Why Does Everyone Hate Season 8 Of Overwatch 2? 

It feels like the game hasn’t changed enough since Season 6. The Meta is still too much damage too much sustain and pretty much everyone is fed up and waiting for something to change drastically.

tbh it makes sense for me that the battlepass is such a factor; if you're not into climbing rank in comp, getting stuff from battlepass is going to be the primary contributor to your sense of progress/reward, so if you don't vibe with the theme/rewards or the characters you play aren't getting cosmetics you like, it doesn't feel very motivating.

The main problem has got to be that you just cannot play who you want to play. The strong heroes like Mauga are so overwhelming that if you don't counter-swap you lose the game. Even without their presence, the moment you start to do well with the hero you like playing, the enemy team immediately counter-swaps and now you either won't be able to play the game or have to counter-swap them back. Everybody is playing heroes they don't like playing because they feel it's the only way to win. However, if you win but don't have fun in the process, then what's the point?

Quickplay is super sweaty. But also I think the reason the skins are so important to a lot of people was because that was a lot of the fun and social aspect of OW1. I remember me and my friends bragging about which legendaries or golden guns we got and having fun joking about throwing zens nuts at people or shooting mcrees water pistol. It was just fun and I remember emotes and skins and the social aspect of ow being just as important as the gameplay

It really does feel like Mauga in comp is turning me away from the game. I finally felt confident in playing Ram and Winston again and now I have to play Sig every game because I see Mauga every game

I've been begging for a flat dmg + heal nerfs literally since the last few seasons of ow1. but instead we're getting more and more bursts with kiri and sojourn and we get more DOT effects that kind of just leave you at no one's mercy..

Had a thought. I feel like the events in this game are 90% a way to sell skins 10% content. Like winterfest added no new modes and only new thing was the ticket thing that pushes you to purchase. It's kinda been like this since get go. I hope they turn the archive event into a way to add more pve and also add those modes into the mission table

I’m glad audio was mentioned. I thought it was just me not being able to hear footsteps. Also I think it’s a little weird that if you buy the premium pass for the winter event, you still can’t get everything. You have to spend additional money in their store to get enough tickets.

I hopped on to OW again with a friend of mine after his absence from the game of maybe 2 years. We played three games and all of them we had Mauga steamrolling on either ours or the enemies team and we didn't have even modicum of fun. He uninstalled after that. We play games for fun, not for punishment.

I love that you said “the fear of change so we stay stuck in our ways” is easily the most human thing ever. We roast boomers for never accepting/understanding change but yet in video games we do the same thing

Honestly for me Mauga is just killing my mood for this game so far. I only play comp really which just is not fun with mauga in it. I main support and I find it exhausting that you need to pick Ana, Kiri or possibly Zen to stand a chance (Ana is the must pick here for sure), while I do love playing those characters (aside from zen), It's getting frustrating if you don't have a mauga on your own team or if your second support won't pick what is needed. I never did mind it before because everyone likes to play what they like to play and it can work but with mauga it just feels like you NEED to play those characters and if you don't get them you have a way harder time than needed. Also the christmas event was just disappointing, the mini extra battle pass is like a big joke to me. As end note, in general the rank system just keeps on getting on my nerves, because It just doesn't feel rewarding. I really prefer if they would give us the option if we want the numbers going up or the 5 Win system, because currently i cannot stand to play for that long anymore because It's so frustrating. In ow1 I could easily play for 5 hours straight now its really just 1 or 2 hours and its never THAT much fun anymore.

I think the power creep is really making the game feel terrible right now, flats. If you make the tiniest mistake (in comp), especially as tank, you are destroyed almost immediately. It feels like you don't have many opportunities to fight back. That plus the necessity of counter-swapping heroes. There's very little room left for creative play.

Personally, I think its just burn out for the game. Yeah, we just got a new hero, but there isn’t anything that exciting to look forward to during this season. The comp rework will be nice next season, but as a mostly QP player, that isn’t that exciting for me. I feel like every season is pretty much the same, mostly about the new skins that we’ll be getting. We should have gotten a new winter gamemode at the very least. They have to do something to shake up the game in some way, or else the game will just go back to where OW1 was at the end of it’s life.

Mauga is such a big issue and the fact that the game during season 7 kinda felt the same as it did back in season 1 and 2 is really demotivating. We have all the same issues that we’ve been complaining about since the start and now we have a super broken tank on top of all that. People are just tired. I have hope and theyve been stepping in the right direction but a beaten horse is still a beaten horse even if you start treating it after the fact

I can't get over how right you are about QP, they are actually causing tension between players and making QP less fun and more sweaty, for really no reason other than fair matchmaking.

As much as most people would disagree I think they should do a 6v6 type mode for a week or 2 just to see community sentiment around it and it’s a new game mode that would be fun for a bit to people

Mainly for me the “problem” is that besides from mauga getting released it feels like the only new content are the skins and I just don’t like buying them so there’s not much to do. Looking forward to next season though 😅

I agree with a lot of the points of QP being way too competitive. I genuinely got in a game yesterday where we got slammed by a genji and hanzo duo in quickplay and they were teabagging and smack talking on most of their kills. When one of my teammates said in chat something to the effect of "Guys this a gold qp lobby and they canceled ow league, you aren't getting in" and they just said "QP warrior, get better" and half my team went afk in spawn. We really need a larger separation between comp and quickplay, because playing for fun after getting home just doesn't happen anymore.

Honestly one of the few reasons I'm still playing so much is because I decided to play less of my mains (flex supports) and practice dps instead. Learning to master heroes with very different playstyles than I'm used to is fun and gives me a better appreciation for each hero's strengths and weaknesses. That, and weekly challenges are a semi-addictive form of motivation

I miss when it showed your rank and sr at the start of every match. The sr didnt even matter so much but as a diamond/master player it was always so lit to get in a gm lobby or see the occasional t500 player. Now every lobby feels the same with the only difference being the map and the only excitement you feel is after 5 wins IF you rank up. If you stay the same or go down you feel like youve wasted every minute youve spent that session and makes you not want to play the role again for the day

As a mostly quick player who plays the game to relax and have fun there are a few reasons: I primarily play tank, but tank just feels super stressful all of the time. It feels like any small mistake means I die and lose the fight for my team. Support feels weird to play, I don't think it's overpowered exactly, but I definitely feel like I can do whatever on support and still win fights: it's much more lenient. That being said, it's not always a fun lenient and can be pretty boring, particularly on main support. DPS just feels very pokey a lot of the time. It's somewhere in between tank and support in that it's very stressful sometimes and very uninteresting other times. Also, I almost exclusively play the game with friends, many of whom are pretty bad at or new to the game. Because of how competitive quick play lobbies are, i cannot play with them on my main account. I don't think I am that good at the game, but my "quick play elo" is high (my lobbies have masters to t500 players). I play on alts but the level of play is still brutal for a new player like my friends. I have to soft throw just enough so I don't lose, and even then I risk getting into lobbies that are too high level. Moreover my friends will get flamed because they are on their 5th game of ow ever going against a diamond dps player with a mercy pocket sweating their ass off as sojourn. It just feels crummy and anxiety inducing to play qp, particularly with friends. Sorry for the rant but I had nothing to do, so hopefully someone finds my thoughts interesting.

The empty promises that kept the players waiting over and over again are no longer enough. The meta is “delete the tank” in 99% of the lobbies where noone has fun. The devs act like they are listening to the player feedback, yet the biggest issues are still untouched.

One thing I still think they could do is giving unique voice lines attached to souvenirs, cuz then it would make sense why you would have an emote that every hero could equip. Imagine you put the pizza slice on hanzo and he comments his favorite toppings, and you do the same with genji and it’s something completely different. Or you equip a pachimari souvenir to hog and he says another one for my collection, but dva just says it’s cute but she doesn’t have anywhere to put it with all her trophies. Seriously blizzard do SOMETHING interesting with the souvenirs already!!!!!!

I think a lot of the people who look at skins for content and have an issue with monetization are most likely OW 1 players. I am also a long time player and skins used to get me super excited because i knew as long as i played the game enough, I'd most likely be able to get the new exciting skins. Now i see new things with a big price tag and i don't feel anything from it like i used to. I might MAYBE be able to get them later with ow credits later, but thats an exception. That along with the pay to win character this season is an extra burn ontop of it.

I think Mauga was pretty good in his pre-release state. He did a ton of damage and had great survivability with Cardiac Overdrive and mobility with Overrun, but he was pretty squishy if you stepped the wrong way. To play him right you had to manage your cooldowns well. And that's how he still play to a degree, but now he as armor and Cardiac life steal got buffed. He has too much survivability for how much damage he puts out. The damage doesn't need to be nerfed, his armor and life steal does. So I would put him somewhere near his pre-release state when he had no armor.

The Orisa mythic arcade mode was a good PVPVE they could add. Just replace the Orisa boss with a 2 unique bosses that fight each other. With each side trying to kill them 1st. They could even tie the story into it. There could be one with one of Diva's team fighting the Omnic that keep attacking her city or a big Volskaya Industries robot vs an Omnic. Would be a cool mode to try.

I think that if these overwatch2 metas lasted as long as the oppressive overwatch 1 metas, they would be hated just as much, if not, more than them. It feels as if there are far less pop off moments and that contributes to the game feeling worse. I’ve been gaining more rank than I ever have, but am playing less than I ever have.

The Dev team keeps saying we are trying to make a good game, but it almost feels like thats just not enough (at least so far) with all other options out there. I get they are trying to find their own way but it feels to slow and they have had one to many misses with the funny modes. On a positive note I always believe games can make a ressurgence but the more people leave and are less interrested the more drastic the new changes will need to be.

I dunno if I'm just in an upside down world but I legit find that many issues somewhat stem from the shift to 5v5 (I'm sorry I legit don't understand how people prefer 5v5 to the 6v6) the absence of the off tank role means they've had to make the only tank left both survivable enough to work and do enough damage to take on the enemy team. Consequently you need more healing for the damage change, which means you need more damage from supports and ways of shutting tanks down, which is a cycle of tank is juggernaut, counter tank with kit/dmg. It felt more like you would outplay enemy teams with coordination in the 6v6 format, in 5v5 it feels like when you have the one or two good players they influence everything. Which as I write I can kind of see why people might like 5v5 as they influence the match more, but I feel like the spirit of a team based shooter is just absent as a result. I dunno I miss the off tank role, no shade at anyone who prefers or likes 5v5

I appreciate your optimism, but I've seen most of my fears going into OW2 be realized. The battlepass issues, losing PvE, 5v5 sucking, terrible balance, the list goes on. The game has changed so much, and become so focused on the shop/battlepass, instead of gameplay. Everything coming out seems to be for the purposes of filling the shop, or the battlepass; if not trying to tie another franchise in to sell more skins and battlepasses. On the balancing, 6v6 would be better, but the main issue is wanting to have all heroes have their cakes and eat them too. Having more niche/specialised characters who cant do everything would be best. Look at Reinhardt vs Kiriko. Rein has a simple playstyle that can be fit into many situation, but he cant do everything. Kiriko has a simple kit, but can dive, flank, poke, and brawl, and then get away for low risk. This game is geared towards solo queue one tricks, who dont want to play a team game, and don't want to learn how to improve. They ruined the game, and then took away so much that I loved: tank duos, combo plays, PvE, Experimental region, grinding lootboxes with friends, etc. I play this game still, but maybe an hour every few days. I never buy anything in this game, every match is a stomp, and no one talks anymore. This game isnt Overwatch 2, its Overwatch Mobile, and im tired of it. Microsoft won't fix the mistakes that Blizzard will never revert, nor will it fix the business model. All the changes you and other streamers list are too little, too late.

I do really miss LFG because theres no easy way to make new friends in this game. I know a lot of people (myself included) used LFG to make sweat stacks to try to climb because those people (myself included) were delusional and thought it was their teammates' fault they werent climbing. But towards the end of overwatch 1 i started to play to have fun and i used it to join groups that matched my energy and make new friends, and now theres no real way to do that anymore.

4:05 also should add that support is less inclined to make higher risk plays to win fights because they dont necessarily need to be the ones getting the majority picks in fights, thus they don’t get blown up as often.

Ow2 in general has just been far from the original promise it was meant to be fast paced and brawly, with more freedom and less cc, but instead its been nothing but high poke damage and long range spam . Unkillable tanks that do way too much damage and supports with absurd utility with too many imortality and bail out abilities. Power creep has been insane and cc is slowly creeping back in .

Post-buff Mauga is just killing me. I’m playing a lot less because of it.

One thing I’ve found odd that may be contributing to the staleness of the game is that the new core game modes (push and flashpoint) barely receive support after launch. They haven’t received any new maps after launch, so even when some life is injected into the game with these modes they quickly become stale. Meanwhile the new KOTH and payload maps also get stale quickly because they adhere to the same gameplay loops we’ve experienced for half a decade

I think that they made a major mistake with Mauga. He doesn’t function as an overwatch character;He already needs a rework. He is either going to be busted or worthless, depending on the numbers(or even depending on the team comp). Honestly I think that they should remove the ability to fire both guns at the same time and lean into the alternating guns, because that is the only interesting part of his kit except for the ult. If they try to work with that as a basis, he won’t be dependent on melting the enemy tank. I also think that fortify and stun on his overrun is just unnecessary, they should remove both and increase the damage slightly.

first sorry for ramble. My burn out is not shop prices, bad BP, bad balance, or the new heroes. Heck I continued to play OW1 every season during the hell period that was between echo and ow2 release. So compared to that this season is not that bad but during that time I still was able to have a lot of fun. My burn out is that 5v5 is slowly killing tanking for me and with tank not being fun I'm slowly losing reason to play. IK they will never bring back 6v6 so ik I might going to slowly going to stop playing. Reason I miss 6v6 is because of the tank synergy. Im mostly a solo que player so in OW1 it was so much easier to play tank cause IK around 80% of the time i could trust least one player on my team the other tank player. Like I could tell what kind of play style they would most likely have by there pick and had a better understanding of my job would be. If they played MT then my job was to support backline or hunt down the DPS that is causing problem. If they picked Winston then my job was going right behind him as dva. If they played zarya my job was to play Rein and keep pressuring the front so they can get there charge up. If I was with my tracer diving the front line I knew my off tank would be able to help my backline. If i was diving the backlines as ball I knew my Orisa was holding down point. It took some of the stress away and allowed me to fully enjoy my role but instead now it feels like I have to do everything. Im constantly having to switch between pressuring point, making sure backline has some support or diving that widow that is constantly picking us off. But if i cant do all 3 of those jobs perfectly then im constantly being told MTD or im throwing. Like tank gets all the blame and hardly any of the praise. Ik in OW1 it was the same way but blame was split between 2 and the other tank could usually see and understand when i was doing my job correctly. So i knew had someone that knew i was impactful. Also DPS and Support feels like they can make mistakes because they have someone else that can pick up the slack. For example if Ana is missing a few shots then Bap can be there to make sure they are healed. If one H.S cant hit their shots on a pharah then the other can switch to help out. But tank doesn't get the same treatment. If I misplace my shield as Winston or miss time my bubble as Zarya i get no slack. Its on full blast and I'm constantly getting flamed. I feel like i cant make mistakes anymore nor can I have an off game as a hero cause its all on me. I miss in OW1 lets say I'm having an off MT day there's a chance that the other tank switches and I can go to a more comfort OT pick but now If you are not on your A-game then why bother playing tank. The biggest thing I miss is when I was having a terrible time in front line like constantly getting blown up, not enough heals, or getting tank diff most of the time the other tank feels the same pain and will back me up Because they know the frontline pain and i dont feel like I'm yelling into the void stuff isn't working. It was also way easier to make switches because, tank players were more willing to try something new and DPS/support hardly change. Now it feels like i have to just silently take the hits cause no one else is on front lines with me to see what I'm seeing or they hardly play tank so dont fully understand the role of tank. So they just expect tank to have a perfect game and never need help. If you do then your not doing your job correctly. So with those feelings until OW makes it so tanks are allowed to make mistakes think this game will slowly die out for me and it's scary/sad to think about cause OW has always been my comfort game since 2016 but now it feels like a chore since i cant enjoy tank anymore. I used to be able to play 4-5 hours straight but now playing for 1.5 is a miracle. My only reason to keep playing is that Flats is constantly trying to voice that tank needs help. My hope is maybe flats is right if they do a global damage/heal nerf then tank wont explode and maybe that will make tank feel better and i can enjoy it again.

Subtitles are a MUST for me! At first I thought subs were just a cool visual feature, but now I feel like I can't follow the match as well without them.

Honestly idk about everyone else but I've been enjoying this season a lot more then previous ones, me and my friends have been playing more and have been climbing and doing better, overall have just been having a more fun time.

This is the first season I haven’t played since I started playing in S15

its the fact that ive seen multiple games with leavers and that never get any backfills especially after a 4 minute wait for a qp game. I will also add that as a high plat player who doesnt play ranked and is a qp frog, i legit only fact grandmasters in qp and that feels bad.

Suzu is the best cooldown in the game, and they buffed it at the start of season 8. Soldier's healdpad is a longer cooldown than suzu.

So this season is the first season that I've really gotten back into OW, and for me personally, I've really loved playing so far. Like the the battlepass theme I love, haven't bought it yet waiting to finish the battlepass first, and while mauga HAS sometimes felt overpowered I feel like a good support or damage alongside a good tank can play against him. Which isn't the case all the time, of course, because that can be quickly turned around with the Mauga having a good healer or just generally being even slightly better. Again, I do think I've enjoyed this season somewhat so far BECAUSE I've just recently started back up again. I don't think I've played this much OW since OW1. Also I kind of steer away from COMP right now because COMP just does not really feel good to me, and I just don't really see the point in COMP anymore when I don't see instant gratification. Basically only play it when I want to play a longer match. To end real quick, I believe I'm enjoying the current season because I'm just now getting back to it. I am starting to see bugs pop up and it's killing me having to deal with it (backfill being broken blows my mind) but I have fun in most of my quick play lobbies.

Wild Take: OW2 should go the TF2 route with weapon choices + hats/accessories.

flats saying he wishes he had this much passion to write something that long then sits there for 2 hours on stream reading it. classic

At 17:09 Flats wonders why it's not a winter theme, but Mauga is maori from Samoa, and it's summer in the southern hemisphere.

48:22 I don't understand why people don't talk about April Fools' mode. It was such a fun experience; no idea why they only kept it for a week.

Feels like they’re telling us to be happy about what’s coming and wait patiently for new comp and game mode but there’s not really content to sustain the game in the meantime. Even when the new content releases ,the burnout a lot of players are feeling may stay because although the comp overhaul was a display of the devs listening to us there still not communicating well or in some cases at all about other requested features/ changes like the PVE missions, in game events and how they plan on balancing the game better. There needs to be changes with how the battle pass works ( locking heroes behind a pay wall) ( free to play players need a better incentive to grind out the battle pass). Also generally just making the game less miserable to play especially in the seasons where there is not a lot going on like non hero seasons or seasons with not a lot of content. Keep the battle passes on theme more (not random off theme skins) And last point is to make sure to cater to all as well as they can and make sure not to neglect certain characters/ player groups like ignoring rein for the past 7 years whilst Kiriko gets her 37th skin and balance change.

Sometimes I can’t even hear reaper sneaking up on me and he’s got those clomp clomp platformers

14:52 I know someone who had a high winrate in qp and got ranked GM1, then proceeded to get banned for boosting. It's weird.

The thing that really turned me away was how unfinished it feels… Like especially with the orisa beast game mode. It felt so off playing on New Junk City for a beast hunting themed mode, and that alien meatball thing that feeds the orisas just felt so weird and out of place… It looks like they mashed a bunch of unused assets into a bit ball and called it a day. Ontop of that, as much as I personally love to play Mauga, he is the worst designed hero in the game, without a doubt.

They should add more elements to maps like zip lines more jump pads, bushes to hide in. More weather elements, maybe a map where there’s a war going on in the background, maybe even like boosts in a game like a speed boost if you claim it first or a damage boost or even armor to pick up on maps can make it more strategic

Hero meta has stagnated. I don't want to lock the bulkiest heroes in the game over and over. I love a situational Sig or Zarya, but I feel like I am in jail.

Brig needs more shield health

Anyone remembers TF2? When in the past a patch note was: new weapons, new weapon stat changes, new gamemodes, new official maps, new cosmetics, new cosmetic types, and sometimes brand new stuff no one expected. Overwatch 2? New hero, new skins, some hero balance tweaks, 1 or 2 hero revamp.

25:00 aside from skins and stuff, i honestly would love to see talents be incorporated into the base game. i feel like that can change a lot about how games are played and open up new skills to learn for everyone. i feel like having that new gameplay element can add a major new fun factor rather than waiting for new skins, heroes, maps, or buffs/nerfs. i know it will probably open a new can of worms, but its at least something to think about.

I was genuinely really excited thing Winston was gonna be good. I’m in silver, but I can usually play him in my rank if damage and sustain isn’t through the roof.

Mauga is basically the reason I dont plan on playing overwatch until his damage gets nerfed. Dont want the headache that others have been talking about

I don't want to get too philosophical but I wanna give an example of a cool college study. They took students to this poster sale and allowed all students to get one poster for free. However a random half the students had to give a detailed explanation as to why they picked it before they could have it. They found later that the students that didn't have to explain their choice were more satisficed with their poster in the long term. This is all to say we don't always know what we want because the emotional side of our brain can't communicated/articulate it's desires as easily. It's why when people go to therapy they realize the problem they have is the result of something entirely different than what they theorized. It's ok to be emotionally swayed, you don't have to give a reason why OW2 kinda sucks right now because chances are whatever you come up with isn't the real reason, you're just not feeling it.

I just had the no sound enemy ultimate the other day. Such a terrible feeling when you have to doubt yourself because of the game

Mauga is miserable to deal with as any role except dps imo, they have the most free rein to ignore him but eventually tank needs to stop him from pushing and he just kills you for existing and as support you have to pour everything into tank if theres a mauga on either side. He dies so fast and kills so fast both sides have to focus keeping tank up and its usually futile over mauga anyway. Plus the leaver replace sysyem being bugged has caused more than half of all my qp games to be 4v5 or 4v4 or worse. Hard to be excited about playing when its miserable to play even qp

i think flats is starting to become hypocritical; as in a new tank is added and is currently busted and OP, that he gets to use every game, so he takes a more positive look on overwatch as a whole, after complaining about supports and dps having it good for ages and not seeing core issues with the game

I don’t see many people talking about this, but I think there’s so much untapped potential with progression and specifically the rewards available for leveling up on heroes and game modes etc. Feels like a big missed opportunity to not put weapon skins behind hero progression. Plus we just need more rewards to make it feel more satisfying to grind certain heroes. Weapon skins, player icons, voice lines, weapon charms, potentially even skins, emotes and highlight intros. I play Overwatch a lot and loved the new progression system but there just isn’t enough rewards in my eyes. The name cards are cool and I like the titles but holy shit you have to proper grind a hero 24/7 just to get a hero title. Feels like only people that 1 trick characters can get a hero title. Also another huge missed opportunity is that the rewards for 5 starring all courses on hero mastery only gets you a name card sucks. You should at least be rewarded with a legendary skin for doing that. And yeah my other big issues: - Mauga gatekeeps the entire tank roster which is boring as hell - S8 battle pass sucks - Comp still sucks - Ximming is a MASSIVE problem on console recently (literally every other quick play game has a MKB player with a pocket mercy) - They need to stop half arsing new game modes for the new seasons and actually take the time to make something really good. (They proved they could do it with proper hunt and wrath of the bride) - Slow down with the re-colour on old skins most of them suck and it’s just lazy. - Mythic skin customisation has gone massively downhill (Hanzo and Orisa customisation is a complete joke) - Map rotation feels insanely biased to flashpoint and push. I get that they’re new modes but I swear every other game is Suravasa (and everyone I know hates that map) Junk City is fine but it’s wayyyy too common. I think more regular map releases would really benefit the game, especially since new maps like Samoa, Shambali and Antarctica have been so good. - Mercy damage boost needs to be on a resource meter. Straight up. I know no one will read this but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there. Also Mauga is broken so I think we should nerf genji

I felt this, i personally thing that it feels like this since the switch to 5v5. Having an extra tank making a bit more space to move around it is much needed.

Really thr most miserable thing about this season is how how insane mauga is like i cant escape him in qp comp or even scrim now😢

I would love damage and heal nerfs all across the board, its way too crazy atm. And mauga is honestly the worst hero since brig for me personally. You don't have him on your team you auto lose, and I'm not losing a shit ton of matches because I didn't buy a hero or because my teamate didn't pick mauga. It's brain dead unga boonga, and for someone like me who absolutely hates abusing meta I just can't. I refuse to be a meta slave because it doesn't feel like I'm winning because of skill, but because they're using a more broken hero.

as a hog main, with mauga in the game it makes me feel like i cant play how i wanna play, if i walk out of cover for less than a second 500 health is gone.

Real talk - the reason the pass isn't "winter themed" is because they realized the formal and winter skins would sell in the shop (like mercy) - So they have the pass be a bunch of skins that nobody would buy. The actual nice skins have been in the big packs and the shop for ages, widow multiple times because they know people will pay for her. Think back to previous passes where they have random filler epic skins, and then things like cloud orisa, medusa widow, cyber sojurn, etc. go to the shop, or pilot dva, bees, etc. go into the advanced packs. The filler goes into the pass. The real good skins go to the shop or advanced packs.

What if they did PVE with talent trees for every hero and a progression system that encouraged you to play replayable missions? It would be sort of a Destiny-type experience. That would have mixed it up this year.

I just started getting back into OW after about half a year of a break and im.confused on the complaint of QP being too sweaty how would the devs fix that wouldnt that be more of an issue of the community taking qp too seriously?

I love that you fight for the game, your a loud voice that a lot of casual players depend on to voice our opinions on a game we all have had an amazing time playing over the years. I really hope they listen to all the feedback and I look forward to seeing if they try and address some of these issues because it’s a game I’m not ready to give up on. Love ya flats.

I really like this style of video. More audio content would be sick to listen to when I’m not home. Ty for the content flats!

This is what Blizzard does in all of their games. Damage and healing get too high, always. Same in WoW arena. And what this does is make every single game feel worse because people are being killed in a split second or healed from near dead in an instant. It doesn't feel good.

"Apex Legends" Meh, I've gone back to Titanfall 2.

About game modes. I seriously miss that 1st April game mode where abilities had crazy effects. This is the single game mode I liked so far

To my mind, the problems with Overwatch in S8 are: - Leverage. The primary issue with Overwatch's core gameplay loop right now is that almost all high-leverage actions belong to supports. Supports are not overpowered in the way that they were several seasons ago, but they are overpowered in that the key plays that shift any game are almost entirely dependent on support cooldowns. With a few exceptions (Mei most notably), almost all high-leverage engagements are driven by support abilities: Bap's immo, suzu, Ana nade, etc. Most ultimates no longer feel like high-leverage moments as they're routinely countered by 1 or 2 abilities. As a masters support, I'm honestly exhausted by it, as I'm sure other roles are annoyed by the power supports have. The entire game is structured around high-leverage moments, and DPS and tank have vanishingly few of them. - Non-linearity. One of the reasons that Push and Flashpoint have been such duds is that they've completely abstracted the linearity of Overwatch (this is why people wrongly clamor for 2CP again). Escort, hybrid, and assault game modes were all strictly linear, with control maps being relatively small and featuring a clear frontline. King's Row will forever be the best OW map because it handled this linearity better than all others: it's straightline with short, harsh flank moments and a clear need for team synergy. Overwatch 2's shift to 5v5 and non-linearity has resulted in the scattered deathmatch-style play we've seen. - Role definition. Because of the loss of linearity, all characters need the ability to duel 1v1 to some extent (using escapes, self heal, increased damage, etc). With flanking routes more frequent and less of a protective, defined frontline, there are far more isolated duels. (This has been exacerbated by the introduction of Mauga.) In spite of how awful double shield was, it was at least clear what every role's function was. As OW has shifted its tank philosophy to brawl tanks and opened the game up spatially, every role has the same job: frag. While that's largely always been the case, there were synergies at play in older iterations of the game where fragging was achieved by tanks, supports, and DPS coordinating with one another. This is also why OW2 doesn't have the same need for things like defensive ultimates. With an essentially even playing field amongst all heroes' ability to fight/duel/frag, it's always more valuable to get consistent production than to wait for the chance to counter an enemy's high-leverage action. The reason season 8 specifically has felt like such a vibe shift is that Mauga exacerbates almost all of these issues and, being the only S-tier tank, has become endemic to the game, in spite of the fact that he's not available to everyone. To me, this portends trouble for the direction of the gameplay loop and the vision of the game broadly.

Despite my best efforts I havent had fun since overwatch 1

I legitimately think that most players don't actually enjoy overwatch. What they enjoy is a niche playstyle that is enabled by the huge diversity of heroes. So, any given moment, the game is considered "bad" because their niche doesn't work or feel good. That's why as the game approaches a balanced state, match making feels worse. When large swaths of heroes are viable, but only with certain comps, you are relying on the match maker to assemble your comp for you. If there are only a few meta heroes, you can bully people into a functional team comp. So you can only have "good" balance or "good" match making.

Me dying after Wintoning on the 50 hp support that was 2,5 km away from the enemy team😐

i thougt the same when first playing OW2, i always think to myself "since when did he stand there" and sometime the audio just cut out. (5:20)

Qp has always been sweaty. It’s the mmr mixed with the smaller playerbase, and leaver penalties that has amplified it to the extreme. I often dont play ranked as I play with my significant other but I’d say I’m pretty good at the game so we often find ourselves against diamond and masters players whose skill even when not sweating their ass off far exceeds the persons I’m playing with.

Honestly a lot of the time I saw someone die to supports and rage about it.. they were doing something stupid like trying to 1 v 2 both supports and expecting that to go well. 1 v 2 should almost always be a losing situation unless you catch people off guard with an ult or there is a big skill gap

Basically, the casuals primarily fund Overwatch; we see this with many other games. The cancellation of PVE deterred many of the casuals away. Now the Overwatch team is forced to bleed the remaining player base, the PVPers, for $$$. With a Overwatch hell bent on keeping this game sweaty and an absolute miserable experience, whether you win or lose, the team is going to become more desperate with their approach to monetizing Overwatch. Blizzard has clearly shifted the gaze onto their other titles. Overwatch prospects have only diminished.

As a solo queue player my biggest issue is people min maxing they’re games/smurfing/boosting. Yes I have friends but 9/10 out schedules don’t line up to play everytime & it’s not like it happens like ever other game it’s more consistent games it’s happening which makes unbalanced matches and stomps worst.

Why do you have to do the same thumbnail again?

People love this game for its characters, Blizzard realized that and took advantage by putting heroes in the battlepass and monetizing skins. In OW1, we could grind for SR on a hero of our choice and get cool skins as consolation prices. In OW2, we can grind to unlock heroes, and most skins stay behind a paywall. Imo, what were the best skins in gaming are now 20 bucks a piece, recolors, and low effort. Clearly outsourced and being mass produced for fan service and profit, not for love of the game. The cooperative gameplay was also really unique in OW1. 6v6 was complex, and I would spend hours with my friends debating cool combos and what the best comps were. OW2 switched to 5v5, simplifying the roles. Suddenly there was nothing to debate, Tanks protect their team and create engages, dps should get picks and focus fire targets, supports should keep everyone, including themselves, alive. This simplicity along with the new ping system (which is great but that's kinda the issue) made it so that you don't have to join voice. Even if you liked using voice in OW1, the only people who are using it now are toxic, so there's no point. The new heroes don't feel fun to learn and aren't unique. They all have tons of abilities, each of which feel exactly the same to other heroes just reskinned a bit. Of every hero and ability that has come out, only sojourn has felt simple enough to learn easily and only petal feels like a really unique ability. On top of that, the amount of heroes in each role makes flexing near impossible for a casual. That isn't to say they shouldn't add as many heroes - I think they should have already added even more. But the heroes in OW1 were more simple and unique, each working in tandem with their team to make one deadly unit. These simple heroes were easier to learn. The ones that aren't simple like ball and doom are completely unique, not just from other heroes but as characters in general they pushed the boundaries of gaming. The combination of tons of abilities on tons of heroes with lessened reliance on your team is very appealing to new "COD" players, which makes sense because it feels like that is who the game is made for now. The competitive system is a joke, but we all know that so I won't beat that dead horse. Pretending there is any semblance to balance with Mauga dominating all tiers is hilarious. Here's to season 9 reworks and hoping a balance team tries to actually balance rather than create metas for laughs. The professional scene was huge. They made a lot of serious missteps in implementation, and screwed over their image with the China stuff, but people really loved learning the ceiling of how good heroes could be played by people paid to do it. I used to know whole groups of people who had never seen an NFL game but all watched OWL. If it hadn't been for the ill-timed stadiums, pandemic, SA at blizzard, politic statements, youtube exclusive deal, and a whole bunch of other issues, they would still be thriving today. As it is, without a professional scene, a lot of people lost interest in the game as a whole. Obviously no one trusts Blizzard for shit because of PvE. Ya it's not coming, but it is going to take a really long time with some really good faith actions for the people to ever trust Blizzard again. With the way they've monetized and balanced the game, I would say they have made little to no progress in that regard. New game modes are good; they haven't been that great but it's the right direction. Being more open and communicative is nice. Hero mastery is cool, though it reminds us of the PvE a bit so it's bittersweet. New maps are fun, though it would be nice if they would just release all the 2CP maps that they have been theoretically reworking for 2-3 years already. Some of them were taken out with OW2, but lunar colony and paris reworks have been gone for years, so they should all be ready now right? If they release one of them at a time over several years, add reskinned maps to the list of reasons to not play the game. Not one person cares about souvenirs, but a lot of people remember the weapon inspects that never came. Now that they are adding unique and very expensive weapon skins, sure hope they remember those. TL;DR Blizzard got the message wrong and overproduced skins and heroes, the gameplay has suffered and they have broken our trust.

im in the same boat just waiting for the rank changes but i also feel that the skin issue is due to the FOMO since for a lot of skins they are available for a period of time and we dont know when we will see them again if at all for some, so when a new one comes out it has to be good, if they were permanently available then i feel like people would be oh the skin is kind of lame but there wouldn't be a giant outcry like there is now

Idk if anyone else noticed but with the weapon skins the new sounds are sometimes EXTREMELY quiet. Its still happening, not such a big deal for like Rein or Reaper, but mercy staff when healing has audio cues that help you hear when a target is full hp or not, the audio cues are so hard to hear with the hard light that you have to be looking at the icon in the middle to tell, which probably doesn't seem to be a big deal but im a bery audio oriented mercy player so its just hard to tell when its best to switch targets

I kinda like this season though. We aren't necessarily in the best meta, but the communication and community involvement feels so much better to me now

If it wasn’t for Mauga this would be the best season by far, playing Winton, Ram, Sigma, and Queen has felt great. Dps has felt a little better, but it needs some more help. Supports are starting to feel in line with the other roles, and as a whole the roles feel much tighter in balance.

What if they brought back loot boxes for every n-th progression level? Or maybe a hero specific lootbox when you reach certain levels on a hero?

For the rank issues there is going to be wild games where you are wondering where these people are coming from both in quality of skill or lack there of for a while. But focus on what you bring to the team, support where you can and work as a team. But in time as people pump out their hours playing that hardcore comp grind you will climb faster and further then the casual competitors and you will out pace their progress and their presence in your matches. This is not going to be an issue for long for those are playing the game for the grind set. I honestly might try putting in hours doing comp on the reset to see what I can do with myself after living so long in the QP lobbies. But my biggest issue is QP Matches are just faster for challenge progression for the battle pass ex grind. So I would think I might save my comp plays till after when close to finishing the 80 tiers.

Not exactly the most important change but I wanna see more variety in challenges/events. Everyday feels like the same dailies of "Win a game, say hello to someone, play 3 arcade matches". Have specific ones like "Play 3 or win 1 game as Ashe, Get an environmental kill, Freeze 5 people as Mei"

Hot take, orisas mythic is one of the bests on a first person view on par with Ana’s (she could be a canon character) Also the beasts mode at the beginning of the season was much more fun than the actual flashpoint mode

I swap between Overwatch and Paladins depending on my feelings for each. As buggy as Paladins can be, it has its own solutions to Overwatch problems. (i.e. natural cauterize throughout Paladin’s match to balance healers). I keep an eye on Overwatch for sure, but I’ve been doing Paladins recently and having fun.

Tank duo’s were my favorite part of overwatch 1. That along side the look for a team option is what made the game competitively fun

I hate that when theres a mauga not dying,one of my supports doesn't use their brain and refuses to get on ana. I use mauga,i instantly get hit with sombra,lifeweaver,reaper,and ana especially

the match making is terrible right now. I lose about 70% of my games. Even though i play good. I always get matched with one bad teammates that cost our team

I think my take really lines up with a lot of these. Aside from the mouga thing, My main problem is it feels like a holdover for season 9. That and I agree that it's odd that it's not a winter theme.

I think we might see some type of large scale PVPVE tower defense mode, similar to MOBAs like League of Legends and Hero's of The Storm. They've been working on their PVE for awhile. Grant it, the bots in the Invasion PVE missions are sleepers, and feel very bare bones to play against, but I think they are dumping a lot of development into their PVE / bot behavior. They announced a new mode called Hero Gauntlet, which is just a tower defense mode. What if they are wanting to see how we like that mode and if it would be marketable? Might want to keep an eye on the next couple Blizzcons coming up.