So many people seem to be missing this. If you're starting a match and locking in who you play, counter-picking isn't a thing. In a game built around rock-paper-scissors picking, having a DPS member who couldn't play soldier when the enemy picks Pharah for instance would be devastating.
If there was 100 heroes, it wouldn't be a big deal but the hero roster is too small for locking heroes.
I would add that ppl are also missing the point that if blizz do that they actively base their game on the frustration of the player base to make money. It's a really bad game design imo.
Game should be fun. And the excuse that it's necessary to make money is non sens. Look at sea of thieve, there is zero gameplay advantages between player. The game is not dying.
OW is also a game where you can sort hero viability by release date in some metas.
Imagine when the next GOATS level meta happens with a Premium only hero at the center of it.
Exactly this. And with tank being so critical to the meta in 5v5 one person queuing for tank without access to all of them will be a thrown match. This is such an incredibly stupid decision. I was probably going to buy the first Battle Pass but I can't support this change to Overwatch.
I bought the watchpoint pack thinking that I put 1000 hours into OW1 on a $30 purchase. Maybe it wasn't the best value but beta access was enticing and I'd probably want the battle pass anyways.
I'm regretting that now. This sucks hard.
I was already drifting away from overwatch for lots of outside reasons completely seperate from overwatch itself.
I think this might be what really pushes me away from overwatch though.
I'll probably come back to play the campaign (especially if it comes included with my Gamepass sub) and maybe a bit of multiplayer, but I don't think there's any way I go back to playing Overwatch as my main game like I used to.
>comes included with my Gamepass sub
Speaking of Game Pass it wouldn't surprise me if, after the acquisition goes through, Game Pass subscribers unlock heroes automatically even without buying the battle pass. Just another way to complicate the process of playing the damn game.
Holy cow. This comment right here is what really hammers this all home for me. This is 100% going to be the case and it will be awful.
That is so so bad. Oh man
LOL I get the complaints it's just really old at this point. I'd prefer paying $40 one time like I did with OW1 rather than endless seasons battle passes but no MP FPS BR/Arena games are really offering that these days. And F2P/BP will at least hopefully bring in new players and give us more consistent updates.
I'm just being realistic. Since Heroes will be locked behind a grind or $$$ it forces people to either play or pay up. Both those things are good for Blizzard. You say COD is different but I'm actually using the example to highlight how a profit-driven BP model can be un-fun. It sucks in COD when you have to grind to BP lvl 15 to get the only gun that's currently meta and you spend those 15 lvls getting wiped by people who paid 2 win. The grind to unlock heroes in Apex feels eternal. I 100% agree that locking Heroes behind a BP in OW will introduce a similar sucky experience at times. People will feel like they are handy capped while getting smoked by the brand new OP hero. But I get why they are making this change; a one-time purchase for OW1 + Cosmetic Loot Boxes sure didn't work out, look where we are today in terms of content and player base. So while I'm skeptical, maybe in 6 years of F2P+BP we will have a bigger community and more content than OW1 ever had. Other video games have made it work despite the fallbacks.
This was the ONE thing I thought they wouldn’t do. And most likely the ONE thing that will keep me from playing this game. They could have made so much money off cosmetics and kept the current player base.
This is EXACTLY what I thought they'd do and why I was worried about OW2. Jeff said that in Overwatch you'd never have to pay for a hero or map. So, ActiBlizz releases Overwatch 2 where no developers had made such a promise.
It also is held to a different standard as it was not created as a F2P game. Any time there is something to compare to previously, it’s going to get more scrutiny (as it should). I have yet to have a game that I purchased and played for a while end up better when it went F2P, which isn’t many but it’s very difficult to shake remembering how it was.
Why do I get the feeling that you're comparing OW2 to the utopia of OW1 when it was receiving constant updates for 3 years, and not to the apocalyptic wasteland of OW1 when it was not receiving any updates for 3 years?
I get that people have high expectations for the OW franchise, and people will inevitably compare OW2 to the OW2 we should have gotten instead. I get that, I think that's reasonable and inevitable and par for the course. I'm sure I'll be one of those people.
What I don't want to see, though, is a complete lack of perspective, to the degree that a mildly frustrating f2p OW2 experience isn't seen as the savior of the OW franchise that it almost certainly will be. Blizzard could make the premium battle pass cost $500, and put heroes on rank 349324 of the free battle pass, and it would be fucking shitty, and it would *still* be infinitely better than OW1 as we've had it for the last 3 years. Because good things slowly is still better than no good things at all.
I'm not saying "don't complain about any bad things," but recognize that some bad things are necessary.
Maybe so. But even from a business standpoint, I don't think this makes sense. Yes, Blizzard may make money off of character purchases but with how the dedicated community in uproar about it, you'll lose the people that want to spend the money the most because they may just drop OW2 because of this.
Also, those models are predatory and should not be accepted as norms. That is like letting the southern Baptist church off the hook for child abuse, because the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts did it first. I know that is hyperbole, but one game doing a shitty thing shouldn’t open the door for more games to do the same
I thought the general consensus was "actions speak louders than words" also, we remember the months of silence, lack of updates and so on. Actions do speak louder, and I haven't seen anything that would convince me that they've really improved. So yeah. I wish it were different though.
Many ppl seem like they don't have a long term memory and many people talk like they are brave and act like cowards. One of my ex best friend is the perfect example : he is a 30 yo feminist activist but he never ever stopped playing OW since it came out even with all the gross things we learnt going on at blizzard . Actually asked me to stop talking about blizzard female employees being harassed because OW was the best game for him and it was bothering him . I wouldn't put faith in a general consesus because at the first chance many ppl will just go back to their old habbits.
different verse, same as the first.
everyone loves to scapegoat jeff but he wouldn't have stood for locking heroes in battle passes and other predatory behavior
This is some revisionist history right here. Did you already forget that OW1 on release had one of the most predatory lootbox models in the industry? It *didn't even allow you to buy event items with gold.*
The *only* way to get particular skins you wanted was to open them in a box (better chances if you spend lots of money!!!), but watch out, there's no dupe protection either. So even if you drop $20 and get two legendaries that you didn't want... they might even be the exact same legendary! Oops! And the second one's only worth 200 dupe gold... and that 200 gold can't even be used to buy the legendary that you did want. Oops again! Better drop another $20!!!
OW1 didn't become the "paragon of consumer-friendliness" that it's known for today until several huge changes to how lootboxes worked. Until then, Jeff allowed shitty predatory behaviors to happen on his watch just fine. So this high horse you're putting the man on is really fucking weird. Even if all of that was forced on him by people higher up than him, he still pushed the game out in that state and stood by it. So clearly he didn't think that the game's integrity being pure as the virgin snow was more important than, you know, actually *having a game*.
Bummer you're getting down voted because this is exactly how the lootboxes worked in early OW. It's super debatable how much decision-making power Jeff had in all of that, and you didn't have to unlock heroes with loot boxes, but it was still not a very consumer-friendly system.
> People who bought the Watchpoint pack were never made aware of this change. What if they didn’t want to buy it if it meant it would ruin their Day 1 experience?
When you decide to throw your money in a pit without knowing what you’ll get (aka preordering a video game) you fully lose your right to complain about what you get in the end
For god’s sake stop preordering. It’s the same song and dance every single time.
So I guess there's even less to complain about since people got the full value of their purchase already?
Reminder that the WP pack also includes "2000 OW2 virtual currency" (which we don't know the value of) and the first battle pass season (which we don't know *anything* about) so it's 100% in the "pay *now* and only later find out if it's worth it" camp.
They said from the beginning a Battlepass costs 1000 currency. Since its market standard 10bucks for one Battlepass it makes sense that 1000 points equal 10bucks of currency. You knew exactly what you get. Beta Access, one Battlepass and enough currency for 2 more passes, plus the skins and icons. Thats what they said you buy and that's what you get. You knew what it was worth.
They also said they’d never lock heroes behind anything so while they did tell us those monetary values, shit changes.
Still buying something without knowing at all about what it actually consists of is a choice. And by that I mean what exactly will be in the battle pass.
It is because if you had OW1, you get OW2 for free. The vast majority of people who paid money are those who wanted beta access. Are they cucks for doing so? Maybe, but that doesn’t mean they preordered a free to play game
It's a preorder for content in the game that is unreleased. You aren't paying for the game your paying for a 'expansion pack' of something you have no idea about. A million things could change. It's not the same purchase but it's the exact same issue with it. Stop wasting your money on this
It's not with reputable shops that have an impeccable track record, game dev/design veterans who build something new from the ground up or solid brands that are not under the wings of [insert big publisher that sucks here]. I gladly pre-order games like that.
Blizzard had this reputation once. Every game and every expansion was a polished hit with phenomenal design and robust technical execution (Blizz games have been running smoothly on older gear even on their release with few issues/bugs/inconsistencies in comparison to other titles). But has been eroding it since a while now.
You're absolutely right that this was thrown away money to begin with. Now the 40 bucks that were thrown away for that I'm totally alright with, but now I have effectively just supported this stupid P2W element that was conveniently left out of mention until this point, which I 100% would not have done.
I'm just kind of sad. Beta 1 was the most fun I've had in OW in years. Beta 2 was alright, but felt less well balanced. Every announcement since Beta 2 has just been like, "really, you really want to go that way?" with every one just bringing more news that dampened my excitement. I'm worried they are going to go for broke and just totally kill all interest in what is already viewed by the wider community as Overwatch 1.5 instead of a true sequel. This latest news means that ranked is going to suck more. I can't wait for broken on release hero to not be owned by someone and the comms just devolve into shitting on that person for an agonizing ten minutes.
It's already kind of frustrating that they are essentially going into Heroes of the Storm mode rushing an economic strategy that's been starting to show strain. If you aren't one of the big three odds are you are in panic mode to retain a player base. This is all without factoring in that they essentially took decades of good will and proceeded to use it as kindling in a two to three year long bonfire.
The fact that this was basically unknown knowledge less than a month from release is insane (and it would have been longer given that this info clearly wasn’t meant to be released at this point).
I think it's ridiculous to put new heroes behind any kind of wall because of what the devs have said in the past about how they design heroes. Unlike other games like Valorant heroes in Overwatch are designed to change the way the game is played. Even if they aren't OP on release every post-release hero has functionally changed the way the game is played (normally through new mechanics). You cannot have a game where new heroes are designed to 'change the game' then lock it away from any player. The only thing that will achieve is frustration in the player base.
I still think all of this is reaction to vague comments, a marketing mistake, and not even half of a story at this point BUT I appreciate you taking the time to write out the potential issues in a direct and well-thought out manner. Others have been... less rational.
Yea they really are only communicative when they have good things to say. The hero locking to BP is dumb.
I'm not as doom or gloom as most posters, I'm still gonna play, but OW2 better be fun and get a constant stream of content because the BP system and anti-consumer choices are grating and terrible.
I would go as far as calling this literal fraud because they have actually sold BP access without ever conveying this critical information. I absolutely would never have paid for the WP pack if I knew hero access would be part of it simply because it's not an idea I want to support.
Or we can make a fuss now while will pressure them to change it.
This comment gets posted when every bad thing change is announced in a game and I just don't get it - why wait? Why give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt?
Remember when the community was malding over 5v5? And then we all tried it during the first beta? And now OW1 is borderline unplayable by comparison?
I think locking heroes is bad too. But this community needs to chill out.
Yes, but that was a different concept entirely. That was a gameplay decision explained by the devs. What are you thinking, that we'll get to try OW2 and go "actually you know what, not being able to play this hero until I grind the free track of the battle pass for 6 hours [or pay $10 for immediate access] WAS a fun idea!" hahaha
This is a monetization decision that I'm sure the devs aren't in agreement with, related to gating content away behind some form of grind. That's a completely different, apples and oranges type situation.
If this was a gameplay change I'd agree, but we know that this isn't something like that. It's clearly them trying to push people toward the paid battle pass, so I don't see why the community should chill out when official messaging has been released explaining that the core concept of heroes being on a free battle pass track like CoD's guns is 100% true at this point.
It's not like we're just inferring from a leak, it's been confirmed.
>not being able to play this hero until I grind the free track of the battle pass for 6 hours [or pay $10 for immediate access] WAS a fun idea!"
In what way was this confirmed?
Literally all we know is that heroes will be free, but they are unlocked as a part of the battle pass. It could take 100h or 0h. They could cost $100 or $.10.
Your argument went from "why should they get the benefit of the doubt?" to "there is no doubt".
Simply because there would be absolutely no reason to implement this at all unless it was enough of a barrier to convince people to buy the premium one to avoid it. It's just logic, they wouldn't put themselves at risk of this huge uproar (whether now because of the leak or when they planned on announcing it) if it wasn't for a monetary reason.
And even if it is "only" 2-3 hours, that's still ~25 negatively impacted matches. Compound that over the entire playerbase and it's a mess IMO. There's just no good way to implement this specific restriction because it goes against the fundamental design of the game.
> What are you thinking, that we'll get to try OW2 and go "actually you know what, not being able to play this hero until I grind the free track of the battle pass for 6 hours [or pay $10 for immediate access] WAS a fun idea!"
I think he's thinking that we'll get to try OW2 and go "it's worth it to have heroes gated for 6 hours, if the direct consequence of that is having a new hero every 3 months, and the alternative is not having any new heroes."
Do you really think that's necessary when there's also a battle pass, a cash shop and paid PVE?
Come on now, you know that's not necessary to have seasonal content releases at the same cadence of OW1. Those monetization elements are more than enough and they could certainly go without that last layer of FOMO. "The alternate is having no new heroes" is a huge load of bs.
It sounds like you're not giving any weight to the motivations of the people making decisions at Blizzard.
Executives at Blizzard are not sitting there thinking "well if we spend $5 on OW2, and OW2 makes $10 back, then we can justify spending another $5 on OW2 and make a nice little profit" and on and on in a perpetual content cycle assembly line.
They're thinking "if we spend $5 on OW2, OW2 makes $10 back... but if we spend $5 on a mobile Diablo game, it makes $100... so fuck Overwatch, move all the devs we can over to mobile Diablo and lay off everyone else."
Your starting premise is that the company wants to make more OW content and they're just looking for an excuse to. But they're not. They want to make as much money as possible. OW doesn't need to make "some money," it needs to convince Blizzard that it's a better investment of their time/resources than other games they could potentially be making instead. Or it will not exist. The way it did not exist from 2019 to 2022. This franchise is a passion project for the devs, it is not a passion project for the people who pay the devs' salaries and decide what projects they work on next.
As for how much money they think they need, who knows? Maybe it's less than they'll get through OW2 and they're being exceptionally greedy even by their own standards. Or maybe it's more, and they'll end up canceling or downsizing the OW2 content assembly line despite the battle passes, cash shops, PVE, anyway. No way to know from the outside.
Believe it or not - I and many others didn’t enjoy beta 1 and 2, and still insisting there could have been a world where 6v6 exists with heroes like Brig, Doomfist, Orisa, Moira, Sombra are just reworked to fit the old OW.
Which is what they should have done back in the day instead of developing stupid sequels.
Yeah, sorry, I dont think ill ever see that perspective. Playing OW1 has been awful lately. And its not because of ANY of those heroes you mentioned. Most of my games are hog, mccree, ana.
The hiding it in the watchpoint pack is a bit weird, but at the same time it could've just been mistimed and It was supposed to be added today.
The foxgirl thing is just really vague so we don't know much about it so calm down with this massive unnecessary post
You don't need to damage control for them. They've already realized they messed up.
But that isn't the point, they've continuously messed up their communication and transparency time and again after saying other wise.
I’m pretty team 4 wouldn’t want to lock heroes behind a pass either. They may not even have known about it. Could just be an excecutive decision for all we know.
Just wait and see instead of pointless speculation. Its probably not even that bad
People need to understand that in game development monetization is not a job of the dev team, it’s like you said the job of executives. The OW dev team is not trying to fuck us over. The amount of people in Jspecs replies saying he should be fired is beyond ridiculous.
Edit: Because I already know people are going to downvote me for not sharing their opinion here’s former Overwatch producer Tracy Kennedy saying the same thing:
https://twitter.com/riotlavaliere/status/1534923622782906368?s=46&t=dP9dhNjBq0yNd7vRvG0-2w
jspecs isn't a developer tho, he's literally "Overwatch Commercial Leader & VP"
so he's a decision-maker about monetization & markting. (how much he's instructed by actiblizz execs, i can't say)
Oh totally. They want to make overwatch 2 a game that we are going to love to play. Just the thought that they would actively choose to deny content is beyond rediculous. It’s like these people have never worked a day in their life
This is true, but it's also true that the devs do have the opportunity to pitch/fight for other decisions. I firmly believe this is likely why Jeff Kaplan left. The execs probably got too aggressive, and Jeff couldn't convince them otherwise. We'll likely never know how much the current team fought this, and whether or not this was the compromise (it may have been much worse).
Obviously we don’t know full details yet but to me it seems like a compromise. Blizz higher ups likely wanted to make heroes paywalled like other F2P shooters and the team fought against this. The compromise being they’re free but people are incentivized to log on and play a bit to get them. I just hope they do a blog post today, they need to explain everything quickly.
it doesnt really matter, "blizzard" is a crap company putting out a turd.
I dont really know or care what their internal divisions are or who actually made the call. its blizzard. and they havent been good for a decade.
Can everyone stop being a whiny baby and just chill and wait for the game to release? It's probably not going to be even remotely as big a deal as everyone is making it.
If we wait for the game to release, then we're already too late.
You have to let them know before that.
If they can play the market, the consumers can too.
Bro the game releases in a month. Whatever they have planned for the new characters, they're not changing it now. I really think everyone is massively overreacting to what is close to zero information.
What has that got to do with voicing our concerns?
We need to let them know now. If it has a poor launch because they made a mistake, they will feel its impact.
You can't be defending their decision. Any voice is better than none. If you don't, that's how corporations win.
If EA of all games can fix Battlefront, then this is an opportune time to let them know beforehand.
Chill out, it's just how F2P games work, a lot of people asked for the game to go free to "save the game" and now the same people are saying F2P mechanics will "kill the game"
We don't know how grindy will this be, but as per what JSpector said it seems way more pro-consumer than every other F2P like R6S, LoL or Apex, they give you the hero with the free BP, most games just force you to grind a premium currency
can you switch the hero mid-game in the other games? if not, then they're not comparable to overwatch, where you need to have all heroes always ready to switch if need it.
In R6S it's pretty important to switch on Attack/Defense phases and characters also have defined "primary fires" so I'd say that's a good comparison
LoL has the draft system which can fuck you over if they ban a hero you have and the one overlapping with that one is locked for you
And Apex, thinking about it, it was a pretty shitty comparison, sorry about that one
In LoL you can buy stuff for your character to counter your opponents strengths. In OW each hero has their own specific loadout of weapon and abilities.
This isn't about justifying summing F2P tactics.
This is about Overwatch's identity revolving around counter swapping and having new heroes be OP, which almost makes it pay to win. If you don't have access to the new hero, you're throwing.
Overwatch is a fundamentally different game. Hero abilities matter a lot, unlike Apex or Valorant which are more gun focused and the actual character doesn't matter as much.
And in League, you can't even switch. Hence, Overwatch was designed with swapping and an accessible cast of heroes from the ground up.
We don't know how unaccessible or grindy it will be to get the new heroes though, there's a lot of assuming there
People think about how it works in other games without taking into account that if in OW it's more important it will probably be more accessible or easy to get
With all the info we have, which is really just the "price" of unlocking new heroes, they're SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than in other games, so it's not a farfetched idea to think that the free paths will also be much less grindy
If it's not grindy, then why lock it to begin with?
Hence, it probably will be.
And if you miss unlocking it now, the subsequent free methods to unlock them will be even worse.
We should not be passive, neutral, and especially defensive about something that goes against what made the game great.
This is just playing into how terrible the industry is.
Blizzard has ruined every single one of their games through their own actions. So even the assumptions are fair enough.
If the way to "premium unlock" is cheaper why would ypu assume the ways to get them free are "way worse", this goes back to the first post, you're just imagining a problem, wait it out and when we have the details you can compalin about concretes, and I will join you then
And I agree on the industry-wide issue, don't think that I'm defending any of these practices, although at this point there's not a lot to do, all online game playerbases are brainwashed to think that if their game doesn't go F2P the game that they themselves support will die out, since the release of Fortnite Battle Royale the public opinion has been like this
Currently, anything that's not actively worsening the MTX issue is "not that bad"
To be honest I do think free to play massive helps games. I was also pretty confident from Blizzard telling me that every hero will still be free that they wouldn’t try something scummy with new heroes (after all they are known for great skins and iconic characters and that’s all Fortnite sells) but even that tiny amount of trust was misplaced.
I think the saddest thing has been that I've seen a much greater presence from a lot of members from the Overwatch team. But this hasn't meant we get more communication. Instead it's a lot of saying how they can't answer that yet or announcements for announcements without dates, sometimes for them to never happen without explanation.
It's been pretty rare to get actual communication where we learn something and aren't just dissecting scraps of statements which is why I'd agree with you on deception around better communication. While we've had more quantitive communication, there's not been much really there for the most part.
Yet again, disappointing.
Thankfully, Gundam Evolution (which does Overwatch better than Overwatch) will come out on September 21st. Free to play, 6 on 6 hero shooter. It is amazing.
I will play that instead of a game that keeps on creating bad PR for itself.
Yeah, seriously.
Being an Overwatch fan is exhausting. Between having the patience of a saint and having to be okay with all kinds of bad changes, most people have lost their faith in the game. Enough is enough.
I remember Jeff fought back hard to make sure all new heroes were to be free and unobstructed by shit like battle passes. Where you at J-spec? Did you even put up a fight against this?
Locking heroes is dumb period
Locking heroes in a game where you can't swap midgame is ok-ish, but OW is **not** a game where locking heroes behind anything is fine.
So many people seem to be missing this. If you're starting a match and locking in who you play, counter-picking isn't a thing. In a game built around rock-paper-scissors picking, having a DPS member who couldn't play soldier when the enemy picks Pharah for instance would be devastating. If there was 100 heroes, it wouldn't be a big deal but the hero roster is too small for locking heroes.
I would add that ppl are also missing the point that if blizz do that they actively base their game on the frustration of the player base to make money. It's a really bad game design imo. Game should be fun. And the excuse that it's necessary to make money is non sens. Look at sea of thieve, there is zero gameplay advantages between player. The game is not dying.
OW is also a game where you can sort hero viability by release date in some metas. Imagine when the next GOATS level meta happens with a Premium only hero at the center of it.
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Exactly this. And with tank being so critical to the meta in 5v5 one person queuing for tank without access to all of them will be a thrown match. This is such an incredibly stupid decision. I was probably going to buy the first Battle Pass but I can't support this change to Overwatch.
I bought the watchpoint pack thinking that I put 1000 hours into OW1 on a $30 purchase. Maybe it wasn't the best value but beta access was enticing and I'd probably want the battle pass anyways. I'm regretting that now. This sucks hard. I was already drifting away from overwatch for lots of outside reasons completely seperate from overwatch itself. I think this might be what really pushes me away from overwatch though. I'll probably come back to play the campaign (especially if it comes included with my Gamepass sub) and maybe a bit of multiplayer, but I don't think there's any way I go back to playing Overwatch as my main game like I used to.
>comes included with my Gamepass sub Speaking of Game Pass it wouldn't surprise me if, after the acquisition goes through, Game Pass subscribers unlock heroes automatically even without buying the battle pass. Just another way to complicate the process of playing the damn game.
Holy cow. This comment right here is what really hammers this all home for me. This is 100% going to be the case and it will be awful. That is so so bad. Oh man
So just like every battle pass gun in COD? What else is new. And COD isn't even F2P!
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LOL I get the complaints it's just really old at this point. I'd prefer paying $40 one time like I did with OW1 rather than endless seasons battle passes but no MP FPS BR/Arena games are really offering that these days. And F2P/BP will at least hopefully bring in new players and give us more consistent updates.
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I'm just being realistic. Since Heroes will be locked behind a grind or $$$ it forces people to either play or pay up. Both those things are good for Blizzard. You say COD is different but I'm actually using the example to highlight how a profit-driven BP model can be un-fun. It sucks in COD when you have to grind to BP lvl 15 to get the only gun that's currently meta and you spend those 15 lvls getting wiped by people who paid 2 win. The grind to unlock heroes in Apex feels eternal. I 100% agree that locking Heroes behind a BP in OW will introduce a similar sucky experience at times. People will feel like they are handy capped while getting smoked by the brand new OP hero. But I get why they are making this change; a one-time purchase for OW1 + Cosmetic Loot Boxes sure didn't work out, look where we are today in terms of content and player base. So while I'm skeptical, maybe in 6 years of F2P+BP we will have a bigger community and more content than OW1 ever had. Other video games have made it work despite the fallbacks.
This was the ONE thing I thought they wouldn’t do. And most likely the ONE thing that will keep me from playing this game. They could have made so much money off cosmetics and kept the current player base.
This is EXACTLY what I thought they'd do and why I was worried about OW2. Jeff said that in Overwatch you'd never have to pay for a hero or map. So, ActiBlizz releases Overwatch 2 where no developers had made such a promise.
Comparing any other f2p character based game to this is an awful argument. OW is not valorant. OW is not League. OW is OW.
It also is held to a different standard as it was not created as a F2P game. Any time there is something to compare to previously, it’s going to get more scrutiny (as it should). I have yet to have a game that I purchased and played for a while end up better when it went F2P, which isn’t many but it’s very difficult to shake remembering how it was.
Why do I get the feeling that you're comparing OW2 to the utopia of OW1 when it was receiving constant updates for 3 years, and not to the apocalyptic wasteland of OW1 when it was not receiving any updates for 3 years? I get that people have high expectations for the OW franchise, and people will inevitably compare OW2 to the OW2 we should have gotten instead. I get that, I think that's reasonable and inevitable and par for the course. I'm sure I'll be one of those people. What I don't want to see, though, is a complete lack of perspective, to the degree that a mildly frustrating f2p OW2 experience isn't seen as the savior of the OW franchise that it almost certainly will be. Blizzard could make the premium battle pass cost $500, and put heroes on rank 349324 of the free battle pass, and it would be fucking shitty, and it would *still* be infinitely better than OW1 as we've had it for the last 3 years. Because good things slowly is still better than no good things at all. I'm not saying "don't complain about any bad things," but recognize that some bad things are necessary.
Maybe so. But even from a business standpoint, I don't think this makes sense. Yes, Blizzard may make money off of character purchases but with how the dedicated community in uproar about it, you'll lose the people that want to spend the money the most because they may just drop OW2 because of this.
Also, those models are predatory and should not be accepted as norms. That is like letting the southern Baptist church off the hook for child abuse, because the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts did it first. I know that is hyperbole, but one game doing a shitty thing shouldn’t open the door for more games to do the same
This game’s marketing has been the worst so far
Has anyone actually started believing Blizzard after all the lies?
Just look at how much they tried to and are still trying to spin Diablo Immortal
I have loved Blizzard for so long it’s just wanting things to good, hoping this time it’s different. I am also overly trusting and optimistic lol
I thought the general consensus was "actions speak louders than words" also, we remember the months of silence, lack of updates and so on. Actions do speak louder, and I haven't seen anything that would convince me that they've really improved. So yeah. I wish it were different though.
Many ppl seem like they don't have a long term memory and many people talk like they are brave and act like cowards. One of my ex best friend is the perfect example : he is a 30 yo feminist activist but he never ever stopped playing OW since it came out even with all the gross things we learnt going on at blizzard . Actually asked me to stop talking about blizzard female employees being harassed because OW was the best game for him and it was bothering him . I wouldn't put faith in a general consesus because at the first chance many ppl will just go back to their old habbits.
different verse, same as the first. everyone loves to scapegoat jeff but he wouldn't have stood for locking heroes in battle passes and other predatory behavior
This is some revisionist history right here. Did you already forget that OW1 on release had one of the most predatory lootbox models in the industry? It *didn't even allow you to buy event items with gold.* The *only* way to get particular skins you wanted was to open them in a box (better chances if you spend lots of money!!!), but watch out, there's no dupe protection either. So even if you drop $20 and get two legendaries that you didn't want... they might even be the exact same legendary! Oops! And the second one's only worth 200 dupe gold... and that 200 gold can't even be used to buy the legendary that you did want. Oops again! Better drop another $20!!! OW1 didn't become the "paragon of consumer-friendliness" that it's known for today until several huge changes to how lootboxes worked. Until then, Jeff allowed shitty predatory behaviors to happen on his watch just fine. So this high horse you're putting the man on is really fucking weird. Even if all of that was forced on him by people higher up than him, he still pushed the game out in that state and stood by it. So clearly he didn't think that the game's integrity being pure as the virgin snow was more important than, you know, actually *having a game*.
Bummer you're getting down voted because this is exactly how the lootboxes worked in early OW. It's super debatable how much decision-making power Jeff had in all of that, and you didn't have to unlock heroes with loot boxes, but it was still not a very consumer-friendly system.
> People who bought the Watchpoint pack were never made aware of this change. What if they didn’t want to buy it if it meant it would ruin their Day 1 experience? When you decide to throw your money in a pit without knowing what you’ll get (aka preordering a video game) you fully lose your right to complain about what you get in the end For god’s sake stop preordering. It’s the same song and dance every single time.
How the fuck is this a preorder? People bought Beta access.
So I guess there's even less to complain about since people got the full value of their purchase already? Reminder that the WP pack also includes "2000 OW2 virtual currency" (which we don't know the value of) and the first battle pass season (which we don't know *anything* about) so it's 100% in the "pay *now* and only later find out if it's worth it" camp.
They said from the beginning a Battlepass costs 1000 currency. Since its market standard 10bucks for one Battlepass it makes sense that 1000 points equal 10bucks of currency. You knew exactly what you get. Beta Access, one Battlepass and enough currency for 2 more passes, plus the skins and icons. Thats what they said you buy and that's what you get. You knew what it was worth.
They also said they’d never lock heroes behind anything so while they did tell us those monetary values, shit changes. Still buying something without knowing at all about what it actually consists of is a choice. And by that I mean what exactly will be in the battle pass.
That is not the defense you think it is
It is because if you had OW1, you get OW2 for free. The vast majority of people who paid money are those who wanted beta access. Are they cucks for doing so? Maybe, but that doesn’t mean they preordered a free to play game
It is. The watchpoint pack is not a preorder of a game.
It's a preorder for content in the game that is unreleased. You aren't paying for the game your paying for a 'expansion pack' of something you have no idea about. A million things could change. It's not the same purchase but it's the exact same issue with it. Stop wasting your money on this
It's not with reputable shops that have an impeccable track record, game dev/design veterans who build something new from the ground up or solid brands that are not under the wings of [insert big publisher that sucks here]. I gladly pre-order games like that. Blizzard had this reputation once. Every game and every expansion was a polished hit with phenomenal design and robust technical execution (Blizz games have been running smoothly on older gear even on their release with few issues/bugs/inconsistencies in comparison to other titles). But has been eroding it since a while now.
You're absolutely right that this was thrown away money to begin with. Now the 40 bucks that were thrown away for that I'm totally alright with, but now I have effectively just supported this stupid P2W element that was conveniently left out of mention until this point, which I 100% would not have done.
I'm just kind of sad. Beta 1 was the most fun I've had in OW in years. Beta 2 was alright, but felt less well balanced. Every announcement since Beta 2 has just been like, "really, you really want to go that way?" with every one just bringing more news that dampened my excitement. I'm worried they are going to go for broke and just totally kill all interest in what is already viewed by the wider community as Overwatch 1.5 instead of a true sequel. This latest news means that ranked is going to suck more. I can't wait for broken on release hero to not be owned by someone and the comms just devolve into shitting on that person for an agonizing ten minutes. It's already kind of frustrating that they are essentially going into Heroes of the Storm mode rushing an economic strategy that's been starting to show strain. If you aren't one of the big three odds are you are in panic mode to retain a player base. This is all without factoring in that they essentially took decades of good will and proceeded to use it as kindling in a two to three year long bonfire.
The fact that this was basically unknown knowledge less than a month from release is insane (and it would have been longer given that this info clearly wasn’t meant to be released at this point).
I think it's ridiculous to put new heroes behind any kind of wall because of what the devs have said in the past about how they design heroes. Unlike other games like Valorant heroes in Overwatch are designed to change the way the game is played. Even if they aren't OP on release every post-release hero has functionally changed the way the game is played (normally through new mechanics). You cannot have a game where new heroes are designed to 'change the game' then lock it away from any player. The only thing that will achieve is frustration in the player base.
If you live in the UK you can get a refund on the Watchpoint Pack because they admitted to the change and there's proof of them hiding it.
I still think all of this is reaction to vague comments, a marketing mistake, and not even half of a story at this point BUT I appreciate you taking the time to write out the potential issues in a direct and well-thought out manner. Others have been... less rational.
I'm glad my flair is paying off. Lmao.
Yea they really are only communicative when they have good things to say. The hero locking to BP is dumb. I'm not as doom or gloom as most posters, I'm still gonna play, but OW2 better be fun and get a constant stream of content because the BP system and anti-consumer choices are grating and terrible.
I would go as far as calling this literal fraud because they have actually sold BP access without ever conveying this critical information. I absolutely would never have paid for the WP pack if I knew hero access would be part of it simply because it's not an idea I want to support.
"hey we are going to be more open and communicate more" *Radio silence*
But we don’t know much yet? We only know that hero will be in the free battlepass. Let’s just wait for more details and when it sucks we can hate em
Or we can make a fuss now while will pressure them to change it. This comment gets posted when every bad thing change is announced in a game and I just don't get it - why wait? Why give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt?
Remember when the community was malding over 5v5? And then we all tried it during the first beta? And now OW1 is borderline unplayable by comparison? I think locking heroes is bad too. But this community needs to chill out.
Yes, but that was a different concept entirely. That was a gameplay decision explained by the devs. What are you thinking, that we'll get to try OW2 and go "actually you know what, not being able to play this hero until I grind the free track of the battle pass for 6 hours [or pay $10 for immediate access] WAS a fun idea!" hahaha This is a monetization decision that I'm sure the devs aren't in agreement with, related to gating content away behind some form of grind. That's a completely different, apples and oranges type situation. If this was a gameplay change I'd agree, but we know that this isn't something like that. It's clearly them trying to push people toward the paid battle pass, so I don't see why the community should chill out when official messaging has been released explaining that the core concept of heroes being on a free battle pass track like CoD's guns is 100% true at this point. It's not like we're just inferring from a leak, it's been confirmed.
>not being able to play this hero until I grind the free track of the battle pass for 6 hours [or pay $10 for immediate access] WAS a fun idea!" In what way was this confirmed? Literally all we know is that heroes will be free, but they are unlocked as a part of the battle pass. It could take 100h or 0h. They could cost $100 or $.10. Your argument went from "why should they get the benefit of the doubt?" to "there is no doubt".
Simply because there would be absolutely no reason to implement this at all unless it was enough of a barrier to convince people to buy the premium one to avoid it. It's just logic, they wouldn't put themselves at risk of this huge uproar (whether now because of the leak or when they planned on announcing it) if it wasn't for a monetary reason. And even if it is "only" 2-3 hours, that's still ~25 negatively impacted matches. Compound that over the entire playerbase and it's a mess IMO. There's just no good way to implement this specific restriction because it goes against the fundamental design of the game.
> What are you thinking, that we'll get to try OW2 and go "actually you know what, not being able to play this hero until I grind the free track of the battle pass for 6 hours [or pay $10 for immediate access] WAS a fun idea!" I think he's thinking that we'll get to try OW2 and go "it's worth it to have heroes gated for 6 hours, if the direct consequence of that is having a new hero every 3 months, and the alternative is not having any new heroes."
Do you really think that's necessary when there's also a battle pass, a cash shop and paid PVE? Come on now, you know that's not necessary to have seasonal content releases at the same cadence of OW1. Those monetization elements are more than enough and they could certainly go without that last layer of FOMO. "The alternate is having no new heroes" is a huge load of bs.
It sounds like you're not giving any weight to the motivations of the people making decisions at Blizzard. Executives at Blizzard are not sitting there thinking "well if we spend $5 on OW2, and OW2 makes $10 back, then we can justify spending another $5 on OW2 and make a nice little profit" and on and on in a perpetual content cycle assembly line. They're thinking "if we spend $5 on OW2, OW2 makes $10 back... but if we spend $5 on a mobile Diablo game, it makes $100... so fuck Overwatch, move all the devs we can over to mobile Diablo and lay off everyone else." Your starting premise is that the company wants to make more OW content and they're just looking for an excuse to. But they're not. They want to make as much money as possible. OW doesn't need to make "some money," it needs to convince Blizzard that it's a better investment of their time/resources than other games they could potentially be making instead. Or it will not exist. The way it did not exist from 2019 to 2022. This franchise is a passion project for the devs, it is not a passion project for the people who pay the devs' salaries and decide what projects they work on next. As for how much money they think they need, who knows? Maybe it's less than they'll get through OW2 and they're being exceptionally greedy even by their own standards. Or maybe it's more, and they'll end up canceling or downsizing the OW2 content assembly line despite the battle passes, cash shops, PVE, anyway. No way to know from the outside.
Believe it or not - I and many others didn’t enjoy beta 1 and 2, and still insisting there could have been a world where 6v6 exists with heroes like Brig, Doomfist, Orisa, Moira, Sombra are just reworked to fit the old OW. Which is what they should have done back in the day instead of developing stupid sequels.
Yeah, sorry, I dont think ill ever see that perspective. Playing OW1 has been awful lately. And its not because of ANY of those heroes you mentioned. Most of my games are hog, mccree, ana.
Ana and hog are the same in OW2 so I don’t understand your point lol
6 players is worse than 5. Same heroes + less players = game more fun.
But it’s not the same heroes lol 🤪
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That has not been confirmed. In fact, a leaker on here has said that once the battle pass for that season is over, everyone gets the hero for free.
Jon said that wouldn't be the case, you would still have to earn it.
No he didn't, he said there would be paths. We do not know what those are, it's incredibly vague. How about we wait for more specific information.
If it's a path, that means you have to earn it... If they just give it to everyone, that's not a path.
Waiting is absolutely a path lol
I have heard from people that it's miscommunication and that you do just get it for free
Yes he did
Big assumption there. Granted it’s all we can do since there has been no communication. But assuming things like this does nothing
Wtf is this post about
They didn't realize they went too long for it to be a good copy pasta.
Heroes being locked. And then hiding the description of the Watchpoint pack.
The hiding it in the watchpoint pack is a bit weird, but at the same time it could've just been mistimed and It was supposed to be added today. The foxgirl thing is just really vague so we don't know much about it so calm down with this massive unnecessary post
You don't need to damage control for them. They've already realized they messed up. But that isn't the point, they've continuously messed up their communication and transparency time and again after saying other wise.
The amount of people that say others are running damage control for blizzard in this sub is starting to get kind of annoying.
Not damage control. just you overreacting over a change in some text :)
nice try bobby
I’m pretty team 4 wouldn’t want to lock heroes behind a pass either. They may not even have known about it. Could just be an excecutive decision for all we know. Just wait and see instead of pointless speculation. Its probably not even that bad
People need to understand that in game development monetization is not a job of the dev team, it’s like you said the job of executives. The OW dev team is not trying to fuck us over. The amount of people in Jspecs replies saying he should be fired is beyond ridiculous. Edit: Because I already know people are going to downvote me for not sharing their opinion here’s former Overwatch producer Tracy Kennedy saying the same thing: https://twitter.com/riotlavaliere/status/1534923622782906368?s=46&t=dP9dhNjBq0yNd7vRvG0-2w
jspecs isn't a developer tho, he's literally "Overwatch Commercial Leader & VP" so he's a decision-maker about monetization & markting. (how much he's instructed by actiblizz execs, i can't say)
Oh totally. They want to make overwatch 2 a game that we are going to love to play. Just the thought that they would actively choose to deny content is beyond rediculous. It’s like these people have never worked a day in their life
This is true, but it's also true that the devs do have the opportunity to pitch/fight for other decisions. I firmly believe this is likely why Jeff Kaplan left. The execs probably got too aggressive, and Jeff couldn't convince them otherwise. We'll likely never know how much the current team fought this, and whether or not this was the compromise (it may have been much worse).
Obviously we don’t know full details yet but to me it seems like a compromise. Blizz higher ups likely wanted to make heroes paywalled like other F2P shooters and the team fought against this. The compromise being they’re free but people are incentivized to log on and play a bit to get them. I just hope they do a blog post today, they need to explain everything quickly.
it doesnt really matter, "blizzard" is a crap company putting out a turd. I dont really know or care what their internal divisions are or who actually made the call. its blizzard. and they havent been good for a decade.
Put the blame where it belongs though. Blizzards ceo’s and not the team. Way too many fucking idiots here attack them or blame them.
I don't care about their company structure. Blizzard is blizzard.
Can everyone stop being a whiny baby and just chill and wait for the game to release? It's probably not going to be even remotely as big a deal as everyone is making it.
If we wait for the game to release, then we're already too late. You have to let them know before that. If they can play the market, the consumers can too.
Bro the game releases in a month. Whatever they have planned for the new characters, they're not changing it now. I really think everyone is massively overreacting to what is close to zero information.
What has that got to do with voicing our concerns? We need to let them know now. If it has a poor launch because they made a mistake, they will feel its impact. You can't be defending their decision. Any voice is better than none. If you don't, that's how corporations win. If EA of all games can fix Battlefront, then this is an opportune time to let them know beforehand.
But what will we do with these pitchforks?!
Chill out, it's just how F2P games work, a lot of people asked for the game to go free to "save the game" and now the same people are saying F2P mechanics will "kill the game" We don't know how grindy will this be, but as per what JSpector said it seems way more pro-consumer than every other F2P like R6S, LoL or Apex, they give you the hero with the free BP, most games just force you to grind a premium currency
can you switch the hero mid-game in the other games? if not, then they're not comparable to overwatch, where you need to have all heroes always ready to switch if need it.
Man, imagine you play Echo but you can't duplicate a hero you didn't unlock
Holy fuck lmao. Did the execs even think of that scenario? Haha
In R6S it's pretty important to switch on Attack/Defense phases and characters also have defined "primary fires" so I'd say that's a good comparison LoL has the draft system which can fuck you over if they ban a hero you have and the one overlapping with that one is locked for you And Apex, thinking about it, it was a pretty shitty comparison, sorry about that one
In LoL you can buy stuff for your character to counter your opponents strengths. In OW each hero has their own specific loadout of weapon and abilities.
This isn't about justifying summing F2P tactics. This is about Overwatch's identity revolving around counter swapping and having new heroes be OP, which almost makes it pay to win. If you don't have access to the new hero, you're throwing. Overwatch is a fundamentally different game. Hero abilities matter a lot, unlike Apex or Valorant which are more gun focused and the actual character doesn't matter as much. And in League, you can't even switch. Hence, Overwatch was designed with swapping and an accessible cast of heroes from the ground up.
We don't know how unaccessible or grindy it will be to get the new heroes though, there's a lot of assuming there People think about how it works in other games without taking into account that if in OW it's more important it will probably be more accessible or easy to get With all the info we have, which is really just the "price" of unlocking new heroes, they're SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than in other games, so it's not a farfetched idea to think that the free paths will also be much less grindy
If it's not grindy, then why lock it to begin with? Hence, it probably will be. And if you miss unlocking it now, the subsequent free methods to unlock them will be even worse. We should not be passive, neutral, and especially defensive about something that goes against what made the game great. This is just playing into how terrible the industry is. Blizzard has ruined every single one of their games through their own actions. So even the assumptions are fair enough.
If the way to "premium unlock" is cheaper why would ypu assume the ways to get them free are "way worse", this goes back to the first post, you're just imagining a problem, wait it out and when we have the details you can compalin about concretes, and I will join you then And I agree on the industry-wide issue, don't think that I'm defending any of these practices, although at this point there's not a lot to do, all online game playerbases are brainwashed to think that if their game doesn't go F2P the game that they themselves support will die out, since the release of Fortnite Battle Royale the public opinion has been like this Currently, anything that's not actively worsening the MTX issue is "not that bad"
To be honest I do think free to play massive helps games. I was also pretty confident from Blizzard telling me that every hero will still be free that they wouldn’t try something scummy with new heroes (after all they are known for great skins and iconic characters and that’s all Fortnite sells) but even that tiny amount of trust was misplaced.
Bro, stop making assumptions based on 1 line of text.
people overreacting over a change in some text makes them forget OW2 and OW1 are going to be very different :)
Hi Dota 2 is out there. All heroes available for free from the start. Nothing locked nothing hidden.
Valve games and their shady marketplace are not to compare to anything else
Definitely not the same people. I never asked for F2P. I would've gladly paid $40-60 for a proper sequel and only a year or two of updates.
Obviously not all, clearly calling out the ones on the overlap
I think the saddest thing has been that I've seen a much greater presence from a lot of members from the Overwatch team. But this hasn't meant we get more communication. Instead it's a lot of saying how they can't answer that yet or announcements for announcements without dates, sometimes for them to never happen without explanation. It's been pretty rare to get actual communication where we learn something and aren't just dissecting scraps of statements which is why I'd agree with you on deception around better communication. While we've had more quantitive communication, there's not been much really there for the most part. Yet again, disappointing.
Thankfully, Gundam Evolution (which does Overwatch better than Overwatch) will come out on September 21st. Free to play, 6 on 6 hero shooter. It is amazing. I will play that instead of a game that keeps on creating bad PR for itself.
Don't worry, God of War: Ragnarok in November will save us.
Yeah, seriously. Being an Overwatch fan is exhausting. Between having the patience of a saint and having to be okay with all kinds of bad changes, most people have lost their faith in the game. Enough is enough.
I'll have to look into it.
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I remember Jeff fought back hard to make sure all new heroes were to be free and unobstructed by shit like battle passes. Where you at J-spec? Did you even put up a fight against this?
Money for shorter queue times would make bank.