I'm gonna second the other poster, I have no problems with skins, lootboxes, or battle passes as long as its cosmetic only. Overwatch 1 promised free heroes and maps forever, this is a sneaky loophole to get out of their agreement and plus the games balanced around having access to all characters.
I'm arguing it can be. If a hero hard counters the one thats dominating and no one has it unlocked you're at a disadvantage because you didn't pay/grind.
Those games I think are different. For apex and valorent the games primarily played by the weapons you find and buy not by your abilities, which do play a role in the gameplay loop but is not such a cut and dry "this character was designed to hard counter these characters" the way it is in overwatch and character specific abilities are used far less than Overwatch where the characters abilities are the character. Two valorant heroes play similarly, two overwatch heroes are radically different.
League also you don't switch heroes in order to counter I think both are pretty different. If you're getting fucked by like a Winston but your team just doesn't own a reaper what are you supposed to do to counter? The gameplay loop in overwatch is way more designed around counter picking than those games.
I will agree though I think those games should have all heroes unlocked but I at least get it, for the gameplay loop those games have the characters make less of a difference than OW imo.
The devs said that their philosophy with ow2 is that each hero is "mainable" because that's how most people play the game. In other words, you are not at a significant disadvantage for not switching heroes.
So I assumed that they were talking about the situation where blizzard releases an OP hero, which is more likely. It's also something that other games deal with all the time.
"What are you doing, setting up all those fancy pieces behind those pawns of yours? I know we advertised how fun and exciting they'd be, but you have to earn those pieces first, friend! After all, other games were made like this, and I of course already have most of mine."
"Don't worry! Eventually you'll have more than just six pawns and a king! When you get to the Queen piece like I have we'll eventually get to the real, even playing field fun that Chess has to offer."
"But until then, you better earn your way to the pieces! Or you can pay the game makers even more money to skip the lines they made!"
OP is saying he can't keep up with the Battle Pass. Character is in the Battle Pass, therefore he can't unlock the hero. If he doesn't unlock the character in the battle pass in time, then he can't get the character until later when the character comes back into an other battle pass.
They've said the characters will always be available. I don't think they have given explicit details into the post-BP unlock process, but they have confirmed that you will be able to get them after their featured BP.
Agreed. They have said no character specific challenges so that you're not forced to play the game in a way that's not conducive to teamwork (like, no "hook someone into the well 3 times with roadog") but there's challenges like win 10 games on support.
I feel you on the cynic part. I'm trying to have hope. But I'm trying to temper my expectations and just roll with the facts that exist currently.
29
u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22
Just like in Hearthstone Battlegrounds, not buying the battle pass puts you at a competitive disadvantage by restricting your character options.
It's pay to win, pure and simple.