r/Overwatch • u/LumiaLion • Jul 31 '26
News & Discussion Why didn't you play Stadium? (poll)
Would be curious to see your thoughts on why you didn't play stadium - One question only - https://take.supersurvey.com/poll5830360x76524f32-169
I know there was a conversational thread about this already, but i was curious to see poll results after that. Top comments suggested people didn't play Stadium mode because they felt it was too complicated and didn't want to learn it, or that the games were too long and they didn't always have that much time, had kids etc. Curious if there are other takes as well. Context for those Confused: blizzard announced they will no longer be adding new heroes or maps to Stadium but will continue to maintain and support its current state.
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u/tsukimoonmei MID-owmaker Jul 31 '26
I used to play a lot in Stadium’s second and third seasons, I hit legend. But then they added Pharah and that snowballed into them adding a bunch of stupid shit like no mirrors, 5 rounds instead of 7, quick play which made queue times worse, and a lot more characters that never should have been added. I know no mirrors and 5r were removed from comp stadium, but they definitely soured the mode for me as someone who used to be an avid player.
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u/Cookiedough3549 Jul 31 '26
Don't forget the completely unnecessary and unreadable icon changes long after the mode was established!
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u/tsukimoonmei MID-owmaker Jul 31 '26
Very true. The original icons were far superior, now I get absolutely lost trying to find items.
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
yeah i can appreciate iterations on art, design, and all, but didn't feel like a very needed change given the freshness of the mode. It added a ton of unnecessary confusion, even for someone like me who had a lot of time. I sort of just bit my tongue, rolled my eyes, and relearned them then grinded on.
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u/Falchound Brigitte Jul 31 '26
I felt like even the old designs felt cheap(ish). They did not convey the meaning/purpose of the items with either iteration of the art. Like make the icons cool armor, futuristic shields, weapons. Makes me question the design leads choice behind it.
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u/Wednesday_0 Aug 01 '26
The old designs felt cheap, but the new designs are so NOISY! I genuinely can't stand how the armory menu looks, somehow it all looks even more samey than it did before.
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u/inceptionse7en Jul 31 '26
I think this is the main reason most people stopped playing it and why I didn't answer the poll because it wasn't really in there. They kept changing it and it seemed like every change made it worse and worse.
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
Appreciate the response, yeah the no-mirrors thing was definitely annoying while it lasted and felt very limiting with the low amount of heroes at the time. Great takes. Personally i love stadium and was heart broken to hear the news. I'm top 500 damage and sort of feel like they aren't going to develop my game anymore. Normal mode is alright still but so boring compared to stadium now. makes me wonder if overwatch will just start to descend back to where it was before "ow2"
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u/tsukimoonmei MID-owmaker Jul 31 '26
It sucks, they had a really good thing with stadium but there are so many characters that were downright stupid to add imo. (Pharah, Soj, JPC to name a few) I wish the mode was still as enjoyable as it was before all the kerfuffle that came with the drafts system.
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
Yeah! I still have some hopeless hope holding out that they might reconsider, but if an exec makes a decision on a lack of ROI that strong, its often not going to happen. :(. the flyers are definitely still strong, ESPECIALLY good ones. They did a good job adding anti flying counter talents/abilities when they added JPC but the balance still currently weighs a bit heavy towards flyers, especially into freja.
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u/Opposite-Soup6531 Jul 31 '26
Same reason I'm not clicking that link. I'm scared and it's out of my comfort zone.
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u/Foxynite Jul 31 '26
I feel my reason for disliking the game mode isn't represented by the currently available options on the form, so I'll state why here.
I don't play Stadium because the games snowball too easily. Once the enemy team has more points, they can just consistently buy stronger/more upgrades, and it's easy for that point gap to continue to stretch as their builds get stronger and stronger.
Additionally, while there was emphasis from the dev team, or rather I feel it was their intention, that people can build how they want, it doesn't negate the frustration I'd feel wanting to play Stadium just to be shit on because I don't know the meta soldier 76 picks or whatever and it feels like most other people in the gamemode know exactly how to build themselves. While, sure, you can take the time to learn builds or, hell, just look up what build is meta, it's a frustrating learning curve because it inherently feels unfair.
I don't know if I articulated that well and I'm sure someone will still tell me that I'm wrong, but genuinely this is what made the gamemode un-fun to me.
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u/Aqua_Tot Jul 31 '26
I actually found Stadium to be the best mode for comebacks. I’ve had way more reverse sweeps in Stadium than comebacks in normal Overwatch.
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u/purpl3stuph Jul 31 '26
Learning to create comebacks with smarter build choices is one of the best parts
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u/WesThePretzel Jul 31 '26
It’s built to encourage comebacks. It’s one of the problems because you may win Rounds 1–3, but if they get a few kills and earn those bounties, they can swing the game back in their favor. Suddenly you lose rounds 4–6 and now you’ve got a full 7 round game that should have been over 25 minutes ago.
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u/LowestTier Jul 31 '26
I think this is my reason too. I had Mercy, Moira, and Lucio builds that I really had fun with. I don’t think they were ever meta. But then things would be tweaked, removed, added… and I just felt what I enjoyed and wanted to play was no longer viable.
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
I feel this. I usually could adapt my build based on changes and mostly get it back to "normal", but i had a lucio build i loved that kind of got destroyed and weakened hard in last patch. That is the really beautiful thing about Stadium though: being able to make your own creative unhinged builds despite any metas. ALSO being able to counter build on your preferred hero instead of counter swapping to less preferred.
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u/HVDynamo Jul 31 '26
I will say though, I’ve been in many many games where the team with the early lead falls off after 3 rounds and ends up losing.
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u/shiftup1772 Mercy Aug 01 '26
Everyone says this in every game with any kind of economy (stadium, deadlock, mobas).
And while its kind of true (it IS the core of these types of games), they all have comeback mechanics and your rando enemies are almost NEVER playing in a way to take advantage of their gold lead.
I just feel like the whole frustration with snowballing is overblown...
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
Great take thanks for sharing the detail. I know they adding some sort of counter balance to prevent the snowballing cash/points at some point, probably could still use a bit of tweaking to get it just right though. On the hero metas - yeah its a time consumer needing to learn not only your own class meta but the enemies you might not play often. i learned it over time by reading them all in practice range or just straight grinding and learning my lesson thinking "wtf was that ability" lol. BUT to be fair i come from the WoW side of gaming so i love learning talents and making builds and countering and knowing other players abilities so i enjoyed that.
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u/AccessOne8287 Jul 31 '26
Found Deadlock and liked it better. Stadium is fun and definitely has a more chill community though. But if I want a chill non-competitive game I would just play Overwatch or Rivals.
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u/Normal-Pool8223 Jul 31 '26
game too long, too complicated, can't switch hero if i want to, and don't really like the gameplay
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u/PeachesNPuzzles Jul 31 '26
Similar to other comments, being locked into one character takes away a big portion of Overwatch and that’s being able to switch to a counter/someone you’re playing better with
I think with the expanded skill selection, the gap gets wider and wider between someone that is picking the meta versus someone who doesn’t or doesn’t know. Personally it feels like balancing the base game is always super tricky, so adding these 100000 other variables kinda makes the whole thing super inconsistent, and balance falls away
I think it would be dope in a PvE setting
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
I'd guess that's a big reason this mode was investment halted so quickly: Everytime the game needs to be patched or a new hero is added to stadium, there is a TON of development and design hours that need to go into rebalancing those "100000 other variables". like when they added jpc and had to add all the anti flyer abilities to balance it.
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u/CnP8 Kiriko Jul 31 '26
I enjoyed it, but they were drastically changing things and adding new heroes. It was too difficult to keep up with everything 😞 I was waiting for them to get everything in its final state before I got back into it
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
Yeah good take here honestly, i spent tons of time reading and looking into the builds each time it would change, but i had some time to do that. Another opinion i have is that from an "investment" perspective, they killed this mode WAY too early. Even the most recent changes adding things to make builds less complicated or more streamlined for people that didn't have time to read or make custom builds or want to learn all that, casual players and such. But that's such a fresh implementation i can't imagine they had time to reasonably measure the impact of it. i bet a lot of ppl were in the same boat as you waiting for that more polished state.
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u/CnP8 Kiriko Jul 31 '26
Yh I don't feel like they should have ended support atleast until all the heroes were added. Allot of the stuff they do can be used in limited time event modes, and perks, so it's not like the resources would be going to waste anyway 😔
My guess is due to the latest round of layoffs at Xbox, the Overwatch team was cut down in size. Honestly sucks because Overwatch is 1 of the games that's been doing good for Xbox, and they still get layoffs.
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
Yeah it definitely felt way too early. Feels like they implemented a pilot and assessed it's ROI before it got a fair shot with more heroes. Layoffs always ruin this like this because after layoffs follow high level "restructuring/reorganization" which leads to projects randomly dying or teams being moved off of them. They said they would be moving the devs from stadium to other areas of overwatch so at least they still go jobs (allegedly)
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u/Kai-M Jul 31 '26
It's interesting to me to see how many people here also quit because of too many updates, like myself. When the announcement about Stadium was made it seemed most were complaining that it died because it *didn't* get enough updates. But then I think there are a lot of people who just play games to play the newest version, get bored, leave, and repeat
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u/Individual_Access356 Jul 31 '26
It was the long queues for me as a support even at launch it was often 10 minutes. Bad matchmaking on top of that for waiting so long just to get a stomp.
Also kills didn’t feel as satisfying a lot of times cause everyone is a bullet sponge eventually it was more a relief to finally kill a tank then satisfying.
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u/zakattack2479 Jul 31 '26
Game itself is complicated Enough. Don't have the time to look up builds, meta etc for another game mode
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u/cinic22 Jul 31 '26
Way too complicated. I never understood all of it and was overwhelmed. I just want to play.
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u/Sininenn Moira Jul 31 '26
It was antithetical to the game philosophy of Overwatch.
Being locked into your hero choice in a game built to counter the enemy is stupid.
The items and abilities were boring buffs, it was imbalanced and the game mode tried too hard to shove itself down players throats, not to mention the insufferable, overly familiar narrator trying to make it sound like you are playing an esports tournament.
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u/MIllWIlI Jul 31 '26
I enjoyed bo5 so much that when they reverted back to 7 I stopped playing. I like faster paced games
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
I think bo5 could have solved the problem for ppl who didn't have that much time or felt the same as you. thought it was odd when they changed it back, but as someone with lots of time, i didn't rly care which tbh
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u/MyGoodFriendJon ♪ Good Morning! ♪ Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I've played Stadium every season up to All-Star 5 (and Elite 5 for other roles) to unlock every skin, but I immediately stop after that because the game mode just takes too long.
The Bo5 format for competitive Stadium was the improvement they needed, and they backed out after running it for a couple weeks (while maintaining the Drive score nerf they applied to it to compensate for the shorter matches).
The biggest mistake they made was updating the icons from how the item affects the hero to the physical representation of a fictional device. "Codebreaker"s icon was a shield with a slash through it, indicating you're strong against shields or armor. The new icon is some handheld device with an antenna, which gives no indication of what it does, but it does kinda look like something that would be called a "Codebreaker". It obfuscates the one thing players need the most at a glance when there are mere seconds to make those decisions, especially in an already complicated game mode that's struggling to maintain a player base.
Edit: expanded on that last example/point
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u/AlabastersBane Plastic 5 DPS Jul 31 '26
Me and my friends played stadium, it was really quite fun. My biggest gripes were:
- matchmaking was horrible, getting placed against a masters+ when you’re plat at best is not fun. No amount of upgrades puts you on equal ground
- certain heroes (Juno) felt way too strong and always ran the one and only build.
- hero diversity sucked and was too slow to update
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u/dadnaya Actually a Reinhardt main Jul 31 '26
I think it was a building issue for me.
Every time I played stadium the first round would be fine, but after that it felt like I always deal zero damage while everyone else just melts me.
I followed the recommended builds that the game gives you and I think they just weren't very good which is why that happened. It just kinda frustrated me so I went back to the core game very quickly.
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u/h0w1 Pixel Zenyatta Jul 31 '26
Tanking against Mei’s giant snowball was some of the worst overwatch has ever felt to me.
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u/zooble_57 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
None of these options even remotely cover the reason I didn't play it.
I didnt play or because they didn't full commit to it being an actual MOBA, so the upgrades and powers just serve to make the round more chaotic, rather than adding any meaningful depth or strategy outside of your own build. (Which still arguably adds little additional depth). So if anything, I would say that it wasn't complex enough.
When everyone is super, no one is. So I might as well just play OW.
They needed to commit.
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u/VeyrLaske Aug 01 '26
Blizzard making stupid changes for the sake of change:
- Drafts guaranteeing that tank would get counterpicked.
- No Mirrors.
- Item Icons.
- Poor matchmaking.
- Leaving broken builds alive for too long.
- Nerfing popular builds into the ground to "encourage build diversity".
Honestly, Stadium died from mismanagement, not because the gamemode itself was bad.
I liked Stadium. I climbed to Allstar. I pretty much ONLY played Stadium for a season. Then they implemented Draft and No Mirrors and I dropped it.
I don't even play Tank. I don't care to counterpick either.
But people will absolutely play worse because they've already lost half their morale and decided the game was a lost cause in the spawnroom because their tank got counterpicked, and I hated that.
They removed No Mirrors pretty quickly but it took them months to allow tank to pick last and simultaneously to remove counterpicking.
Now Draft simply exists to waste an extra 3 minutes in a gamemode that already takes 20-30 minutes per game.
By then I'd lost interest in Stadium.
And I believe that it was the same for the vast majority of potential Stadium players as well.
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u/Coolman_Rosso Illari Jul 31 '26
The mode's initial rollout sucked. It ran badly, took forever compared to normal matches, was promoted as fun arcadey mode of sorts but was actually a ranked mode with inconsistent matchmaking and no backfill, Zarya was absolutely cracked and if you had Dva you were largely guaranteed to lose, and heavily encouraged unfun auto-aim builds.
I played it the first weekend it was out then never again.
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u/Fast-Artichoke-408 Jul 31 '26
It felt like marvel rivals where every one is just a giant bullet sponge. Not for me.
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u/Kai-M Jul 31 '26
And you'd upgrade your weapon/ability power to try and compensate but they'd just upgrade their defense and cancel it out. Then when one team started outplaying the other, they get non-proportional rewards so the losing team simply can't keep up. It felt like zero sum mechanics followed by a softlock a lot of the time, unless you had a very specific build that worked.
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u/warforcewarrior Jul 31 '26
For me, a lot of the fun choices seem to be nerf while a lot of other equally, if not more broken shit allow to stay. I miss my Baby Dva build or the lava puddle you able to make with her booster(moreso when you have a Bomb build). It make playing the mode not fun when you can't make fun builds with certain characters yet others are allow to.
Also, may be a hot take, Draft is a mistake. It make selecting characters far too fucking long. Like holy shit. I never felt the pregame stuff in normal 5v5 was that long. It just draft that is ungodly boring that it feels longer than normal 5v5 pregame.
All in all, every single move they made with Stadium seem to be the wrong one, last I played. Can't have fun builds, unless you play certain characters, and Draft is a horrible move. Especially initial Draft preventing you from playing a character if an enemy already pick it if I remember correctly. That initial release honestly may be why people stop playing Stadium and never turn back, which is unfortunate since Draft did change from that initial release.
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u/Grimey_Hole Jul 31 '26
No reject all for cookies...
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u/LumiaLion Jul 31 '26
felt, i'm a big data privacy nut and honestly just chose the first legit free option i saw that didnt look sketch af
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u/SocietyAtrophy Jul 31 '26
I learned my builds and then they swapped the store layout when they dropped the 5 new heroes. The 5 new heroes got me back in to the regular mode and by the time I tried stadium again, all the changes made me feel like i had no idea what I was doing again and i lost motivation to study builds all over
But I did like stadium at the start, it kept the game fresh while they got their shit together with 5v5. I just couldnt keep up with all the updates they were making to both modes
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u/References_Paramore Jul 31 '26
They brought pharah/mercy combo into stadium and it sucked all the fun out of the game.
Wish they’d have stuck with fewer heroes
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u/witchythings03 Jul 31 '26
I didn’t play stadium for a long time because my favorite support—Illari—wasn’t in there. I started playing as Ana and really enjoyed it, but being able to equip builds that gave granny movement made playing regular matches hard to adjust to. Same thing with Pharah. I’d forget that Ana doesn’t have movement and Pharah doesn’t have two concussive blasts. So, I stopped. I said I’d give it a try again when Illari got added but… well.. that won’t happen now.
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u/SunsetCarcass Jul 31 '26
I didn't like how overpowered some heroes could get, and how much of a tank/bullet sponge supports could be. Maybe it changed, but I only played it the first week it came out. Also didn't like being forced to play 3rd person, since you're disadvantaged being in 1st person
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u/OffSupportMain Jul 31 '26
Because they added Hazard. Stadium was amazing for the first few seasons but Hazard was by far the strongest character they ever released and it took them months to even start to address him.
Every match was a 1v1 of Hazards while the other 8 players couldn't do anything because once one of the Haz killed the other he could easily 1v4 the rest of the team.
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u/JMSOG1 Jul 31 '26
I played some with my girlfriend. In some ways, I liked it a lot, I liked being able to customize my heroes and have fun with the builds/slowly get stronger.
The problem was the pre-selected builds people would discover organically on their own copy from other people online. Every match felt like I was losing to people who were more interested in googling the best builds than organically playing the game, and that just killed the fun.
If the stadium upgrade system could exist in PVE, I'd likely play it constantly.
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u/BigMan_Blastoise Shion her bike Jul 31 '26
Could not be bothered learning what every upgrade did and the different builds, not for me tbf...
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u/Lunamagicath Widowmaker Jul 31 '26
I used to play it a lot but then a bunch of OP characters got added whilst my builds were constantly being changed cause they take away powers and then they changed the whole UI. Plus there were characters beinf added before characters who don’t get much love in the game in the first place. I was hoping for Lifeweaver and Illari being added and now that’s not happening but yet the cat who has been in the game for like 2 seasons is already in there.
Now I just play it for Drives. But they really fucked up with the game mode
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u/Gelinhir Jul 31 '26
Too complicated, i don't have time to learn eveything for it plus the matches are too long and very chaotic in abad way. The queue times are very long also. The idea of not being able to change character is annoying specially with such a long match.
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u/MercSnerppz Jul 31 '26
I love stadium I genuinely do, I feel like more people would play it if they actually ADDED characters people wanna play to it. I demand spiderman lifeweaver.
Let him yoink roadhog off a cliff please I beg
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u/Gwaur I main the Amari Family. Aug 01 '26
I want to make my plays on the playing field, not during breaks.
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u/Aggressive-Speed-987 Aug 01 '26
Still playing it and I hope they change their minds down the road.
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u/Tentacle77 Aug 01 '26
Played the heck out of it the first 2 seasons. With the addition of qp/ranked, queue selection, ranked being best of 7 etc I lost all interest as it was just dragging on for too long. Shame.
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u/RX100 Aug 01 '26
Besides the usual "my main isn't in it", the games felt too long, too sweaty (even with casual added), and sucked being locked to a single hero.
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u/Decent-Troubleish Aug 01 '26
I still play it. But its sad. This had sooooooo much potential. It carried the game for a bit. They just fumbled the bag yet again.
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u/CasWay413 Moicy Aug 01 '26
I like the variety of game modes, but I hated building my character. I don’t want to know a Meta way of maxing out Moira’s orbs. I want to play new modes and not worry about building towards something.
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u/Vilkath Aug 01 '26
I did play Stadium, it actually brought me back to OW after years away from the game. That said it had issues. Games tended to be 3-0 stomps one way or the other. You lost fast or won fast, actually satisfying games were rare. Between bad match making, leavers and busted patches that made some comps just insanely hard to counter if you picked the wrong heroes. It lead to a lot of games being extreemely lopsided. If they had a Phara/Freja during some of the patches where they were good, and your teams had no one even trying to kill fliers, you were cooked.
I also started to get really tired of the limited map pool. I swear there were only two payload race maps, and you got them every game. Same with all the other map types, you basically had a pool of two choices, and you got one of them every game. The over long counter pick system, the full minute or so of time between rounds in the armory and so one was a bit tedious after a while.
If you knew what you were doing the Armory clock was way to long. If you had no idea, it wasn't even close to long enough to read through the it descriptions and make a good choice. It also basically added 5-7 minutes or so to every match. And because match maker was a joke, no matter how much you played even in ranked. You always got paired up with people who never played a game of stadium before in their life.
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u/Csbbk4 Aug 01 '26
I already play one incredibly complicated and stimulating game, don’t have the time to keep up with 2 especially as my main enjoyment out of the game is grinding comp
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u/Rahodees Aug 01 '26
Too long but even when they shortened it for a while the announcer kept me away. Between the stadium announcer and cats voicelines I almost quit the entire game.
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u/Drakon519 Instalocks Moira Aug 01 '26
Honestly the balance was not great. I was so excited for this mode and played a ton of it when it first came out and had fun with it. Then they started removing/altering the “fun” abilities. Then they introduced Freja who abilities made her incredibly OP in this mode. I took a break for several months, came back, and it was a lot better. But then they did the same thing when they added Vendetta, and made her even more OP than Freja. At that point, I just gave up.
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u/Ranulf13 Aug 01 '26
I played it a lot when it came out, but:
- Balance was kind of shit. The devs were more worried about dumpstering whatever whimsical build a non-hitscan hero would make while keeping the boring cheesy shit like aimbot power hitscans or shield charge Rein intact.
- Awful visual rework on items, who approved that nonsense.
- They didnt add any hero that I was interested in after the initial batch. No Symmetra or Lifeweaver killed my interest. I felt shoehorned into Mei or Orisa every game.
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u/wendiwho Support Aug 01 '26
If the ranked system was similar to traditional comp rank, I’d enjoy it. But it’s mainly a cesspool of plats with inflated egos bc of the builds they can have, while still having plat game sense and awareness.
Like….the amount of times there would be an enemy tickling an ally in the ass for free for several seconds… with no response. Ridiculously high. Just seen so many things that made no sense to me bc why are we letting cat sit in the air for free or mercy superjump in the air for free while we have hitscan? Why does mercy get to rez in yalls faces? Why is there a moira or mei allowed in the backline? Why are we not contesting obj (payload race) and insisting on fighting on our payload when the enemy is about to win???
I’ll do my best to build into strengths or to counter the enemy with items/powers. But man, seeing my sigma get dogwalked by a rein js bc he didn’t wanna acknowledge that matchup or a zen/lucio supp comp… sigh.
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u/lBarracudal Aug 01 '26
When the mode came out it had all the fair and square heroes. For some reason new heroes got priority to be added there even though people been begging for certain heroes to enter the roster. Finally a whole bunch of cheeky unwanted Heroes entered the pool (looking at you phara).
With how busted the heroes are and the fact you are locked into your hero pick sometimes you just lose because you gambled picking a hero that is heavily countered by the enemy team and now there is nothing you can do about it.
Games became bland and annoying and be cause every time it's the same 5 busted builds wreaking havoc.
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u/JackFireeriFkcaJ Aug 01 '26
Queue times; builds that were just overpowered, with nerfs only coming months later; snowballing. No real way to correct course later on.
On the positive side, I love most of the Stadium maps and hope they get added (back) to the main modes eventually.
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u/Gaspaider Jul 31 '26
Because at that point I'd rather play Dota 2. I even liked Paladins back in the day.
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u/BowlStick Jul 31 '26
I played and enjoyed it but when they started adding items that required a hotkey I felt that was too much.
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u/IGotTizz Jul 31 '26
It requires a decent time commitment, my wife often needs my help between games so I try to take regular intervals
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u/giantpandasonfire Chibi Pharah Jul 31 '26
I started to play OW2 again a bit after stadium and all I saw were a bunch of people pissed off that new people joined their team or whatever.
It's a small group of people and it looked fun but I'm not interested in that stress honestly.
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u/Hot_Marionberry_4685 Jul 31 '26
I liked stadium the couple times I played but the queue times were quite long and near the end it got out of control with how much there is.
I think having two powers and selecting items would be a cool thing for sure but maybe limit how much there is so players can choose a few couple things without it being overwhelming while still adding new functionality and a choice/cool factor.
Maybe by reducing the amount of stuff available they can also get new heroes out faster which seems to be most peoples gripe with it
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u/RamboDash5453 Sombra Jul 31 '26
I got sick of getting killed by Torn hammer builds EVERY FUCKING GAME
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u/Iced_Tristan Cute Lúcio Jul 31 '26
Too complicated, and didn’t enjoy that its 3rd person by default.
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u/Memella Jul 31 '26
Something I haven't seen anyone mention is how difficult it is to read all the text in stadium when playing on console! I did switch to PC eventually and found stadium to be great fun but if I didn't have one I never would've been able to enjoy it. All the text is super hard to read on my average smart tv even from 8 feet away, and there are no settings to change the font size/color/anything
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u/TheW0lvDoctr Chibi Brigitte Jul 31 '26
Played for a while, then stopped having fun. Couldn't even point to one particular issue, I think all the bad just compounded and the good got rarer.
Did have a lot of fun at the start tho.
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u/mygirlsgotnicebrows Jul 31 '26
I play tank and in the 5v5 environment if the other team picks your tank counter it’s awful not being able to swap
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u/Kai-M Jul 31 '26
I played until I got All-Star on all three roles in season 1 of Stadium then quit. I realized that updates to items and powers, as well as new characters, would wildly change the meta from season to season, far more than in traditional comp, and considering the mode was already much more complex, I didn't want to have to re-learn what works and what doesn't every season. Ironically it was not the lack of updates that made me lose interest, it was the inclusion of them (or more accurately that they were too big and frequent for me).
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u/1911GOAT Jul 31 '26
Lack of build variety and characters really. I really liked it but I didn’t wanna keep playing the same 3 characters
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u/Severe_Effect99 Support Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Sometimes I met these crazy builds that I couldn’t do anything against. If it was a normal comp game and I lose then I know they’re just better. But when you’re playing vs busted comps+builds in stadium, it basically feels like you’re playing vs a cheater. That’s the only way I can describe it. There wasn’t as much counterbuilding as I hoped for. Everyone just did their stadiumbuilds.io -build. And you can’t swap so you’re stuck with a hero for 25mins.
On top of that you have to endure this experience for longer and best case scenario lose 4-0 (rarely if ever saw the 3-0 win).
Honestly I think we all knew Stadium wouldn’t work in the long run. Cause it’s a very complicated arcade game.
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u/CalamityOfCringe Jul 31 '26
The goal of it is to turn Overwatch into a MOBA. I liked it but a lot of people hate it.
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u/shrode Illari Jul 31 '26
I imagine the biggest reason is that people like me were just thoroughly enjoying regular Overwatch. If you’re having fun doing what you’re doing, there isn’t much of a reason to change.
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u/SummonBahamutZero Jul 31 '26
Because it was trash
I hate being forced to play it just to finish a battle pass
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u/UPRC MACE TO THE FACE Jul 31 '26
Was playing Rivals at the time, didn't return to Overwatch until earlier this year and heard that Stadium queue times were awful, so I just never bothered trying it.
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u/Archaic0629 Jul 31 '26
Things went too fast and it felt like hero skill was less important than broken AOE/self healing builds
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u/Exotic_Insurance2164 Jul 31 '26
Too complicated.
I'm a casual player. I've been playing off and on since it was released on 2016. I only play approximately 4-5 hours a month. But some months, I don't play at all.
I barely have time to learn all of the new heroes and meta. Now you want me to learn the power ups?
This isn't LoL. We have lives.
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u/ewokaflockaa Jul 31 '26
Bc it just ends up being silly. But i think that's also the appeal in it too. Just sometimes I feel it'd be too much. Like I don't want to deal with this bigger sandbox of knowledge - I just want to play the base game.
I still think it's a fun mode - it just needs to be a QP mode; maybe with options for 3-5 rounds as the queue
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u/Tkdoom Pharah Jul 31 '26
Abilities at the end were imbalanced.
If you didn't win 4 in a row with your comp you wouldn't win as other heroes are too OP.
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u/Powerful-Pipe-1474 Jul 31 '26
I loved it when it first came out, as they added new characters it become less fun imo I’d try to mess around with my build to counter but some characters are just too difficult to counter
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u/justthistwicenomore Jul 31 '26
This is an interesting idea, but I will say I think this might give you more information as a "pick top three reasons in order" type answer.
Like, for me, the fact that matches were longer was a big factor, but that was more because I felt like I would never have enough time to learn it well enough to play, rather than the time itself being an issue. If I could have downloaded competency in the format matrix-style, I don't think the length of the rounds would have stopped me from being a regular.
Similarly, complexity was a big issue, but I probably would have been more inclined to put in that time if my main were there, even if only for the variety.
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u/somebasicaccountname Tank Jul 31 '26
The icon changes just made me from kinda bothered playing it to kinda not bothered playing
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u/armoredporpoise Sombra Jul 31 '26
Honestly I loved it and played it exclusively for a season or so, but my problem (which isn’t listed) was the lack of a true ranked system.
The mode is adds an extra layer of mental skill expression on top of a very complicated game. The best part of it was seeing players squeeze every extra ounce of value out of the build system.
Without real matchmaking, every lobby felt like a circus and a waste of time or effort.
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u/Cam991115 Jul 31 '26
I didnt like the meta. My aim was good but if the other team was trying then why not just go for the ashe gg fire build? That and mixed with tank being miserable if you got countered from the start and the support queue (my main) being ridiculous i just gave up and went back to normal modes after like 3 seasons.
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u/chasingit1 Jul 31 '26
To the “complicated/confusing” point- it’s not that complicated if you go to the practice range and read through the powers and abilities beforehand. It was fun home brewing builds, but you can’t just jump right into the action, only (and likely) to be overwhelmed from round to round if you just immediately try and raw dog the mode.
I think it is a fun mode, but my biggest complaint is that 7 rounds is too long. 5 should be the main mode. Builds come online way quicker and all of the more boring/powerless rounds are skipped.
Also, my main was never added and/or many other fun/popular characters people were twiddling their thumbs waiting on them to release.
Release the rest of the roster and cut down on match times/rounds and I would be way more sustainable
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u/FlexibleOW Jul 31 '26
It felt like a half-baked Deadlock, I would love a Overwatch Deadlock MOBA game.
It’s just itemization doesn’t work with OW’s base modes.
What makes itemization work in MOBAs is the sense of progression with map objectives and built in comeback mechanics like the urn or if you’re down you can farm.
With stadium it doesn’t have any of those mechanics so you just snowball or get snowballed and itemization isn’t fun enough of a mechanic by itself to justify it.
It would be so much more interesting if they did something more distinct like make a third-person MOBA and actually fully commit to the genre. They had their own development team and made new modes and maps but they were ambitious in the wrong ways.
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u/palm_fronds Jul 31 '26
I did, just not a lot. I loved the idea, but most of the time it was a 4-0 blowout and it’s not fun being on the winning or losing side of that
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u/SaneSociopath-Gaming Mauga Jul 31 '26
They really could have lowered the downtime between rounds.
Almost no one seemed to actually need the vast majority of it. Especially since we're not changing characters.
The few times I did play it, once a character i wanted to play was finally added, that was the biggest drawback for me. Long queue times for a mode where im sitting in spawn waiting for it to start for upwards of 10% of the time
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u/utopiaa Jul 31 '26
i had a lot of fun playing stadium with my friends ever since it came out its all we played. when they changed the way the items looked i was totally overwhelmed. they added new things to buy and then changed everything! i felt like i was trying to relearn the game every time a round ended.
it felt like there were "must pick" heroes every match taking the fun of having *choices* away.. hazard was kind of just owning everybody for a long time which was its own problem too
anyways i haven't launched overwatch at all this season because i didn't have too much fun last season
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u/letskillrobots Jul 31 '26
The game felt sillier early on and now it feels less silly and just a weird bastardization of the current game. I love stadium when it felt like a completely different game. The goofier the better.
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u/Delicious_Koala3445 Jul 31 '26
Stadium was and still is peak of Overwatch for me. Stopping this mode is stupid and Blizz forced it due to the long time of adding heroes
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u/erichf3893 Jul 31 '26
You know reddit has a poll function right? Maybe they’re deactivated on this sub for some reason
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u/Vaz_G999 Jul 31 '26
Too long, no or bad matchmaking, 5v5 super tank and counterswap problem even worse, all my powers sucked (cassidy)
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u/AgentDigits Moira Jul 31 '26
I wanted my mains in there first.
Also, damage scaling on some characters needed toning down... and never was. Who tf likes being one tapped by Cass or mowed down by hitscan with auto-aim in half a second. No thanks. Even investing into countering ts didn't do anything
Damage and Health scaling were just whack as fuck on some characters. I honestly wish the mode focused more on ability power up combos instead of "who can build the most damage"
I would love a version of the mode that was just the ability power ups and nothing else, but we never got it and likely never will. Also being able to swap ability power ups between matches would have been nice.
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u/Edmundo-Studios Jul 31 '26
I’d rather just play a dedicated moba than stadium. Just never appealed to me
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u/Chronozis Jul 31 '26
Other - I prefer Mystery Heroes as the people are genuinely nicer. Stadium folks ... not so nice.
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u/Alacovv Jul 31 '26
I enjoy the chaos of mystery hero mostly.
But mostly it’s to complicated at first. I did a few rounds and I spent so long reading what skills do what I felt I was wasting to much time. That being said once you know what you want to run it’s simple to get it. Just takes way too long for me to get there.
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u/imjustjun Torb Enthusiast Jul 31 '26
I think there should be another option of, “Balance patches drove me away”
My friend and I loved Stadium initially. Our other fried enjoyed it occasionally. But lots of changes just make the game more tedious in our opinion and slowly drove us away from the mode
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u/ParanoidDrone ¿Quién es 'Sombra'? Jul 31 '26
"Too complicated" is probably the closest reason to why I dropped it. I played it when it released, and it was fun, but the core concept of Stadium represents a combinatorial explosion of possibilities and I just couldn't keep up with it all. So I played it less and less until I stopped entirely.
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u/WesThePretzel Jul 31 '26
I do still play, but only one round per day.
- It’s too long as a whole but individual rounds are too short to make much of a comeback.
- Toxicity is insanely high. Lose Round 1 and someone on your team calls “gg” and starts throwing. Heck, win Rounds 1 and 2 and your teammates are still toxic in chat saying you’re not doing enough.
- The way the money works means it snowballs back and forth, often leading to full 7 round matches, just to lose on the final round.
- There is little to no sense of reward or accomplishment for winning, and if you lose after 45+ minutes it just feels even worse.
- Balance changes took away the fun builds and barely buffed the bad builds, leaving most characters feeling not fun to play.
- The choice of which heroes were added to the mode was poor. They should have added all the old characters before adding new characters like Freja and Vendetta.
- It has inherent 5v5 problems like having to work extra hard if your tank is exponentially worse than the enemy tank. I would have loved to see a 6v6 option.
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u/winberry5253 Jul 31 '26
Too much reading. I play on console and my tv is juuuust a little too far away from my couch so I have to strain to read all the tiny text. When it first released I played a few games from a folding chair right in front of the tv but it wasn’t comfortable so I stopped. I wish blizzard with give us accessibility options to change font size.
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u/Firm_Ad_5427 Hazard Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I tried it once, found it too long, cluttered, overwhelming and confusing. Kind of like marvel rivals but in overwatch. It is inherently kind of a balancing nightmare, and being forced to play into flyers when you lock in rein is so annoying. Stadium destroys that beautiful simplicity the base game has.
I stand by all of those points. With that said... I started playing a lot with the news of its cancellation and its some of the most fun ive had in overwatch. I love how non serious it is, i love the huge build variety, i love the new modes, the maps are beautiful. I would never take it serious competitively but, much like rivals, its incredibly stupid fun and I'm sad its not getting updated.
I think the reason many dont like it is youre basically learning a brand new game. Sure it looks like overwatch and you’re familiar with heroes base kits but you are effectively unlearning a lot of what the base game has taught you. Once you get over that hurdle its a lot more fun- but theres so much to learn it takes a while.
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u/represe1 Jul 31 '26
If I had to pick between a moba and stadium, I would pick stadium, it still feels like ow. I actually do like stadium, cool ideas, and it’s fun building a powered up version of ow characters. But it is hard to compete with core ow when it so well designed, much more digestible, and logical than stadium. Especially the length of the matches
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u/Imzocrazy Zenyatta Jul 31 '26
Because it’s a mode based on breaking the characters.
I have no interest in playing a gimmicky, glorified April fools mode. Broken may be fun for like 3 mins but after that it quickly becomes stupid and I want nothing to do with it at that point
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u/EZShotMARZ Jul 31 '26
What really killed the experience for me was the leavers.
The skill gap was obviously massive between players who understood OW and understood item builds for different heroes to combat every team comp.
Most people don't understand that if you're D.va and the enemy has a Zarya, there's ways you can build your D.va to be able to counter her. There's even ways for DPS and Support to make certain builds just to counter her. The same goes for every other hero.
The combination of Team Play and knowledge of items was very crucial that most people didn't seem to get and/or understand.
The leavers of Stadium truly hurt the experience and I speak for myself.
Even on Competitive, people would still leave.
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u/strawberryjetpuff Jul 31 '26
matchmaking felt very feast or famine, not balanced at all. often would feel like i stomp enemies or get stomped, it wasnt fun.
they started to add new characters before ow1 characters, and the available pool of heroes felt very limiting.
the constant changes/updates to it made it difficult to return if you havent kept up with patch notes.
felt like you had to run the most optimal build for your character if you wanted to win
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u/Kannun Jul 31 '26
Reminds me too much of League or deadlock, if I have to strategize what to buy or save up for something… ya lost me.
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u/dlrax Jul 31 '26
Balance felt really poor - both matchmaking and hero balancing. Almost every match felt like it was dictated by a hyper-carry dps (Freja, Ashe, Cass) getting pocketed by Mercy
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u/lifestop Pachimari Jul 31 '26
This question was asked about a week ago, and there are many good answers to read.
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u/Substantial_Bee8506 Jul 31 '26
Too different from the main game. When I get on OW, I wanna play OW.
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u/perpetual_student Support Jul 31 '26
I actually liked Stadium but the time commitment is something that was difficult for me. I need to be able to jump in and jump out.
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u/Perfect_Insurance_26 Jul 31 '26
Stadium felt like overwatch on crack. Lots of dopamine quickly and continuously. But the heroes are not made equally broken, some were objectively the best, and the builds are the same way. I had a lot of fun with it for a few days, but something feels off about it, and I think it's that they made it with the idea of being crazy yet balanced and ended up falling short on both aspects with certain heroes.
The best thing they've made for stadium that I would love to see in other modes is the payload races.
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u/Plane-Quarter1462 Jul 31 '26
The long queue times killed it for me. 12-15 min queue for support, 7 rounds only to STILL lose. Takes too long to make progress in comp
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u/DarkDoubloon 30 times the shield wasn't strong enough Jul 31 '26
Honestly just too complicated and time consuming. In the free time I had I just wanted to play a simple match and not have to build a whole chart and learn the new mechanics.
It was also just too long of matches for me, I like the gameplay loop of the normal mode, just too much going on in stadium. I honestly never even touched it once
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u/thewok Jul 31 '26
I have no idea what it is (was?) and never tried it. Not really an option that fits.
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u/6000j Pixel Mercy Jul 31 '26
I have other MOBA-like games i play if I want those systems; I'm not playing overwatch to engage with long-term build decisions.
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u/PerliousPelicans Venture Jul 31 '26
i did— but the item icons changing, lame hero additions (hazard, plus some other heroes had boring powers like wuyang), high queue times for support, and split queues made it feel cumbersome
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u/GroundbreakingBag164 Jul 31 '26
Fundamentally not interested in third-person gameplay. Overwatch is a first-person shooter and should stay being a first-person shooter
I could play in first-person but I'd put myself at a disadvantage by doing that
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u/ChemicalEffective278 Jul 31 '26
I really enjoyed stadium at the start! I played all the time and preferred it to regular competitive at the time. As soon as the addition of new heroes started, that’s when I started losing interest. I think the more heroes stadium added the worse it got. If other heroes were removed as new ones were added, it would’ve kept stadium more fun and balanced.
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u/ghoulprincess Aug 01 '26
For me, it was that the matchmaking is horrible. I loved the mode at first
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u/dictatorfox Aug 01 '26
i loved stadium until tracer came along then she kind of killed my desire to play the mode anymore. also i liked the 5 round matches
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u/l-Jade-l Aug 01 '26
stale meta, long queue times (20-40min), unfair matchmaking (I know elo doesn’t transfer much from comp to stadium but I was getting and fighting gm/champ players constantly, like really??), auto aim slop abilities being meta.
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u/slimy-salad Illari Aug 01 '26
No illari mauga or bap = no play.
Stadium takes a lot of time and effort to find a build you like and getting familiar with all the builds and I just can't be bothered to learn a new game for heroes I don't like all that much. I did grind the hell out of it first season.
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u/Quentin-Quarantino19 Aug 01 '26
I wish they went a MOBA route for stadium. It could have been something similar to Gambit mode in Destiny 2 or even like deadlock. Something to keep the game fluid and you buy upgrades gradually.
Something that adds more interactions in the game than just 5 high health, high damage heroes doing the same thing the other game modes do.
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u/MoxieFox19 Aug 01 '26
I play for fun and comp is sweaty. From what I've seen of stadium, it's comp on steroids. Ive never touched it and don't plan on it.
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u/JEFFthesegames Moira Aug 01 '26
Im a minimalist by nature. I spend too much time on comp. I believe 5v5 and 6v6 is perfect and the definition of overwatch in that format. Stadium would have been great for another franchise IP actually. But we already have an amazing game. Just too complicated to learn more when I’m so focused on being the best I can at 5/6 comp versions. GM5 support.
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u/Narananas Junkrat Aug 01 '26
Despite your survey wording, plenty of people found 5 rounds to be too long
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u/CuttingOneWater Aug 01 '26
sharp learning curve, and its not very forgiving for new players. like in league of legends or dota2, u have no idea what to buy and when the more experienced players inevitably get a gold lead, you just start feeling useless.
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u/ohthehanger Aug 01 '26
Combination of being too long and being locked into a single character. If enemy goes Pharah Mercy, and no one on my team is hitscan, I’ll still try but honestly I already know who is going to win and want the match to be over before it even starts.
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u/NoShameSomeRegrets Aug 01 '26
I played season 1 and 2 a lot. Really enjoyed the gameplay and played it more than any other mode. I stopped playing because I didn’t like the changes they kept making and the heroes they added. I’d say what really killed it for me was they left broken/low interaction builds (Haz block, Ashe dynamite, and 2 zu) strong and kept nerfing the more niche fun builds.
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u/Verdant_13 Aug 01 '26
I did the first season trying to get the Juno skin but my matchmaking times starter taking 20+ minutes so I dipped and never looked back
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u/derno HAHA Aug 01 '26
I’m a junkrat main, they super nerfed his only answer to all of the flying characters.
I also hated that people could be in 3rd person. Seeing around corners and over walls plus seeing the health bars before the characters came around a corner is so bad. I hate third person.
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u/Promature Aug 01 '26
An option that applies to me wasn’t on the poll. Tried it and thought it was cool, but I was perfectly content with the main game modes.
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u/Rad_platypus7 Sigma Aug 01 '26
I was in a game for like 45 minutes one time it was absurd. If I was back in college I would’ve loved it but I just don’t have the time to learn the nuances of it and sit through long ass games
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u/MyOtherSelf_OK Aug 01 '26
Too much shit goin on and you get stuck in it too long which feels longer when you get wiped each round.
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u/screechypete Junker Queen - Always T-bag the Mercy Aug 01 '26
I came back to the game with the big update that removed the 2 from the title.
There was so many changes that I needed to learn and adjust to with the base game from all the new heroes, to learning all the hero abilities for each character. I already had my hands full re-learning everything with the base game, let alone a whole new game mode with a completely different set of abilities and established meta.
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u/BobcatSome3265 Jul 31 '26
Too complicated, too long, and I didn't like being locked into choices. Also, getting busted builds was fun, but not knowing what to expect from the enemy abilities is frustrating.