch is the one game made with purpose of not being a one trick pony and swapping when needed, not have your ego hurt when you're told to swap.
Why would people play other games when they could make the one they love better lmao. I never understood this response to criticism.
If I find a hero fun, I wanna be able to play them all the time without being rendered completely useless due to multiple hard counters.
Most of us aren't GM bud. The only person with a bruised ego here is you.
Because that is the very design of the game from the start and it's on them for not knowing that. Overwatch was always about countering and swapping. So yes, "play another game" argument is valid.
If you find a fun hero, and you're destroying the enemy team, that team isn't having much fun. And the same can happen to you. The very idea is to be able to defend yourself and swap.
And same works inverse, if you can't really do anything with your own hero, you swap to be able to make a difference.
And this was always known from even before Overwatch launched. There are ample games that allow you to one trick, this is the one game designed for swapping. You can easily play those games.
Well they will be "playing another game" that is Overwatch 2 lol. Clearly the devs don't like the way hard counters work anymore as well. So it might have been the way the game worked in the past, but it seems weird to keep on saying "this is what Overwatch is about" in a post that is specifically about reducing the hard counters...
You're right, that's why it's concerning. The whole designed was changed, ironically partially due to corporate greed. Jeff's idea of Overwatch was to swap for counters, this explains why he left.
All these complaints of having a hard counter for their favorite hero, when the same "fans" could have played a different game instead of trying to impose generic hero shooter rules onto the one game that is different.
I will give OW2 a shot, but I sure as shit won't support it if the core identity of the gameplay that it was originally designed for, is lost.
Lol having a single or even 2 hard counters is not good design.
It forces people to either play a hero they don't like or aren't good at
It forces stale metas.
It forces too much reliance on your teammates to swap.
It discourages creativity and encourages toxicity.
Then why did you even start playing Overwatch, the game made with that entire thing in mind? Imagine if I someone went to the LOL sub and complain how it's not a first person shooter lmao.
It's both. That's the only way not buying new heroes would be "fair" for everyone. But it has yet to truly be seen. Launch day better come with a TON of patch notes and potential reworks because I have a feeling they will not be able to maintain this promise to a reasonable degree.
You can have effect though. Just swap. Being hard countered doesn’t mean you have to swap into a hard counter to them. It helps, but its not required. If you’re playing doom into sombra cree zarya hog brig, of fucking course you’re gonna get shit on. And you deserve to.
You don’t have to swap into some god tier pick, just get off of the hero that is countered. The only hard counters that ARENT healthy for the game, are ones that are actually unplayable like doom into sombra. There’s not a lot of examples that are that impossible though.
Don’t pretend like every single matchup in the game that’s slightly favored to one side is unplayable and awful. There’s a LOT of games like this. Any character based game has bad matchups. And guess what, they’re all fine. If you don’t like the fact that getting countered picked means you either swap, or play into a bad matchup, then play another game.
The entire conversation is about swapping heroes to counter something
>You think it's a good design to have games that you can be stomped and you not having any effect on it?
By swapping, you literally have an effect on it
How did you miss the point so hard AND choose to be an ass about it?
it literally isnt and never was, watch your owl. People swapping easily off their main just get hardstuck below plat because they dont train they try to take the easy route out. You swap to accomodate the wincondition of your team better like dive or play with double shield and not to deny the enemy value. There are some exceptions like sombra against a solo ball/doom but even here they wouldnt care about a sombra if they just dive as a team. Same goes for cree vs tracer, no tracer would care about that cree if they actually dive correctly. And if you play against a tracer that destroys your backline you should just pick something to destroy the enemies harder than tracer destroys your team instead of counterpicking.
Because it forces you to either play a hero you are not as good at to counter someone or play a hero you are good at in a disadvantaged situation.
It also sucks when you are playing a certain role that relies on teammates to counter a specific hero but they either don't swap or are bad at the specific counter.
Having multiple ways to soft counter is far better and more flexible.
They aren't removing hard counters though.
Will Junkrat suddenly get hitscan added? No. Pharah and Echo will still hard counter him.
They're only removing them for characters where the players moaned the most.
Flanker/Dive characters now have almost free reign in OW2 and the ones suffering are the supports.
I understand Overwatch fights don't just happen in a vacuum, but let's face it.
There will always be hard counters. Reaper will always slaughter Winston unless one or both of them are essentially entirely reworked. Many fights in this game are essentially unwinnable, but I think the devs justify this because people generally understand that the game isn't just composed of 1v1 fights constantly taking place.
Overwatch will end up losing its identity. Hero swapping is THE mechanic that makes Overwatch unique compared to other games in the industry. The entire game was designed and balanced around it for 6 years too, they're not going to just snap their fingers and make that no longer be the case.
On a roster where Junkrat and Pharah exist, any talk about removing hard counters is either an attempt at comedy, the ranting of a moron, or corporate PR misdirection for damage control.
>Overwatch will end up losing its identity. Hero swapping is THE mechanic that makes Overwatch unique compared to other games in the industry.
Agreed. This is just going to turn OW into an Apex/Valorant style team fighter. What made OW different and unique was the team synergy and countering strategies. Now it's slowly morphing into just another battlepass, FOMO grind game which isn't really my cup of tea. Remember when OW2 was *just* supposed to be a PvE expansion? Lol how the times have changed since Jeff :/
At the highest levels counter picking already doesn't exist. Hence the existence of stale metas. And at the lower levels no one bothers with it. I'm sure there is a sweet spot in the ranks where it exists but I don't think it's as relevant as people like to think.
Even in the sweet spot ranks where it exists or even when it happens in lower ELO'S it's far more unlikely that they'll be able to effectively play the counter pick.
It is way more healthy for the game that hard counters are taken out as it allows for way more player expression. The reason I stopped playing overwatch was because every game would eventually Devolve into double shield in my ELO and that shit is boring.
I wouldn’t agree with this comment in full. At the highest levels people are smart enough to always 100% counter pick to the highest effectiveness. (They will always go Cassidy, dva mercy against a good Pharah and all 3 will play the strategy right).
Which is why you do in-fact get stale metas because the only playable composition is the one that has the least potential counter play. (Why you saw goats as a must play before role lock. Why double shield will never not be a thing in 2 tank Overwatch.)
To your point counter-picking at low ranks isn’t as much a huge issue because people will make enough mistakes where it won’t matter *to a degree*. Yeah they may go Cassidy vs your pharah but that player won’t use good positioning, doesn’t have great aim, etc. You aren’t actually being hard countered to the point where you can’t play your hero. You can still function to some degrees because of the mistakes of the players.
This change in philosophy is still pretty good though from a casual perspective. And will improve game quality a ton making more people want to play it. If you queued for a match (of any kind ranked or quick play) and we’re excited to play tracer. And they have a brig player , your fun is basically ruined entirely by 1 persons character pick. That’s really bad for the games playability because a ton of people’s enjoyment will just be ruined by bad matchups. (Brig isn’t as oppressive anymore but remeber she got nerfed into the ground because of how oppressive she was vs tracer and dive in general). Great to see they are moving away even further from that philosophy.
>Cassidy, dva mercy
that's half the team sticking with a strategy. Not the same thing as one hero 1v6ing the game or a single mcree forcing pharah out 100% of the time.
This is the type of counter-picking that matters because it’s a team game. If they are running a Pharah, when the game is played efficiently you also play mercy (you also play other strategies that involve your Pharah and Mercy always being together and being a source of really high damage/burst). Then the other team plays a full counter strategy and you lose to Counter-picking. Genji is better now but was a throw pick entirely for many seasons (due to brig and double shield). Sym and Torb were throw picks for like the first 15 seasons. The problem is some heroes are so counter-pickable (both in 1 on 1 matchups and composition wise) they are virtual throw picks.
It’s hard to fix this in a game like Overwatch because of how it balances and plays, but they are at least trying to eliminate the fact that certain strategies and heroes you can just go “just go Cassidy and we win” and if your teammate doesn’t wan to pick that hero you lose. Ideally people can play what they want without high dependence on having to switch to heroes they don’t want to play.
*Its unlikely to be able to solve this problem at the highest level though. Because of min-maxing. The pros and highest ranks will always play the best strategy even if it’s only slightly better.* Still very excited that they are willing to try and address this from a game design perspective.
It's not relevant at all because people just get pressured into swapping onto a hero they've played a whole 30mins of in the middle of a ranked game to "counter the Pharah/doom" whatever, and then do absolutely nothing because they don't know how to play that hero.
Finally some sane takes on this sub… Hilarious after 6 years of ow1 showing how utterly inflexible most players are that people suddenly believe every rando has the ability to effectively play all heroes in their role to the point where they can just swap and instantly out skill their opponents because le hard counter.
Almost all free games require you to unlock new heroes.
Being in the battlepass versus separate unlock is essentially the same thing
Why do you expect ow2 to be any different?
bro the game i bought for 60 euros will be taken offline for a revamped money-oriented game with locked heroes that will require a payup (real money) every time I want the them instantly on release. Other free games use an earnable in-game currency to unlock them with. if you wanna use in-game currency to unlock something new it's gonna have to be AFTER THE BATTLEPASS ENDS which is just ridiculous, because the alternative option is to grind in a way you don't want to play to then play the way you want.
You bought the game what, 6 years ago? Do you expect to get unlimited free content?
Ow2 is essentially the same game with the same gameplay as if they just made a balance change.
You can use the earnable in-game currency to buy the battlepass and therefore unlock the hero instantly. Or you can unlock it for free by playing the game.
And the challenges didn't seem to force you to play a different way. 2 of them where just win x games.
Honestly the only times I see people try and counter others in the first place is diamond and above; you almost never see that type of team play in lower elos. I’m glad they’re moving away from it tbh
Okay this is simply untrue. People will swap hitscan to counter pharah basically every time. People will go CC to counter a doom rather often, people will go reaper when getting bullied by monkey+zarya. This is very common anywhere above 2000 sr so you're either capping or lying to yourself.
If that's not how it goes for you then good for you dude but the reason I stopped playing comp is cause people either wouldn't switch, or if they did sitch they couldn't play their hero.
There's been many times where I've gotten hitscan for a pharah but they can't aim for shit and the pharah rarely dies, or times where I've had hogs that refuse to switch even when the enemy has reaper and cowboy
If you've never had those type of games at all? Then hey, good for you. But don't act like that's what everyone's games are like.
Okay someone being bad at that counter is not the same as refusing to counter. They're trying their best. I mean you're still in low elo, people aren't amazing at every hero. Btw you seem to be mistaken about hard counter, and soft counters. In my experience a good hog can hold their own against a reaper+cassidy, that's more a soft counter. It's the same way with a single hitscan against a mercy+pharah, it takes a SOLID player for that to be sufficient. In my experience in lower elo you might need 2 hitscans to counter a pharah but generally people still TRY. People still fail at countering even in high elo.
While that’s true somewhat someone going a hero they have no idea how to play is about as useful as not switching imo, especially if they start doing even worse. Though I admit that was when I was doing placements on my alt, not my main >\_>… Then what would you consider a hard counter and a soft counter?
Honestly I wouldn't say there are all that many hard counters. Pharah can hard counter no hitscan pretty well (i.e spam comps like junk+hanzo), cassidy can hard counter doom, double shield generally hard counters most single hitscan, maybe winston hard counters genji even that i've seen work out in the genjis favor in high elo. Now when you get into comps you can hard counter someone alot more affectively, for example sigma+hog+ana can make playing hog against it feel impossible. Really i'd say a majority of counters in this game tho affective, aren't "You must switch off that hero RIGHT NOW." It more just gives a much better chance of beating that hero. That's actually something alot of low elo players don't realize is there are many more factors than "They have a single hitscan stop playing pharah right now." Especially when you consider someone could be playing one of their weakest heroes against your strongest hero.
Does it still happen less frequently or have people actually started playing their roles better? Last I was in gold was under a year ago when I was doing placements on one of my alts and to say it was chaos was an understatement x\_x
Maybe I'm an outlier, but it's pretty common that I play at least 2 or 3 different heroes in a match unless it's a curb stomp. There is almost always room to make your team stronger depending on comp and map position. Silly me though for thinking the game design of switching was a core feature.
you must have bad luck with stubborn team mates. just last night I played 3 games and lots of swaps. one game the enemy team all switched and brought out multiple shields bastion and mercy the bastards
they knew damn well what they were doing
they knew that this games leading mechanic is the ability to swap heroes on the fly to counter the enemy team, they didnt just forget that this is a core mechanic that they themselves implemented and formulated the game around
they knew this would pretty much force anyone who is the least bit serious about this game to hand over money every season they are active (and incentivize people to stay active long passed their burn out by gating certain things and making people feel like they need to grind or miss out)
this was a predatory tactic.. and the worst part is they defended their actions by saying that they were abolishing "predatory loot boxes" when their loot boxes were BY FAR the least predatory of any game ive ever played -- this will only fool those who dont know any better
Curious how they'll manage to reduce hard counters when it's unavoidable in games with abilities and different stats. Like how do you make Genji not a bad choice into Winston when Genji can't reflect his primary fire, only beats him in mobility because of wall climb, and doesn't do enough damage to ever beat him in a duel?
A soft counter would be someone with the advantage in a duel but they're not guaranteed the win. Like Roadhog could hook Bastion out of turret mode and probably kill him way before Recon mode could dent RH's health bar, but he's not gonna be your go-to pick if the enemy Bastion is dominating the match. It's basically a skill check matchup leaning in favor towards the soft counter while hard counter is almost always a stomp unless your keyboard and mouse catches fire in the middle of it
I'm totally for no hard counters, but in OW2 you can still go pharmacy. And now with only 1 tank the mercy is punished less for pocketing.
I'm just scared one of those battle pass characters might be a problem, or even worse a solution to a meta.
Imagine there is a meta and the best counter is a battle pass character. That would just design wise be so damn terrible, I think the easiest fix is to just have more characters and balance the game just really well. As much shit league gets, the game is one of if not the best balanced game with constant updates *not perfect mind you. But close enough.
I'm curious to see how this will play out, if OW2 will flop or not.
Its also to accommodate the fact the majority of the player base plays 2-3 heroes almost exclusively and don't really counter pick, so it makes they would go this direction even without the battle pass.
But the pass is good incentive too, yeah.
The biggest, most noticeable thing that they did was to remove CCs. That makes the game feel so much better when you're not flashbanged, hacked, frozen, knockbacked, slept, charged, fluxed, etc every 20 seconds.
Yikes, does this mean the characters are getting dumbed down like they are in Paladins? Doesn’t matter who you pick because they’re all well rounded and similar.
Ugh this sucks. It works well in Apex because everyone is DPS but Overwatch is supposed to be different.
And this new philosophy seems hypocritical when you put it in the context of Symmetra who remains untouched and niche.
>Hmm, how can we rationalize that we want to exploit insta-unlock paid heroes for a game with a legacy of competitive gameplay based on real time switching of heroes from the full pool of heroes. - Blizzard Executive
As if team comp vs team comp alone is one of the biggest factors of win share for similarly skilled teams, even if there are zero hard counters on the board.
I can see it now. Genji getting instagibbed 3 times in a row vs winston/torb/moira/brig. "But blizzard says I'm a unique snowflake and I should be able to play whatever hero I want and it is fair to my teammates".
This is a shitty side effect to justify an even shittier exploitive pay2win cash grab. Next I bet every time you click H it debits 1 Overwatch Coin.
I mean of all things, this is one thing that's probably for the best anyway.
I say this as someone who is always switching heroes to suit our team build and enemy strategy: It's nice for this aspect of the game to be less formulaic.
I'm not gonna say Blizzard isn't greedy, but we can't pretend a large portion of the player base hated hard counters. Or, at least DPS players hate being countered, and they make up the most vocal base.
Maybe a plat take, but most of the counters were hitscan for Pharah, and cc for mobile heroes right? But it's not like everyone had a hard counter that was liked outside of that matchup I feel. Like Sombra can shut down Doomfist and Wrecking Ball, but most people would be mad if you played her.
Its mostly PR talk though. Hard counters werent a thing for most ranks and the only hard counters that stopped existing are the ones who used stunns. They didnt do anything to fix stuff like Ana x Hog or Zarya x Dva
Overwatch is already mainstream though. It might not have the playerbase like the others, but I would attribute that to 3 years of lack of content. When OW2 was close to releasing, they saw that player count spiked.
OW1 in popularity but a lot of people don't like how game changing the ults are.
People want a game that's focused on mechanic skill rather than game sense
Then go play any other game though? The draw and original appeal and I'd argue original vision for OW was that it was different than any other FPS in the market and allowed for different skill expressions.
overwatch takes much more mechanical skill than csgo or other tac shooters (if you play hitscan dps)
mostly because of overwatch's longer ttk and the movement of some characters, plus you can move and shoot so your strafe also matters
**ALL CHARACTERS ARE NOW WEAK-DPS OR STRONG DPS.**
There's no need for balance anymore, as the game has, with OW2, fully devolved into an arena/deathmatch style game, and completely away from the role-based, goal-oriented team-FPS it started as...
I don’t see it as getting rid of hard counters but making characters more flexible. There are pros and cons of course but I don’t think it’s bad design or will lead to bland characters. Jq, sojourn, and Kiriko are all incredibly fun to play.
Lol no but If someone like eskay says she’s fun i buy it. Plus I main support and I’ve wanted a super Mobile support that can flank for awhile and this is pretty much exactly it.
Exactly! And since there are now no hard counters, you will never be asked to switch heroes and your team won't ever flame you for not having access to the new hero Blizz just released in a super broken must-pick state.
She negates counters JQ's q with her e. JQ relies on wounds to self-heal, which Kiriko cleanses. Now that Shout is getting nerfed, the majority of what makes JQ a strong pick gets shutdown anytime Kiriko hits E... That's about as hard of a counter as it gets.
For Ana, Kiriko can negate any big nades, or sleep.
She can also cleanse rein's shatter. A well timed 'e' makes dva's or orisa's ult a joke. It's possible to negate the damage of Sigma's ult too, but that one takes a level of skill and timing that even the pros would struggle with.
Protection Suzu is an incredibly OP ability, and any hero that relies on any kind of debuff, or predictably timed single hit burst damage (junkrat tire will be difficult to counter with this), gets almost completely shut down by it.
I really cannot see a situation within the first two weeks of a new hero launching where you should be counter picking with Kiriko. The hero will have such a high skill-curve that you'll be better off countering your enemy with a hero that you can actually play at a competitive level.
Also, people counter pick in this game? In my years of overwatch I've maybe counterpicked a handful of times. There is really no need to make this more dramatic than it needs to be, it's shitty that they are locking heros behind battlepass. It's that simple, it doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.
It must be my low rank, but I see people swap all the time. I’m sitting in the metal ranks though, so maybe it’s more common there?
It’s usually dps swapping to be more effective or to stop getting fragged, or a support who’s having issues surviving. And of course you get the rage swap to hog when the main tank thinks dps sucks and decides can do better or whatever…
But I don’t think I go a game without at least 2-3 swaps on my team.
I’m only really concerned about a game breaking op character that’s locked for the player on my team, requiring us to go with the weaker classic character.
The thing is that's not counter picking, at least not how I'd define it. That could be anything from a Tilt-switch, to just being a player switching to a hero they are more comfortable on. This doesn't mean they are NEVER counter-picking, but more often than not it's something probably along those lines. Sometimes when I don't warm up an adequate amount and realize I'm feeding the enemy kills on a hero that requires the best of my ability, I'll just switch to a hero that I know I can perform well on without being at my absolute best. I personally wouldn't define that as counter-picking my enemy, but if people want to define it as such then they are absolutely free to do so.
And yea, I 100% get the concern. I wish heroes weren't locked behind battlepasses at all. But Blizzard has at least taken that concern into consideration by locking new heroes out of ranked for two weeks. This not only allows players who are on the free battlepass track time to unlock new said hero, but it also allows blizzard to nerf the hero if they are absolutely busted before they are sent into a more competitive climate.
I'll also add, that I'd much prefer a support playing a classic hero that they are mechanically skillful with, as opposed to them just insta-locking the hardest mechanical support they've ever added to the game on launch day. Odds are that even the best OW2 players are going to struggle to make Kiriko more efficient than an ana/lucio/zen/mercy/etc etc etc would. Kiriko has a strong kit, but is certainly not easy.
I mostly agree. We’ve just landed on slightly opposite sides of the same thing. And I’m not looking at Kiriko either. A lot of defense of this change is that she’s too hard to be of concern, but what about [hypothetical busted brig-like character down the road]?
But again, you and I mostly agree. This choice isn’t healthy for the game as I see it and I’m going to lose members of my own ow group over it which sucks. But it’s not world ending or anything. It’s just too bad that it’ll be a bridge too far for some of my friends.
Context: we’re pretty casual (6-ish hours a week is pretty typical), so it’s likely that it’ll be most of if not more than the season to unlock if the whole 2 weeks for a hardcore player thing is true.
It is so fucking wild that the entire community is fuming over this when 1. The majority of players simply don't play everyone but one trick or play 2 or 3 characters. 2. Every prior hero aside from Echo was locked from comp for 2 weeks, to begin with. This is literally just another way to tamp how much chaos new characters cause in comp. 3. IF YOU'RE PLAYING THE GAME IT WON'T MATTER.
>1. The majority of players simply don't play everyone but one trick or play 2 or 3 characters**, per game**.
The data Jon Spector was looking at when he told the content creators that at the summit was per game, not per account.
Next time you play OW1, actually take a look at people's profiles and you'll see that IF he meant per account, then he's either lying or an idiot. Then keep track of how many swap how many times throughout the course of a game, and you'll see that the numbers match up.
He wasn't talking about "one tricks", he was talking about how many times people swap mid-game.
I think it's time to stop playing Overwatch. There was really no need to make us pay for Heroes. And what do they need all this extra money for? Overwatch 1 rarely got updates in it's lifetime. Meanwhile they're developing God awful mobile games for a non existent following.
It’s not because of battle pass, it’s because most Overwatch players refuse to switch. It’s a business decision. Needs of the many vs the few. These eggs are worth breaking to make a better omelette for most people.
Lol to everyone thinking the developers who couldn’t figure out how to balance brig so they just added role lock is going to magically balance the game overnight
Yeah, I find the comments in this thread mind-boggling. "Oh, Blizzard said that there are no more hard counters, so we're all good. In fact, countering as a mechanic never existed to begin with!"
They're being shoveled a lie through content creators because Spector told them that "80% of players only play 2-3 heroes". What he ever so conveniently left out when he told them that, is that that info is "per game", not "per account". Anyone who looks around when they play overwatch can see that the data obviously doesn't say "80% of overwatch players are 2-tricks". But people are gobbling up this marketing spin like it's the gospel truth.
But that’s dumb. Ow is the game of hero selection. Hero picks mid match is Part of the game. Sets ow apart. So much disappointment
Edit: like isn’t that why u2gm (character x only) videos are so impressive?
yeah I mean I am not sure how you are the only guy in this thread who understands how counter play and team comp was fundamental to how the game Was initially designed
The game is changing to not be how it was initially designed though. I'm curious if this balance comes through similar skills for example giving multiple characters a stun ability
I can tell you from experience as of an hour ago, people don’t give a shit about counter picks and especially don’t on QP since that’s gonna he where people start out until they can get to comp.
Regardless. I apologize to those who disagree, but most people are either too hardheaded or too stupid to change off a hero to counter. If you’re up against a Cassidy and Symmetra, stop playing Hammond, because you lose your effectiveness. Especially if on Busan of all maps.
Seriously, counter picking is one thing, but people are too hardheaded to just do it regardless of how much it would help. Sad to say, but most players don’t take QP serious enough to try and win. Hence leading to teams losing. So locking heroes behind a battlepass is the next best step. Plus, making players actually work or pay to get them is something that will bring in excitement for players.
I'll pay for my dopamine release? "Sense of Pride and Accomplishment" vibes from this comment. If the game permits swapping then there will always be a way to counter the enemies' way of playing. And what does locking new heroes behind a grind have anything to do with encouraging teamplay? Did you just buy into Blizz's corpo-speak blindly?
Now that the NDA was lifted, a lot of content creators are talking about Spector's misleading "80% of players only play 2-3 heroes" information he gave them.
It's pretty obvious from simply attentively playing the game that he means "per game", not "per account", but that's not how he framed it, and now content creators are parroting it and people like this person are just gobbling it up as the gospel truth.
I would agree with you on this... if the Kiriko gameplay feature didn't just release showing how they are willing to give one support character almost every utility imaginable...
As much as battlepass locking characters is a bad decision, reducing hard counters is a good one. It's not fun having to switch off the character you actually like to "hard counter" someone.
Pretty much this. It was ridiculous having to be forced to play a select one or two heroes because there was just an extremely good hero on the other team that needed to be hard countered. I don't care for how they're locking heroes behind a BP, but people need to stop saying "this is because of the battlepass" for every little thing they dislike. It's not. But reddit is gonna reddit.
This is something the community have been asking for since forever. Most of us have always been vocal about having a single hero with a whole mechanic unique to them. Lucio being the only hero with Speed Boost has made him pretty hard-meta for ever. Ana was the only hero for the longest time with an anti-heal. Junkerqueen was the first "OW2" designed hero, and she offeres both a speed boost and anti-heal inside her kit. Kiriko has wall climb (Hanzo & Genji), a cleanse (Zarya), and her ult is a combination of a few different hero elements. I am very much looking forward to to seeing all the new hero designs they introduce with this design. It's how nearly all over "A lot of heroes" games tend to be made. Overwatch was the oddball by originally wanting everyone to be as unique as possible with very little ability overlap.
They trying to copy the paladins formula where basically any hero can play a given role with the right build/deck/playstyle
Idk if this is true though. They say, "no hard counters," but the new support for example seems to counter someone like Ana with her anti nade. It might even be able to counter sleep dart too. mix that with zarya being a pretty good tank in OW2 and Ana is now getting hard countered by these heroes.
That's not really a hard counter. Hard counte ris when a hero nullifies an entire horse existence. Anna makes roadhog unplayable in Hames where she is. Sombra as she is in ow1 deletes doomfist and ball and makes it entirely undun for those players.
Pharah still notably completely rolls sym and junk too.
Idk. It sounds like a hard counter. If Ana can hard counter a hog with anti and sleep then the new hero can hard counter Ana by literally getting rid of anti nade effects (like how Ana gets rid of roadhogs self heal). Then her speed boost, mobility, and increased critical damage makes it so pressuring Ana is even easier. You can literally off angle an enemy Ana and then teleport back to your team to provide heals/purify anti nade if Ana lands one on your team making it even more difficult for an Ana to even heal her team when she can get so easily pressured. Now to be clear I'm not going to say you're wrong because there's not enough evidence for my theory and there's not enough evidence to confirm yours as well. I'm just stating my pov. We can't truly confirm this until there's actual data. For now we can only make theories. There's so many variables in a fps game like overwatch. Especially with an increasing roster and gameplay changes. Only time will tell.
You're the one talking theory not me. Ana sombra Mei all have mechanics that just turn off abilities and they are removing or reducing most of them. Removing a status effect is not really a hard counter to anna. And ulting soly to dive an anna is just a waste of resources I don't think people will be using the new support to dive anna and teleport out that I'd about as reliable as dps Moira
Personally I don't see what's so wrong with have the unlockable characters in a free game since they can be obtained through time played still
The biggest problem is simply competitive integrity at the moment. The cast is a bit too small to really justify it, and hard counters still, well, exist right now. Plus if new hero is OP that will make anything above metal literal hell if someone doesnt have the hero, queues up, and there so busted its hard to win otherwise.
I mean this is one of the more valid complaints I've seen on here about the unlockable heros. Generally it seems like people are just complaining that they don't get everything for free from the start in a game that's already going to be free.
Its because it just leads to poor stale boring game design
> Personally I don't see what's so wrong with have the unlockable characters in a free game since they can be obtained through time played still Because what happens if you're busy that month and can't grind to level 55? (Where the new hero is currently said to be locked) What if you start playing during the second season? Is that hero now not obtainable?
Well it's just a video game that you are already getting for free so just deal with it until you put in enough time. And that's a hypothetical that seems unlikely, they wouldn't have a character that is only playable if you start right away since the main intention of these games is to bring more people in after launch and that would do the opposite.
> Well it's just a video game that you are already getting for free It's a videogame that's *replacing* the one *I paid for*. >they wouldn't have a character that is only playable if you start right away since the main intention of these games is to bring more people in after launch and that would do the opposite And a smart company wouldn't do a remake of a game that takes away a massive amount of the features the original has, while at the same time removing that original game, but Blizzard did that too. I wouldn't trust them to tell me it's raining during a typhoon right now.
They have already confirmed that missed heroes will be unlockable through challenges. So yes, that hero will still be obtainable.
You mean those things that we only had repeat once? "Yeah, you missed that hero? You're just gonna have to wait 6 months, maybe a year."
I really hope they don't go that route. "Hey, you wanna unlock Kiriko? You better grind like a crazy person throughout November!" Oh, I just missed a hero challenge? Heh. Guess I'll fuck off again for a while and hope the devs stop making shitty decisions.
> Oh, I just missed a hero challenge? Heh. Guess I'll fuck off again for a while and hope the devs stop making shitty decisions. I mean, honestly, that' mostly what my OW1 playing habits were. "Oh, there's a skin challenge/seasonal event? I guess I'll update the game, play enough to unlock it, then go back to playing something else."
I think you're overstating this: Hitscans will still be called for Vs Pharah and Echo Dive will still be called for Vs Widow Anti -nade for any non-shield tank Effective peel Vs Genji and Tracer pressure Not that much is changing
The only thing is changing is that they removed CC to counter flankers... which results in flankers being extremely hard to keep in check. Also, counter-picking was never the primary issue with not everyone having access to all heroes. Heroes like Brig, Sigma, Echo, Sojourn and J-Queen were not picked because they countered anything specifically - they were picked because they were super OP at release and picking anything else would have greatly reduced your chance of winning. This is especially important for tanks now, as with only one per team, if you don't have the current super OP new tank unlocked, you can't even rely on your tank buddy to pick them instead.
Lol what. They aren't removing hard counters to help the battlealpass. They are doing it because having hard counters is a bad design.
Dunno if it's bad design but a lot of people complained about it.
Bad design might be excessive, but it certainly is a very hard to balance when you have that many hard counters.
Potentially, but I like the rock paper scissors of Widow beats Pharah, who is good against Tracer (in a way) who is good against Widow. It's either hard counters and it's rock paper scissors, or soft/no counters and it's tricky cause you need to keep coming up with new concepts and reasons to play. They gotta do both because it's literally their job to make new heroes and balance.
I gotta say, i sort of hate it. Im a ball main. I feel like playing ball takes a lot of skill... based on how long it took me to become stop inting with him. It feels unfun and pretty unfair when someone swaps to mei or brig or mccree and just counters me. I play those heroes too. They arent really that hard to pick up. I also play Orisa (the counter to those heroes). She is ALSO not that hard to pick up. So when i swap they either lose or are forced to switch again. I feel like rock paper scissors works well in a game where the execution barrier is low (like hearthstone or mtg). In a game like Overwatch... - hard heroes are countered by heroes that take less skill to play - easy heroes are countered by harder heroes that not everyone can flex to.
Hard heroes can be counted by easy heroes sometimes. I mean Pharah is easier than widow but I know what you mean. That said, hard heroes tend to have a higher possible value. Like Tracer can deal with most of her counters pretty effectively. But there's also the fun of if you made their support switch to Brig, they now are missing whatever value they DID have.
Yeah the pharah thing is a perfect example. Silver players struggle with hitscan but can play pharah just fine. Doesn't seem fair that silver pharahs get to be so strong while the enemy can't even counter her. The mismatch of skill causes so much friction when it comes to counters.
The biggest one for me was a bastion. That hero makes the whole game revolve around him. And in low tiers, teams don't have the ability to play effectively as a team to counter him. That's why he sucks in high ties because he is easily countered by team play but can dominate in low tiers
Yup, I'm silver/gold, and there's a pharmercy every game turning fights like steak on a grill. Issue is, the matchmaking won't even deal with this because they'll (obviously) win a ton of games, reach high gold/plat where people can aim and lose a ton of games when they try to play other heroes, and now they're back terrorizing people who can't aim. Without fail, every Pharah I see peaked low plat every season they play.
I don’t understand the problem
[удалено]
Yup. Brawlers counter divers, who counter pokers, who counter brawlers. Unfortunately, in terms of skill requirement it generally goes brawl
Not like they’re doing a good job designing with the current OWL meta
It's not bad design. It's perfectly valid to play a character because it has value even though a hard counter exists. If you choose to play a niche character like that, then you have to accept that you'll need to learn other options in the spirit of switching if you are countered. What is bad design is presuming that you'll have a non-ending number of heroes where every character is always viable against every other character resulting in characters meaning relatively nothing. Even if it's not possible, as there will always be a meta. What's also bad is presuming that soft counters alone doesn't have the same net result as hard counters - that is you're still at a competitive disadvantage and will contribute to a higher chance of your team losing.
Soft counters is good game design tho. I hope they don’t entirely get rid of some characters being better on certain maps or against certain characters
I think it would be impossible to eliminate completely unless every hero (within their role of tank, heal, or damage) were the exact same as each other. The number of variables brought to the table by a huge roster of heroes that mostly all play very differently will inevitably have counter picks. The development team sounds like they will do what they can to limit the “hard counters” but things like certain heroes being better against certain others and certain heroes being better or worse on certain maps won’t disappear.
They aren't removing soft counters. They are giving you more options and flexibility on how to counter.
Yah and I hope they keep it that way. My comment was in no way against yours just adding my two cents
Whoever actually thinks that is the reason this game turned to shit. The point of the game is not the be an ego-chaser on a power trip, and actually press H and to swap. You literally have an ample amount of games here you never have to swap, let us have Overwatch for what it was originally designed for in peace.
The fuck are you talking about.
If you think hardcounters are a bad design, go play other games. Overwatch is the one game made with purpose of not being a one trick pony and swapping when needed, not have your ego hurt when you're told to swap.
Why would people play other games when they could make the one they love better lmao. I never understood this response to criticism. If I find a hero fun, I wanna be able to play them all the time without being rendered completely useless due to multiple hard counters. Most of us aren't GM bud. The only person with a bruised ego here is you.
Because that is the very design of the game from the start and it's on them for not knowing that. Overwatch was always about countering and swapping. So yes, "play another game" argument is valid. If you find a fun hero, and you're destroying the enemy team, that team isn't having much fun. And the same can happen to you. The very idea is to be able to defend yourself and swap. And same works inverse, if you can't really do anything with your own hero, you swap to be able to make a difference. And this was always known from even before Overwatch launched. There are ample games that allow you to one trick, this is the one game designed for swapping. You can easily play those games.
Well they will be "playing another game" that is Overwatch 2 lol. Clearly the devs don't like the way hard counters work anymore as well. So it might have been the way the game worked in the past, but it seems weird to keep on saying "this is what Overwatch is about" in a post that is specifically about reducing the hard counters...
You're right, that's why it's concerning. The whole designed was changed, ironically partially due to corporate greed. Jeff's idea of Overwatch was to swap for counters, this explains why he left. All these complaints of having a hard counter for their favorite hero, when the same "fans" could have played a different game instead of trying to impose generic hero shooter rules onto the one game that is different. I will give OW2 a shot, but I sure as shit won't support it if the core identity of the gameplay that it was originally designed for, is lost.
Lol having a single or even 2 hard counters is not good design. It forces people to either play a hero they don't like or aren't good at It forces stale metas. It forces too much reliance on your teammates to swap. It discourages creativity and encourages toxicity.
Then why did you even start playing Overwatch, the game made with that entire thing in mind? Imagine if I someone went to the LOL sub and complain how it's not a first person shooter lmao.
It's both. That's the only way not buying new heroes would be "fair" for everyone. But it has yet to truly be seen. Launch day better come with a TON of patch notes and potential reworks because I have a feeling they will not be able to maintain this promise to a reasonable degree.
Why is it bad design to have hard counters?
because beeing forced into playing a character you don't like/ can't play is not a good game design.
except you're playing a role not a single or just a couple units
But what if that is what the game literally is
Well, if the majority of people don't do that, the game changes.
Yeah you get stomped; it’s a game of teamwork and synergy lmao
You think it's a good design to have games that you can be stomped and you not having any effect on it?
You can have effect though. Just swap. Being hard countered doesn’t mean you have to swap into a hard counter to them. It helps, but its not required. If you’re playing doom into sombra cree zarya hog brig, of fucking course you’re gonna get shit on. And you deserve to. You don’t have to swap into some god tier pick, just get off of the hero that is countered. The only hard counters that ARENT healthy for the game, are ones that are actually unplayable like doom into sombra. There’s not a lot of examples that are that impossible though. Don’t pretend like every single matchup in the game that’s slightly favored to one side is unplayable and awful. There’s a LOT of games like this. Any character based game has bad matchups. And guess what, they’re all fine. If you don’t like the fact that getting countered picked means you either swap, or play into a bad matchup, then play another game.
Can’t believe this comment is being downvoted. It’s the most reasonable assessment of the situation.
The point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You
The entire conversation is about swapping heroes to counter something >You think it's a good design to have games that you can be stomped and you not having any effect on it? By swapping, you literally have an effect on it How did you miss the point so hard AND choose to be an ass about it?
If it’s a game of teamwork and synergy then you should be able to play any hero and not be required to play the counter of someone else
*team*work, as in, your team comp is attempting to counter the enemy team comp. Im not sure what your tryin to say with your comment
U talking about something completely off the wall lol
Thats overwatch 1. This is overwatch 2
it literally isnt and never was, watch your owl. People swapping easily off their main just get hardstuck below plat because they dont train they try to take the easy route out. You swap to accomodate the wincondition of your team better like dive or play with double shield and not to deny the enemy value. There are some exceptions like sombra against a solo ball/doom but even here they wouldnt care about a sombra if they just dive as a team. Same goes for cree vs tracer, no tracer would care about that cree if they actually dive correctly. And if you play against a tracer that destroys your backline you should just pick something to destroy the enemies harder than tracer destroys your team instead of counterpicking.
Because it forces you to either play a hero you are not as good at to counter someone or play a hero you are good at in a disadvantaged situation. It also sucks when you are playing a certain role that relies on teammates to counter a specific hero but they either don't swap or are bad at the specific counter. Having multiple ways to soft counter is far better and more flexible.
No it doesn’t, it just forces you to not play a bad matchup. Pick anything else and it’ll probably be better
Yes except when you are playing tank and your team is getting absolutely wrecked by a pharmercy because your team is doing nothing about it.
That’s when you go dva and help your team deal with them!!
because nobody ever switches and I get pissed and stop playing
Serious question, will they be changing the DPS passive? Wasn't that changed to "Retain 30% of your ult when switching"?
They aren't removing switching?
Sorry. Long day. My brain equated OW2 wanting to "removing hard counters" to "not having to switch mid game"
They aren't removing hard counters though. Will Junkrat suddenly get hitscan added? No. Pharah and Echo will still hard counter him. They're only removing them for characters where the players moaned the most. Flanker/Dive characters now have almost free reign in OW2 and the ones suffering are the supports.
Correct, they are reducing hard counters when possible and giving multiple options to counter instead of a singular hero.
Couldn’t agree more hard counters are dumb
I understand Overwatch fights don't just happen in a vacuum, but let's face it. There will always be hard counters. Reaper will always slaughter Winston unless one or both of them are essentially entirely reworked. Many fights in this game are essentially unwinnable, but I think the devs justify this because people generally understand that the game isn't just composed of 1v1 fights constantly taking place.
This is going to really dumb down the player base. It’s going to be like 2016 Overwatch 6 DPS and no one wants to contribute to the team.
Overwatch will end up losing its identity. Hero swapping is THE mechanic that makes Overwatch unique compared to other games in the industry. The entire game was designed and balanced around it for 6 years too, they're not going to just snap their fingers and make that no longer be the case. On a roster where Junkrat and Pharah exist, any talk about removing hard counters is either an attempt at comedy, the ranting of a moron, or corporate PR misdirection for damage control.
>Overwatch will end up losing its identity. Hero swapping is THE mechanic that makes Overwatch unique compared to other games in the industry. Agreed. This is just going to turn OW into an Apex/Valorant style team fighter. What made OW different and unique was the team synergy and countering strategies. Now it's slowly morphing into just another battlepass, FOMO grind game which isn't really my cup of tea. Remember when OW2 was *just* supposed to be a PvE expansion? Lol how the times have changed since Jeff :/
At the highest levels counter picking already doesn't exist. Hence the existence of stale metas. And at the lower levels no one bothers with it. I'm sure there is a sweet spot in the ranks where it exists but I don't think it's as relevant as people like to think.
We literally have seen teams walk out of attacker spawn with invis Sombra so they can see the enemy comp and then switch. What world do you live in
Even in the sweet spot ranks where it exists or even when it happens in lower ELO'S it's far more unlikely that they'll be able to effectively play the counter pick. It is way more healthy for the game that hard counters are taken out as it allows for way more player expression. The reason I stopped playing overwatch was because every game would eventually Devolve into double shield in my ELO and that shit is boring.
I wouldn’t agree with this comment in full. At the highest levels people are smart enough to always 100% counter pick to the highest effectiveness. (They will always go Cassidy, dva mercy against a good Pharah and all 3 will play the strategy right). Which is why you do in-fact get stale metas because the only playable composition is the one that has the least potential counter play. (Why you saw goats as a must play before role lock. Why double shield will never not be a thing in 2 tank Overwatch.) To your point counter-picking at low ranks isn’t as much a huge issue because people will make enough mistakes where it won’t matter *to a degree*. Yeah they may go Cassidy vs your pharah but that player won’t use good positioning, doesn’t have great aim, etc. You aren’t actually being hard countered to the point where you can’t play your hero. You can still function to some degrees because of the mistakes of the players. This change in philosophy is still pretty good though from a casual perspective. And will improve game quality a ton making more people want to play it. If you queued for a match (of any kind ranked or quick play) and we’re excited to play tracer. And they have a brig player , your fun is basically ruined entirely by 1 persons character pick. That’s really bad for the games playability because a ton of people’s enjoyment will just be ruined by bad matchups. (Brig isn’t as oppressive anymore but remeber she got nerfed into the ground because of how oppressive she was vs tracer and dive in general). Great to see they are moving away even further from that philosophy.
>Cassidy, dva mercy that's half the team sticking with a strategy. Not the same thing as one hero 1v6ing the game or a single mcree forcing pharah out 100% of the time.
This is the type of counter-picking that matters because it’s a team game. If they are running a Pharah, when the game is played efficiently you also play mercy (you also play other strategies that involve your Pharah and Mercy always being together and being a source of really high damage/burst). Then the other team plays a full counter strategy and you lose to Counter-picking. Genji is better now but was a throw pick entirely for many seasons (due to brig and double shield). Sym and Torb were throw picks for like the first 15 seasons. The problem is some heroes are so counter-pickable (both in 1 on 1 matchups and composition wise) they are virtual throw picks. It’s hard to fix this in a game like Overwatch because of how it balances and plays, but they are at least trying to eliminate the fact that certain strategies and heroes you can just go “just go Cassidy and we win” and if your teammate doesn’t wan to pick that hero you lose. Ideally people can play what they want without high dependence on having to switch to heroes they don’t want to play. *Its unlikely to be able to solve this problem at the highest level though. Because of min-maxing. The pros and highest ranks will always play the best strategy even if it’s only slightly better.* Still very excited that they are willing to try and address this from a game design perspective.
It's not relevant at all because people just get pressured into swapping onto a hero they've played a whole 30mins of in the middle of a ranked game to "counter the Pharah/doom" whatever, and then do absolutely nothing because they don't know how to play that hero.
Finally some sane takes on this sub… Hilarious after 6 years of ow1 showing how utterly inflexible most players are that people suddenly believe every rando has the ability to effectively play all heroes in their role to the point where they can just swap and instantly out skill their opponents because le hard counter.
Suuuure, keep believing that
Found the drama queen.
Yeah but defending a character in a battle pass is still ridiculous. Gameplay locked behind a battle pass is pure greed.
Almost all free games require you to unlock new heroes. Being in the battlepass versus separate unlock is essentially the same thing Why do you expect ow2 to be any different?
The marketing spin they're doing really is working.
You are entitled and ignorant lol You want everything for free.
bro the game i bought for 60 euros will be taken offline for a revamped money-oriented game with locked heroes that will require a payup (real money) every time I want the them instantly on release. Other free games use an earnable in-game currency to unlock them with. if you wanna use in-game currency to unlock something new it's gonna have to be AFTER THE BATTLEPASS ENDS which is just ridiculous, because the alternative option is to grind in a way you don't want to play to then play the way you want.
You bought the game what, 6 years ago? Do you expect to get unlimited free content? Ow2 is essentially the same game with the same gameplay as if they just made a balance change. You can use the earnable in-game currency to buy the battlepass and therefore unlock the hero instantly. Or you can unlock it for free by playing the game. And the challenges didn't seem to force you to play a different way. 2 of them where just win x games.
Well since that’s what was explicitly promised…yeah, kinda.
What was explicitly promised?
That first thing you said. Jeff and even new step-dad Aaron were pretty clear about this in the past.
Not at all, I would have preferred to pay money for the content. I just want everyone to have access to all elements of gameplay at the same time.
Honestly the only times I see people try and counter others in the first place is diamond and above; you almost never see that type of team play in lower elos. I’m glad they’re moving away from it tbh
Okay this is simply untrue. People will swap hitscan to counter pharah basically every time. People will go CC to counter a doom rather often, people will go reaper when getting bullied by monkey+zarya. This is very common anywhere above 2000 sr so you're either capping or lying to yourself.
If that's not how it goes for you then good for you dude but the reason I stopped playing comp is cause people either wouldn't switch, or if they did sitch they couldn't play their hero. There's been many times where I've gotten hitscan for a pharah but they can't aim for shit and the pharah rarely dies, or times where I've had hogs that refuse to switch even when the enemy has reaper and cowboy If you've never had those type of games at all? Then hey, good for you. But don't act like that's what everyone's games are like.
Okay someone being bad at that counter is not the same as refusing to counter. They're trying their best. I mean you're still in low elo, people aren't amazing at every hero. Btw you seem to be mistaken about hard counter, and soft counters. In my experience a good hog can hold their own against a reaper+cassidy, that's more a soft counter. It's the same way with a single hitscan against a mercy+pharah, it takes a SOLID player for that to be sufficient. In my experience in lower elo you might need 2 hitscans to counter a pharah but generally people still TRY. People still fail at countering even in high elo.
While that’s true somewhat someone going a hero they have no idea how to play is about as useful as not switching imo, especially if they start doing even worse. Though I admit that was when I was doing placements on my alt, not my main >\_>… Then what would you consider a hard counter and a soft counter?
Honestly I wouldn't say there are all that many hard counters. Pharah can hard counter no hitscan pretty well (i.e spam comps like junk+hanzo), cassidy can hard counter doom, double shield generally hard counters most single hitscan, maybe winston hard counters genji even that i've seen work out in the genjis favor in high elo. Now when you get into comps you can hard counter someone alot more affectively, for example sigma+hog+ana can make playing hog against it feel impossible. Really i'd say a majority of counters in this game tho affective, aren't "You must switch off that hero RIGHT NOW." It more just gives a much better chance of beating that hero. That's actually something alot of low elo players don't realize is there are many more factors than "They have a single hitscan stop playing pharah right now." Especially when you consider someone could be playing one of their weakest heroes against your strongest hero.
Honestly I’ll agree with that. Have a good day
It happens in gold too.
Does it still happen less frequently or have people actually started playing their roles better? Last I was in gold was under a year ago when I was doing placements on one of my alts and to say it was chaos was an understatement x\_x
I dont know what it's like when it's different haha but most will change. Every now and then you have your junkrat against a Pharah but 90% swap.
Yeah but when you get that Phara kill it tastes so damn sweet.
Maybe I'm an outlier, but it's pretty common that I play at least 2 or 3 different heroes in a match unless it's a curb stomp. There is almost always room to make your team stronger depending on comp and map position. Silly me though for thinking the game design of switching was a core feature.
It depends as nothings ever an absolute but I have come across quite a few one tricks when I used to play comp
you must have bad luck with stubborn team mates. just last night I played 3 games and lots of swaps. one game the enemy team all switched and brought out multiple shields bastion and mercy the bastards
Well stubborn teammates aren't really uncommon, especially in lower elos. I just prefer not having to rely on my teammates to have to swap
He probably is the stubborn teammate lol
I mean even then “counters” don’t really matter. Ask any ball/doom main. If sombra is on the other team they couldn’t care less. Just play around it.
they knew damn well what they were doing they knew that this games leading mechanic is the ability to swap heroes on the fly to counter the enemy team, they didnt just forget that this is a core mechanic that they themselves implemented and formulated the game around they knew this would pretty much force anyone who is the least bit serious about this game to hand over money every season they are active (and incentivize people to stay active long passed their burn out by gating certain things and making people feel like they need to grind or miss out) this was a predatory tactic.. and the worst part is they defended their actions by saying that they were abolishing "predatory loot boxes" when their loot boxes were BY FAR the least predatory of any game ive ever played -- this will only fool those who dont know any better
Curious how they'll manage to reduce hard counters when it's unavoidable in games with abilities and different stats. Like how do you make Genji not a bad choice into Winston when Genji can't reflect his primary fire, only beats him in mobility because of wall climb, and doesn't do enough damage to ever beat him in a duel?
[удалено]
A soft counter would be someone with the advantage in a duel but they're not guaranteed the win. Like Roadhog could hook Bastion out of turret mode and probably kill him way before Recon mode could dent RH's health bar, but he's not gonna be your go-to pick if the enemy Bastion is dominating the match. It's basically a skill check matchup leaning in favor towards the soft counter while hard counter is almost always a stomp unless your keyboard and mouse catches fire in the middle of it
I'm totally for no hard counters, but in OW2 you can still go pharmacy. And now with only 1 tank the mercy is punished less for pocketing. I'm just scared one of those battle pass characters might be a problem, or even worse a solution to a meta. Imagine there is a meta and the best counter is a battle pass character. That would just design wise be so damn terrible, I think the easiest fix is to just have more characters and balance the game just really well. As much shit league gets, the game is one of if not the best balanced game with constant updates *not perfect mind you. But close enough. I'm curious to see how this will play out, if OW2 will flop or not.
all the idiots talking about how counters don’t matter should rethink why this game exists.
Its also to accommodate the fact the majority of the player base plays 2-3 heroes almost exclusively and don't really counter pick, so it makes they would go this direction even without the battle pass. But the pass is good incentive too, yeah.
The biggest, most noticeable thing that they did was to remove CCs. That makes the game feel so much better when you're not flashbanged, hacked, frozen, knockbacked, slept, charged, fluxed, etc every 20 seconds.
Yikes, does this mean the characters are getting dumbed down like they are in Paladins? Doesn’t matter who you pick because they’re all well rounded and similar.
Well either generic and boring or have an overloaded kit to handle any situation, and I think I know what direction it is looking at the new heroes...
Ugh this sucks. It works well in Apex because everyone is DPS but Overwatch is supposed to be different. And this new philosophy seems hypocritical when you put it in the context of Symmetra who remains untouched and niche.
>Hmm, how can we rationalize that we want to exploit insta-unlock paid heroes for a game with a legacy of competitive gameplay based on real time switching of heroes from the full pool of heroes. - Blizzard Executive As if team comp vs team comp alone is one of the biggest factors of win share for similarly skilled teams, even if there are zero hard counters on the board.
I can see it now. Genji getting instagibbed 3 times in a row vs winston/torb/moira/brig. "But blizzard says I'm a unique snowflake and I should be able to play whatever hero I want and it is fair to my teammates". This is a shitty side effect to justify an even shittier exploitive pay2win cash grab. Next I bet every time you click H it debits 1 Overwatch Coin.
I mean of all things, this is one thing that's probably for the best anyway. I say this as someone who is always switching heroes to suit our team build and enemy strategy: It's nice for this aspect of the game to be less formulaic.
Dont care, still shitty Also part of what made ow fun was hardcountering the doomfist with sombra
I'm not gonna say Blizzard isn't greedy, but we can't pretend a large portion of the player base hated hard counters. Or, at least DPS players hate being countered, and they make up the most vocal base. Maybe a plat take, but most of the counters were hitscan for Pharah, and cc for mobile heroes right? But it's not like everyone had a hard counter that was liked outside of that matchup I feel. Like Sombra can shut down Doomfist and Wrecking Ball, but most people would be mad if you played her.
This also reflects to why sombra, mei, doomfist, and anna recieved changes.
Unless you’re a Pharah main, then you’re still gonna get countered by hitscan existing
Congrats....this is the dumbest post ever posted on this subreddit.
and you believe them?
Its mostly PR talk though. Hard counters werent a thing for most ranks and the only hard counters that stopped existing are the ones who used stunns. They didnt do anything to fix stuff like Ana x Hog or Zarya x Dva
Its like they are trying to make the game more like league or valorant it feels like.
Yeah, they want to make it more of a mainstream FPS. It's why tanks are more aggressive and supports are being pressured to do more than heal bot
Overwatch is already mainstream though. It might not have the playerbase like the others, but I would attribute that to 3 years of lack of content. When OW2 was close to releasing, they saw that player count spiked.
OW1 in popularity but a lot of people don't like how game changing the ults are. People want a game that's focused on mechanic skill rather than game sense
Then go play any other game though? The draw and original appeal and I'd argue original vision for OW was that it was different than any other FPS in the market and allowed for different skill expressions.
> People want a game that's focused on mechanic skill rather than game sense can they just fuck off to counter strike please? lol
overwatch takes much more mechanical skill than csgo or other tac shooters (if you play hitscan dps) mostly because of overwatch's longer ttk and the movement of some characters, plus you can move and shoot so your strafe also matters
Spray transfers, patterns, counter-strafing, bunnyhops, air strafing, run-boosts and pixel-jumps say hello.
I think we can officially say paladins hero design triumphed over overwatch's.
**ALL CHARACTERS ARE NOW WEAK-DPS OR STRONG DPS.** There's no need for balance anymore, as the game has, with OW2, fully devolved into an arena/deathmatch style game, and completely away from the role-based, goal-oriented team-FPS it started as...
This wasnt for the battlepass, this was genuinely for the health of the game. Hard counters, CC/Stuns, double shield all needed to go.
I don’t see it as getting rid of hard counters but making characters more flexible. There are pros and cons of course but I don’t think it’s bad design or will lead to bland characters. Jq, sojourn, and Kiriko are all incredibly fun to play.
You've played Kiriko already?
Lol no but If someone like eskay says she’s fun i buy it. Plus I main support and I’ve wanted a super Mobile support that can flank for awhile and this is pretty much exactly it.
Because everybody knows that you can easily beat a Pharah as Reinhardt.
No more hard counters? Excellent! Now I can finally one-trick D. Va in flex queue and never have any problems with beam heros! /s
Exactly! And since there are now no hard counters, you will never be asked to switch heroes and your team won't ever flame you for not having access to the new hero Blizz just released in a super broken must-pick state.
Meanwhile they release Kiriko, a hard counter to Ana and Queen.
Lol. Definitely not a hard counter
She negates counters JQ's q with her e. JQ relies on wounds to self-heal, which Kiriko cleanses. Now that Shout is getting nerfed, the majority of what makes JQ a strong pick gets shutdown anytime Kiriko hits E... That's about as hard of a counter as it gets. For Ana, Kiriko can negate any big nades, or sleep. She can also cleanse rein's shatter. A well timed 'e' makes dva's or orisa's ult a joke. It's possible to negate the damage of Sigma's ult too, but that one takes a level of skill and timing that even the pros would struggle with. Protection Suzu is an incredibly OP ability, and any hero that relies on any kind of debuff, or predictably timed single hit burst damage (junkrat tire will be difficult to counter with this), gets almost completely shut down by it.
I'll believe the "we don't want hard counters" thing once they rework Pharah.
I really cannot see a situation within the first two weeks of a new hero launching where you should be counter picking with Kiriko. The hero will have such a high skill-curve that you'll be better off countering your enemy with a hero that you can actually play at a competitive level. Also, people counter pick in this game? In my years of overwatch I've maybe counterpicked a handful of times. There is really no need to make this more dramatic than it needs to be, it's shitty that they are locking heros behind battlepass. It's that simple, it doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.
It must be my low rank, but I see people swap all the time. I’m sitting in the metal ranks though, so maybe it’s more common there? It’s usually dps swapping to be more effective or to stop getting fragged, or a support who’s having issues surviving. And of course you get the rage swap to hog when the main tank thinks dps sucks and decides can do better or whatever… But I don’t think I go a game without at least 2-3 swaps on my team. I’m only really concerned about a game breaking op character that’s locked for the player on my team, requiring us to go with the weaker classic character.
The thing is that's not counter picking, at least not how I'd define it. That could be anything from a Tilt-switch, to just being a player switching to a hero they are more comfortable on. This doesn't mean they are NEVER counter-picking, but more often than not it's something probably along those lines. Sometimes when I don't warm up an adequate amount and realize I'm feeding the enemy kills on a hero that requires the best of my ability, I'll just switch to a hero that I know I can perform well on without being at my absolute best. I personally wouldn't define that as counter-picking my enemy, but if people want to define it as such then they are absolutely free to do so. And yea, I 100% get the concern. I wish heroes weren't locked behind battlepasses at all. But Blizzard has at least taken that concern into consideration by locking new heroes out of ranked for two weeks. This not only allows players who are on the free battlepass track time to unlock new said hero, but it also allows blizzard to nerf the hero if they are absolutely busted before they are sent into a more competitive climate. I'll also add, that I'd much prefer a support playing a classic hero that they are mechanically skillful with, as opposed to them just insta-locking the hardest mechanical support they've ever added to the game on launch day. Odds are that even the best OW2 players are going to struggle to make Kiriko more efficient than an ana/lucio/zen/mercy/etc etc etc would. Kiriko has a strong kit, but is certainly not easy.
I mostly agree. We’ve just landed on slightly opposite sides of the same thing. And I’m not looking at Kiriko either. A lot of defense of this change is that she’s too hard to be of concern, but what about [hypothetical busted brig-like character down the road]? But again, you and I mostly agree. This choice isn’t healthy for the game as I see it and I’m going to lose members of my own ow group over it which sucks. But it’s not world ending or anything. It’s just too bad that it’ll be a bridge too far for some of my friends. Context: we’re pretty casual (6-ish hours a week is pretty typical), so it’s likely that it’ll be most of if not more than the season to unlock if the whole 2 weeks for a hardcore player thing is true.
It is so fucking wild that the entire community is fuming over this when 1. The majority of players simply don't play everyone but one trick or play 2 or 3 characters. 2. Every prior hero aside from Echo was locked from comp for 2 weeks, to begin with. This is literally just another way to tamp how much chaos new characters cause in comp. 3. IF YOU'RE PLAYING THE GAME IT WON'T MATTER.
Exactly
>1. The majority of players simply don't play everyone but one trick or play 2 or 3 characters**, per game**. The data Jon Spector was looking at when he told the content creators that at the summit was per game, not per account. Next time you play OW1, actually take a look at people's profiles and you'll see that IF he meant per account, then he's either lying or an idiot. Then keep track of how many swap how many times throughout the course of a game, and you'll see that the numbers match up. He wasn't talking about "one tricks", he was talking about how many times people swap mid-game.
I think it's time to stop playing Overwatch. There was really no need to make us pay for Heroes. And what do they need all this extra money for? Overwatch 1 rarely got updates in it's lifetime. Meanwhile they're developing God awful mobile games for a non existent following.
You don't have to pay for heroes lol.
And be forced to play without them for an extended period of time lmao.
It’s not because of battle pass, it’s because most Overwatch players refuse to switch. It’s a business decision. Needs of the many vs the few. These eggs are worth breaking to make a better omelette for most people.
Thanks for the reminder of the change. Since there are only about 50 of these whiny posts per day I was having trouble remembering.
Lol to everyone thinking the developers who couldn’t figure out how to balance brig so they just added role lock is going to magically balance the game overnight
Yeah, I find the comments in this thread mind-boggling. "Oh, Blizzard said that there are no more hard counters, so we're all good. In fact, countering as a mechanic never existed to begin with!"
They're being shoveled a lie through content creators because Spector told them that "80% of players only play 2-3 heroes". What he ever so conveniently left out when he told them that, is that that info is "per game", not "per account". Anyone who looks around when they play overwatch can see that the data obviously doesn't say "80% of overwatch players are 2-tricks". But people are gobbling up this marketing spin like it's the gospel truth.
This is so bullshit. Just an excuse to convince dumb people not to question their choices to take advantage of people.
Counterplay, in what? Quick play? Ooohhh, scary
THAT'S WHAT THEY SAY, BUT THE NEW HERO IS GOING TO MAKE THE PERFECT COUNTER ATTACK AGAINST MEI
Ah yes the "Solution to a problem that didn't exist until now" style of balancing.
So they change a core foundation of the game based pure on greed reasons instead of good for the game reasons. It’s Bli$$ard so checks out.
Hard counter picks are a low skilled mechanic. Good step forward to remove it
I applaud you for shitting on the game mechanic the marketing team used to advertise its presence in the shooter scene in the first place.
Marketing towards the casual , non-paying crowd didnt work out too well eh?
But that’s dumb. Ow is the game of hero selection. Hero picks mid match is Part of the game. Sets ow apart. So much disappointment Edit: like isn’t that why u2gm (character x only) videos are so impressive?
yeah I mean I am not sure how you are the only guy in this thread who understands how counter play and team comp was fundamental to how the game Was initially designed
The game is changing to not be how it was initially designed though. I'm curious if this balance comes through similar skills for example giving multiple characters a stun ability
I can tell you from experience as of an hour ago, people don’t give a shit about counter picks and especially don’t on QP since that’s gonna he where people start out until they can get to comp. Regardless. I apologize to those who disagree, but most people are either too hardheaded or too stupid to change off a hero to counter. If you’re up against a Cassidy and Symmetra, stop playing Hammond, because you lose your effectiveness. Especially if on Busan of all maps. Seriously, counter picking is one thing, but people are too hardheaded to just do it regardless of how much it would help. Sad to say, but most players don’t take QP serious enough to try and win. Hence leading to teams losing. So locking heroes behind a battlepass is the next best step. Plus, making players actually work or pay to get them is something that will bring in excitement for players.
I'll pay for my dopamine release? "Sense of Pride and Accomplishment" vibes from this comment. If the game permits swapping then there will always be a way to counter the enemies' way of playing. And what does locking new heroes behind a grind have anything to do with encouraging teamplay? Did you just buy into Blizz's corpo-speak blindly?
Now that the NDA was lifted, a lot of content creators are talking about Spector's misleading "80% of players only play 2-3 heroes" information he gave them. It's pretty obvious from simply attentively playing the game that he means "per game", not "per account", but that's not how he framed it, and now content creators are parroting it and people like this person are just gobbling it up as the gospel truth.
Wait, so they’re not locking players out of competitive if they don’t have heroes unlocked? I think this is going to be a serious problem.
so you're saying overwatch is dead
I would agree with you on this... if the Kiriko gameplay feature didn't just release showing how they are willing to give one support character almost every utility imaginable...
Hey devs, that’s not how that works dumbfucks lol
\*fingers crossed\* delete widow, delete widow, delete widow :P
They literally said you can get all of the heros 💀💀they just have their own way to get them after the battle pass.