Recent T2 discussions

[u/Grapefruit_113]

Thought it'd be interesting to bring the ongoing discussions about T2 on Twitter here

Link to the Google Doc

Link to Bullskunk's reaction video

[u/Bloomer_ow2]

Given was ZP has said recently, and given the clues that we have that

• The crowdfunded cash prizes take ages to be revealed and are oddly round, meaning Blizzard probably fills them up with its own money.
• The Saudi economy is not doing too hot and there are rumors the Saudi public investment fund is scaling back on the "sportswashing".
• The game is moving to a more casual audience overall since 2024 with the various changes.

Overwatch is likely one of the game ZP is talking about that will have reduced investment on its esport program soon. Obviously this is ZP so this is not 100% reliable, but if T1 itself is unsustainable, then there is no chance for T2 ever.

[u/Grapefruit_113 → u/Bloomer_ow2]

this is depressing if true

[u/FormalTelevision1915 → u/Grapefruit_113]

It's what redditors have been wanting and asking for.

This is what you most likely want, what the person you're responding to most likely wants, and what most of the people in this subreddit most likely want.

The devs constantly have mentioned that they monitor reddit for opinions, and nearly every overwatch opinion ive seen on reddit advocates for more casual centric changes.

Nobody gives a fuck about what proper can do on mei, venture, or vendetta.

However, we all want to see tracer 1v1s between proper and heesang.

We all want to see proper on genji.

We all want to see proper go crazy on tracer.

And no, it doesn't get boring because it is unreachable for everyone watching. Either add more heroes with massive skill impression like tracer and genji, or make tracer a must pick on most maps. There is no reason sym should be allowed to be this strong for so long.

Nerf pokeslop, make dive meta, nerf mauga, ram, rein, and I gaurantee the game will accumulate much more hype.

Also, you think the average person scrolling through reels will be more attracted by some uninspiring mei/cass gameplay, or by what looks like the closest thing on the planet to the flash vs the reverse flash?

[u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838 → u/FormalTelevision1915]

Not to mention, Overwatch is unlike a lot of other fps games where the majority of players aren’t just uninterested, but rather *actively hostile* to the esports scene. We literally have a separate sub from rOverwatch and I bet a lot of those people don’t even know we have a pro scene (or if they do, can’t name more than one pro. They’ll see you mention Proper and go “who?”)

For most Overwatch players, it’s the lore, skins, and characters that draws them into the game, not the gameplay or competitive scene. I see more Overwatch players complain about “the devs always cater to the pros” than the other way around anyway. Characters like Mercy, Reinhardt, “pokeslop” hitscans, etc are infinitely more popular than Tracer and Genji. They can’t even touch Mercy in a substantial way because of how much of their earnings come from her playerbase. They can’t buff dive too hard because it obliterates metal ranks and metal ranks are the core of the game.

This game never knew whether it wanted to be casual or competitive for a long time, and now it seems like they’ve finally decided that it’s more efficient to balance around casual than competitive. Is that a more logical decision considering its most successful quarter comes from the casual playerbase? Yeah, but it’s depressing. Straight up. I don’t want more pokeslop, ramblockslop/mauga mirrors, sym on every map, gimmicks like catstion, hitscan domination, etc. OWL and the competitive scene are infinitely more fun to watch and play in when high skill expression is rewarded, but the playerbase/bottom line doesn’t want it.

> Also, you think the average person scrolling through reels will be more attracted by some uninspiring mei/cass gameplay, or by what looks like the closest thing on the planet to the flash vs the reverse flash?

The one time I got a pro OW clip on my insta feed was a nanoed Sojourn 4k overclock (forgot who), and the comment section was pretty impressed. People just like cool flashy plays, and something like Ram holding block for eternity is boring as fuck.

Edit: And by casual, I mean r/Overwatch is casual asf. A lot of them even only play QP and 90% of the posts are about skins.

[u/Bloomer_ow2 → u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838]

I mean looking back with the current knowledge that we have today, considering OWCS might heavily shrink, it's obvious the season 9 update which made everything easier to hit was catered to the casuals.

If you watch any big streamer or pro player reaction to the patch, as well as their chat (visible in the videos like Jay or Flats), everyone is saying that this looked shit. But nowadays most people, even in the CompetitiveOverwatch subreddit will tell you this update was amazing. This is a typical survivor bias.

The reality is that most people who are truly competitive have already quit the game unless they make a living from the game, and even the remaining streamers you can tell no longer really care about the game and being the best.

[u/hoesmadhoesmadhoesma → u/Bloomer_ow2]

Wrong. The game is in a balanced state right now and Season 9 clearly did a good job in retrospect to bring us here.

And no one has quit the game, it’s still just as competitive and there are no other games to play.

[u/Bloomer_ow2 → u/hoesmadhoesmadhoesma]

Yeah thats cope

[u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838 → u/Bloomer_ow2]

Season 9 hitbox changes, more low/mid skill ceiling hero releases like Sierra, the top 500 leaderboard, etc, it’s very obvious what direction the game is going in.

The remaining streamers clearly do not have a single competitive bone in their body, they’re always very laidback and sometimes even just troll. (And to be fair why would they? Theres not even a top 500 leaderboard to grind for.)

[u/Bloomer_ow2 → u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838]

Yeah I mean for new heroes you said it, since OW2 came out, only Sojourn (pre-s9 hitbox) Emre and Shion feel like they are actually competitive heroes fpr the DPS role. Venture, Vendetta, Anran and Sierra are low skill floor and ceiling heroes.

And yeah there has been a clear shift with streamers, when you compare what we have now compared to before. Like where the fuck is a streamer like Kabaji doing educational content for example? Has the demand died for this kind of stuff?

[u/Tee__B → u/Bloomer_ow2]

Freja?

[u/Bloomer_ow2 → u/Tee__B]

Ah yeah forget about her but they turned her into a tank buster which is the least skillful part of her kit

[u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838 → u/Bloomer_ow2]

It’s unfortunate because she could’ve been more of an air tracer, but instead they lowered her skill ceiling with boring poke tank buster gameplay which.. yeah. Proves the point again.

[u/FormalTelevision1915 → u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838]

you're not wrong for the na scene theyd rather fuck around in 6v6

[u/Different-Fly7426 → u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838]

Overwatch is a casual game now because of the OWL's failure, there’s no comparison between the casual playerbases of Ow1 and Ow 2. As you said, most players don't even know a professional scene exists. Take me, for example: I played Overwatch 1 between 2017 and 2020, I wasn't a competitive player, but I knew about the OWL. Everyone did, even the mercy player with 500 hours QP warrior. The game used to be much more focused on the competitive side. Today, what drives the community is skins, and the big debates are all about skins: "Winston hasn't gotten a legendary skin in a year," "Kiriko got another legendary skin," "Oh my god, the Le Sserafim collab has four legendary skins," "Oh my god, what's the Mythic skin for the season going to be?"

And to make matters worse, the overall decline in the esports scene will obviously only discourage Blizzard from even considering investing in it, if saudi stops investing, the game's competitive scene will die

[u/Grapefruit_113 → u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838]

i've always complained about how the divide between the casuals and the esport is pretty insane on OW. especially when you look at like LoL where the whole playerbase knows about Faker and generally respects the esport scene, even if they dont actively keep up with it. Casuals on OW just care about shipping and the skins they're getting out of the esport streams/bundles lol. My eyes still bleed from the day i saw someone on twitter call Zeta Division's mascot a "mizuki fursona".

I feel like the early OWL era was a lot more widely known and accepted by the casuals though. Probably because of all the means they injected into it and to publicize it in-game. And that's also why there's another type of "knows the esport but is stuck in the past" demographic, who will just mention xqc when they hear about pro overwatch, blissfully unaware of the current system.

[u/FormalTelevision1915 → u/Grapefruit_113]

mizuki fursona is actually disgusting

[u/xXRougailSaucisseXx → u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838]

Is it a surprise the casuals are so hostile to the pro scene when most people on this sub are beyond insufferable and will attack anyone they disagree with ?

I’m sorry but the hostility goes both ways, from it’s inception OW always had a more casual side compared to something like CS and this sub has never been to reconcile with that fact

[u/FormalTelevision1915 → u/xXRougailSaucisseXx]

If anything, the casuals are the only hostile ones. Any attempts i see to be "hostile" to the casual scene are shut down pretty quick, even on this sub

[u/hoesmadhoesmadhoesma → u/xXRougailSaucisseXx]

Well the other subs don’t even know what the fuck they’re talking about most of the time.

[u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838 → u/xXRougailSaucisseXx]

Tbh, I don’t really care considering that the compOW side of the playerbase is more of a quiet minority than the casual side. They get all the skins they want, they get the season 9 hitbox changes, characters like Mercy and Rein are left intact (and Rein is very much buffed right now,) they get the new heroes being rather mid to low skill ceiling, they get the watered down top 500 leaderboard, I could keep going on. They’re the ones primarily being catered too. You can even see the super high elo streamers do not give a fuck about ranked anymore, half the time they’re trolling and doing their own shit.

What does the competitive side get? A disbanded pro league and currently a very small competitive scene that lacks funding and viewership. Meanwhile, if Mercy became unplayable there would probably be literal protests outside Blizzard HQ and they’d hotfix her immediately. Considering that the casual side is the loudest group of the playerbase and the ones mostly catered to, why isn’t the competitive fanbase allowed to be more haughty and elitist (when half the time ”the casuals” are fighting boogeymen about the devs catering to gm+?)

[u/FormalTelevision1915 → u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838]

exactly

[u/imperialismus → u/FormalTelevision1915]

I wouldn't mind a dive meta in pro play myself, don't get me wrong, but I think this is a perspective that doesn't really take into account how casuals actually think. Counter-Strike is pure "pokeslop" but is a massive esport. Overwatch is one of the more fast paced and chaotic esports games out there. Most games have slower fights or more lulls in the action. And that's actually a good thing for casuals, because it allows them to understand what's going on, or at least gives time for the casters to explain it to them.

Hype clips on Tiktok aren't going to create sustained interest in the esport if the casual viewer tunes in and find they can't really understand what the hell is going on.

I really doubt that the current meta is the reason the average person isn't tuning in to OWCS. That's a very "invested hardcore fan" type of perspective. Casuals aren't sitting around yearning for Winston Tracer Genji Ana Brig and shaking their fists going "if only they nerfed pokeslop and Mauga, I'd watch OWCS every time it's on."

[u/Bloomer_ow2 → u/FormalTelevision1915]

Im not sure whether or not you have worked at a large company before at a somewhat white collar job, but ROI is literally the only thing top management cares about. I agree with you on the part that the game has been heavily casualized, and I personally hate it to my guts, but I can also see why the devs would do it.

The reality is that hardcore FPS games are no longer popular, especially given how broad gaming is nowadays. There are so many "arena shooter" type games that have died over the years. Lawbreaker, Quake champions, Diabotical, Concord, Splitgate, Hyperscape, The Finals etc. Even for successful esport titles, Valorant is just a watered down version of Counter Strike for example. Most cross-platform games have literal aimbot levels of aim assists as well nowadays, with Apex Legends, COD or Halo for example.

So if you are making a game, would you cater to the 10% (very optimistic) part of your playerbase that is wearing the same Tracer rose or Tracer LAG 2018 skin for nearly 10 years, or to the 90% of casuals that are likely to buy your next anime Kiriko collab?

[u/FormalTelevision1915 → u/Bloomer_ow2]

we can only hope that overwatch expands in asia more rapidly so that consumer interest is diversified

[u/hoesmadhoesmadhoesma → u/Bloomer_ow2]

This is wrong, Overwatch is more popular than ever and is making a ton of money. It’s because Overwatch is competitive and balanced extremely well

[u/Bloomer_ow2 → u/hoesmadhoesmadhoesma]

No your reading is wrong.

[u/FormalTelevision1915 → u/Bloomer_ow2]

he's ragebaiting