kinda funny that the only sound on overwatch 2's title screen while you wait in the queue is an ominous whooshing

i am gonna add to this, though: all the half-star reviews claiming this game's monetization is worse than the original loot crates are absolute fucking Gamer nonsense. the seasonal battle pass is 10 dollars. each season lasts 9 weeks. that's less than 5 bucks a month for completely optional cosmetic items earned through play (and unlocked with the pass). that's it. there are skins you can buy for 20 bucks if you want, and i'm gonna point out that i've never seen a single complaint about even more expensive items for sale in ff14.

i wouldn't argue that anyone should feel compelled to support blizzard by any means... but most of the negativity toward this game is... unhinged.

don't play it if it's not for you, but also maybe shut the fuck up if you're not even going to try it before dropping your ill-informed half-star bullshit. tired of it.

forgot to mention that those skins you can pay for can also be earned through play with the battle pass. this is actually some of the most generous monetization i've seen in a free to play game. and you don't even have to pay for any of it.

lets be honest all the people grandstanding over blizzard but loving FFXIV are crazy. Ontop of the microtransactions galore their company also has NFTs.

in fairness, those nfts aren't in ff14. but yeah. it's goofy.

(to be clear, i love ff14... though otherwise square enix commonly disappoints, these days.)

I greatly appreciate you bringing some actual level-headed thought to this. There's no timeline in which I'm going to play this (I deleted my Battle.net account) but I've wanted to see rhetoric on OW2 that isn't blindly positive/negative/misinformed.

likewise, i appreciate your acknowledgment!

there's every possibility that my genuine enjoyment of ow2 will sour over time, as it did with the original game (and broadly as it has with every blizzard game i've ever played)... but i'm constantly shaking my head at the quality of bandwagoning 'criticism' leveled at particular games, this one among them.

for the record, with regards to blizzard as a company: of course, i condemn its toxic workplace culture and sincerely hope that things have improved at least somewhat for those working there who have endured the brunt of it. the only reason i continue to play their games at all is because i know those people have worked on their games (and likely did most of the work on them, from the sound of it) and i feel they should not be forgotten and abandoned, left to a company and fanbase who cares little for their well-being. still, i absolutely respect anyone who's chosen to flat-out boycott everything they produce. personally, i aim to engage thoughtfully. (and i have not yet spent any money on ow2.)

as someone who doesn't care about either of these games i can certainly understand why there would be vitriol over shutting down ow1's servers, discarding everything its diehards have earned up to that point, and replacing the game they've invested in with an inferior f2p variant

and like it or not - loot crates you've earned over the course of several years for free are definitely gonna look more desirable than a battlepass model

i'd probably be feeling the same as the other half stars if i played ow1 for more than a few months after launch. blizzard's practices earn them the backlash. don't be surprised or frustrated by it

I agree that the hate for this one feels extremely unhinged as the game is still pretty fun but I really think the battle pass system only works with an existing lifetime progression system on top of it like how Apex manages to keep player portrait levels, boxes that lets you grab items, the battle pass even gives you credits for the next one and enough crafting metal to get a legendary of your choice for free. This also on top of removing the unique elements of the game like being on fire, player final cards, player portraits as mentioned earlier. I don't like Blizzard as a company either as much as anyone either but it's kinda disheartening to hear the overall discussion about the game just essentially becoming a twitter feed rather than constructive dialogue about the actual gameplay mechanics.

@chandler: not "everything" ow1 players earned has been discarded. actually, pretty much none of it has. "inferior f2p variant" doesn't mean anything. it's just an expansion upon the original game, which was itself continuously updated and altered.

you're actually defending loot crates.

don't tell me how to feel. it's clear you're not informed. and you don't care, anyway, so be quiet.

@exandoh: they're bringing back the "on fire" system at some point, but as good as that felt i think the live stats you can see for each player on your team are a better idea. and for what it's worth, your character will still vocalize "i'm on fire!" when you're doing well.

I think criticism of OW2's monetization is legitimate but the key issue is that the monetization was always bad. Loot Crates are bad, Battle Passes are bad. They're both bad. Every F2P monetization scheme I've ever seen is at the very least bad. My only extra criticism that is unique to OW2 is that you have to unlock the new heroes through money or play, which I just hate and have always hated.

that's absolutely fair and reasonable, yeah. i don't know that i love having to unlock new characters through play or pay, but i do understand the reasoning they set forth; that they saw consistent feedback from new players suggesting the existing roster available up front felt overwhelming, and so having them learn a set of characters before having access to more would empower them... i suppose i find it difficult to counter that argument. i am also coming from the position of being a 'legacy' player, so i haven't had to unlock anyone yet.

i guess i don't feel entirely negative about the monetization, either, which i've already expressed. i mean, again, i don't really see complaints about the mandatory subscription fees for mmorpgs like wow or ff14, with both of those also selling cosmetic items at not-insignificant prices. 5 bucks a month, optionally, for a dedicated player seems pretty good to me, as long as they continue to work on balance and new maps and so forth. above all, i think it's a far cry from the gambling system that was loot crates.

honestly, though i welcome your comment and even agree to some degree, i don't think the monetization is the most interesting thing we could be talking about. i'd love to talk about the game itself, and what i love about it (or don't)! i main lucio, in large part because i enjoy healing, though moreso because there's nothing else quite like his feeling of mobility in games. there are others i like a lot, too, but for me lucio is a primary draw. i think the sheer joy of playing as some of these characters simply cuts through all the absurd half-star negativity, and i kinda wish more people could see it that way.

Right, I agree that the monetization isn't really an interesting issue. Like, even if you hate it, BPs like this are at this point are pretty bog standard, I can't really get myself to be worked up over one specific one. But people like dunking on things and fans are rarely ever happy, so its about what you would expect

indeed. though it seems we agree on wishing to push back against that expectation, looking at your elden ring review. criticism is important... but i would really like to see it be far more measured and incisive than it widely is.

This is the first I'm hearing of their reasoning for making players unlock the roster over time and honestly my experience with the first game is the perfect counter to that. The roster only feels overwhelming when you're picking your first few characters, but with the ability to switch heroes mid-game, I very quickly made my way through all of them in my few first games. A strength of the first Overwatch was that all these heroes feel very unique, but that also means that not every hero is suited to every player's playstyle, nor should they be. I was honestly ready to drop the game because I kept cycling my way through heroes that I thought were conceptually fun, but I would never be good enough at to want to play this hyper-competitive game. Shortly after saying that, I found my way to Reinhardt, who would become one of my two mains, and everything clicked into place and Overwatch became my most played game. If I started Overwatch with a limited roster, I could see it being very likely that I would've given up on the game before I ever unlocked the ability to play as that hero that made the whole game click for me.

for sure! my own experience was similar. i will point out, though, that there were originally 21 characters, while there are now 35. i do agree, though - they all feel distinct, and perhaps it would be better to simply allow players to find their own way through the roster until something clicks. on the other hand, with such a large roster, i could see people giving up on the game long before that happens. of course, this could also be nothing more than a means of baiting people into sticking with the game... ultimately, i don't know if there's a perfect solution. from what i've heard it only takes a few matches to unlock a character, so it doesn't seem to me like too big of an issue.

If you're unlocking characters every couple of games a la Smash Bros. then it's definitely not as bad as it could be. But I would still argue that the perfect solution is simply not to implement the limitation at all. I don't think there are really a whole lot of people out there going "Wow, there's too much game here! I'm gonna quit, I was expecting less game!"

The argument that anything can be unlocked while playing for enough time can also be applied to lootboxes. The battle passes in Overwatch 2 include new characters, who you can either pay for, or play for literal days worth of time. It's a pay to win game. If you pay more money, you don't just get cosmetics, you get an advantage over other people, plain and simple.

no, you don't. lol. cosmetics are cosmetics.

I do think there's an argument to be made that if a core component of the game is still the ability to switch heroes mid-game to adapt your team comp for what the other team is using, then starting the game with a shorter roster is a competitive disadvantage.

i have to apologize, because i misunderstood takeitatry. yeah, that's definitely an argument. i would counter that argument by pointing out that every hero type needed to adapt (e.g. switching to soldier when the other team has a pharah) is available from the start... so you're not necessarily at any real tactical disadvantage. new players also need to play about 50 matches in quick play before they get access to competitive, and by then they've probably also unlocked and tried every hero. when you're new, you're also not really thinking of the game that way - you're just trying things and finding what you like.

so, yeah, there's an argument to be made, and i can see it, but i kinda disagree. respectfully.

I didn't know that they make you play a bunch of quickplay first before unlocking competitive so yeah that is a fair rebuttal. Though, I would be so frustrated as a new player in quickplay if the enemy team had a Pharah and I hadn't unlocked any of her counters yet and was stuck with like, Reaper or something.

Like, if you're a new player in quickplay, you're not technically playing a mode that is labelled "competitive", but you are still trying to learn how to play the game competitively.

well, again, you do have those hard counters available from the start. soldier 76 is on the starting roster. widowmaker, too. so, assuming a new player does realize that's a winning strategy, they try countering with those heroes and then when sojourn and others are unlocked they're better prepared for those characters and it's exciting. at least, that's how i'd imagine feeling about it.

Oh I think I glanced over part of your last comment. Ok fair point lol. I still think it's all just "well this is not as bad as it could be" more than it's "this is a good change."

yeah, i mean, if someone feels strongly that everything should simply be available up front it's kinda difficult to change their mind, but i don't really feel there's anything terribly wrong with the current situation. to me, it just comes down to whether or not you want to engage with blizzard at all (and i have nothing but respect for anyone who chooses not to), and beyond that whether you enjoy the game enough to overcome its initial hurdles. i think the game's in a really good state presently...

I don't think I'd see any ethical issue with playing this game so long as you don't buy anything, the F2P model kind of helps with that particular moral dilemma lol. I'll simply not be playing for the same reason I stopped playing the first game, which is that it's got one of the most toxic player bases out there. Kinda hard to enjoy a multiplayer game if you don't like the people you're playing with.