Before we get into what I assume you think to be an exercise in bashing Overwatch, I
want to make something very clear: I absolutely love this game.
I wouldn't be making videos about it day in and day out if I didn't.
This isn't me venting about something I hate, it's me sharing something that's
been on my mind for a while.
And unlike with my video talking about Hiding Your Career Profile, which very much was exactly
that- This time around, I have taken the time to think about what I want to say.
Don't get me wrong, what I want to talk about today infuriates me to no end, but I
have made sure to properly formulate my thoughts rather than solely shouting into the microphone.
I'm not an expert, I'm not a game designer and I'm not here trying to teach you anything.
I just want to get you to think.
And when it comes to us and our opinions of video games, especially competitive ones and
touchy subjects like balance- Then I believe that each of our voices matter.
Even if we are aggravated, completely unreasonable and ill informed- We are all consumers.
And to a developer, that kind of information is important.
Because even if we are spouting nonsense, they are then aware that whatever decision
they made has caused us to feel that way.
And they then have to decide whether they want to educate us or change something to
shape our perception.
So with that out of the way, let's get into my biggest problem with Overwatch.
In my opinion, Overwatch does too many things too differently, and that to an extend where
certain concepts and mechanics in the game contradict each other.
You have heroes that require fundamentally different skill sets from the players while
being supposed to inherently do the same thing.
Creating space as a tank isn't just creating space.
The different characters approach that issue from very different angles.
It is an idea that you might be finding easier to get behind if you have your goal set on
only playing tanks- But really, a Winston is nothing like a Reinhardt and a Reinhardt
is nothing like an Orisa.
And that's even without me touching off tanks.
And the same thing really applies for all the other roles.
Main and off supports who are doing different things than just healing.
They are utility based.
And that utility changes drastically from hero to hero.
Not to mention all the DPS heroes that, really, are supposed to be doing damage but also do
it in so many different ways.
In fact, the hero design very much contradicts the map design in many ways.
It's something I have touched on before in my video talking about how you could make
every hero in the game viable.
As an example, I talked about why dive is so powerful in relation to the map design
in Overwatch.
And that the only way to overcome that hero-to-map-balance-relationship would be by inherently breaking that relationship.
And that's something we are seeing to a certain degree with Brigitte.
Given the right combination of heroes, with her as a catalyst, you can overcome this very
basic balance concept that is in place for a reason.
An immobile hero is supposed to be at a disadvantage on a map that features a lot of highground
play.
And high mobility heroes are supposed to be able to exploit that sort of design.
But by introducing a hero that not only counters other specific heroes, but an entire playstyle,
we suddenly can't even trust our own basic knowledge of the game anymore.
And really, Symmetra might be the next hero to really start messing with that concept.
AoE heavy heroes are supposed to be strong in choke point heavy maps.
But what if you can entirely circumvent choke points?
Well, Symmetra is looking to do that with her teleporter.
Now, I don't want to claim that the impact of her next iteration is going to be game
breaking, because quite frankly, I don't know that it is.
But it is something to think about.
When it comes to me and my own history with video games, I have always been a tryhard.
Figuring out the pillars of game design for everything I played to then improve my own
gameplay has come very natural for me.
And that's why poor game design and artificial difficulty levels really annoy me.
Because there are so many different ways you can approach the idea of difficulty.
Where many games prefer to up a few sliders, making an enemy tankier and hit harder, other
games decide to add new mechanics and perhaps a certain level of randomization as a skill
check.
The difficulty ratings in Overwatch really don't tell you a heck of a lot about how
easy those heroes are, but more about how easy it is to get value out of them.
Many players would argue that Soldier 76 is more difficult than Mercy, but both of them
have a 1 star difficulty rating.
And that's because it's very easy to get value out of both of these heroes.
They are not very map dependent and their tool kits are very forgiving.
The player really doesn't have to think about much to get the value they are looking
for.
But then you look at a hero like Doomfist- A 3 Star Difficulty hero that, were you to
ask me, is not much more difficult to learn than most of the other heroes in the roster.
The difference is that he is not very team compatible and doesn't universally benefit
from most of the maps in the game.
Furthermore, it's not the difficulty of his move set that grants him that rating,
it's how difficult it is to make his kit work given that only few points on few maps
really benefit him, while a lot of heroes are giving him a very hard time.
I'm just mentioning this to illustrate how many ideas Overwatch is turning on its head.
The idea of balance relationships, the idea of difficulty ratings and even the idea of
uniformity.
Most players aren't really DPS mains because not every DPS in the line up benefits from
the same skill sets.
And even pro players are advised to focus their efforts on a few of them to master their
mechanics.
So instead, we are becoming flanker mains and hitscan specialists while playing in an
environment where us deciding to focus on that one branch is not beneficial.
Not every map benefits from expertise with flankers and hitscan heroes aren't always
necessary either.
But then we are looking at another twist.
Another thing that the game flips on its head.
And that relates to the competitive environment itself.
Again, on paper, it doesn't make any sense for us to only play flankers because of all
the things that speak against that practise.
More flexibility makes you more valuable to more teams because you never know what kinds
of "mains" the matchmaker is gonna give you in any given match you queue up for.
But spreading yourself thin to try and expand your hero pool means that your lack of mastery
makes you less valuable in these isolated instances where a flanking or hitscan specialist
would shine.
So the way that Skill Ratings and Hidden Matchmaking Ratings work- We are encouraged to become
those kinds of specialists.
We are encouraged to become as proficient at one branch of things as possible, and the
game will reward us.
They reward us by increasing our MMR and subsequently, grant us more SR.
Things that, inherently, were never meant to be seen as rewards, but feel rewarding
to get nonetheless.
Your MMR is a matchmaking tool, and your SR is really just supposed to be a rough representation
of the vicinity of rank that you are supposed to be in.
But all these things are so easily manipulatable that a Skill Rating measures anything but
your Skill.
A high ranked player isn't somebody who mastered Overwatch as a game, it is a specialist
of one of the many branches that create Overwatch.
So if we as players are thrown into matches where our specialization isn't required,
either because the map doesn't benefit from it or because our team can't make use of
it, then we are destroying this particular match.
Nobody is gonna be able to play real Overwatch because of how difficult this game makes it
for us to play real Overwatch.
And that becomes even more apparent once you do try to play proper Overwatch.
Here is a bit of an anecdote- Relative to ladder play, I would say I'm much of a Zenyatta
One Trick.
I can still provide a proficient level of mastery on other heroes if need be, but really,
no other hero in the line up comes close to my Zenyatta.
Obviously I often felt like trying out other heroes.
And I did.
But I never really got better at them in any significant way.
Because I wasn't trying to learn how to play these heroes, I was trying to learn how
I can make them work in this inherently random environment.
Now that I have been playing with a group of friends, all of us have started to specialize
on what we want to provide to the team.
So I have become a Flex DPS player that finally has a reason to get better at heroes other
than Zenyatta.
And the results show.
When I look at older videos of mine where I used, let's say for example Genji gameplay
from Mystery Heroes, I have been playing terribly.
But once I had this reason implanted in my brain- The reason of, "My team needs a Flex
DPS so I have to learn how to play Genji", my improvement, alike my Ana and Zenyatta
back when I started playing this game, has been coming very rapidly.
Even to the point where teammates, opponents and even some of you guys in the comment section
have pointed out that my Genji has become much much better.
Now of course, that is only relative to the awful gameplay I practised earlier, so I am
still a far fetch away from actually becoming objectively good.
But once I was playing in a coordinated environment where real Overwatch was played, finding out
how to get better was that much more easy.
And you see, after I picked that up, I was also able to alter my gameplay to make it
work in more random environments like Ladder and Quick Play.
So I think that explains another factor of randomness that we experience on a daily basis.
Why is that GrandMaster DPS Player underperforming so heavily?
Well, maybe because the line up you're running, the playstyle you have adopted or the map
you were assigned to doesn't fall into the specialization of that player.
And that's not even considering somebody just having a bad day.
Believe it or not- I am rarely ever playing on Dorado, and that obviously not by choice.
The game simply doesn't assign that map to me when I queue up.
So even if I am a confident Hero XYZ player, I will be struggling on that map because of
how rarely I am playing it.
Or I could be playing my main, however, without any idea on how to make them work in this
team in particular because the heroes everyone else is playing or the playstyle they decided
to go for isn't something I am comfortable with.
So suddenly we are in a situation where a Genji main looks like he got boosted even
though he was in GrandMaster for months.
And again, that's just to illustrate all the inconsistencies that we are dealing with
day in and day out.
When our team is scrimming against other teams- We all know the map pool in advance.
We know which heroes we have to play and we know which heroes our teammates are going
to be running.
And obviously, as a team, we make the decision to run something that makes sense given the
map that we are playing on and given the heroes that we are good with.
Throwing that upside down thanks to the random nature of ranked play is one thing- A thing
that we are forced to accept; But introducing heroes and hero changes that mess with basic
balance relationships and concepts is another thing entirely.
I hope that all of this kinda shows how, even if people stopped trying to play their favorites
heroes over anything else- The game itself would still be pushing us towards specializating
ourselves.
Because it's that specialization that leads us to feel rewarded, even when it shouldn't
make any sense in the grand scheme of Overwatch itself.
The quote on quote "solution" to this, in my opinion, is not black and white.
It's not a forced role queue that everyone has to participate in.
It's not the removal of performance based SR adjustments.
And it's also not benefiting or punishing one group of players over another- Whether
we talk solo versus group, or one trick versus flex.
It would be uniformity.
It would be introducing a clear set of rules that the game abides by, no matter what.
If X, then Y, and that always.
And the only way to overcome that is by providing superhuman levels of proficiency, or a lack
of any kind of proficiency whatsoever.
That's to say, outskilling and getting outskilled.
I kept demanding that Overwatch finally starts to teach the players how to play the game-
But reality is that, this is very difficult if the developers keep messing with their
own rules.
And that on a regular.
Heroes fall in and out of the meta all the time and sometimes a hero is so powerful that,
as we have already discussed, they break a lot of the things we learned previously.
So the most adjustable and flexible players should be at the top in theory, but again
talking about lack of uniformity; The ranked system unfortunately favours your specialization
over flexibility.
Too many things contradict themselves in the game, it is too difficult to get a basic grasp
on them and your perception of what is right and what is wrong is challenged way too frequently.
To think that players who are less into gaming than me have to deal with it- It's no surprise
that we have so many people on ladder that really have no idea what they're doing.
Or even worse, think they do, while absolutely messing up.
So..
This is not me proposing a solution.
This is me lamenting a problem that I do not think there is any solution for.
Something that really bugs me about a game I love.
But not enough to get me to stop playing.
But hey, maybe I am overlooking something.
If you think you cracked the code or hell, even if you just plain and simply disagree
with me- Sound off down in the comment section below.
The more opinions in the pot, the better.
But this is me done for the day as I talk about my biggest problem with Overwatch.
Thank you everybody so much for watching, don't forget to drop me a like on your way
out if you enjoyed the video, subscribe if you wanna see more, and maybe share this video
with a friend you think would find it interesting.
Thanks again for watching and I hope to see you all next time.
For more infomation >> Young César - Talavera (Audio) - Duration: 3:59. 
For more infomation >> Los 4 Tipos De Trabajadores. ¿Cuál Eres Tú? | 30K Coaching - Duration: 3:37. 
For more infomation >> Вернулся, играем в Warface - Рм, пвп, пве - Duration: 2:12:37. 
For more infomation >> Cartoon Network Romania - Telecomanda - Promo/Reclama - Duration: 0:44. 
For more infomation >> CrackCash - Weil du fehlst (Offizielles Musikvideo) - Duration: 3:17. 
For more infomation >> GET TO KNOW ME JUICY Q&A | GLAMBYROXY - Duration: 13:38. 
For more infomation >> Minuto do Artesanato - Gola em tricô Fast Fini - Duration: 1:34. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét