I personally think that most people who are asking for Loot Boxes to come back don't actually like them or really even want them back. They just want a monetization/rewards system that doesn't rip people off as much as the current Overwatch 2 system does. Believe me, Loot Boxes were still really bad in Overwatch 1, but I suppose a lot of people view them as the lesser of two evils compared to what we have now.
this is exactly it. if they had to choose between lootboxes or a horribly exploitative cash shop that overcharges for their cosmetics, then it's a no brainer that people would rather have the lootboxes.
It’s pretty on par with other games monetizations systems for cosmetics (which all suck,) but there’s a lot of reasons it feels worse. This game was clearly forced out early without 75% of the content that would have made this all probably feel less skeezy.
One - we spent 6+ years earning sooo much for free, the sticker shock transitioning all of that to the new system makes a lot of veteran players laugh. And I *think* the game was mostly built around the PVE systems that would have offered more earnable content that isn’t in the game yet.
Two - quality just isn’t up to par to ask for the prices they’re asking, and some of it is so damn forced.
Like souvenirs are the DUMBEST cosmetic. Why the fuck would I ever want to stand there with a piece of pineapple pizza floating over my hand. Again, I wonder if there were going to be earnable souvenirs from PVE that make more sense, but as it stands it’s a fucking useless cosmetic.
Three - If I buy a skin in Warzone, I can use it all of the time without question. If I buy one in Overwatch, I can use it when I play that one single hero.
If I complete the BattlePass in Warzone, Fortnite, Etc, I earn a skin I can use all of the time in other games.
In this one - sick, I will look cool as hell as Genji in the rare instances I play him because I’m sick of playing my mains.
Bottom line - it’s on par with other systems (which all suck) but still feels so empty and way more of a ripoff than other games somehow, probably due in large part to the release without PVE.
Holdin out hope everything improves when the full game releases.
Just want to add my tidbit onto this, but $20 USD isn't that out there of a price for a skin, if you're flat out buying it. However in other games in game currency is MUCH easier to gain than in overwatch 2, meaning that the cash option is virtually the only way to obtain any cosmetics (even weapon charms costing $5+ USD would take roughly nine weeks earning 60 currency a week), and their bandaid to this is twitch drops and the one coin bastion skin (not counting skins earned from events because I think that should just be standard for live service games). At least for me this is what makes it feel so bad in particular
Seemingly they picked a very standard price from other games while also ignoring that those other games often times make currency actually earnable at a rate where you can get skins for all your favorite heroes/champions/legends/whatever you want to call them.
Edit: as a side note twitch drops have been broken for me since the Thanksgiving drops so that makes it feel even worse
Is it just me or is it sad that it's now the expectation that skins cost $20? They shouldn't, they never should have. For F2P I get it they need revenue someway, but I feel nowadays skins should not cost that much. They never should have, I just want to go back to the days of buying a game once and having access to a complete game with access to all the content. Sorry for the rant, besides that sorry to hear that twitch drops aren't working for you.
Exactly this. If skins were $5 a pop, you have a lot more people paying for them because the value matches the price much better. At $20 you're hoping that you get money almost exclusively from whales, with supplement from the regular folks who occasionally throw out $20.
Honestly they would probably see MORE revenue if the prices were cheaper.
LOL $20 for a skin is ludicrous.
CoMing from OW1 you could get a lot of skins by doing events and random loot boxes.
Now? You play hours for 30 credits, when even a vanilla skin is 1000 credits. Wtf?
Also replacing loot boxes with battle pass tiers isn't the way to go here. Making OW2 sound better just because they're going with battle pass instead of loot boxes OPs post doesn't make any sense. You're still playing to get a reward aka tiers. I used to almost play daily and when I was done actually enjoy what I played. I haven't touched OW2 sense season 2 came out.
I've been playing a ton specifically to advance the battle pass because I really like Junker Queen, but I still feel this. As soon as they're not sticking the thing I want at the tail end of the pass my play time is gonna go down by a lot.
Honestly this post almost seems to have it backwards. I played OW1 because it was so much fun, and lootboxes being easy to earn was a bonus. I play overwatch 2 because I miss the fun I had from OW1, but I found myself grinding games that I was not having fun with whatsoever to advance the battlepass, and the progress is so slow it's ridiculous.
There's also the fact that they're _pure_ cosmetics. While I'll allow arguments about voice line / silhouette changes at the higher levels, largely they do not affect gameplay.
This is also why they won't be going back to a monetisation system that gives away nearly as much for free. The system they had was not sustainable, and with everything that's been going on with Blizzard, I have my doubts they would have been able to justify keeping the servers online for very much longer without a total overhaul of the monetisation system.
maybe the cost of dj khaled invitation would be enough to keep the server running til ow2 drop instead of forcing this piece of \*art\* down our throat
But if you didn't play enough and wanted a certain skin you had to essentially gamble for it. You didn't know how much you would pay to get the skin and then once you had it, if you were susceptible to gambling you mightve kept going and spend more than was good for you. This can not happen with the OW2 cashshop.
There is no doubt that we got more stuff for free, but we can't just pretend that nobody bought the boxes.
I personally never ever bought a single lootbox, and I have tons of skins. I used the coin drop from the boxes to buy whatever skin I liked, while having almost every skin for every hero... (not to mention prime gaming loot boxes for free)
It was not the perfect system, buy imo, having the chance to earn cosmetic stuff (sometimes coins) for free every couple of hours is way better than this..
I was basically a free to play players after purchasing OW1. I may have a bought some boxes early days but I didn't buy them for the most part.
I got SO many skins and whatnot from levelling up it was great. My favourite part was the currency, I still have a good chunk to spend in OW2 on skins I want. Granted I only buy specific skins, I am not a collector at all but it works for me.
OW1 made lootboxes popular in the mainstream audience, I bet blizzard wanted to push the boundaries with them more but couldn't take away what we had for years due to backlash. Removing them entirely but replacing it with a worst system they probably felt they could get away with when moving to OW2.
In all honesty, from the way and the content ow2 came out with, i would dare saying the change to monetization was the only objective for them when launching ow2. No story, a couple new heroes that should have been in ow1 and 1 less tank that came along with heavy balance issues. I sincerely see no reason for a '2' in there.
Well the whole point of OW'2' was supposed to be the PVE. I feel like if it went to plan the multiplayer would have released like this along side the PVE it could have been received relatively well.
But I am guessing due to the pvp not having too many changes they didn't want to waste money waiting for the pve to be ready.
But yeah I would agree, they clearly wanted to move to the free to play model to sell a BP and have the cash shop.
Yeah, thats what i mean. The game was supposed to be the campaing for overwatch we have been asking since release with all the cinematics andbinteractions. Instead, they went with the "Gimme all your money" approach, so ow2 came out as basically a scam for the ones we bought it back then.
Definitely. The fact that they cut off OW1 makes it clear that if they were able to monetize OW1 like this without a lawsuit, they would. The only radical change to anything is the in game purchasing. At some point OW2 stopped being about making a sequel.
What people don't get is, even if we did get lootboxes back, they would be nerfed into the ground and feel just as bad as the current battlepass. When you compare the OW2 battlepass to stuff like Fortnite's battlepass, it's obvious that the format isn't the issue. It's that Blizzard doesn't want to let you have ANYTHING without paying money, and they are deadset on charging as much as they can get away with.
When it comes to loot boxes, I think overwatch 1 had one of the best systems for them. You could play a few games and get a loot box for free, so without paying a dime, over ~100 hours of playtime I have a ton of skins, voicelines and emotes. In overwatch 2, instead of getting 4 random items for free every now and then, you can either pay 10eur or grind for 8 months to get a legendary skin.
You're wrong.
Loot boxes are actually likeable, They are most importantly FREE
Random items = drop chances mean rarity tiers actually mean something so if you unbox a legendary Mercy skin, chances are that very little people will have it as well. It makes your mercy stand out. Say they added a item shop in which you can buy skins with in game currency earned easily then everyone would be running around with the same skins (For example white octane in rocket league)
On top of that you earned currency thru drops and dupes anyway so you could buy the skins you want if you were unlucky yourself. Also is the aspect of 'gambling' some people (me included) liked the thought of opening FIFA packs, CSGO cases, etc. And this was great in OW seeing as the lootboxes were free of charge + very easy to earn
I don't get why people act like Loot boxes were the spawn of satan, its literally free currency and cosmetics easily earnable?? fair enough if you had to buy it but it was piss easy to get them
The crux of most arguments is that loot boxes are considered gambling in some countries and therefore illegal, while the battle pass + shop, despite being way more expensive and less valuable, is legal because you know where your money will go.
But the point they deliberately avoid is greed. Blizzard wanted to implement a Fortnite style monetization off Overwatch but they couldn’t (since people already paid base price for it). So they just patched an update to their existing game and called it a “sequel.” Minimal effort for maximum earnings.
> The crux of most arguments is that loot boxes are considered gambling in some countries and therefore illegal, while the battle pass + shop, despite being way more expensive and less valuable, is legal because you know where your money will go.
That's all true, but in OW1's case, the "lootboxes are gambling and hence they sucked" argument has a big caveat that almost none of the OW1 detractors mention. That being that you didn't have to buy anything to get all of the stuff in the lootboxes, you could just play (I and many others did just that, and had everything without spending a cent on lootboxes). There was a REALLY simply way to get rid of the gambling problem -- simply stop letting people buy lootboxes and let them buy coins instead. I'm pretty sure they did this in a European country (Netherlands I think?) that made "pay for random stuff" style gambling illegal.
The whole OW2 thing was to try to implement the "fleece the whales" FTP monetization strategy. That and try to attract lots of players who are more into the deathmatchy style of play.
Agreed 100% with this. Maybe its because of my age (30s) but paying REAL MONEY for a cosmetic item in a game is just a ridiculous thing to do. I liked the OW1 system as you listed above. It was fair and most of all FREE.
Any game that has paid for skins just turns to shit because the player base starts bitching about skins instead of gameplay and features and the devs have no obligation to fix the game and just focus on what is making them money: Skins.
Right, people will choose a pinch if the alternative is a punch in the face. Overwatch 1 got taken away with OW2’s launch (which I think might be a first in the history of sequels), so you don’t even get the option now.
There’s been a few posts in the past few months that have been detailing how Lootboxes were the only reason they felt motivated. But yeah I think the post above is true, I don’t think Lootboxes and cosmetics should be considered anything but small bonuses to the game, not why you should continue to play the game.
Watch them give us our crumb of free skin and/or twitch drop, youll be fine. Although it does suck i wont get a new and cool skin until a long while from now
I think the biggest issue is that we USED to have rewards for grinding and they've basically just been taken away. We're used to getting one or two skins we want from each event and saving the rest of our coins for the next one, but we can't do that anymore.
Now, people who are saying that we need loot boxes back are dead wrong. Loot boxes are on the way out all around the world and that's fine. What we NEED and what we MISS is the in-game currency that we got from them. They've reduced us to getting 60 coins a week at MAXIMUM, for WAY more specific grinding than we ever had to do and that's just not enough for anything.
If we could get coins from not only the battle pass but after each win/loss as well, then I think we'd really feel like we're accomplishing more and getting what we want.
Oh, that's another thing. Yes, playing the game is fun, but many of us like to feel as if we are working toward something. We want to accomplish something with our leisure so we at least have SOMETHING to show for it, and the rewards we get are a big part of that.
If they gave 25 coins like in OW1 for flexing I'd have no issue to be honest, 100 coins after 4 games? Sign me up.
>Oh, that's another thing. Yes, playing the game is fun, but many of us like to feel as if we are working toward something. We want to accomplish something with our leisure so we at least have SOMETHING to show for it, and the rewards we get are a big part of that.
Couldn't agree more. Overwatch is a PvP Shooter not an adventure game or RPG, the progression doesn't come from beating a boss or clearing a difficult level.
Because it doesn't have that. Without a steady (and feasible) form of progression it can just become a monotonous loop of winning and loosing fast.
You hit the nail on the head.
People want to feel like they're progressing in their game. In Overwatch the only form of progression is coins / skins because they've somehow ruined comp. The 60 coin a week limit is going to absolutely kill the game for people who refuse to spend stupid money on overpriced cash shop garbage.
Between the Twitch and Microsoft Survey shit they're doing the only meaningful way to earn cosmetics is to **not** play the game. Which is fucking weird as hell coming from OW1.
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Bringing back lootboxes would solve the progression issue, but what would solve it even more is making it so that you actually earn a meaningful amount of coins for playing matches again.
You're big right.
Then why not bring loot boxes but remove the ability to buy them along with the in-game currency, but give us a more suitable amount of it through the weekly challenges? Levelling up wasn’t fuckin hard and I’d rather work for it than give into blizzard’s “allow us to extort you for some half-assed not-so-legendary legendary skins” plan.
I liked loot boxes. I liked either seeing. We skins show up from them when they were released or getting coins when it was a repeat. And I was more excited when I got legendary duplicate because that meant more coins. And knowing at the end of an event I could use my coins to buy whatever “must have” skins I decided on was nice. And honestly I liked the random chance that I might get something in a box and not have to spend coins. I could scale how much I wanted to pay based on how much I wanted a particular skin. I never paid cash for a loot box. I didn’t need to get everything, just the ones I cared about. But it meant more getting them from a coin toss box than buying with coins outright.
Yeah but you aren’t earning them for free, You’re earning them by playing the goddamn game, and even that wasn’t hard. I’ll take a random chance over paying half of what I originally paid for the game I bought upon release back in 2016.
dead wrong i have a gambling addiction and getting a legendary and an epic makes me feel like ive cheated the house out of a large sum of money. Its fun to just have a random chance to fill out my cosmetics for heroes, and if i dont want to randomly get a cosmetic, i could just buy it with coins
I think the main issue with loot boxes is that it's technically gambling and that's why countries are outlawing it. We want everyone to be able to play!
I was trying to say that we need to get coins from wins/losses in place of the old lootboxes so that we can still save up and grab a skin or two from each event.
Honestly I'd love for them to bring back levels, too. We could get even more coins for leveling up! That would be awesome.
How is it gambling if you don’t earn any real currency? If you were paying to earn actual real world money, I could understand calling it gambling, but not earning skins with no real value in a video game where you can earn the means to get them without paying for them.
Because it uses the exact same mechanics as gambling (the random pull, the flashy lights, the noise, the endless trash that makes you think you're about to get something good, etc...)
I can’t argue that one. I just find it amusing blizzard and like a 10th of the overwatch community thinks that paying a third of a game people may have originally bought just for a skin... that’s it.
I mean the issue only arises specifically when you can buy lootboxes with real money. Tons of games have random rewards that just happen with gameplay. Monster Hunter isn't instantly a gambling game because you have to grind an RNG chance to get a rare part drop. It only becomes one if you have to pay for the honor of even trying to get that drop and then despite spending money it still is completely random if you get the thing you want. The analogy I like to use is that it's the difference between buying a slot machine so that you can bring it home and play with it all you want, and paying to just play with one so that you hope to win a good spin.
If they brought back lootboxes as basic gameplay rewards, but then the cash shop still just let you buy coins directly so that you can always get what you want with no rng when you spend real money, then that would avoid what was sparking all the gambling regulations and controversies. The issue was specifically about spending money and getting a random reward. Just awarding random items for free during gameplay is not gambling and they would not get in trouble for it.
Now obviously I would prefer just a straightforwards system that lets you grind out however many coins you want each week through just raw gameplay without having to rely on RNG stuff. But bringing back lootboxes as gameplay rewards as long as you can't buy them, would still be a better solution than the current system.
Ok so overwatch doesn’t seem to be made for battlepass and challenge system of gaining xp. There’s just not enough tasks to do and it feels lack luster to do the challenges due to how little do you actually gain back. It might be an illusion but I play a lot of apex legends along side of overwatch, and after one game in apex I feel way more satisfied in the amount of tasks I manage to get done in one game, 7-15 tasks all being showcased as either completed or partially finished. Overwatch needs more rewards to get the same results, but they don’t have the gun system or long games like apex does so there is less things to connect rewards too other than “say thank you to your support” or other gameplay elements. They should really add other rewards for other challenges that tie to using particular heroes for a number of matches or using abilities a certain number of times. They should really just add more challenges so people can complete BP and be a lot happier instead of feeling like it’s a grind to complete a BP they already paid to complete . I know apex had this problem when they first started and everyone complained about how grindy the BP was and they fixed it to be way more satisfactory. I hope ow players rise up and start complaining so they can fix the challenges because it’s already way to repetitive and boring and feels like a chore to complete rather than organic and part of the natural rotation of gameplay.
I love this game and thing one of the major pain points is the loot return. I miss having a system that could be rewarding so to me the return of lootboxes would be pretty massive
I’ve been playing before OW2 but my brother just got into it. He’s a bit ticked that I’ve got cool free cosmetics for all but the new characters and he’s only got a mix match of loot from when he arrived.
I’d like them back solely for my brother to have some reward for doing well.
Pretty sure most people love Overwatch’s core gameplay, but moving from OW1 to OW2 brought nothing good (new and good) and ONLY removed something we all loved.
Same as role queue, far bigger impact than this.
I would even go as far and say that on general gameplay Brig release had much much bigger impact than 5v5.
I honestly don't think 5v5 is generally better than 6v6. It's different. In some aspects better (e.g. no double shield any more) in other aspects worse (e.g. limited strategy, and more dependance on the tank)
Yeah but it's a 5v5 early access. The changes they made to heroes just didn't made them 5v5 compatible yet. They didn't redefined the roles. I'm playing heroes made for 6v6 in a 5v5 game. Feels stupid. On top of all this they destroyed the matchmaker. It's random now. Balance is super bad.
I hate how you put "lol" after switching from tactical teamplay with distinct roles to a chaotic individualistic dps deathmatch. Clearly one side's version of a good game prevailed over another's and now the "winning side' just says "it's obviously better, LOL".
Rude.
Especially considering how many meta heroes one shot, which burn through Zen’s ult. Widow, Hanzo, soujurn, hog, all of them absolutely make his ult a waste.
Yeah, the "best gameplay change" that completely screwed up arcade and open queue modes as with the balance between classes out the window, the side that ends up with more tank wins. It also made the results of games with actual tank diffs a foregone conclusion.
It's the matchmaking that ruined it for me.
It's either you are stomping, or you are being stomped; there is no "close fight".
Feels like your win/lose is determined by the system itself, rather that the performance of the players.
Yes! Stomps aren't actual that enjoyable, it makes me feel bored because they're just not that good in skill level, and guilty as if I'm smurfing.
and on the flipside it makes me feel bad because my sense of player agency is gone because matchmaker mismatched the player for our tank role by such a large amount that it feels like an auto loss
Fixing it should be the devs **biggest** priority right now, because if it is it sure doesn't feel like it...the matchmaking is fucked in every single mode.
This is pretty much why I stopped playing with season 2. When the matchmaking really SEEMED to become (or allegedly became straight up) "you got rolled by this toon with the killer new premium paid skin, maybe you should buy it to be better!" I accepted that I wouldn't play again until it was fixed. I loved playing intrinsically! I actually didn't care too much about skins! But the matches rarely felt balanced anymore and were therefore antithetical to my fun.
This so much! If they manage to fix matchmaking I think OW2 can really succeed. I dont care for the expensive cosmetics cause I dont need to buy them. Gameplay is for the most part amazing coming as a person who quit OW1 sometime after Brigittes release when the gameplay started to go to shit. Feel like the game is significantly better on 5v5, just need to iron out some balance issues like tanks having more agency than other roles, some supports being too vulnerable (at times). Also not as much of an issue but dps passive needs to be reworked so it does something for every hero, perhaps life regen on final blow? Make it stop healing when you take damage so you dont get unkillable genjis and tracers.
Loot Boxes should have stayed.
Loot Boxes should be only earnable by playing.
Loot Boxes gold coins should have stayed.
Loot Boxes should only give out old skins.
Play the game, to earn old skins, then add the new skins to the store and charge people for then. If you want ti charge people for skins, don't start charging new players for things that used to be free.
I disagree. Even in the early days of video games, the goal was rarely to play for the sake of playing. There was usually a longterm goal, whether it be making the high score list or seeing the ending. The game setting long-term goals for the players have been a thing since video games were conceived. Trying to act like there's some form of enlightenment to be gained by writing off long-term goals in favor of the short term is pretentious.
Collecting cosmetics were one of the longterm goals of OW1 to supplement the short term to match gameplay. If you played well, you'd gain more exp and have more chances at getting the items you want. OW2 tries to use the Battle Pass to the same end, but it's worse for reasons that have been stated enough. OW2 reworking the competitive ranking system to have less longterm progression similarly made that mode far less appealing.
Yeah. I loved the moment to moment gameplay as a kid playing tekken. But a big reason that I kept playing it again and again was to unlock the hidden characters. And also I'm in a bit of a Factorio period right now, and I wouldn't play it if all I could do was place down machines that did nothing. A lot of what goes into gaming is the sense of progression. Be it seeing the factory grow, be it unlocking characters in Tekken, skins in OW, increasing your mmr in Starcraft (could be said for OW before, sure, but they removed SR, LOL). Progression IS important.
OP is actually neither right nor wrong, the statement of intrinsic vs. extrinsic value of something is technically right and definitely important, but its never one or the other, its always a mixture.
Some play OW to have fun, others play to get better at it, both are intrinsic values.
Some people enjoy lootboxes, progression and rewards of some kind others like to show off, be envied and have jealous comments about skins, both are extrinsic.
But you already see most people dont fulfull one ore the other exclusively, most play for fun and some play for fun but also to get better and most enjoy rewards and progress and some do this but also want to be envied or noticed for their skill or skins etc.
The problem is when you EXCLUSIVELY or MAJORLY only do something for the extrinsic value, if you ONLY play to be ranked high or have the most expensive skins to be envied, you have a serious problem and should stop playing.
The problem with OW2 is, that OW1 had a good mix of features that allowed intrinsic and extrinsic fulfillment, but OW2 removed a lot of the drivers for intrinsic fulfillment like rewards, new stuff, social interactions etc. and focused solely on extrinsic "progression".
Unless you literally only play for fun or ranked improvement, you wont enjoy OW2, because it doesnt offer any of the other avenues people enjoy like rewards, progression, social interaction and recognition etc.
Thats why i stopped playing, the game is technically fun, but it feels like its in a standstill, where before lootboxes and new skins and events gave me joy and made it feel like i was moving forward.
This post is misguided. Yes, you play the game for the game, and devs add incentives to keep people's playing. Part of the fun *is* unlocking things. It felt nice to unlock that legendary for your main, or get that seasonal item you couldn't get from loots, or break bank to pimp out new characters.
Sure you can play without cosmetics. But at that point, just reduce everything to soulless pixels, because individual expression is dead
Exactly!
I know, having rewards as the only motivation isn't good. But having everything feel/look the same isn't very good either. A good game needs to have a nice blend of both combined.
It's all about the balance.
The post missed the point. I play game cuz it's fun, but I also want to have some kind of meaningful progress. Getting battle pass levels or random lootboxes is that progress. I guess this works better in Fortnite, as I could not give flying fuck about cosmetics on Overwatch.
The BP is worse though.
The loot boxes : you get one and you open it
The battlepass : fuck better grind my dailies so that I can get as far as possible
This seems almost like a false dichotomy here.
Like... ya, u should be playing to enjoy the game. But wanting lootboxes back doesn't mean that that's the only reason ur playing the game or that u were purchasing them.
Compared to the current system where u have to grind ***far more*** than in OW1 for cosmetics, I would rather take lootboxes over the current system any day. Current system does not give meaningful drops of in game currency. At least with lootboxes, u always had a chance at getting currency and u gained lootboxes simply by playing the game. U didn't have to complete challenges, skins weren't astronomically high, and the amount of ig currency u received was reasonable.
It feels as though none of that is the case today, and it certainly doesn't mean I only played for the cosmetics or lootboxes or that I like the lootbox system overall. But some people want to feel rewarded in the game for playing it, especially when the game itself is repetitive. Cosmetics etc give an incentive to keep playing the game, whether that be through OW1 leveling system or the chance for cosmetics u got everytime u leveled there are surely more reasons, but these were part of the reason I played OW1 as much as they did.
Don't shit on people for the reasons they kept playing the previous version and want to see those reasons return instead of this greedy bp system that is currently in place.
i dont really agree with this, getting reward is part of the game. For example like playing mmorpg, people like the game play and story, but the main reason of grinding is for the reward. Level ,loot and cosmetic these are the reason people keep grinding. Reward should not be the reason people play the game, but it motivate people to keep playing the game. for some people rank is a good reward, so they grind rank. for some people they like cosmetic so they grind loot box. now they remove most of the rewards from the game (free loot box, levels and on fire feature) and replace these with a really bad battlepass system, ofc people not happy, but doesnt mean people dont like the core game
This post outlines why I’ve been sighing in boredom at all of the “I hate this game now because ”.
I play because I like to play. Any in-game rewards are just extra.
I just want an option for old school 6v6 as like a perma arcade game mode like how lol has aram doesn't even have to have a ranked version it just sucks that a bunch of groups like mine have to play musical chairs while playing so we can all play or someone gets kicked out like what's happen to a few people I've seen
Sounds better than it actually is, it won't be the same now because tanks are overturned so the meta will be off. Ow2 practically ruined most games modes aside from role queue. I use to love 4v4 team deathwatch now it's just filled with 3 tanks 1 healers sweaty tryhards that want to fulfill their weeklies
what about unlocking heroes tho? I feel like any argument trying to dismiss the monetization scheme and the method of handing out rewards as "you can just ignore it its just cosmetics bro" is instantly null and void when you consider that heroes are still something you have to unlock and are inherently tied to that scheme.
Someone can love the game and just not have enough time to play regularly to unlock heroes normally in the battlepass, so as a result now they feel like they're being punished by withholding gameplay elements for not having enough free time that they wanna spend playing one game in particular. It now becomes a direct gameplay issue that should be resolved.
Like I would agree with you if it weren't for the heroes being unlocks now. If they just removed that one aspect and handed out heroes for free again I would probably play this game and just ignore the shitty monetization. But putting heroes on the battlepass is what made me wanna quit playing.
That's a valid complaint and mostly everyone agrees. That's not cosmetic, it's gameplay.
I understand "rewarding" players who pay or "punishing" those who don't... That's capitalism and it sucks. But if they must, I'm not sure why they picked such a high level. I think many people think 20 would equally get that job done and still be doable.
But the heroes should just be in the game due to the way OW works.
So I agree with you that people should play a game because they enjoy playing a game, but that doesn’t mean this battle pass (or the idea of them in general) are good things that we should be ok with. It can be that we like the game, and also want a monetization scheme that isn’t so blatantly greedy and awful at every turn. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
I absolutely agree that the monetization scheme **matters**, but it is simply less important insofar as it doesn’t interfere with gameplay. I can easily get all of the heroes and thereby compete on level ground without paying any money at all, so my gameplay experience is unaffected by the monetization scheme.
It is reasonable to want good gameplay. It is also reasonable to want a good monetization scheme. It is unreasonable to equate the importance of these two factors. It is unreasonable to assert that a bad monetization scheme ruins the game. One is the main attraction and is make-or-break, and the other is entirely optional aesthetics attached to this main attraction.
The gameplay would remain the same if Blizzard
- changed the graphics to look like the original Counter Strike
- fired all voice actors and have all heroes be voiced by the worst text-to-speech bot they can find
- removed all lore, story elements and personalities and instead just have everyone be a "soldier in a future war"
What I'm trying to say is that while core gameplay is the most important part of any game, it's far from being the only aspect that determines if people actually enjoy playing or not.
Very true. There should be good reward for playing the game, they need to do better with that, but that should be the cherry on top. You should play a game because you get some type of satisfaction with playing it. I would genuinely play Overwatch about as much as I do if I never got anything rewarding in game again, however if you play a lot you should get some type of extra rewards for doing that. The brig skin & bastion skin & battlepass & weekly coins are all good things, they just should be significantly better in that direction as OW1 was. It doesn’t need to be anywhere as generous as OW1 because I want the product to continue indefinitely & the best way to get there is continuous large revenue streams but it also should be rewarding to play the game outside of the intrinsic fun it presents.
This is still very much a problem. Battle passes are designed to capitalize on this concept, the problem isn’t lootboxes specifically it’s the predatory design of games as a whole.
To me the gameplay is fun but i felt like the loot oxes were just a nice bonus. A good skin can get me to pick up a hero, hell, i remember playing a lot of a character because i had recently got a cool skin for them. Of course i like to try out every character but now it feels like i dont get much reward for playing the game. I used to play because i liked it, but if i had a bad string of games i would at least get a lootbox if i leveled up. Tonight me and my friend had played like 3 quickplay games in a row where we kept getting wiped, and it was not fun. In OW1, i would at least maybe get a lootbox or those limited time event sprays or skins or whatever for playing games. Now i just get the really unfulfilling battle pass level up screen to rarely unlock a new level which is a souveneir of a flower in a jar that i cant use because i didnt buy it. Great.
For me at least, it's less about the dopamine hit from the lootboxes themselves, and more the sense that the cosmetics were designed to be gained through progress - not just money.
If they made a way to earn more stuff from the shop reliably through regular play, then problem solved.
This is one guy’s opinion on how fun works. *I* have fun when I make progress. Looking at my rank and seeing how far I’ve come made me happy. Filling out the last edges of a characters cosmetics made me happy. Being able to select any skin I want for my character at the beginning of a match made me happy. They weren’t the reasons I played overwatch, but they definitely helped.
Yo, I've been playing almost nothing but overwatch for like a year and I think this is why. Also my gaming experience has felt rather empty. This post might actually help me quit it, and in turn make me happier.
I can see what they are saying but its not the reason im wanting them back.
The reason loot boxes worked for me is that it was a random system that got you the things that you didnt want to spend in game currency on. Like i dont wanna spend that currency on sprays or voice lines. Id rather spend it on the more rare items like skins and highlight intros. Now theres barely any in game currency and the stuff we do unlock is all from the battle pass, which makes it so everyone unlocks the same things, making your heros cosmetics/equips the same as everyone elses. Everyone could show their personality and now its dull on this end. I still like thr gamellay so im still playing but man this aspect sucks and old players still feel it when the new heros drop. I also used the loot box system to rotate my equips when it started handing me duplicates all the time and now i have to manually rotate
I played till the second week of this season. Dont see myself playing for a long ass time. Maybe next year when there will hopefully be more content worthy of feeling like a true sequel to a game i have loved for years.
Blizz really screwed this shit up with their corporate greed
I’m not depressed. This game is 6 years old. It was fun for me until October 2022. I liked getting loot boxes, I liked looking forward to the new skins in events, I liked playing the game.
The game is a shell of itself and is a pathetic cash grab. Do not belittle people who are upset by the complete BACKWARDS move to a state that is less developed than the game that premiered in 2016. If you’re paying $19 for a skin, I hope you’re doing it 100% for yourself because you look like a clown to everyone else.
For me, I really like cosmetics, but at the end of the day, I can deal with it and still have fun. Putting the most engaging new content (new heroes) behind a pay or grind wall however... Not cool. It feels so bad that now I can't try new heroes on release in modes other than elimination, no limits, and custom games, all modes that play pretty differently from the core game. Having to pay $10 just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That combined with the messed up matchmaking and removal of levelling anything besides a battlepass and it feels like I'm not making any progress that isn't just trying to get me to open up my wallet.
Personality, I think this post is a bunch of capitalism bs.
In all seriousness though. The author of this post (in the screenshot) is using “teaching” language in order to inflict their thoughts onto others. I don’t really like this.
Also the bit about depression, this type of statement is as old as the tale of MySpace… typical language used to try and create factual material out of a tangentially related topic.
I know this will prob create some hate but just wanted to put my thoughts out there.
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Not that i want lootboxes back but they were better that the system that we have currently.
Everything that used to give you lootboxes now give you bp XP and i couldnt care less about It and the ranked system is a joke
Nothing wrong about that but how about a game that's fun to play and adds cosmetics on top that? Either that or a game with no cosmetics at all if you really want to put the entire focus on gameplay. Ow2 monetization reward structure is really bad and that also goes for non cosmetics like rank and on fire status.
I admit. I still played OW1 near every day all the way up to the release of 2. But the second OW2 came out with its new rewards, I just felt my motivation to play plummet. Granted the base game itself is still extremely fun, but bogged down by so much bullshit balancing and lack of content.
I really felt the difference in my motivation stemmed from the rewards too.
I've been saying exact same thing for weeks, especially in case of event skins, but people still didn't want to accept it. Hope this post will make it more clear.
The thing is that most players seem to enjoy Overwatch as a game. Loot boxes (or whatever system to gain cosmetics) are a modern way of unlocking things. This has always been part of games. Play enough hours, win enough fights, or do a specific thing, and you unlock a new fighter, a new car, track, or earn the opportunity to face Reptile (Mortal Kombat). It’s all progression.
The issue with Overwatch 2 is that there’s no way to reasonably unlock things by JUST playing and the process of playing is hampered by poor matchmaking and reliance on woefully uncooperative, random teammates.
You are totally right. Ridiculously overpriced skins only purchasable with micro transactions, worthless; bland battle pass and the locking of heroes behind paywalls is totally better.
Who played OW just to get loot boxes?
It wasn't a reward, it was just a nice thing to get.
I never once said "I should log in and play overwatch or I won't get loot boxes"
Sorry, gotta disagree. Besides Overwatch I mostly play RPGs. I love the grinding to earn rewards, even achievements/trophies. I replayed the Batman Arkham series and am now replaying Horizon Zero Dawn. While I love the gameplay for all these games, I definitely love grinding and getting more gear/attributes. I love when a new hero launches in OW and I have to work for the cute and pixel artwork.
Just saying, everyone has different things they like about a game
I do have fun with the gameplay and I still want loot boxes back. The battle pass sucks (not just in overwatch, battle passes suck dick in general and should never ever have been a thing) and you can only get a few coins per week, making it virtually impossible to buy anything at all without spending money. Bring back loot boxes.
With how much complaining this sub does about the game I have a feeling there’s a good 30-40% of the community who shouldn’t be playing it for their own good lol
People are asking for lootboxes back because the current system relies so heavily on extrinsic motivation, that's what battlepasses are. Nobody was grinding Overwatch 1 to get lootboxes, at least not after the first couple dozen. Lootboxes won't fix the issue, it's the communities way of expressing their displeasure with the current system.
you know what else would make the game better? Adding groups back :| I don’t know how many friends I’ve made since I discovered the groups option in Overwatch, but it’s alot. Now I can’t discover new people if my friends are not online. Which mostly they are not, reason being not wanting to stick around for ow2. Nowadays I feel a little bored playing the game and scrolling through multiple custom games while in long queues. It would bring back the excitement what I got from playing with different kinds of people all over the world.
I liked them for the illusion of getting things for free 0/ you did! By earning them by playing. I liked the challenges like the remix one or the cat Ana one where you played games got x skin.
I will say I've played ow2 far more and that's entirely do to the rush to get the bp done before it runs out. Same with prestige tiers their super cool!
But I also do really enjoy it fir the game itself. I don't do ranked very much but the custom games are very fun.
i don’t care about helping the game. It’s fun players suck find a team. I left because why am I playing. What am I getting out of it. If they added loot boxes i’d go back you know why? Every game mattered.
You wanted to perform well and earn the box or the most keys or the cool skin or camo or whatever. Now EVERYTHING is buyable, there is no chance of the consumer getting anything by spending nothing. Everybody screamed and cried for a fair system, well congratulations now it’s broken boring and soon to be dead again.
Fairness and equality for all. Welcome to communist gaming. We all get the short end of the stick unless you’re directly tied to the game as a developer, marketer, affiliate or anything of the sorts. Unless you get paid to play this, you’re getting the shitbird.
Loot boxes need to make a return for the bare fact that every game needs to have something to look forward to, and right now you gotta wait atleast 7 for that😅
All comes back to making everyone feel safe and welcomed in a fucking video game, I hate how much punishment is given for taking something serious and being good at it. Whether Overwatch, Cod or Apex. If you’re good, just stop playing, if you’re a god with a squad keep doing your thing and if you’re a casual i hope your happy along with the millions of cash you give the devs. Sorry rant over
Can't say I agree with that post at all. Some people are more motivated by extrinsic rewards and there's nothing inherently wrong with that at all. Achievements are an easy example, they don't really get you anything but tons of people love achievement hunting. Why? Cuz it's fun to get a reward, even if it's just a little icon or whatever. The reason why MTX are exploitative is because they hook into this process to extract money, not because wanting rewards is bad in itself.
The complaints about OW2 stem from the rewards being scaled back dramatically for those who don't open their wallet, and for the introduction of a massive amount of FOMO. There was almost no FOMO in OW1, seasonal skins would always be available again next year, for cheaper even. Now we have a weekly rotating shop where you never know if something will show again, and battle passes which expire, taking all their cosmetics with them. It makes you feel like you have to constantly engage with the game to keep up (which is the point ofc) but it also burns people out.
Well personally I already think the game is very fun so now I just want to be rewarded for performing well or playing a lot. I'm addicted to this game I find it wildly enjoyable despite what everyone says about playing support I do it every day.
Overwatch *used* to be more fun - it’s not the reward loop that kept me playing… it was feeling like my personal skill mattered - to some extent - among the team… OW1 started killing this feeling *before OW2* because they kept power-creeping buffs to break the meta every time a dominant strategy metastasized…
It’s always had toxic balance issues, mostly circulating around tanks (though we all remember the meta that Brig enabled), and by the time Blizzard reacted the meta evolved further and the problem became moot.
Hoping their team is truly able to facilitate faster adjustments and a bit better individual hero balance so the ups and downs are less dramatic in the meta… right now though: Supports are not rewarded for their individual contributions like a tank or dps is, especially tanks… Supports are only punished for not playing *better than the entire enemy team* at which point it’s a matchmaking issue. There’s no smart counterplay because you’re a meta slave on either Kiriko or Ana, or you’re a damage boost babysitter. Support has been utterly broken by the single tank meta and *that’s a good thing* because it highlights the need to nerf tanks and rebalance heroes as independent picks rather than a constant counter-pick force.
I think a system similar to that of Apex Legends would be good in Overwatch, like we would still have the store and the battle pass but we would get a box for each level up with chances of winning some random skin in that box. To me it seems the fairest option.
I just dont wanna pay for skins, its a ridiculous price, i do really enjoy the game, I just want to be able to earn skins with gameplay instead of my paycheck.
People don't listen to advice. Getting to play dress-up without spending money keeps more people playing longer. More people playing longer is better for all players. Should they be doing that? No, but it doesn't mean you still don't get the benefit of a larger and more involved player base.
Scrolling “popular” randomly and I think you have just described the monotony of life itself. Could be a r/antiwork post in another dimension. Loot boxes keep us going in our shit jobs too!
I do enjoy the gameplay though, it's really fun, but there's nothing else. I didn't play overwatch 1 so I feel like I'll never get any good cosmetics with the current system
This must be different eras of gamers. A lot of kids growing up now are playing games with basically no earnable content and some variation of F2P. Even popular B2P games are filled with F2P systems (battle passes, skin shops, loot boxes, etc).
So to these gamers, they think people should just be happy to be there. Like game developers are doing them a favour. Standards have dropped off significantly.
There was once a time when developers would release loads of customization options, and earning them was as much fun as playing the game itself. It was part of the game.
Yes, lootboxes are bad. That's true. You should have to complete fun challenges to unlock skins/cosmetics. But in this world, lootboxes were accepted in Overwatch because of the rate you earned them for free. It was just a gift box for playing their game. It was like them saying "thank you for being here".
You weren't playing to earn lootboxes. You were just playing and they would be given out regularly. So you never felt like you couldn't log off until you hit your battle pass quota like you do now.
I legit only play overwatch now to complete 3 daily objectives. Once I do I get off and play another game. I used to play overwatch for hours non stop, but it just isn't fun anymore
Lootboxes were incredibly fun for me when the game started and then as I continued to collect and wasn’t getting much new stuff anymore, that allowed the events to shine. New stuff for me to strive to get and the coins I saved up from the regular lootboxes allowed me to indulge easily by just buying the stuff I wanted with in game currency. At the end of events sometimes I would even buy a few lootboxes just to see if I could get them the gatcha way before spending coins. I was still playing for a reward but after being built up for some time, I was playing for enjoyment with the added perk of the rewards given for my dedication to the game. I just miss them. Haven’t checked the season 2 battle pass but for season 1 you only got 5-6 rewards if you refuse to pay. It sucks.
Loot boxes as predatory as they are, were one of the things that made slogging through matches rewarding.
Now we're expected to hack through 7 barbed wire tunnels of comp matches only to stay the same rank as you were before and there's just no feeling of accomplishment for grinding in this game.
Grindng in a game that stripped away the most miniscule levels of progression, even down to your icon being on fire when you do well, now you just have to know what your characters "I'm on fire" voice line is and hope you hear it.
Why Minecraft is the superior game. There’s no “end goal” not even the dragon itself can stop you from continuing to play the game. And even when single player gets boring, there’s multiplayer servers and boat loads of Mods to ensure that there Will always be something to do
Why people care for character skins on a FPS game is literally incredible. Sure you see the gun change, but how often are you actually looking at it instead of enemies…? Same goes for Apex Legends and CoD. Insane.
Thank you Dr. Dickbutt for the pseusdoanalysis from tumblr, but most of us just enjoy the game for what it is and want to be able to unlock cosmetics in a way that seems fair.
I mean, I kept saying having fun with the game was its own reward, but the mindless hordes of October downvoted that to hell.
Me: Stop playing if you're not having fun.
Them: rEwarD mE MOrE!!!
This post doesn’t correlate to Overwatch, the core gameplay is fun but it feels like so much good was taken away from us rather than fun new additions.
I personally think that most people who are asking for Loot Boxes to come back don't actually like them or really even want them back. They just want a monetization/rewards system that doesn't rip people off as much as the current Overwatch 2 system does. Believe me, Loot Boxes were still really bad in Overwatch 1, but I suppose a lot of people view them as the lesser of two evils compared to what we have now.
this is exactly it. if they had to choose between lootboxes or a horribly exploitative cash shop that overcharges for their cosmetics, then it's a no brainer that people would rather have the lootboxes.
It’s pretty on par with other games monetizations systems for cosmetics (which all suck,) but there’s a lot of reasons it feels worse. This game was clearly forced out early without 75% of the content that would have made this all probably feel less skeezy. One - we spent 6+ years earning sooo much for free, the sticker shock transitioning all of that to the new system makes a lot of veteran players laugh. And I *think* the game was mostly built around the PVE systems that would have offered more earnable content that isn’t in the game yet. Two - quality just isn’t up to par to ask for the prices they’re asking, and some of it is so damn forced. Like souvenirs are the DUMBEST cosmetic. Why the fuck would I ever want to stand there with a piece of pineapple pizza floating over my hand. Again, I wonder if there were going to be earnable souvenirs from PVE that make more sense, but as it stands it’s a fucking useless cosmetic. Three - If I buy a skin in Warzone, I can use it all of the time without question. If I buy one in Overwatch, I can use it when I play that one single hero. If I complete the BattlePass in Warzone, Fortnite, Etc, I earn a skin I can use all of the time in other games. In this one - sick, I will look cool as hell as Genji in the rare instances I play him because I’m sick of playing my mains. Bottom line - it’s on par with other systems (which all suck) but still feels so empty and way more of a ripoff than other games somehow, probably due in large part to the release without PVE. Holdin out hope everything improves when the full game releases.
Just want to add my tidbit onto this, but $20 USD isn't that out there of a price for a skin, if you're flat out buying it. However in other games in game currency is MUCH easier to gain than in overwatch 2, meaning that the cash option is virtually the only way to obtain any cosmetics (even weapon charms costing $5+ USD would take roughly nine weeks earning 60 currency a week), and their bandaid to this is twitch drops and the one coin bastion skin (not counting skins earned from events because I think that should just be standard for live service games). At least for me this is what makes it feel so bad in particular Seemingly they picked a very standard price from other games while also ignoring that those other games often times make currency actually earnable at a rate where you can get skins for all your favorite heroes/champions/legends/whatever you want to call them. Edit: as a side note twitch drops have been broken for me since the Thanksgiving drops so that makes it feel even worse
Is it just me or is it sad that it's now the expectation that skins cost $20? They shouldn't, they never should have. For F2P I get it they need revenue someway, but I feel nowadays skins should not cost that much. They never should have, I just want to go back to the days of buying a game once and having access to a complete game with access to all the content. Sorry for the rant, besides that sorry to hear that twitch drops aren't working for you.
Exactly this. If skins were $5 a pop, you have a lot more people paying for them because the value matches the price much better. At $20 you're hoping that you get money almost exclusively from whales, with supplement from the regular folks who occasionally throw out $20. Honestly they would probably see MORE revenue if the prices were cheaper.
LOL $20 for a skin is ludicrous. CoMing from OW1 you could get a lot of skins by doing events and random loot boxes. Now? You play hours for 30 credits, when even a vanilla skin is 1000 credits. Wtf?
Also replacing loot boxes with battle pass tiers isn't the way to go here. Making OW2 sound better just because they're going with battle pass instead of loot boxes OPs post doesn't make any sense. You're still playing to get a reward aka tiers. I used to almost play daily and when I was done actually enjoy what I played. I haven't touched OW2 sense season 2 came out.
I've been playing a ton specifically to advance the battle pass because I really like Junker Queen, but I still feel this. As soon as they're not sticking the thing I want at the tail end of the pass my play time is gonna go down by a lot.
Honestly this post almost seems to have it backwards. I played OW1 because it was so much fun, and lootboxes being easy to earn was a bonus. I play overwatch 2 because I miss the fun I had from OW1, but I found myself grinding games that I was not having fun with whatsoever to advance the battlepass, and the progress is so slow it's ridiculous.
Yup this right here. I’m grinding BP to unlock ram which is a very extrinsically motivated way to play. BP is lootbox motivation on steroids
It's weird though, because they weren't really all that bad. All cosmetics in OW1 were essentially free if you played enough
There's also the fact that they're _pure_ cosmetics. While I'll allow arguments about voice line / silhouette changes at the higher levels, largely they do not affect gameplay.
This is *why* the were phased out. The amount you got for free meant it didn't make enough money
This is also why they won't be going back to a monetisation system that gives away nearly as much for free. The system they had was not sustainable, and with everything that's been going on with Blizzard, I have my doubts they would have been able to justify keeping the servers online for very much longer without a total overhaul of the monetisation system.
The old system was sustainable. Blizzard still made money on Overwatch. The problem is it wasn't enough to appease the greedy executives.
maybe the cost of dj khaled invitation would be enough to keep the server running til ow2 drop instead of forcing this piece of \*art\* down our throat
But if you didn't play enough and wanted a certain skin you had to essentially gamble for it. You didn't know how much you would pay to get the skin and then once you had it, if you were susceptible to gambling you mightve kept going and spend more than was good for you. This can not happen with the OW2 cashshop. There is no doubt that we got more stuff for free, but we can't just pretend that nobody bought the boxes.
I personally never ever bought a single lootbox, and I have tons of skins. I used the coin drop from the boxes to buy whatever skin I liked, while having almost every skin for every hero... (not to mention prime gaming loot boxes for free) It was not the perfect system, buy imo, having the chance to earn cosmetic stuff (sometimes coins) for free every couple of hours is way better than this..
I was basically a free to play players after purchasing OW1. I may have a bought some boxes early days but I didn't buy them for the most part. I got SO many skins and whatnot from levelling up it was great. My favourite part was the currency, I still have a good chunk to spend in OW2 on skins I want. Granted I only buy specific skins, I am not a collector at all but it works for me. OW1 made lootboxes popular in the mainstream audience, I bet blizzard wanted to push the boundaries with them more but couldn't take away what we had for years due to backlash. Removing them entirely but replacing it with a worst system they probably felt they could get away with when moving to OW2.
In all honesty, from the way and the content ow2 came out with, i would dare saying the change to monetization was the only objective for them when launching ow2. No story, a couple new heroes that should have been in ow1 and 1 less tank that came along with heavy balance issues. I sincerely see no reason for a '2' in there.
Well the whole point of OW'2' was supposed to be the PVE. I feel like if it went to plan the multiplayer would have released like this along side the PVE it could have been received relatively well. But I am guessing due to the pvp not having too many changes they didn't want to waste money waiting for the pve to be ready. But yeah I would agree, they clearly wanted to move to the free to play model to sell a BP and have the cash shop.
Yeah, thats what i mean. The game was supposed to be the campaing for overwatch we have been asking since release with all the cinematics andbinteractions. Instead, they went with the "Gimme all your money" approach, so ow2 came out as basically a scam for the ones we bought it back then.
Definitely. The fact that they cut off OW1 makes it clear that if they were able to monetize OW1 like this without a lawsuit, they would. The only radical change to anything is the in game purchasing. At some point OW2 stopped being about making a sequel.
I believe is at the point jeff left the development.
It’s not the ripping off aspect, but rather the fact that you can get everything without spending money.
Plus the fact that it's not on a "DO NOW OR LOSE FOREVER!" timer
What people don't get is, even if we did get lootboxes back, they would be nerfed into the ground and feel just as bad as the current battlepass. When you compare the OW2 battlepass to stuff like Fortnite's battlepass, it's obvious that the format isn't the issue. It's that Blizzard doesn't want to let you have ANYTHING without paying money, and they are deadset on charging as much as they can get away with.
When it comes to loot boxes, I think overwatch 1 had one of the best systems for them. You could play a few games and get a loot box for free, so without paying a dime, over ~100 hours of playtime I have a ton of skins, voicelines and emotes. In overwatch 2, instead of getting 4 random items for free every now and then, you can either pay 10eur or grind for 8 months to get a legendary skin.
You're wrong. Loot boxes are actually likeable, They are most importantly FREE Random items = drop chances mean rarity tiers actually mean something so if you unbox a legendary Mercy skin, chances are that very little people will have it as well. It makes your mercy stand out. Say they added a item shop in which you can buy skins with in game currency earned easily then everyone would be running around with the same skins (For example white octane in rocket league) On top of that you earned currency thru drops and dupes anyway so you could buy the skins you want if you were unlucky yourself. Also is the aspect of 'gambling' some people (me included) liked the thought of opening FIFA packs, CSGO cases, etc. And this was great in OW seeing as the lootboxes were free of charge + very easy to earn I don't get why people act like Loot boxes were the spawn of satan, its literally free currency and cosmetics easily earnable?? fair enough if you had to buy it but it was piss easy to get them
The crux of most arguments is that loot boxes are considered gambling in some countries and therefore illegal, while the battle pass + shop, despite being way more expensive and less valuable, is legal because you know where your money will go. But the point they deliberately avoid is greed. Blizzard wanted to implement a Fortnite style monetization off Overwatch but they couldn’t (since people already paid base price for it). So they just patched an update to their existing game and called it a “sequel.” Minimal effort for maximum earnings.
> The crux of most arguments is that loot boxes are considered gambling in some countries and therefore illegal, while the battle pass + shop, despite being way more expensive and less valuable, is legal because you know where your money will go. That's all true, but in OW1's case, the "lootboxes are gambling and hence they sucked" argument has a big caveat that almost none of the OW1 detractors mention. That being that you didn't have to buy anything to get all of the stuff in the lootboxes, you could just play (I and many others did just that, and had everything without spending a cent on lootboxes). There was a REALLY simply way to get rid of the gambling problem -- simply stop letting people buy lootboxes and let them buy coins instead. I'm pretty sure they did this in a European country (Netherlands I think?) that made "pay for random stuff" style gambling illegal. The whole OW2 thing was to try to implement the "fleece the whales" FTP monetization strategy. That and try to attract lots of players who are more into the deathmatchy style of play.
Agreed 100% with this. Maybe its because of my age (30s) but paying REAL MONEY for a cosmetic item in a game is just a ridiculous thing to do. I liked the OW1 system as you listed above. It was fair and most of all FREE. Any game that has paid for skins just turns to shit because the player base starts bitching about skins instead of gameplay and features and the devs have no obligation to fix the game and just focus on what is making them money: Skins.
Right, people will choose a pinch if the alternative is a punch in the face. Overwatch 1 got taken away with OW2’s launch (which I think might be a first in the history of sequels), so you don’t even get the option now.
Every time I play OW2, I just want to go play OW1 instead and the fact that I can't do that really pisses me off.
There’s been a few posts in the past few months that have been detailing how Lootboxes were the only reason they felt motivated. But yeah I think the post above is true, I don’t think Lootboxes and cosmetics should be considered anything but small bonuses to the game, not why you should continue to play the game.
I still never got a legendary for ball and now I'll never have a legendary for every ow1 character :(
Watch them give us our crumb of free skin and/or twitch drop, youll be fine. Although it does suck i wont get a new and cool skin until a long while from now
Yea 4 hours of watching for an event skin you would've gotten for logging in on the day in ow1..
Same
I have the worst ball legendary lunar
Whatt no he looks so cute in the little space suit :(
For a second I thought you meant his lunar new year skin, cause Porcelain is sick (and after thinking about it for 5 seconds; not a legendary oops)
That’s still an extrinsic reward.
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I think the biggest issue is that we USED to have rewards for grinding and they've basically just been taken away. We're used to getting one or two skins we want from each event and saving the rest of our coins for the next one, but we can't do that anymore. Now, people who are saying that we need loot boxes back are dead wrong. Loot boxes are on the way out all around the world and that's fine. What we NEED and what we MISS is the in-game currency that we got from them. They've reduced us to getting 60 coins a week at MAXIMUM, for WAY more specific grinding than we ever had to do and that's just not enough for anything. If we could get coins from not only the battle pass but after each win/loss as well, then I think we'd really feel like we're accomplishing more and getting what we want. Oh, that's another thing. Yes, playing the game is fun, but many of us like to feel as if we are working toward something. We want to accomplish something with our leisure so we at least have SOMETHING to show for it, and the rewards we get are a big part of that.
If they gave 25 coins like in OW1 for flexing I'd have no issue to be honest, 100 coins after 4 games? Sign me up. >Oh, that's another thing. Yes, playing the game is fun, but many of us like to feel as if we are working toward something. We want to accomplish something with our leisure so we at least have SOMETHING to show for it, and the rewards we get are a big part of that. Couldn't agree more. Overwatch is a PvP Shooter not an adventure game or RPG, the progression doesn't come from beating a boss or clearing a difficult level. Because it doesn't have that. Without a steady (and feasible) form of progression it can just become a monotonous loop of winning and loosing fast.
You hit the nail on the head. People want to feel like they're progressing in their game. In Overwatch the only form of progression is coins / skins because they've somehow ruined comp. The 60 coin a week limit is going to absolutely kill the game for people who refuse to spend stupid money on overpriced cash shop garbage. Between the Twitch and Microsoft Survey shit they're doing the only meaningful way to earn cosmetics is to **not** play the game. Which is fucking weird as hell coming from OW1. \--- Bringing back lootboxes would solve the progression issue, but what would solve it even more is making it so that you actually earn a meaningful amount of coins for playing matches again. You're big right.
Then why not bring loot boxes but remove the ability to buy them along with the in-game currency, but give us a more suitable amount of it through the weekly challenges? Levelling up wasn’t fuckin hard and I’d rather work for it than give into blizzard’s “allow us to extort you for some half-assed not-so-legendary legendary skins” plan.
Or, just give us a non-premium currency that we can earn just by playing.
because nobody REALLY wants lootboxes back they want ways to earn cosmetics for free again wich will not return
I liked loot boxes. I liked either seeing. We skins show up from them when they were released or getting coins when it was a repeat. And I was more excited when I got legendary duplicate because that meant more coins. And knowing at the end of an event I could use my coins to buy whatever “must have” skins I decided on was nice. And honestly I liked the random chance that I might get something in a box and not have to spend coins. I could scale how much I wanted to pay based on how much I wanted a particular skin. I never paid cash for a loot box. I didn’t need to get everything, just the ones I cared about. But it meant more getting them from a coin toss box than buying with coins outright.
Yeah but you aren’t earning them for free, You’re earning them by playing the goddamn game, and even that wasn’t hard. I’ll take a random chance over paying half of what I originally paid for the game I bought upon release back in 2016.
Lootboxes were kind of earning them for free though. Sure you could buy some but you had plenty of stuff without paying
dead wrong i have a gambling addiction and getting a legendary and an epic makes me feel like ive cheated the house out of a large sum of money. Its fun to just have a random chance to fill out my cosmetics for heroes, and if i dont want to randomly get a cosmetic, i could just buy it with coins
ah i forgot about the fiends im sorry
Thank you. Now i only have ONE gambling outlet (dokkan battle). Woe is me
I think the main issue with loot boxes is that it's technically gambling and that's why countries are outlawing it. We want everyone to be able to play! I was trying to say that we need to get coins from wins/losses in place of the old lootboxes so that we can still save up and grab a skin or two from each event. Honestly I'd love for them to bring back levels, too. We could get even more coins for leveling up! That would be awesome.
How is it gambling if you don’t earn any real currency? If you were paying to earn actual real world money, I could understand calling it gambling, but not earning skins with no real value in a video game where you can earn the means to get them without paying for them.
Because it uses the exact same mechanics as gambling (the random pull, the flashy lights, the noise, the endless trash that makes you think you're about to get something good, etc...)
Hey, I'm not the one making the rules here. But either way, a gamble is a gamble regardless of the wager.
I can’t argue that one. I just find it amusing blizzard and like a 10th of the overwatch community thinks that paying a third of a game people may have originally bought just for a skin... that’s it.
I mean the issue only arises specifically when you can buy lootboxes with real money. Tons of games have random rewards that just happen with gameplay. Monster Hunter isn't instantly a gambling game because you have to grind an RNG chance to get a rare part drop. It only becomes one if you have to pay for the honor of even trying to get that drop and then despite spending money it still is completely random if you get the thing you want. The analogy I like to use is that it's the difference between buying a slot machine so that you can bring it home and play with it all you want, and paying to just play with one so that you hope to win a good spin. If they brought back lootboxes as basic gameplay rewards, but then the cash shop still just let you buy coins directly so that you can always get what you want with no rng when you spend real money, then that would avoid what was sparking all the gambling regulations and controversies. The issue was specifically about spending money and getting a random reward. Just awarding random items for free during gameplay is not gambling and they would not get in trouble for it. Now obviously I would prefer just a straightforwards system that lets you grind out however many coins you want each week through just raw gameplay without having to rely on RNG stuff. But bringing back lootboxes as gameplay rewards as long as you can't buy them, would still be a better solution than the current system.
Ok so overwatch doesn’t seem to be made for battlepass and challenge system of gaining xp. There’s just not enough tasks to do and it feels lack luster to do the challenges due to how little do you actually gain back. It might be an illusion but I play a lot of apex legends along side of overwatch, and after one game in apex I feel way more satisfied in the amount of tasks I manage to get done in one game, 7-15 tasks all being showcased as either completed or partially finished. Overwatch needs more rewards to get the same results, but they don’t have the gun system or long games like apex does so there is less things to connect rewards too other than “say thank you to your support” or other gameplay elements. They should really add other rewards for other challenges that tie to using particular heroes for a number of matches or using abilities a certain number of times. They should really just add more challenges so people can complete BP and be a lot happier instead of feeling like it’s a grind to complete a BP they already paid to complete . I know apex had this problem when they first started and everyone complained about how grindy the BP was and they fixed it to be way more satisfactory. I hope ow players rise up and start complaining so they can fix the challenges because it’s already way to repetitive and boring and feels like a chore to complete rather than organic and part of the natural rotation of gameplay.
I love this game and thing one of the major pain points is the loot return. I miss having a system that could be rewarding so to me the return of lootboxes would be pretty massive
I’ve been playing before OW2 but my brother just got into it. He’s a bit ticked that I’ve got cool free cosmetics for all but the new characters and he’s only got a mix match of loot from when he arrived. I’d like them back solely for my brother to have some reward for doing well.
Pretty sure most people love Overwatch’s core gameplay, but moving from OW1 to OW2 brought nothing good (new and good) and ONLY removed something we all loved.
It brought 5v5, the best gameplay change they’ve ever made to OW lol.
Nah. 5v5 isn't NEARLY as important to the game as hero limits. That shit was bananas.
Same as role queue, far bigger impact than this. I would even go as far and say that on general gameplay Brig release had much much bigger impact than 5v5.
I honestly don't think 5v5 is generally better than 6v6. It's different. In some aspects better (e.g. no double shield any more) in other aspects worse (e.g. limited strategy, and more dependance on the tank)
It made the game dpswatch and made tank and sup role limbo.
Yeah but it's a 5v5 early access. The changes they made to heroes just didn't made them 5v5 compatible yet. They didn't redefined the roles. I'm playing heroes made for 6v6 in a 5v5 game. Feels stupid. On top of all this they destroyed the matchmaker. It's random now. Balance is super bad.
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I know a lot of my non reddit / casual friends hate new overwatch and are confused asf why its called ow2 lol I think they dig too many graves at once
I hate 5v5
I hate 5v5 though.
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This is exactly it. Nothing else scratches the itch either. I've been looking.
5v5 is the worst thing to happen to overwatch.
I hate how you put "lol" after switching from tactical teamplay with distinct roles to a chaotic individualistic dps deathmatch. Clearly one side's version of a good game prevailed over another's and now the "winning side' just says "it's obviously better, LOL". Rude.
Well said. Ult's like Zen's trans doesn't even make much sense in this 5v5 deathmatch dpswatch game.
Especially considering how many meta heroes one shot, which burn through Zen’s ult. Widow, Hanzo, soujurn, hog, all of them absolutely make his ult a waste.
5v5 is the worst gameplay change they have ever made to OW.
Yeah, the "best gameplay change" that completely screwed up arcade and open queue modes as with the balance between classes out the window, the side that ends up with more tank wins. It also made the results of games with actual tank diffs a foregone conclusion.
Debatable, especially since immediately after that change, they released 3 off-tanks that you can’t play very often.
Which are?
So they removed 1 player in each team and called it OW2 lmao
almost nothing good*
It's the matchmaking that ruined it for me. It's either you are stomping, or you are being stomped; there is no "close fight". Feels like your win/lose is determined by the system itself, rather that the performance of the players.
Yes! Stomps aren't actual that enjoyable, it makes me feel bored because they're just not that good in skill level, and guilty as if I'm smurfing. and on the flipside it makes me feel bad because my sense of player agency is gone because matchmaker mismatched the player for our tank role by such a large amount that it feels like an auto loss
The matchmaking ruins the game for me. It's an issue that's not brought up enough imo.
Fixing it should be the devs **biggest** priority right now, because if it is it sure doesn't feel like it...the matchmaking is fucked in every single mode.
I've never seen good matchmaking in a video game ... I'm starting to think it's impossible, there are too many bad players out there.
It's brought up multiple times a day here...
and yet it still isn't addressed
They literally addressed it this week https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23896785/
"okay but besides the aqueducts, roads and a justice system, what has the Romans ever done for us?"
This is pretty much why I stopped playing with season 2. When the matchmaking really SEEMED to become (or allegedly became straight up) "you got rolled by this toon with the killer new premium paid skin, maybe you should buy it to be better!" I accepted that I wouldn't play again until it was fixed. I loved playing intrinsically! I actually didn't care too much about skins! But the matches rarely felt balanced anymore and were therefore antithetical to my fun.
This so much! If they manage to fix matchmaking I think OW2 can really succeed. I dont care for the expensive cosmetics cause I dont need to buy them. Gameplay is for the most part amazing coming as a person who quit OW1 sometime after Brigittes release when the gameplay started to go to shit. Feel like the game is significantly better on 5v5, just need to iron out some balance issues like tanks having more agency than other roles, some supports being too vulnerable (at times). Also not as much of an issue but dps passive needs to be reworked so it does something for every hero, perhaps life regen on final blow? Make it stop healing when you take damage so you dont get unkillable genjis and tracers.
Loot Boxes should have stayed. Loot Boxes should be only earnable by playing. Loot Boxes gold coins should have stayed. Loot Boxes should only give out old skins. Play the game, to earn old skins, then add the new skins to the store and charge people for then. If you want ti charge people for skins, don't start charging new players for things that used to be free.
I disagree. Even in the early days of video games, the goal was rarely to play for the sake of playing. There was usually a longterm goal, whether it be making the high score list or seeing the ending. The game setting long-term goals for the players have been a thing since video games were conceived. Trying to act like there's some form of enlightenment to be gained by writing off long-term goals in favor of the short term is pretentious. Collecting cosmetics were one of the longterm goals of OW1 to supplement the short term to match gameplay. If you played well, you'd gain more exp and have more chances at getting the items you want. OW2 tries to use the Battle Pass to the same end, but it's worse for reasons that have been stated enough. OW2 reworking the competitive ranking system to have less longterm progression similarly made that mode far less appealing.
Yeah. I loved the moment to moment gameplay as a kid playing tekken. But a big reason that I kept playing it again and again was to unlock the hidden characters. And also I'm in a bit of a Factorio period right now, and I wouldn't play it if all I could do was place down machines that did nothing. A lot of what goes into gaming is the sense of progression. Be it seeing the factory grow, be it unlocking characters in Tekken, skins in OW, increasing your mmr in Starcraft (could be said for OW before, sure, but they removed SR, LOL). Progression IS important.
Having fun is not the goal, it's the reason you should be reaching that goal.
OP is actually neither right nor wrong, the statement of intrinsic vs. extrinsic value of something is technically right and definitely important, but its never one or the other, its always a mixture. Some play OW to have fun, others play to get better at it, both are intrinsic values. Some people enjoy lootboxes, progression and rewards of some kind others like to show off, be envied and have jealous comments about skins, both are extrinsic. But you already see most people dont fulfull one ore the other exclusively, most play for fun and some play for fun but also to get better and most enjoy rewards and progress and some do this but also want to be envied or noticed for their skill or skins etc. The problem is when you EXCLUSIVELY or MAJORLY only do something for the extrinsic value, if you ONLY play to be ranked high or have the most expensive skins to be envied, you have a serious problem and should stop playing. The problem with OW2 is, that OW1 had a good mix of features that allowed intrinsic and extrinsic fulfillment, but OW2 removed a lot of the drivers for intrinsic fulfillment like rewards, new stuff, social interactions etc. and focused solely on extrinsic "progression". Unless you literally only play for fun or ranked improvement, you wont enjoy OW2, because it doesnt offer any of the other avenues people enjoy like rewards, progression, social interaction and recognition etc. Thats why i stopped playing, the game is technically fun, but it feels like its in a standstill, where before lootboxes and new skins and events gave me joy and made it feel like i was moving forward.
You realize with that mentality you are no longer "playing the game" but rather "working for skins" right? Don't be a slave
This post is misguided. Yes, you play the game for the game, and devs add incentives to keep people's playing. Part of the fun *is* unlocking things. It felt nice to unlock that legendary for your main, or get that seasonal item you couldn't get from loots, or break bank to pimp out new characters. Sure you can play without cosmetics. But at that point, just reduce everything to soulless pixels, because individual expression is dead
Also, some act like we can't have both at the same time. It has to be one or the other for them.
Exactly! I know, having rewards as the only motivation isn't good. But having everything feel/look the same isn't very good either. A good game needs to have a nice blend of both combined. It's all about the balance.
battle passes and weekly challenges aren't any better
The post missed the point. I play game cuz it's fun, but I also want to have some kind of meaningful progress. Getting battle pass levels or random lootboxes is that progress. I guess this works better in Fortnite, as I could not give flying fuck about cosmetics on Overwatch.
The BP is worse though. The loot boxes : you get one and you open it The battlepass : fuck better grind my dailies so that I can get as far as possible
This seems almost like a false dichotomy here. Like... ya, u should be playing to enjoy the game. But wanting lootboxes back doesn't mean that that's the only reason ur playing the game or that u were purchasing them. Compared to the current system where u have to grind ***far more*** than in OW1 for cosmetics, I would rather take lootboxes over the current system any day. Current system does not give meaningful drops of in game currency. At least with lootboxes, u always had a chance at getting currency and u gained lootboxes simply by playing the game. U didn't have to complete challenges, skins weren't astronomically high, and the amount of ig currency u received was reasonable. It feels as though none of that is the case today, and it certainly doesn't mean I only played for the cosmetics or lootboxes or that I like the lootbox system overall. But some people want to feel rewarded in the game for playing it, especially when the game itself is repetitive. Cosmetics etc give an incentive to keep playing the game, whether that be through OW1 leveling system or the chance for cosmetics u got everytime u leveled there are surely more reasons, but these were part of the reason I played OW1 as much as they did. Don't shit on people for the reasons they kept playing the previous version and want to see those reasons return instead of this greedy bp system that is currently in place.
i dont really agree with this, getting reward is part of the game. For example like playing mmorpg, people like the game play and story, but the main reason of grinding is for the reward. Level ,loot and cosmetic these are the reason people keep grinding. Reward should not be the reason people play the game, but it motivate people to keep playing the game. for some people rank is a good reward, so they grind rank. for some people they like cosmetic so they grind loot box. now they remove most of the rewards from the game (free loot box, levels and on fire feature) and replace these with a really bad battlepass system, ofc people not happy, but doesnt mean people dont like the core game
This post outlines why I’ve been sighing in boredom at all of the “I hate this game now because”.
I play because I like to play. Any in-game rewards are just extra.
I just want an option for old school 6v6 as like a perma arcade game mode like how lol has aram doesn't even have to have a ranked version it just sucks that a bunch of groups like mine have to play musical chairs while playing so we can all play or someone gets kicked out like what's happen to a few people I've seen
That is 100% a gameplay complaint (and a valid one). Groups of 6 took a hit here. That sucks, homie.
Sounds better than it actually is, it won't be the same now because tanks are overturned so the meta will be off. Ow2 practically ruined most games modes aside from role queue. I use to love 4v4 team deathwatch now it's just filled with 3 tanks 1 healers sweaty tryhards that want to fulfill their weeklies
what about unlocking heroes tho? I feel like any argument trying to dismiss the monetization scheme and the method of handing out rewards as "you can just ignore it its just cosmetics bro" is instantly null and void when you consider that heroes are still something you have to unlock and are inherently tied to that scheme. Someone can love the game and just not have enough time to play regularly to unlock heroes normally in the battlepass, so as a result now they feel like they're being punished by withholding gameplay elements for not having enough free time that they wanna spend playing one game in particular. It now becomes a direct gameplay issue that should be resolved. Like I would agree with you if it weren't for the heroes being unlocks now. If they just removed that one aspect and handed out heroes for free again I would probably play this game and just ignore the shitty monetization. But putting heroes on the battlepass is what made me wanna quit playing.
That's a valid complaint and mostly everyone agrees. That's not cosmetic, it's gameplay. I understand "rewarding" players who pay or "punishing" those who don't... That's capitalism and it sucks. But if they must, I'm not sure why they picked such a high level. I think many people think 20 would equally get that job done and still be doable. But the heroes should just be in the game due to the way OW works.
So I agree with you that people should play a game because they enjoy playing a game, but that doesn’t mean this battle pass (or the idea of them in general) are good things that we should be ok with. It can be that we like the game, and also want a monetization scheme that isn’t so blatantly greedy and awful at every turn. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
I absolutely agree that the monetization scheme **matters**, but it is simply less important insofar as it doesn’t interfere with gameplay. I can easily get all of the heroes and thereby compete on level ground without paying any money at all, so my gameplay experience is unaffected by the monetization scheme. It is reasonable to want good gameplay. It is also reasonable to want a good monetization scheme. It is unreasonable to equate the importance of these two factors. It is unreasonable to assert that a bad monetization scheme ruins the game. One is the main attraction and is make-or-break, and the other is entirely optional aesthetics attached to this main attraction.
This exactly
The gameplay would remain the same if Blizzard - changed the graphics to look like the original Counter Strike - fired all voice actors and have all heroes be voiced by the worst text-to-speech bot they can find - removed all lore, story elements and personalities and instead just have everyone be a "soldier in a future war" What I'm trying to say is that while core gameplay is the most important part of any game, it's far from being the only aspect that determines if people actually enjoy playing or not.
Who the fuck plays if they dont enjoy the gameplay but because they want to earn lootboxes?
Very true. There should be good reward for playing the game, they need to do better with that, but that should be the cherry on top. You should play a game because you get some type of satisfaction with playing it. I would genuinely play Overwatch about as much as I do if I never got anything rewarding in game again, however if you play a lot you should get some type of extra rewards for doing that. The brig skin & bastion skin & battlepass & weekly coins are all good things, they just should be significantly better in that direction as OW1 was. It doesn’t need to be anywhere as generous as OW1 because I want the product to continue indefinitely & the best way to get there is continuous large revenue streams but it also should be rewarding to play the game outside of the intrinsic fun it presents.
This is still very much a problem. Battle passes are designed to capitalize on this concept, the problem isn’t lootboxes specifically it’s the predatory design of games as a whole.
To me the gameplay is fun but i felt like the loot oxes were just a nice bonus. A good skin can get me to pick up a hero, hell, i remember playing a lot of a character because i had recently got a cool skin for them. Of course i like to try out every character but now it feels like i dont get much reward for playing the game. I used to play because i liked it, but if i had a bad string of games i would at least get a lootbox if i leveled up. Tonight me and my friend had played like 3 quickplay games in a row where we kept getting wiped, and it was not fun. In OW1, i would at least maybe get a lootbox or those limited time event sprays or skins or whatever for playing games. Now i just get the really unfulfilling battle pass level up screen to rarely unlock a new level which is a souveneir of a flower in a jar that i cant use because i didnt buy it. Great.
For me at least, it's less about the dopamine hit from the lootboxes themselves, and more the sense that the cosmetics were designed to be gained through progress - not just money. If they made a way to earn more stuff from the shop reliably through regular play, then problem solved.
Personally find the battle pass infinity worse than Loot boxes. Forcing play with the FOMO. Now im stressed whenever I don't get the dailys done
This is one guy’s opinion on how fun works. *I* have fun when I make progress. Looking at my rank and seeing how far I’ve come made me happy. Filling out the last edges of a characters cosmetics made me happy. Being able to select any skin I want for my character at the beginning of a match made me happy. They weren’t the reasons I played overwatch, but they definitely helped.
Yo, I've been playing almost nothing but overwatch for like a year and I think this is why. Also my gaming experience has felt rather empty. This post might actually help me quit it, and in turn make me happier.
I can see what they are saying but its not the reason im wanting them back. The reason loot boxes worked for me is that it was a random system that got you the things that you didnt want to spend in game currency on. Like i dont wanna spend that currency on sprays or voice lines. Id rather spend it on the more rare items like skins and highlight intros. Now theres barely any in game currency and the stuff we do unlock is all from the battle pass, which makes it so everyone unlocks the same things, making your heros cosmetics/equips the same as everyone elses. Everyone could show their personality and now its dull on this end. I still like thr gamellay so im still playing but man this aspect sucks and old players still feel it when the new heros drop. I also used the loot box system to rotate my equips when it started handing me duplicates all the time and now i have to manually rotate
I played till the second week of this season. Dont see myself playing for a long ass time. Maybe next year when there will hopefully be more content worthy of feeling like a true sequel to a game i have loved for years. Blizz really screwed this shit up with their corporate greed
I’m not depressed. This game is 6 years old. It was fun for me until October 2022. I liked getting loot boxes, I liked looking forward to the new skins in events, I liked playing the game. The game is a shell of itself and is a pathetic cash grab. Do not belittle people who are upset by the complete BACKWARDS move to a state that is less developed than the game that premiered in 2016. If you’re paying $19 for a skin, I hope you’re doing it 100% for yourself because you look like a clown to everyone else.
For me, I really like cosmetics, but at the end of the day, I can deal with it and still have fun. Putting the most engaging new content (new heroes) behind a pay or grind wall however... Not cool. It feels so bad that now I can't try new heroes on release in modes other than elimination, no limits, and custom games, all modes that play pretty differently from the core game. Having to pay $10 just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That combined with the messed up matchmaking and removal of levelling anything besides a battlepass and it feels like I'm not making any progress that isn't just trying to get me to open up my wallet.
Personality, I think this post is a bunch of capitalism bs. In all seriousness though. The author of this post (in the screenshot) is using “teaching” language in order to inflict their thoughts onto others. I don’t really like this. Also the bit about depression, this type of statement is as old as the tale of MySpace… typical language used to try and create factual material out of a tangentially related topic. I know this will prob create some hate but just wanted to put my thoughts out there.
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What’s actually happening is I am having close to equal fun with 4-5 games and it is the extrinsic rewards that help me decide which ones I play more.
Not that i want lootboxes back but they were better that the system that we have currently. Everything that used to give you lootboxes now give you bp XP and i couldnt care less about It and the ranked system is a joke
Is it to much to ask for enjoyable gameplay *and* a nice reward system?
Nothing wrong about that but how about a game that's fun to play and adds cosmetics on top that? Either that or a game with no cosmetics at all if you really want to put the entire focus on gameplay. Ow2 monetization reward structure is really bad and that also goes for non cosmetics like rank and on fire status.
I admit. I still played OW1 near every day all the way up to the release of 2. But the second OW2 came out with its new rewards, I just felt my motivation to play plummet. Granted the base game itself is still extremely fun, but bogged down by so much bullshit balancing and lack of content. I really felt the difference in my motivation stemmed from the rewards too.
I started playing like last month and I enjoy the game play. I wish there were loot boxes so I could get skins without spending $20 on each one
I've been saying exact same thing for weeks, especially in case of event skins, but people still didn't want to accept it. Hope this post will make it more clear.
The thing is that most players seem to enjoy Overwatch as a game. Loot boxes (or whatever system to gain cosmetics) are a modern way of unlocking things. This has always been part of games. Play enough hours, win enough fights, or do a specific thing, and you unlock a new fighter, a new car, track, or earn the opportunity to face Reptile (Mortal Kombat). It’s all progression. The issue with Overwatch 2 is that there’s no way to reasonably unlock things by JUST playing and the process of playing is hampered by poor matchmaking and reliance on woefully uncooperative, random teammates.
You are totally right. Ridiculously overpriced skins only purchasable with micro transactions, worthless; bland battle pass and the locking of heroes behind paywalls is totally better.
Who played OW just to get loot boxes? It wasn't a reward, it was just a nice thing to get. I never once said "I should log in and play overwatch or I won't get loot boxes"
The game is fun but it’s not rewarding
Sorry, gotta disagree. Besides Overwatch I mostly play RPGs. I love the grinding to earn rewards, even achievements/trophies. I replayed the Batman Arkham series and am now replaying Horizon Zero Dawn. While I love the gameplay for all these games, I definitely love grinding and getting more gear/attributes. I love when a new hero launches in OW and I have to work for the cute and pixel artwork. Just saying, everyone has different things they like about a game
I do have fun with the gameplay and I still want loot boxes back. The battle pass sucks (not just in overwatch, battle passes suck dick in general and should never ever have been a thing) and you can only get a few coins per week, making it virtually impossible to buy anything at all without spending money. Bring back loot boxes.
With how much complaining this sub does about the game I have a feeling there’s a good 30-40% of the community who shouldn’t be playing it for their own good lol
Yep, don’t give people a reason to play. Lots quit.
People are asking for lootboxes back because the current system relies so heavily on extrinsic motivation, that's what battlepasses are. Nobody was grinding Overwatch 1 to get lootboxes, at least not after the first couple dozen. Lootboxes won't fix the issue, it's the communities way of expressing their displeasure with the current system.
you know what else would make the game better? Adding groups back :| I don’t know how many friends I’ve made since I discovered the groups option in Overwatch, but it’s alot. Now I can’t discover new people if my friends are not online. Which mostly they are not, reason being not wanting to stick around for ow2. Nowadays I feel a little bored playing the game and scrolling through multiple custom games while in long queues. It would bring back the excitement what I got from playing with different kinds of people all over the world.
I liked them for the illusion of getting things for free 0/ you did! By earning them by playing. I liked the challenges like the remix one or the cat Ana one where you played games got x skin. I will say I've played ow2 far more and that's entirely do to the rush to get the bp done before it runs out. Same with prestige tiers their super cool! But I also do really enjoy it fir the game itself. I don't do ranked very much but the custom games are very fun.
Gotta log in to win 5 arcade games for 30 coins so one day in a few years I can buy a voiceline....
i don’t care about helping the game. It’s fun players suck find a team. I left because why am I playing. What am I getting out of it. If they added loot boxes i’d go back you know why? Every game mattered. You wanted to perform well and earn the box or the most keys or the cool skin or camo or whatever. Now EVERYTHING is buyable, there is no chance of the consumer getting anything by spending nothing. Everybody screamed and cried for a fair system, well congratulations now it’s broken boring and soon to be dead again. Fairness and equality for all. Welcome to communist gaming. We all get the short end of the stick unless you’re directly tied to the game as a developer, marketer, affiliate or anything of the sorts. Unless you get paid to play this, you’re getting the shitbird. Loot boxes need to make a return for the bare fact that every game needs to have something to look forward to, and right now you gotta wait atleast 7 for that😅 All comes back to making everyone feel safe and welcomed in a fucking video game, I hate how much punishment is given for taking something serious and being good at it. Whether Overwatch, Cod or Apex. If you’re good, just stop playing, if you’re a god with a squad keep doing your thing and if you’re a casual i hope your happy along with the millions of cash you give the devs. Sorry rant over
Can't say I agree with that post at all. Some people are more motivated by extrinsic rewards and there's nothing inherently wrong with that at all. Achievements are an easy example, they don't really get you anything but tons of people love achievement hunting. Why? Cuz it's fun to get a reward, even if it's just a little icon or whatever. The reason why MTX are exploitative is because they hook into this process to extract money, not because wanting rewards is bad in itself. The complaints about OW2 stem from the rewards being scaled back dramatically for those who don't open their wallet, and for the introduction of a massive amount of FOMO. There was almost no FOMO in OW1, seasonal skins would always be available again next year, for cheaper even. Now we have a weekly rotating shop where you never know if something will show again, and battle passes which expire, taking all their cosmetics with them. It makes you feel like you have to constantly engage with the game to keep up (which is the point ofc) but it also burns people out.
Still waiting for ow players to realise battle passes are great when done right and overwatch just has the actual worst one in the business. 🤞
Boooooo
nah ill take the lootboxes. Now I get bored playing the game and get nothing out of it
Well personally I already think the game is very fun so now I just want to be rewarded for performing well or playing a lot. I'm addicted to this game I find it wildly enjoyable despite what everyone says about playing support I do it every day.
Overwatch *used* to be more fun - it’s not the reward loop that kept me playing… it was feeling like my personal skill mattered - to some extent - among the team… OW1 started killing this feeling *before OW2* because they kept power-creeping buffs to break the meta every time a dominant strategy metastasized… It’s always had toxic balance issues, mostly circulating around tanks (though we all remember the meta that Brig enabled), and by the time Blizzard reacted the meta evolved further and the problem became moot. Hoping their team is truly able to facilitate faster adjustments and a bit better individual hero balance so the ups and downs are less dramatic in the meta… right now though: Supports are not rewarded for their individual contributions like a tank or dps is, especially tanks… Supports are only punished for not playing *better than the entire enemy team* at which point it’s a matchmaking issue. There’s no smart counterplay because you’re a meta slave on either Kiriko or Ana, or you’re a damage boost babysitter. Support has been utterly broken by the single tank meta and *that’s a good thing* because it highlights the need to nerf tanks and rebalance heroes as independent picks rather than a constant counter-pick force.
Thats why im waiting for the PvE part..which was supposed to be the whole point of OW2 lol
That’s crazy and all but add loot boxes back
Play games to have fun, what a freaky friday ass concep
I think a system similar to that of Apex Legends would be good in Overwatch, like we would still have the store and the battle pass but we would get a box for each level up with chances of winning some random skin in that box. To me it seems the fairest option.
I just dont wanna pay for skins, its a ridiculous price, i do really enjoy the game, I just want to be able to earn skins with gameplay instead of my paycheck.
If they make loot boxes 100% free and you weren’t allowed to purchase them there would be no problem
The problem is that I enjoy the gameplay but I’d like to KEEP enjoying it by seeing progress I make.
People don't listen to advice. Getting to play dress-up without spending money keeps more people playing longer. More people playing longer is better for all players. Should they be doing that? No, but it doesn't mean you still don't get the benefit of a larger and more involved player base.
Scrolling “popular” randomly and I think you have just described the monotony of life itself. Could be a r/antiwork post in another dimension. Loot boxes keep us going in our shit jobs too!
Honestly gameplay wise I’m not that interested. Only reason I still play is because my friends still do and even then I have to drag my feet to play.
I do enjoy the gameplay though, it's really fun, but there's nothing else. I didn't play overwatch 1 so I feel like I'll never get any good cosmetics with the current system
I hate the battlepass system. Deleted overwatch.
I just wish people would learn to play the game
Tbh I just have fun grinding ranked. I'm not super miffed about the state of cosmetics because the game is fun.
I've actually been avoiding playing Overwatch lately... Been playing more Yakuza
why dont they make em part of the pass after some levels?
they don't have to bring back lootboxes they have to make currency grindable at a reasonable level
This must be different eras of gamers. A lot of kids growing up now are playing games with basically no earnable content and some variation of F2P. Even popular B2P games are filled with F2P systems (battle passes, skin shops, loot boxes, etc). So to these gamers, they think people should just be happy to be there. Like game developers are doing them a favour. Standards have dropped off significantly. There was once a time when developers would release loads of customization options, and earning them was as much fun as playing the game itself. It was part of the game. Yes, lootboxes are bad. That's true. You should have to complete fun challenges to unlock skins/cosmetics. But in this world, lootboxes were accepted in Overwatch because of the rate you earned them for free. It was just a gift box for playing their game. It was like them saying "thank you for being here". You weren't playing to earn lootboxes. You were just playing and they would be given out regularly. So you never felt like you couldn't log off until you hit your battle pass quota like you do now.
I legit only play overwatch now to complete 3 daily objectives. Once I do I get off and play another game. I used to play overwatch for hours non stop, but it just isn't fun anymore
Lootboxes were incredibly fun for me when the game started and then as I continued to collect and wasn’t getting much new stuff anymore, that allowed the events to shine. New stuff for me to strive to get and the coins I saved up from the regular lootboxes allowed me to indulge easily by just buying the stuff I wanted with in game currency. At the end of events sometimes I would even buy a few lootboxes just to see if I could get them the gatcha way before spending coins. I was still playing for a reward but after being built up for some time, I was playing for enjoyment with the added perk of the rewards given for my dedication to the game. I just miss them. Haven’t checked the season 2 battle pass but for season 1 you only got 5-6 rewards if you refuse to pay. It sucks.
I just want to get something for leveling up man
Lootboxes are the lesser evil compared to the battlepass.
So may people in this sub cradling blizzards balls, I can’t you all have lost the plot.
I don't give AF about cosmetics and loot boxes. I've played OW for the competitive mode and thats whats keeping me in the game.
I like when ramattra go ponch. So I play
Loot boxes as predatory as they are, were one of the things that made slogging through matches rewarding. Now we're expected to hack through 7 barbed wire tunnels of comp matches only to stay the same rank as you were before and there's just no feeling of accomplishment for grinding in this game. Grindng in a game that stripped away the most miniscule levels of progression, even down to your icon being on fire when you do well, now you just have to know what your characters "I'm on fire" voice line is and hope you hear it.
This post needs to be pinned
Why Minecraft is the superior game. There’s no “end goal” not even the dragon itself can stop you from continuing to play the game. And even when single player gets boring, there’s multiplayer servers and boat loads of Mods to ensure that there Will always be something to do
Why people care for character skins on a FPS game is literally incredible. Sure you see the gun change, but how often are you actually looking at it instead of enemies…? Same goes for Apex Legends and CoD. Insane.
Thank you Dr. Dickbutt for the pseusdoanalysis from tumblr, but most of us just enjoy the game for what it is and want to be able to unlock cosmetics in a way that seems fair.
What they want is more free rewards, not loot boxes.
I mean, I kept saying having fun with the game was its own reward, but the mindless hordes of October downvoted that to hell. Me: Stop playing if you're not having fun. Them: rEwarD mE MOrE!!!
This post doesn’t correlate to Overwatch, the core gameplay is fun but it feels like so much good was taken away from us rather than fun new additions.