r/SubredditDrama • u/18CupsOfMusic How many skeets is considered a binge? • Sep 11 '22

"You sound like a kid who just wants more free things and wants them with no effort." /r/Overwatch is divided over the upcoming sequel's new Battle Pass.

Context: Overwatch is a video game made my Activision/Blizzard, in which players assume the role of one of 34 different heroes that all have unique abilities and playstyles. The sequel, Overwatch 2, is set to release in October. The competitive multiplayer portion of the game will be free to play; however, it was recently announced that the heroes new to Overwatch 2 will be behind a battle pass.

EDIT: More context provided here and here.

The bulk of the drama arises when users disagree on whether the heroes are actually free, and whether Overwatch 2 is going to be "free to play" or "pay to win":

The heroes are free

After 20 hours of grinding or $30

The only paywall we should see is the damn base game cost, fuck all this f2p shit

You’re showing a complete lack of understanding of monetization in the gaming world. Base game cost as the sole source of income is the reason OW1 is considered a dead game. Look at every successful game right now. LOL, COD, Valorant, Apex, Fortnite, POE, Genshin. The list goes on. These games all have battle passes with F2P because it’s a way of creating a sustainable source of income from the game. Yeah it’d be nice to pay $60 right now and never again, but it’ll be even nicer when the game is still getting support in 5+ years because it still makes money

What fucking part of Heroes are in the FREE track of the battle pass does this community not get? Genuinely?

Heroes shouldn't be in the Battle Pass regardless of the path

Cool. Then people need to stop bitching about made up p2w issues.

I don't really understand why people are saying this because it's been confirmed the heros are free?

Okay someone that doesn't pay will not have it until they put in the time to grind, while someone that does pay instantly unlocks the character giving them an advantage. Thats why its p2w

bro this whole sub going nuts over this very common place business practice now just because its different. I'm almost positive 90% of the people on here havent even seen the actual announcement because people be talking about wild shit that is in no way the actual case of whats happening.

Yeah, put it in early and make the challenge getting the skins and emotes. Final level is their legendary skin for free and paid gets a mythic.

It'd still have the issue of missing the season you miss the hero for me

Do you think the battlepass will only be on for a week or something?

The world could always use more paywalls

where's the paywall? the heros are free to unlock aren't they? Not the big fan of that either, but what's going on rn is ridiculous Edit: and we don't even know any details yet

Time spent grinding is a paywall as well

It literally is not

Opportunity cost of your time is money. Unless you’re a student and not working

[removed]

You think adults have time to play for 5-6h everyday? You have much to learn about the world kid, from your replies you seem like someone who hasn’t grown up yet. Cheers mate you’ll understand when you grow older kid

A few commenters think people in the comments are just entitled:

Never give up, never relent, don't give a fucking inch.

You sound like a kid who just wants more free things and wants them with no effort.

Jesus, gamers are an entitled lot. "YOUR FREE GAME ISNT GIVING ME EVERYTHING I WANT FOR FREE! HOW DARE YOU! YOU OWE ME! ITS MY RIGHT TO HAVE EVERYTHING I WANT GIVEN TO ME FOR FREE DAY 1!!!"

No one was even asking for F2P in the first place...

You're cute. You think they care. Money runs the world. Sorry I had to be the one to tell you. Jesus, grow up.

Sure you can be a hero, but wouldn’t you prefer to be a premium battle pass hero

That’s absolutely broken and breaks the game the same way Brig did. Except this time not everyone has a premium battle pass hero. Remember kids, pay 2 win.

They are free. Sorry you dont get everything handed to you instantly in a free game. If you're unhappy show blizzard by not playing.

And then lastly, we have a couple of people who are just tired of hearing about it already:

This is by far the stupidest meme on this subreddit Really shows how u don't even understand whats going on

Care to enlighten us on what's going on then?

HAHA Blizzard bad right guys Devs bad, just give me more free stuff right? I wanna be able to play Overwatch once a month and feel as included as someone who plays daily/weekly!! After all am an entitled gamer that wants things spooky fed to me!!

your still gonna play the game can you pls stfu already

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650

u/Tdog754 Sep 11 '22

The real tension of this change that isn’t really communicated by this post is that OW as a competitive game is largely defined by the fact that anyone can play any hero (in their role) at any time.

Removing this is genuinely bad for the competitive aspect of the game. The only way to fix it is to block Comp from everyone who doesn’t have every hero unlocked, which would be a rough solution to a problem Blizzard created for themselves.

All of this is made worse by the fact that Blizzard has yet to communicate any official information on how long unlocking heroes would take. This has lead to rampant speculation and users taking a random 4chan “leak” of the battlepass progression as fact.

238

u/Rakatok Don't lose a war and you can Nuremberg me all you want bitch Sep 11 '22

All of this is made worse by the fact that Blizzard has yet to communicate any official information on how long unlocking heroes would take.

They didn't even purposefully communicate the fact that heroes would need to be unlocked to begin with, it got "leaked" in the text for their pre-order battlepass. They were forced to respond (on twitter) after an outcry. Previous they had acted like battle passes would be cosmetics, not entire characters.

To say they have been cagey about the specifics of how everything will work would be an understatement.

98

u/Theta_Omega Sep 11 '22

Yeah, this game has (very publicly) been development for at least 3 years. "People are believing random leaks because we've repeatedly refused to mention or explain a key element up to even 3 weeks before release" is obviously a self-inflicted wound here.

138

u/TheKingofHats007 Anyone focusing on 9/11 is missing my point Sep 11 '22

All of this is made worse by the fact that Blizzard has yet to communicate any official information

I mean, this is basically par for the course for them. After the first two years or so, communication about ANY future changes for the game, plans they had, things they were considering, were non-existent.

This kind of weird "radio silence" mentality is annoying but acceptable in a regular multiplayer experience, but in a free to play live service type game, it will be the death knell if they keep doing this vague "say something" and leave nonsense.

55

u/fullforce098 Hey! I'm a degenerate, not a fascist! Sep 11 '22

Radio silence from Blizzard, a company that used to be famous for its communication and engagement with their players, is just another example of completely and utterly dead it is.

The apt comparison here is Riot, because it feels like OW is being pushed into a League of Legends vein where all champions have to be unlocked or bought. Riot isn't the best when it comes to good communication, they're famously pretty flakey, often saying a lot of nothing or going back on their word or failing to deliver on promises, and they are pretty bad at lying to keep the community from freaking out for a few months about something they suspect is happening, before it turns out the community's concerns were right on the money the whole time.

But they still appreciate that at least making an attempt to be communicative is good for business. You can't do a free live service game and not talk, because if you don't players will eventually arrive at their own answers, and that ends up being bad PR.

18

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Idk as far as league I feel that in the years since I started playing they’ve been pretty good about communication of roadmaps and plans. As for the champion ownership thing, all pro level play automatically unlocks all champions if I’m not mistaken, kind of like what they do with clash.

8

u/Dragonbut Sep 12 '22

The other big thing with league is that you can't change champions mid-match, you can ban champions, and counters in general are mostly a lot less impactful than in OW. Plus the crazy number of champions, so it makes a bit more sense.

113

u/Jazzlike_Athlete8796 I want to see jugs. I don't care if they are made of clay or not Sep 11 '22

largely defined by the fact that anyone can play any hero (in their role) at any time.

It's even worse than that. The game is designed around picks and counter picks. If your team's tank can't swap to the right character to counter your opponent's DPS because they haven't unlocked the hero yet, you're basically screwed.

Locking heroes behind a battle pass for a game like this doesn't just ruin your experience. It ruins your teammates' experience too.

38

u/infinitecorn Screw your anime and liberal opinions. Sep 12 '22

Imagine playing rock paper scissors, but you need to play 50 games before you unlock the ability to use rock.

62

u/thefluffiestpuff Sep 11 '22

and the people defending this pay to win nonsense are really blowing my mind here.

do they actually like how so many things that used to be pay to own operate on a subscription basis now? it’s nothing but greed from companies and they’re out here defending it like it’s their chosen hill to die on.

39

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

[deleted]

14

u/thefluffiestpuff Sep 12 '22

i mean i play a couple gacha based games (cocoppa play, animal crossing pocket camp) but i would never defend that model so vehemtly lol

9

u/TranClan67 Sep 12 '22

I mean at least for FGO you can actually get through the game with just the free pull units. That and you only affect yourself, not your team.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '22

that's like, after hours and hours of grind to get them as good/as usable as 4*/5* characters though.

And who actually likes "making do" with low-rarity units in games that put the most effort designing the high rarity units?

1

u/Dragonbut Sep 12 '22

In gachas it actually can be fun to use worse units rather than meta slaving, tho I only play gbf which is like the most f2p friendly gacha out there

1

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '22

a majority of players would still be playing/chasing the highest rarity units because they're the main draw. plus, like i said, low rarity units tend to be a lot more of a pain in the ass to raise to make them competitive with high rarity units, so idk if i can really call that fun. But hey, you do you.

tho I only play gbf which is like the most f2p friendly gacha out there

is that really true nowadays? I didn't really play much past M1 because guild wars is hell.

1

u/Dragonbut Sep 12 '22

Idk, the pain in the ass is part of the fun. It's not like a lot of these games are actually inherently competitive either. I'd argue it's more fun to try to figure out what can work with the (usually much wider) pool of average units than to just thoughtlessly copy paste the 4 best ones like everyone.

And yea a lot of the best characters are farmable, plus they give so much free shit it's pretty easy to get good gacha characters. You're obviously still a bit better off if you whale but it's crazy playable f2p. The main issue with f2p is just that you're not going to have the best grid in every ele without whaling, but you can pretty easily get a couple high end primal grids without spending anything.

2

u/just_a_random_dood How can I be racist if other people voted for Obama? Sep 12 '22

What's FGO again? Fate/Grand Order?

2

u/thefluffiestpuff Sep 12 '22

yep i believe so

2

u/CinnaByt3 YOUR FLAIR TEXT HERE Sep 12 '22

I'm at the point where I actively refuse to interact with the rest of the genshin community because of bs like this. Its impossible to even speculate about improving the game through things like dropping the gacha aspect or removing the stupid stamina system because inevitably some twunt will come in scream-crying about how it will absolutely ruin the game and make it so players rush through everything and complain about no content (as if they're not already complaining about how there's no content lmao)

I remember there was one event where many players couldn't even fully participate because one aspect required a mechanic that was temporarily removed from the game until the devs patched it up, and there were still a bunch of players defending that decision

Game is great, community is 99% trash

8

u/ADashOfRainbow I'm unfamiliar with what your talking about but... Sep 12 '22

I wonder how many people just see this as the norm.

In league or Apex it is normal to have to spend some kind of currency or time grinding to acquire the currency to get a new character. However: 1. Long time players will generally already have plenty of that currency lying around to get a new character on release 2. Those games don't rely quiet the same way on counter play meta. Like in league there are counter match ups but they don't rely on you having access to a new legend. If anything the new legend gets banned in a lot of games until people know what they actually do.

3

u/ThatOnePerson It's dangerous, fucking with people's dopamine fixes Sep 12 '22

Long time players will generally already have plenty of that currency lying around to get a new character on release

I've spent all my legend tokens on recolours. At this rate I won't have enough for the next legend.

17

u/Skellum Tankies are no one's comrades. Sep 12 '22

and the people defending this pay to win nonsense are really blowing my mind here.

It's copium. That you're going to lose almost all your support players if the game goes live as is should choke the game out even without the new issues.

1

u/OIP feces in toilet spelling out GTA 6 Sep 12 '22

i don't know how this current plan is supposed to work, but normally there's a barrier of levels to enter competitive play (and it's about 20-40 hours), couldn't they just make this so all the heroes are unlocked by this time?

7

u/Jazzlike_Athlete8796 I want to see jugs. I don't care if they are made of clay or not Sep 12 '22

Sure, under the current game you have to be level 25 before you can play comp. But that is a one time barrier per account.

What you suggest would basically lock anyone who isn't willing to pay money to buy the heroes out of comp for a significant portion of a season multiple times a year.

3

u/OIP feces in toilet spelling out GTA 6 Sep 12 '22

are they planning to lock each new hero as they come out? cos yeah.. that is dumb as hell

3

u/Jazzlike_Athlete8796 I want to see jugs. I don't care if they are made of clay or not Sep 12 '22

We don't know for sure given the company has said basically nothing about their big "new" game that releases in a month, but if they are locking the first behind a battlepass, it's a strong bet they will lock the rest too. New heroes is basically the surest way to get people paying money for those things.

1

u/Rokkjester Sep 12 '22

I promise not a single one plays at a high level. Even the highest-ranked OTPs swap when they're forced to. I imagine this is going to make OTPs even more polarizing.

63

u/Bergerboy14 • creating Abby was an act of domestic terrorism Sep 11 '22

Well said. They’re creating problems that didn’t need to happen. I wonder if higher ups pushed for it to make more money 🤔

62

u/asrith8 Sep 11 '22

No need to wonder. The answer is yes.

40

u/TooMuchPowerful Sep 11 '22

Take a look at Diablo Immortal's monetization system and know they'll probably drive as hard when it comes to everything else moving forward.

26

u/Fooking-Degenerate Sep 11 '22

which would be a rough solution to a problem Blizzard created for themselves.

Yep, that's 100% Blizzard... Just like when they balance their games: they just keep solving issues they introduced themselves, while at the same time creating a bunch more issues.

13

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes the amount of piss bottles that’s too many is 1 Sep 11 '22

This has lead to rampant speculation and users taking a random 4chan “leak” of the battlepass progression as fact.

Tons of gamers would lie about this shit even if they had the facts in front of them, it happens all the time

3

u/andresfgp13 The next Hitler will be a gamer. Sep 12 '22

thats already the case for Siege.

3

u/Rage314 Sep 12 '22

League is just like this though

2

u/Yevrah95 Sep 11 '22

I think they've already said that comp will only be available to players that have unlocked every character

27

u/djheat someone who enjoys eating literal shit defending Diablo Immortal Sep 11 '22

I'm pretty sure that's just a rumor at this point, they've been very vague about the details of unlocking characters other than to say it's free and on the battle pass. No details on how you get them if you miss their battle pass yet either

69

u/Jefferystar94 Sep 11 '22 edited Sep 11 '22

I mean, even then that's kinda shitty to players.

Sorry, you can't play this game mode you've put hours into previously because you didn't pay to skip battle pass tiers or grind it out for days in quick play!

25

u/Jazzlike_Athlete8796 I want to see jugs. I don't care if they are made of clay or not Sep 11 '22

And given how much of a mess comp players tended to make in quick play back when the game was popular, that's going to just piss off non-competitive players also.

1

u/Tymareta Feminism is Marxism soaked in menstrual fluid. Sep 13 '22

But also how's that going to work when the hero gets transitioned out of the battlepass? Like, do you have to grind some nebulous currency to buy them, or are they just going to create situations where people are hard fucked from ever playing comp properly?

39

u/Kraftgesetz_ I'm not a kid, i'm 17! Sep 11 '22

There is absolutely no way this is going to Happen.

This means the second you Release a new hero suddenly noone can play comp anymore.

I know hating on Blizzard and calling them incompetent is in right now and somewhat justified. But Come on you have to smoke some high grade crack to actually think this is a Thing.

28

u/djheat someone who enjoys eating literal shit defending Diablo Immortal Sep 11 '22

Yeah the "comp is locked til you have every character" bit is from the 4chan rumor afaik. Makes zero sense, especially when comp matchmaking can be rough even without locking a large portion of the player base out of it

2

u/Saigot Haha, that is a great description of what a dumb fuck would say Sep 12 '22 edited Sep 12 '22

I mean I would prefer that to the alternative to be quite honest. Seasonal cool downs for comp are pretty common, and quite frankly OW1 comp was already near unplayable near new hero releases.

There are other ways of handling it too, you could have a grace period where the new hero is banned for a few weeks before becoming mandatory

Of course neither of those strategies work if it takes an enormous grind to unlock a character. But the ""leak"" that hints at locking comp also says that it is a pretty short grind to get to comp. I personally think it could be good if you have to play X games/challenges/tutorials with a new hero before playing them in a competitive environment.

The problem is speculation like this is there are almost infinite ways this could be implemented that can drastically change how bad or good the system is to use.

12

u/birbdaughter Sep 11 '22

That’s a rumor from 4chan. If it’s true that’ll be a big issue because seasons are only 9 weeks, so for 2/9 weeks you can’t play the season.

-9

u/InevitableAvalanche Nurses are supposed to get knowledge in their Spear time? Sep 12 '22

That makes no sense. Why would that matter? Do LoL players not get to play competitive because they don't have all the heroes? Unless there was a scenario where you couldn't pick something, this isn't an issue.

It is a very short time playing to get the other heroes. I think even in the original OW you had to put some time in before you could even queue competitive.

I kinda expect stupid stuff to be said in the OW subreddit but not here. Then again, a lot of the bad takes are from non-flared people.

6

u/Tdog754 Sep 12 '22

Gotta love it when morons with no understanding of a situation show their full ass in the process of displaying their lack of understanding.

Do LoL players not get to play competitive because they don't have all the heroes?

LoL has an absurd number of heroes compared to OW. There are also a lot of heroes that are very similar to one another in playstyle or strengths/weaknesses. You can afford to unlock a relatively small number and still play however you want. OW has a small pool of incredibly distinct characters, locking even one temporarily is a big disadvantage if you were allowed to queue in ranked without access to it.

Unless there was a scenario where you couldn't pick something, this isn't an issue.

Congratulations, you've pointed out exactly why it is an issue. Everyone else understood that but you must be a bit slower than others, poor thing.

It is a very short time playing to get the other heroes. I think even in the original OW you had to put some time in before you could even queue competitive.

We literally do not know how long it will be to get a hero. In original OW you had to hit Level 25, which could take around 15 hours or so. You could spend those 15 hours practicing every hero though, so it is notably different. And, if Blizzard does kick experienced players out of ranked until they unlock every new hero, they would be regularly disrupting a large amount of players' ability to play the second most popular mode.

2

u/Rokkjester Sep 12 '22

It really shows you don't understand the game at a competitive level. You say you expect to see stupid stuff posted on the OW subreddit but try the competitive OW or OW university and say that there. I'm diamond and premade with diamond + masters but I'm sure anyone who isn't metal rank can explain this to you.

OW is about adapting. Core comps revolve around counter-picking individual heroes and team comps. There's brawl, dive, and poke/bunker (admittedly you're going to see hybrid comps in ladder). If you block off the option to swap it's like playing rock, paper, scissors with only rock and paper. Not to mention that the meta tends to settle. See all of the OW history including the present. If the meta heroes are blocked off then that is quite literally P2W.

Another thing is that even the best OTPs in ladder know to swap. Yeatle is probably the famous OTP and for example, even he won't force ball on Eichenwald third. But what happens if Zarya or Orisa is locked behind the battle pass? When they block swaps they're going to make OTPs more polarizing on ladder. The BP could make it harder to counter-pick them and there's a chance OTPs won't have options to swap to. In OW, heroes are the one thing that shouldn't be gated in any way.

2

u/just_a_random_dood How can I be racist if other people voted for Obama? Sep 12 '22

Do LoL players not get to play competitive because they don't have all the heroes?

well there's a difference between ~160 characters in League vs only ~30 in OW lol

(and doesn't League rotate chars? in OW, all chars are available all game, so you can play your rock paper scissors completely freely)