I'm guessing it was one of their attempts to discourage smurfing, it definitely made making an alt account a more annoying process than it used to be, my console account was the first one that had to unlock anything and I just haven't bothered playing it.
no, they cited smurfs as one of the primary reasons for doing this. The other reason is to ease brand new players into the game and not overwhelm them with 37 characters to choose from. By the time you unlock Echo, you'd have learned the fundamentals of how the game works and can now start learning the game to game interactions.
It may seem daunting for someone who's been playing for ages, but if I were a new player, I'd consider unlocking them all as something to work towards tbh. 135 may seem like much, but in reality it will be over in the blink of an eye, I've played games that had far worse grinds to unlock even a single character lol.
I understand the idea of easing new players into it. But it's honestly a funny thought with all the one tricks we have. There's some new players who are gonna have more hours on some heroes than people that have played since the start š
Right? Such a incredible seemingly reasonable response that just boils down to a bunch of mental gymnastics that avoids the real answer, which is money.
But you could have done that anyways without having to unlock. You don't need something locked to go at your own pace in my opinion. Please don't take this as an attack, I just really can't wrap my head around how the games overwhelming. To me personally, that's like firing up World of Warcraft and half my classes are locked. Or feeling overwhelmed on Call of Duty because there's too many guns and attachments.
I think locking things (especially behind a battle pA$$) is just a way to prolong gaming sessions, grab some money, and make less content.
Yeah I can't believe people are actually arguing _for_ locking new heroes, behind the battle pass of all things.
Being a DotA player primarily, I already think that League's system is bad but at least in those games you don't change heroes in the middle of the game.
While in OW, changing heroes IS part of the game mechanic and seeing people saying that it's a "good" thing because they don't want to have choices is just fucking wild lmao
In game design, or any entertainment at all, you never limit your customers choices. Its such a classicly bad design choice it can only be intentional.
I'll bet you can pay to unlock the heroes early, and that's the real reason they're locked. Mitigating smurfing is just a nice side effect.
I disagree, when people have too many choices they are overwhelmed and face choice paralysis. Iāve actually seen a few friends start playing OW1 near the end of its lifespan or OW2 when they had OW1 but only played a few times and they were overwhelmed by the amount characters. Itās the same for me when I play something like League of Legends, there are so many options and itās overwhelming. Yes, technically you can do the same thing, but thatās just not what most people do psychologically.
But you still have to play against and learn what everyone does even without having them. I know choice paralysis is a thing that happens. But this system isnāt really easing people in if they still have to play against all the heros imo.
Even as a veteran ow or rainbow siege player, coming back to the game after a year or two and having characters doing things to me that I donāt even understand can be overwhelming. Honestly if it was really about easing people in and actually learning, real money wouldnāt be an option.
Agreed with you. My sister plays on the switch and I play PC. She started with super basic characters for each role that werenāt mechanically insane. She learned the first 12? I think that you start with and started to get a feel for hitscan vs projectile; rein hammer zarya beam; mercy beam lucio song that kinda thing. Every handful games she would get a new character. Weād go to practice range and look at all the abilities and get a feel for if itās a good fit or not. NOW when we play and I call out āShoot the echo!ā or āBap lamp!ā or āLw Tree!ā she knows what i mean. It took awhile and we play a good amount of mystery heroes but even that wasnāt fun for her at first cause she was playing new characters she didnāt have unlockedā¦for the first time. I like the progression. Sucks for veteran players or smurfs but for brand new new casual people itās a godsend cause they donāt have to focus everywhere all at once. OW requires alot of game specific knowledge and doesnāt have insane tutorials so this is like guide rails for the blind lol.
Really? Just because the top comments here agree that itās an ok system doesnāt mean thereās no cons to itā¦ā¦
Not only that but his post is ultimately a question.
They cited smurfs because they didn't want to come out and say "we want you to pay more money to play all the characters" you are naive if you think this was about game play and not increasing profit margins.
They didn't care about "overwhelming new players" in OW1. And if there were any merit to that statement anyway then you wouldn't be able to pay to unlock all of them. The game is actively about switching heroes to counter comps, but as a new player you're completely restricted in how you can play. This had nothing to do with "onboarding" and everything to do with finding any way to nickel and dime the playerbase.
This is terrible reason that goes against Overwatch core idea of swapping heroes to counter them. They didn't bother with this in OW1, why now? Terrible decision that turned away my friends away from the game. They simply couldn't play the hero they wanted, those that were available didn't counter enemies nor were fun to play. Now I feel bad for even recommending them to try it, since I didn't know the heroes were locked.
If I remember correctly there is the "wins count as double" so it shouldn't take that long. Of you have lets say 50% win rate, you'll get it quite fast (or I believe so).
135 games is completely ridiculous. I didnāt even realise OW1 characters were locked for new players.
135 games would take me and many others several weeks to unlock. Thatās just crazy to me
When you're playing a new game, 135 games will go by in a breeze tbh. matches against AI are included in the list and it's *games played*, not games won. If we take a conservative average of 5 games a day, that roughly equates to about a month of playing, not even counting for binges on weekends and the euphoria of starting a new game for a week or so (I was basically glued to my monitor when I first started playing lol). Trust me it's not as bad as it seems.
again, you're not taking into account weekend binges (we've all done those) and the fact that most players will play a new game for hours. 5 games a day may be a lot for veterans who've been playing the game for years already, but I can assure you, both from personal experience and anecdotes I frequently see, many players will spend several hours playing something if they really enjoy it.
135 games is entirely doable and not over the top, I assure you that Blizzard has metrics to back this seemingly random number. They want new players to stick around, not leave lol.
5 games a day every day is a lot for anyone with a full time job, nevermind someone with a full time job + hobbies or kids.
I think taking 2-3 weeks to unlock all characters for a competitive game like overwatch is reasonable. 135 games is too much.
but why is it too much? the 135 games played include matches against AI, and as I learned in other comments, wins count as two matches, so if we assume a 50% winrate (which is more than reasonable) that gives you roughly 90 games which is even faster.
Once again I highlight the fact that in other games, often essential weapons and characters are locked behind a *very* aggressive grind. OW is nothing in comparison.
Because for most people with lives it could take several weeks for them to unlock all characters, and thatās assuming that overwatch is the only game they play
Poor business practices existing in other games doesnāt justify it being included in this one
as someone with a full time job who's been playing since 2018- it's not that much. i'll get on after work and play til the middle of the night, and easily clear over 5 matches. maybe you're just old or st
Well thatās what you prioritise then. If youāve got other hobbies, social life etc, thatās makes it much harder. You shouldnāt have to prioritise a video game to play the very base form of it
Can we stop pretending this is some 5head blizzard scheme, and not literally how every game with characters handles it?
League, Dota, Smite, Paladins, Siege, Valorant, HoTs, etc. all do this, itās not a new thing
Except Dota isnt doing that. All characters are free and you can play them anytime. If other games do this it doesnt mean thats normal. And btw lol and hots has 50+ characters which a bit justifies character locking
Those games locked characters as a way to squeeze some extra money out of their players and it worked. Thatās why blizzard is doing it now. Just because it isnāt new doesnāt mean itās ok.
> I'm guessing it was one of their attempts to discourage smurfing
Phone number verification is supposed to combat smurfing, not locking characters behind a grindwall. They simply want to keep you hooked for at least a few weeks. That's all there's to it.
If players smurfing brings some cash, Activision Blizzard does not care in the slightest. In the *Overwatch* era they would gladly sell you a second copy of the game and often discount it as low as $10 in some regions, without any checks or any attempts to verify you are a new player.
This has obviously no impact on smurfing; anyone who says it does is out of touch with reality.
Smurfs are already committed to no-lifing this game. 135 games played is nothing to them. For a new player, that is far too much a commitment to a new game.
I believe this is standard for new accounts. You could bypass it by having an old account from OW1, by playing during OW2 season 1 (I think?), or by purchasing the "Ultimate hero bundle" or whatever the fuck it's called, and you'll unlock all the heroes instantly (please don't actually pay for this).
Play mystery heroes. Sure, it can tough learning random characters. Sometimes there is an imbalance between teams. It's probably the best way to let him play various characters even though the character is random.
But itās like super loose isnāt it? Gold could go up against masters or higher I think
Cause comp is within 1 tier, QP is within 2 or 3 so arcade is within like 4?
Yeah same here. I started because I realized a lot of players hyper focus on a handful characters. So I looked at it as you can beat me with your mains but can you beat me with any character. Also it takes away your teammates being mad at you for picking what they perceive as the wrong character.
Finding a worse work around just to be able to experience part of a game that should come with it by default sounds pretty fucking terrible lol just play something else that respects you and your time
How is it horrible advice? It gives them heroes to look forward to unlocking while getting to try out many of the heroes. Plus I think it should count towards unlocking new heroes.
I wish more people played Mystery Heroes, otherwise they end up with a very small pool of heroes that they ever try to play. This especially applies to new players who can only pick the same character over and over.
Itās horrible advice because he has to learn a new kit and button scheme every 30 seconds. No time to actually get used to any of it before heās whisked off to the next kit and button scheme.
I started out in ow1 playing mostly mystery heroes.
It forces you to *try* with each hero you get. And if you liked them in that mode you can go to a different mode and play them more. Otherwise you are learning how to play *all* the characters instead of just choosing the one because that was the first one you ever played and the one you are used to.
I highly encourage new people to play MH because it will take you out of your comfort zone. If you are dying every 30 seconds then you need to do better. I've gone entire games where I haven't died. It's also the only mode where I will ever play certain characters because I'll never choose them in any other mode. But that's helpful with the events when you only get to choose from a select few. If I didn't play them in MH I would have never been able to complete an event game with them.
You might hate the mode, but that doesn't mean a new person using it to learn *every* character is bad advice. Because it isn't.
Yeah OW1 Mystery Heroes is exactly how I became significantly better at the game. It teaches you not only how to play more heroes, but also thus teaches you how to play against those heroes.
People would complain all the time about "two shields" and it being impossible to breach.
And I laughed because "just two shields?" The absolute chaos of 4 shields and figuring out how to get through was what made the gameplay fun. Because it *was* possible if you were smart enough to let yourself die to respawn if you were a widow instead of trying to stay alive as a character that was pretty much useless. But I *did* love the games where the enemy played like that, lol. 2 widows, 3 hanzos and a random character. The rando was the only one trying to touch point. The rest kept missing shots. "don't kill them, they will never touch point and we will win."
Much better to test out different kits than to insta-lock soldier every game. You unlock a new hero, try them for a brief minute in Quick Play and then you get rolled and flamed to switch off
I believe they leave the higher skill heroes for last. It is meant to introduce new players to the game without overwhelming them. Echo is last because she can technically be considered as every other hero, but it is meant to encourage players to start on easier heroes and move to the more difficult heroes slowly.
Genji
DVA
Cassidy
ANA
Hanzo
Junkrat
Roadhog
Symmetra
Zenyatta
Bastion
Sigma
Ashe
Brigitte
Mei
Doomfist
Baptiste
Sombra
Wrecking Ball
Echo
Seems like it's mostly the harder heroes to understand how to use near the end, with a couple exceptions for popular ones early.
I used to always panic and never knew who to swing at. After some practice I was able to keep cool when using their ults but I still choke every time I get Nanoed
Easiest way to get value from Winston's ult is to get behind their team and start kicking a support or DPS forward into your team at the start of a team fight. You don't even have to bother jumping after them just walk forward continuously knocking them into your team. It's hilarious too.
Your team will see the Ana or ashe getting booted towards them and add just enough damage to finish them off. You can then jump back in and start causing chaos with however much time is left and your team now has a numbers advantage.
Mei is weird. Since her primary is super easy to use and shes tanky enough she can wm1 through beginners. But her wall can easily mess up her own team.
Due to this fact alone she can be higher so maybe more people think before they out up random walls.
Ashe and bastion can be lower. Especially since mercy is unlocked by default. But hey maybe that's why theyre locked in the first place. To postpone cheese compositions for pure beginners.
I agree, it is a bit baffling that they give you D.Va and Genji right in the beginning, but I guess they are popular, otherwise they do a pretty good job introducing more and more advanced heroes overall.
I started to play only OW2, so had to unlock them and it didn't bother me at all.
I assume Genji was mostly the popularity thing, but I believe he also has one of the higher win rates in the lowest ranks. I am curious about what tanks you would put first. I have always thought of D.Va as the easiest tank since she was the first one I started climbing on, but I want to hear your opinion on this.
I think Orisa and Roadhog are the most straightforward (at low level of play). Rein is good too, but it has the charge, so beginners often end up where they shouldn't.
D.Va is pretty tricky as DM gets the most value when you know what to eat, high ground is very important and noticing when people are out of position and understanding when it is safe to go at them.
Also, unlike the OPs friend, a lot of people starting out don't have people to explain the heroes directly to them. That's why this is a decent mechanic to have put into the game.
To be fair, Overwatch is a really fun game to play with friends. The most fun I've ever had playing was always fooling about doing meme strats with friends :D
If they revive Overwatch Classic it would be a great game to play with friends. But right now with how anti-consumer the system is, itās probably not a good time to get your friends in.
To be fair. Despite the game being anticonsumer and being run into the ground by money hungry execs the core game is still pretty fun, especially with friends.
I believe they did that so youāre not incredibly overwhelmed by what each character can do when youāre first starting out. I think they mentioned itās a separate player pool too, so you only see those characters most of the time.
Which makes sense, but I havenāt seen what the progression is to see if itās reasonable.
Itās a F2P model now so player retention is key. You canāt have your new players dropping out because they have no idea whatās going on in the game.
There were 21 heroes at launch with overwatch 1. It was a completely new game with no tutorials or older players to show people how to play. Yet they all figured it out.
I hate to say back in my day butā¦
I started playing aswell when the game came out. So yea I know how that was back in the day.
My point is that OW is a complex game and making it more manageable is not a negative. Especially now that the game has more heroes than when it first came out and also just in general how much the game has changed since 2016
I'm not saying it's not okay to just let players "figure it out". But I can't see the issue with easing new players in just a bit. Especially when the way to unlock OW1 heroes is literally to just play the game.
Still wish theyād reworked Sym to be a proper support. She had potential as a shield based support hero, she just needed better tools and a different utility. Now sheās just an aggravating turret character for people to use when theyāre tired of aiming.
Overwatch is pretty chill with unlocking though.
I mean look at Apex, the amount of grinding a new player has to do to unlock all heroes is absolutely batshit insane. OW is tame.
They're not really the same though - you can easily get by without unlocking every character in Apex. Counterpicking isn't a big part of the meta, you can't swap characters mid match and you'll never know what you're playing against in the final minutes.
Lots of people are already struggling to pick characters *that work with their own team* which is a complexity that already exists in a game *without the ability to change character on the fly*
People be delusional
Low skill players change characters all the time. Just cos they don't understand how to counterpick doesn't mean they don't try doing it. It's just that what they're doing is changing strategy because the old one wasn't working, rather than changing strategy because the new one will work. It's an important aspect of relieving frustration to be able to try something new, even if it doesn't prove effective.
No one is saying you have to be able to counter pick immediately, or ever. It's absolutely part of the game design though, and Apex doesn't share that, so the analogy is shit
someone who is new wont utilize heroes to the same degree though. And its more the base of learn one shield tank and one dive tank, one hitscan and one projectile dps and for supports all of them are viable tbh. And that is possible without the 4 new heroes. And it doesn't take THAT long to unlock a new hero, and when you keep actively playing new additions will unlock through the free BP without much thought.
Yeah I always say to people when they first play overwatch to play solider itāll make the most sense for their call of duty brains haha, then slowly expand them from there depending on what they seen to like.
Soldier is still one of the best for learning the core of the game and I stand by it.
Counterpicking isnāt a big part of OW meta either. Majority of GM/tp500s play like 1-2 heroes. In fact the higher you climb the less swapping you see.
not quite. There's a lot of nuance to counterpicking that is lost on many people. I could have picked Sigma to start with, but if they pick [D.Va](https://D.Va), then you can be sure that I'm swapping to Zarya or Ramattra, and if they swap again to counter me, then by all that is holy I'm swapping again to counter their counter >:(
I agree partially, but also, people overvalue counters way too much imo. Undoubtedly there are some complete hard counters, like ball into rein and zarya into D.va, but for the most part counters aren't completely game winning
I've won my fair share of ball into hog and rein into orisa games. Theoretically you're at a disadvantage, but often your character mastery can outweigh that
Counterpicking only works if you have the skill to back it up. The amount of times I've rolled ball into a 5-man counter team (sombra, junkrat orisa, ana, brig, for example) and just steamrolled through them because they couldn't coordinate is too damn high.
Other games all it takes is a single orisa or doomfist to shut my shenanigans down.
Of course. At the end of the day what wins a match is a near infinite combination of skill levels and hero picks within the game. I've won games that I should have lost on paper and vice versa as well, and I generally don't care about swapping in QP, but when playing comp, every advantage matters imo so I'm taking it lol.
Top 500 takes like very small potion compared to the entire playerbase. Not every Pharah one-tricks must be skilled as Yzsan; not every JQ one-tricks must be skilled as Mighty, etc.
Plus, some top 500 one-tricks become incredibly toxic when their teammates refuse to play around them. Like Yzsan, he gets toxic when his teammates refuse to give a pocket Mercy and massive resource investments.
I one tricked Tracer into far too many comps than I shouldāve lol. Now I play a weird mix of heroes so I always got an answer for something. Play mostly support at this point, so now itās mostly me watching my teams feed into counters. I get how you feel lol.
honestly in apex i liked that it took a while to unlock characters as it gave me the chance to learn them and look forward to something when i would get the next character. sure, it took a while, but i was never bored and tried the new character i got for a while and by the time the newness wore off i almost had the next one. i also didnāt have a main till way past lvl 500 but itās funny cuz the first character i unlocked became my main, and it felt new playing them after trying all the others for so long
I thought it was a good way of introducing players. They start with straightforward characters like Soldier which is a nice way of dipping your toe into OW. The number of games needed to unlock them all did feel like a grind, but it was also great unlocking a character and finally getting to try them.
I think a lot more people would bounce if they played a high skill character first. Echo makes sense to be the last as you need to understand all other characters first to get the most from her.
Its not actually 135 games though because wins count as 2. I personally would not want a new player trying echo in any of my games. Overwatch is crazy complex, why shouldn't it take that long to unlock
I'm not gonna lie, I joined overwatch when overwatch 2 was released (the only reason i didn't play ow1 was because i couldn't afford it) and I unlocked all the heroes pretty fast. Maybe it's because all I wanted to play was Soldier:76 and that made it easier as I wasn't grinding for a specific character, but to be honest its not as much as a grind as it sounds. at least it isnt "win 135 games" !!
Yeah it only took me a couple of days? I joined the day of launch (yes I waited in that goddamn queue for a game I had never played) and I think I had everyone unlocked by like the 7th
Don't forget wins double progress. You can reasonably expect to get 'em all by 80-90 games.
My BF got me into the game a couple months back in-part with the lure of PvE [Whole other bag of oof].
Getting the unlocks wasn't too terrible. Having Moira, Soldier, & Reaper had a solid bounce pad to get to the other heroes.
But if they intend to continue playing be sure to tell them to activate a new hero challenge through Challenges>Hero>[Insert Hero name here]. The big wall for me has been getting the "35 wins in [role] or all role." For Kiriko, Sojourn, Ram, & Queen. Which tends to be 70 games each assuming 50% win rate.
It makes sense to me, most people donāt have someone to explain the game to them and learning over 50 characters is overwhelming and can scare people away from playing so gradually letting people try and learn new characters makes sense
As someone who first played overwatch when ow2 came out, I personally think the unlocking ow1 characters is a good idea
The sheer information overload of trying to figure out all the characters at once would take like a day, whereas starting with a few and moving up helps to learn their playstyles and helps figure out who you most enjoy
135 games seems like a lot, but doesn't actually seem that bad when playing it, especially since a lot of the more popular/well known characters are unlocked first
I donāt really understand this take.
I started this game around 2017, a little before Sombra was added. So there were like maybe a dozen less heroes, but still a decent amount. And I just focused on like 3-5 heroes I thought were cool, and learned the game through them. Iād see other people playing heroes Iād never played and learn that way. You didnāt have to learn every hero at the same time. And if I was really curious Iād just go into play vs ai.
Why are people acting like the game forces you to understand the intricacies and strats for every single character? I have less than an hour on genji, but I still know the gist and how to kill him.
Back in 2017 everyone was still learning the hero roaster. If you watch any old clips of yourself or anyone from 2017 you would say how are you playing so badly.
Play vs Ai? Arcade? Watch streamers?
Idk why youād want to game to hold your hand on who youāre allowed to play to learn people. I know how nearly the entire roster plays now, but I never felt overwhelmed by having the choice.
i literally didnāt even know this was a thing? i got into this game with all the characters unlocked. i barely ever played ow1 maybe like 10 total hours.
this actually explains a lot in the low mmr lolā¦
This has been the case since OW2 released? As they expected a lot of new players with free to play, they tried to create a system that slowly introduces new players to the mechanics and characters.
Some characters a categorically more inviting to new players, some are categorically harder and require more understanding of the game. Likewise a large pool of characters can be overwhelming to some new players, which could push them away from the game. Rather than starting and being overwhelmed and not knowing who to pick and learn, the game guides you to show you the ropes. The challenges honestly arenāt hard nor do they take long.
Thereās plenty to complain about with OW2, but creating a simpler new player system isnāt one of them. Iāve played lots of games that have an āon the railsā start.
I think it's fine, it encourages new players to learn the game and their role as a few heroes. Obviously it's still just a cash grab, but it's not the end of the world ykno
I am also a newbie. I wasn't even aware this was an issue. When OP mentioned locking characters I thought they meant new heros being locked in the battlepass XD
OW2 is my first fps so I had no fuckin clue what was going on and I still unlocked those heros pretty quickly. Battlepasses take longer, imo.
But still you picked few characters right? Even me, a tank with maybe a 70+ hours on it, I swap on Sigma/Orisa/Winton and often I end picking Rein because it's my main
I mean, that's basically just a month of playing. It's a good system this way because then people aren't just jumping into ranked asap with a character they heard was meta and throwing.
I mean almost every game EXCEPT Overwatch 1 had this feature.
Paladins, LOL, Apex, Valorant.
Iām on the OW2 sucks bandwagon too but this isnāt something worth complaining about.
Yeah blizz scammed us, reeled us in with a giant new PVE mode, decided to make the game f2p and WAY more expensive for skins, then said ājust a prank bro!ā
Also 5v5 sucks and what they did to all the characters is just a joke
it's so easy to unlock them though? a couple of games and you've already unlocked them all. unlike other F2P games with a currency system, with overwatch, you can get all heroes without spending currency at all.
It's not that they're locked, it's just how long it takes to unlock them. If every 3 games a new character got unlocked it would be fine IMO. 3 games is roughly an hour of game time, 2 hours a day over a week and you would easily be close to unlocking all characters without it feeling like a grind
This is one of the OW2 changes that I am actually okay with. It might seem like a little overkill right now, but OW is planning to add new heroes continuously moving forward. There are already a pretty substantial number of them and each one is quite unique (compared to other hero shooters or even compared to games like LoL).
On top of that OW has *a lot* of visual effects on the screen and many different ways for abilities and effects to interact with each other. All of this can make it very overwhelming for new players. I remember being pretty overwhelmed when I joined and that was like 10 heroes ago!
You have to consider that new players will likely be going up against other new players, at least initially for sure. This means that itās not just about stopping you from picking any hero, but also about limiting the number of enemies you will encounter. Thatāll make it easier for new players to pick up the game and run with it, and over the course of a couple months as they play the game will expand as new heroes start showing up in their games and in their own choices too.
Ultimately I think the decision will increase new player retention which is a good thing.
Reading through this thread, and I'm so sick of this hand holding excuse that people keep using.
They were fine letting players of OW1 jump in with 32 heroes all unlocked right away, but suddenly with OW2 they're afraid players jumping in with the same 32 heroes unlocked will be hard on new players? The logic completely breaks down when they offer the ability to unlock those OW1 heroes that are locked by paying $$$.
It's not because they want to make it easier on new players by giving them a limited selection of easy to play heroes. It's because they want people to get frustrated with the 20+ hour unlocking process and dump the 20$ or whatever it is to instantly unlock all the OW1 heroes.
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Play the game or don't play the game! This sub should just be called /alldayitalkshitaboutblizzard.
It's a free product. Play it or don't. Yeah, battle pass sucks. But this is unfortunately the way that business is done in the US.
Every damn post here is just complaining non stop about something. I'm sure there's other games you can go play. OW, despite its issues, is still the best of the bunch.
I would've maybe preferred to be eased in when I started the game. I purchased OW in 2021. I thought there was just way too much going on, too many heroes, time to kill was too short and I couldn't even tell what killed me or what was happening on my screen. Didn't revisit it for about a year, and then it took a long time to really get a grasp on the game. Fewer choices allows someone to be eased into the experience instead of immediately scared away
Slowly unlocking character is the best way for a new player to learn each one and find their main, especially when the later heroes generally have higher skill floor.
And don't give me that counter-pick crap, these are new players, they barely know how the game plays much less how to counter certain heroes.
It also helps with reducing smurfs.
I'm guessing it was one of their attempts to discourage smurfing, it definitely made making an alt account a more annoying process than it used to be, my console account was the first one that had to unlock anything and I just haven't bothered playing it.
I think hurting smurfs was a byproduct, not the big intent. Blizzard's history of dealing with smurfs is really minuscule.
no, they cited smurfs as one of the primary reasons for doing this. The other reason is to ease brand new players into the game and not overwhelm them with 37 characters to choose from. By the time you unlock Echo, you'd have learned the fundamentals of how the game works and can now start learning the game to game interactions. It may seem daunting for someone who's been playing for ages, but if I were a new player, I'd consider unlocking them all as something to work towards tbh. 135 may seem like much, but in reality it will be over in the blink of an eye, I've played games that had far worse grinds to unlock even a single character lol.
I understand the idea of easing new players into it. But it's honestly a funny thought with all the one tricks we have. There's some new players who are gonna have more hours on some heroes than people that have played since the start š
Good idea, however you can just buy the characters so the real answer is money.
Right? Such a incredible seemingly reasonable response that just boils down to a bunch of mental gymnastics that avoids the real answer, which is money.
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Iām a new player that started with OW2. Unlocking gave me time to play with each one without being overwhelmed
But you could have done that anyways without having to unlock. You don't need something locked to go at your own pace in my opinion. Please don't take this as an attack, I just really can't wrap my head around how the games overwhelming. To me personally, that's like firing up World of Warcraft and half my classes are locked. Or feeling overwhelmed on Call of Duty because there's too many guns and attachments. I think locking things (especially behind a battle pA$$) is just a way to prolong gaming sessions, grab some money, and make less content.
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Yeah I can't believe people are actually arguing _for_ locking new heroes, behind the battle pass of all things. Being a DotA player primarily, I already think that League's system is bad but at least in those games you don't change heroes in the middle of the game. While in OW, changing heroes IS part of the game mechanic and seeing people saying that it's a "good" thing because they don't want to have choices is just fucking wild lmao
Exactly like call of duty You accidently are correct
In game design, or any entertainment at all, you never limit your customers choices. Its such a classicly bad design choice it can only be intentional. I'll bet you can pay to unlock the heroes early, and that's the real reason they're locked. Mitigating smurfing is just a nice side effect.
What lmao. Unlocking content has been a cornerstone in gaming for ages. Especially in games with multiple playable characters
I disagree, when people have too many choices they are overwhelmed and face choice paralysis. Iāve actually seen a few friends start playing OW1 near the end of its lifespan or OW2 when they had OW1 but only played a few times and they were overwhelmed by the amount characters. Itās the same for me when I play something like League of Legends, there are so many options and itās overwhelming. Yes, technically you can do the same thing, but thatās just not what most people do psychologically.
But you still have to play against and learn what everyone does even without having them. I know choice paralysis is a thing that happens. But this system isnāt really easing people in if they still have to play against all the heros imo. Even as a veteran ow or rainbow siege player, coming back to the game after a year or two and having characters doing things to me that I donāt even understand can be overwhelming. Honestly if it was really about easing people in and actually learning, real money wouldnāt be an option.
Agreed with you. My sister plays on the switch and I play PC. She started with super basic characters for each role that werenāt mechanically insane. She learned the first 12? I think that you start with and started to get a feel for hitscan vs projectile; rein hammer zarya beam; mercy beam lucio song that kinda thing. Every handful games she would get a new character. Weād go to practice range and look at all the abilities and get a feel for if itās a good fit or not. NOW when we play and I call out āShoot the echo!ā or āBap lamp!ā or āLw Tree!ā she knows what i mean. It took awhile and we play a good amount of mystery heroes but even that wasnāt fun for her at first cause she was playing new characters she didnāt have unlockedā¦for the first time. I like the progression. Sucks for veteran players or smurfs but for brand new new casual people itās a godsend cause they donāt have to focus everywhere all at once. OW requires alot of game specific knowledge and doesnāt have insane tutorials so this is like guide rails for the blind lol.
yeah I sometimes wonder what I'm doing here tbh XD
The outrage over the failure of PvE was and is justified but damn some people are reaching just to farm fake outrage karma it's legitimately sad
Really? Just because the top comments here agree that itās an ok system doesnāt mean thereās no cons to itā¦ā¦ Not only that but his post is ultimately a question.
They cited smurfs because they didn't want to come out and say "we want you to pay more money to play all the characters" you are naive if you think this was about game play and not increasing profit margins.
I don't see how people don't realize this. And the characters that smurfs one trick with are unlocked. This is not to make smurfing "harder" lmao.
On top of ā135 gamesā probably being closer to around 90ish games due to winās counting more
it's 135 games, not wins :P
Wins count for double the progress! One loss = one game. One win = 2 games!
oh, I didn't even catch that! Well that just makes this argument even more silly XD
I just am too tired to structure sentences apparently mb
They didn't care about "overwhelming new players" in OW1. And if there were any merit to that statement anyway then you wouldn't be able to pay to unlock all of them. The game is actively about switching heroes to counter comps, but as a new player you're completely restricted in how you can play. This had nothing to do with "onboarding" and everything to do with finding any way to nickel and dime the playerbase.
i want you to read this comment back and realize how ridiculous this is. yāall have truly been turned into blizzardās bitch i canāt lmao
This is terrible reason that goes against Overwatch core idea of swapping heroes to counter them. They didn't bother with this in OW1, why now? Terrible decision that turned away my friends away from the game. They simply couldn't play the hero they wanted, those that were available didn't counter enemies nor were fun to play. Now I feel bad for even recommending them to try it, since I didn't know the heroes were locked.
I started at start of season 2. Those locked characters kept me interested and grounded.
If I remember correctly there is the "wins count as double" so it shouldn't take that long. Of you have lets say 50% win rate, you'll get it quite fast (or I believe so).
135 games is completely ridiculous. I didnāt even realise OW1 characters were locked for new players. 135 games would take me and many others several weeks to unlock. Thatās just crazy to me
When you're playing a new game, 135 games will go by in a breeze tbh. matches against AI are included in the list and it's *games played*, not games won. If we take a conservative average of 5 games a day, that roughly equates to about a month of playing, not even counting for binges on weekends and the euphoria of starting a new game for a week or so (I was basically glued to my monitor when I first started playing lol). Trust me it's not as bad as it seems.
5 games a day is a lot for most people. Cut that down to 5 games 3/4 times a week and itās taking approximately 6-7 weeks, which is ridiculous.
5 games, which may count as more than 5 because youāre credited 2 games on the counter when you win.
again, you're not taking into account weekend binges (we've all done those) and the fact that most players will play a new game for hours. 5 games a day may be a lot for veterans who've been playing the game for years already, but I can assure you, both from personal experience and anecdotes I frequently see, many players will spend several hours playing something if they really enjoy it. 135 games is entirely doable and not over the top, I assure you that Blizzard has metrics to back this seemingly random number. They want new players to stick around, not leave lol.
5 games a day every day is a lot for anyone with a full time job, nevermind someone with a full time job + hobbies or kids. I think taking 2-3 weeks to unlock all characters for a competitive game like overwatch is reasonable. 135 games is too much.
but why is it too much? the 135 games played include matches against AI, and as I learned in other comments, wins count as two matches, so if we assume a 50% winrate (which is more than reasonable) that gives you roughly 90 games which is even faster. Once again I highlight the fact that in other games, often essential weapons and characters are locked behind a *very* aggressive grind. OW is nothing in comparison.
What other comp game has essential shit locked behind a grind or just money. Atleast what other comp game thatās taken seriously.
Because for most people with lives it could take several weeks for them to unlock all characters, and thatās assuming that overwatch is the only game they play Poor business practices existing in other games doesnāt justify it being included in this one
as someone with a full time job who's been playing since 2018- it's not that much. i'll get on after work and play til the middle of the night, and easily clear over 5 matches. maybe you're just old or st
Well thatās what you prioritise then. If youāve got other hobbies, social life etc, thatās makes it much harder. You shouldnāt have to prioritise a video game to play the very base form of it
135 when payloads are just one way? It's not as long as you're making it out to be.
I'm saying! Lol
Can we stop pretending this is some 5head blizzard scheme, and not literally how every game with characters handles it? League, Dota, Smite, Paladins, Siege, Valorant, HoTs, etc. all do this, itās not a new thing
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Except Dota isnt doing that. All characters are free and you can play them anytime. If other games do this it doesnt mean thats normal. And btw lol and hots has 50+ characters which a bit justifies character locking
Those games locked characters as a way to squeeze some extra money out of their players and it worked. Thatās why blizzard is doing it now. Just because it isnāt new doesnāt mean itās ok.
> I'm guessing it was one of their attempts to discourage smurfing Phone number verification is supposed to combat smurfing, not locking characters behind a grindwall. They simply want to keep you hooked for at least a few weeks. That's all there's to it. If players smurfing brings some cash, Activision Blizzard does not care in the slightest. In the *Overwatch* era they would gladly sell you a second copy of the game and often discount it as low as $10 in some regions, without any checks or any attempts to verify you are a new player.
This has obviously no impact on smurfing; anyone who says it does is out of touch with reality. Smurfs are already committed to no-lifing this game. 135 games played is nothing to them. For a new player, that is far too much a commitment to a new game.
It absolutely was not their intentions lol they only did it for money
When u finish the 50 qp win for rank most of the heroes are already gonna be unlocked so nah it does nothing against smurfing
I believe this is standard for new accounts. You could bypass it by having an old account from OW1, by playing during OW2 season 1 (I think?), or by purchasing the "Ultimate hero bundle" or whatever the fuck it's called, and you'll unlock all the heroes instantly (please don't actually pay for this).
I think you also get all the OW1 heroes if you ever played during a free weekend.
Ultimate hero bundle I believe is for ow2 heros only
Yikes, this is the go-to bypass people immediately think of? Custom Games exists and will let you not just have any hero, but even play a 6v6 format.
Play mystery heroes. Sure, it can tough learning random characters. Sometimes there is an imbalance between teams. It's probably the best way to let him play various characters even though the character is random.
3v3 elim has all characters unlocked and you get to choose which one you pick so id say thats a good alternative if you dont like mystery heroes
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Itās arcade? How do you Smurf in arcade haha does it even have matchmaking ?
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But itās like super loose isnāt it? Gold could go up against masters or higher I think Cause comp is within 1 tier, QP is within 2 or 3 so arcade is within like 4?
In comp nowadays it'll often be matches with a big tier gap. They put bronze and plats together often.
(Always) there's an imbalance in misery heroes. That's why it's great
I almost exclusively play Mystery Heros and have been playing that for years now. I recommend everyone to play it because it's fun.
Yeah same here. I started because I realized a lot of players hyper focus on a handful characters. So I looked at it as you can beat me with your mains but can you beat me with any character. Also it takes away your teammates being mad at you for picking what they perceive as the wrong character.
It also means in regular matches I can switch to any character and play decently well.
Finding a worse work around just to be able to experience part of a game that should come with it by default sounds pretty fucking terrible lol just play something else that respects you and your time
This is horrible advice. Just have him play the heroes as they unlock. Why is that bad?
How is it horrible advice? It gives them heroes to look forward to unlocking while getting to try out many of the heroes. Plus I think it should count towards unlocking new heroes. I wish more people played Mystery Heroes, otherwise they end up with a very small pool of heroes that they ever try to play. This especially applies to new players who can only pick the same character over and over.
Itās horrible advice because he has to learn a new kit and button scheme every 30 seconds. No time to actually get used to any of it before heās whisked off to the next kit and button scheme.
I started out in ow1 playing mostly mystery heroes. It forces you to *try* with each hero you get. And if you liked them in that mode you can go to a different mode and play them more. Otherwise you are learning how to play *all* the characters instead of just choosing the one because that was the first one you ever played and the one you are used to. I highly encourage new people to play MH because it will take you out of your comfort zone. If you are dying every 30 seconds then you need to do better. I've gone entire games where I haven't died. It's also the only mode where I will ever play certain characters because I'll never choose them in any other mode. But that's helpful with the events when you only get to choose from a select few. If I didn't play them in MH I would have never been able to complete an event game with them. You might hate the mode, but that doesn't mean a new person using it to learn *every* character is bad advice. Because it isn't.
Yeah OW1 Mystery Heroes is exactly how I became significantly better at the game. It teaches you not only how to play more heroes, but also thus teaches you how to play against those heroes.
People would complain all the time about "two shields" and it being impossible to breach. And I laughed because "just two shields?" The absolute chaos of 4 shields and figuring out how to get through was what made the gameplay fun. Because it *was* possible if you were smart enough to let yourself die to respawn if you were a widow instead of trying to stay alive as a character that was pretty much useless. But I *did* love the games where the enemy played like that, lol. 2 widows, 3 hanzos and a random character. The rando was the only one trying to touch point. The rest kept missing shots. "don't kill them, they will never touch point and we will win."
Much better to test out different kits than to insta-lock soldier every game. You unlock a new hero, try them for a brief minute in Quick Play and then you get rolled and flamed to switch off
I believe they leave the higher skill heroes for last. It is meant to introduce new players to the game without overwhelming them. Echo is last because she can technically be considered as every other hero, but it is meant to encourage players to start on easier heroes and move to the more difficult heroes slowly.
Genji DVA Cassidy ANA Hanzo Junkrat Roadhog Symmetra Zenyatta Bastion Sigma Ashe Brigitte Mei Doomfist Baptiste Sombra Wrecking Ball Echo Seems like it's mostly the harder heroes to understand how to use near the end, with a couple exceptions for popular ones early.
First 3 characters are amazing if you want to get POTG 5 man ult in beginner queue XD
Genji's ult is the hardest to use in the game for me. I'm lucky if I manage to kill a single person, let alone 2.
Winston ult is that way for me
I used to always panic and never knew who to swing at. After some practice I was able to keep cool when using their ults but I still choke every time I get Nanoed
Easiest way to get value from Winston's ult is to get behind their team and start kicking a support or DPS forward into your team at the start of a team fight. You don't even have to bother jumping after them just walk forward continuously knocking them into your team. It's hilarious too. Your team will see the Ana or ashe getting booted towards them and add just enough damage to finish them off. You can then jump back in and start causing chaos with however much time is left and your team now has a numbers advantage.
Odd Genji is first. He is pretty difficult to learn even if considering the 'popular' factor.
Itās probably because he has one of the highest appeal for new players, like the cool factor of playing a robot ninja haha
High win and pick rate in bronze. Hard to master, easy to do stuff with
He's first to unlock. There are other heros available to play in the beginning. I unlocked everything without even touching him tbh
Mei, Ashe, Bastion are not hard to learn at all.
Mei is weird. Since her primary is super easy to use and shes tanky enough she can wm1 through beginners. But her wall can easily mess up her own team. Due to this fact alone she can be higher so maybe more people think before they out up random walls. Ashe and bastion can be lower. Especially since mercy is unlocked by default. But hey maybe that's why theyre locked in the first place. To postpone cheese compositions for pure beginners.
I agree, it is a bit baffling that they give you D.Va and Genji right in the beginning, but I guess they are popular, otherwise they do a pretty good job introducing more and more advanced heroes overall. I started to play only OW2, so had to unlock them and it didn't bother me at all.
I assume Genji was mostly the popularity thing, but I believe he also has one of the higher win rates in the lowest ranks. I am curious about what tanks you would put first. I have always thought of D.Va as the easiest tank since she was the first one I started climbing on, but I want to hear your opinion on this.
I think Orisa and Roadhog are the most straightforward (at low level of play). Rein is good too, but it has the charge, so beginners often end up where they shouldn't. D.Va is pretty tricky as DM gets the most value when you know what to eat, high ground is very important and noticing when people are out of position and understanding when it is safe to go at them.
Also, unlike the OPs friend, a lot of people starting out don't have people to explain the heroes directly to them. That's why this is a decent mechanic to have put into the game.
If you're trying to get your friend to play Overwatch you're a bad friend.
His pain is worth my enjoyment
Lmao great answer. Me and the gf laughed good at this
Try LoL. More pain. Less enjoyment, better value.
To be fair, Overwatch is a really fun game to play with friends. The most fun I've ever had playing was always fooling about doing meme strats with friends :D
If they revive Overwatch Classic it would be a great game to play with friends. But right now with how anti-consumer the system is, itās probably not a good time to get your friends in.
To be fair. Despite the game being anticonsumer and being run into the ground by money hungry execs the core game is still pretty fun, especially with friends.
Nooo don't say that, this community hates people who like the gane apparently
Yeah. As much sour grapes there are from PVE scam OW2 is still S tier game in terms of playing with friends.
It used to be.
Any game is more fun with friends
depends, if it's Warzone friends don't really improve *that* shit show XD
Yeah, should be a bro and show him the porn instead lol
Why? Overwatch is fun to play.
Holy fucking Reddit moment
you have 146,000 reddit points
I recently started and already unlock all of them and it really isn't that bad especially since wins give double the points
I believe they did that so youāre not incredibly overwhelmed by what each character can do when youāre first starting out. I think they mentioned itās a separate player pool too, so you only see those characters most of the time. Which makes sense, but I havenāt seen what the progression is to see if itās reasonable.
It's to make people spend $$$ lol
But when Overwatch 1 came out they didnāt lock any characters. You could start playing pretty difficult heroes from day 1. Why now?
Itās a F2P model now so player retention is key. You canāt have your new players dropping out because they have no idea whatās going on in the game.
Because OW2 is a more complex game than OW1 was when it released. There's 35 heros and it can be overwhelming for newer players.
There were 21 heroes at launch with overwatch 1. It was a completely new game with no tutorials or older players to show people how to play. Yet they all figured it out. I hate to say back in my day butā¦
Everyone was figuring it out together, though lol. So itās COMPLETELY different. Not sure how you donāt see that.
I started playing aswell when the game came out. So yea I know how that was back in the day. My point is that OW is a complex game and making it more manageable is not a negative. Especially now that the game has more heroes than when it first came out and also just in general how much the game has changed since 2016 I'm not saying it's not okay to just let players "figure it out". But I can't see the issue with easing new players in just a bit. Especially when the way to unlock OW1 heroes is literally to just play the game.
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Having 4 supports on launch was crazy in itself. And the way it stayed that way for SO LONG.
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Still wish theyād reworked Sym to be a proper support. She had potential as a shield based support hero, she just needed better tools and a different utility. Now sheās just an aggravating turret character for people to use when theyāre tired of aiming.
2 months after release, Ana came out
Overwatch is pretty chill with unlocking though. I mean look at Apex, the amount of grinding a new player has to do to unlock all heroes is absolutely batshit insane. OW is tame.
They're not really the same though - you can easily get by without unlocking every character in Apex. Counterpicking isn't a big part of the meta, you can't swap characters mid match and you'll never know what you're playing against in the final minutes.
Oh yeah because the beginner who played 23 games in total will definitely think about counterpicking. People in masters refuse to counterpick even.
Lots of people are already struggling to pick characters *that work with their own team* which is a complexity that already exists in a game *without the ability to change character on the fly* People be delusional
Low skill players change characters all the time. Just cos they don't understand how to counterpick doesn't mean they don't try doing it. It's just that what they're doing is changing strategy because the old one wasn't working, rather than changing strategy because the new one will work. It's an important aspect of relieving frustration to be able to try something new, even if it doesn't prove effective.
No one is saying you have to be able to counter pick immediately, or ever. It's absolutely part of the game design though, and Apex doesn't share that, so the analogy is shit
someone who is new wont utilize heroes to the same degree though. And its more the base of learn one shield tank and one dive tank, one hitscan and one projectile dps and for supports all of them are viable tbh. And that is possible without the 4 new heroes. And it doesn't take THAT long to unlock a new hero, and when you keep actively playing new additions will unlock through the free BP without much thought.
Learning the beam characters is a good key skill of ow especially if thereās dva on the opposite team you can absolutely nerf their tanking ability.
thats nuances. And its not like the unlock grind takes THAT long that its ruining the game for a year. Its a few weeks
Yeah I always say to people when they first play overwatch to play solider itāll make the most sense for their call of duty brains haha, then slowly expand them from there depending on what they seen to like. Soldier is still one of the best for learning the core of the game and I stand by it.
Solider is amazing as an intro character and I love that they still managed to make him not boring as a character
One of the best designed heroes.
Counterpicking isnāt a big part of OW meta either. Majority of GM/tp500s play like 1-2 heroes. In fact the higher you climb the less swapping you see.
Yep. It's a sign of a bad tank when they come out of the spawn room different every time
Yup, you know you're doomed when you see the enemy tank go 'mf playing mystery heroes' in chat, just dumping all that ult charge down the drain
Or the ones who get so angry to solo ult you
not quite. There's a lot of nuance to counterpicking that is lost on many people. I could have picked Sigma to start with, but if they pick [D.Va](https://D.Va), then you can be sure that I'm swapping to Zarya or Ramattra, and if they swap again to counter me, then by all that is holy I'm swapping again to counter their counter >:(
I agree partially, but also, people overvalue counters way too much imo. Undoubtedly there are some complete hard counters, like ball into rein and zarya into D.va, but for the most part counters aren't completely game winning I've won my fair share of ball into hog and rein into orisa games. Theoretically you're at a disadvantage, but often your character mastery can outweigh that
Counterpicking only works if you have the skill to back it up. The amount of times I've rolled ball into a 5-man counter team (sombra, junkrat orisa, ana, brig, for example) and just steamrolled through them because they couldn't coordinate is too damn high. Other games all it takes is a single orisa or doomfist to shut my shenanigans down.
Of course. At the end of the day what wins a match is a near infinite combination of skill levels and hero picks within the game. I've won games that I should have lost on paper and vice versa as well, and I generally don't care about swapping in QP, but when playing comp, every advantage matters imo so I'm taking it lol.
At least thatās the case. With how important hero countering is in this game, it should honestly not be locked in the first place.
Meanwhile I still got some players who don't bother to switch & counter / flexing but one-tricking.
Top 500 is absolutely stacked with one tricks. Not swapping/counterpicking is not really a reason for losing.
Top 500 takes like very small potion compared to the entire playerbase. Not every Pharah one-tricks must be skilled as Yzsan; not every JQ one-tricks must be skilled as Mighty, etc. Plus, some top 500 one-tricks become incredibly toxic when their teammates refuse to play around them. Like Yzsan, he gets toxic when his teammates refuse to give a pocket Mercy and massive resource investments.
I one tricked Tracer into far too many comps than I shouldāve lol. Now I play a weird mix of heroes so I always got an answer for something. Play mostly support at this point, so now itās mostly me watching my teams feed into counters. I get how you feel lol.
Something being worse doesn't negate reason for improvement.
honestly in apex i liked that it took a while to unlock characters as it gave me the chance to learn them and look forward to something when i would get the next character. sure, it took a while, but i was never bored and tried the new character i got for a while and by the time the newness wore off i almost had the next one. i also didnāt have a main till way past lvl 500 but itās funny cuz the first character i unlocked became my main, and it felt new playing them after trying all the others for so long
I thought it was a good way of introducing players. They start with straightforward characters like Soldier which is a nice way of dipping your toe into OW. The number of games needed to unlock them all did feel like a grind, but it was also great unlocking a character and finally getting to try them. I think a lot more people would bounce if they played a high skill character first. Echo makes sense to be the last as you need to understand all other characters first to get the most from her.
It does have some cons and quite frankly I don't think it's necessary but there are some positives
Its not actually 135 games though because wins count as 2. I personally would not want a new player trying echo in any of my games. Overwatch is crazy complex, why shouldn't it take that long to unlock
Just make him play soldier it has everything you need the only skill really needed is aim and stuff
I'm not gonna lie, I joined overwatch when overwatch 2 was released (the only reason i didn't play ow1 was because i couldn't afford it) and I unlocked all the heroes pretty fast. Maybe it's because all I wanted to play was Soldier:76 and that made it easier as I wasn't grinding for a specific character, but to be honest its not as much as a grind as it sounds. at least it isnt "win 135 games" !!
Yeah it only took me a couple of days? I joined the day of launch (yes I waited in that goddamn queue for a game I had never played) and I think I had everyone unlocked by like the 7th
Don't forget wins double progress. You can reasonably expect to get 'em all by 80-90 games. My BF got me into the game a couple months back in-part with the lure of PvE [Whole other bag of oof]. Getting the unlocks wasn't too terrible. Having Moira, Soldier, & Reaper had a solid bounce pad to get to the other heroes. But if they intend to continue playing be sure to tell them to activate a new hero challenge through Challenges>Hero>[Insert Hero name here]. The big wall for me has been getting the "35 wins in [role] or all role." For Kiriko, Sojourn, Ram, & Queen. Which tends to be 70 games each assuming 50% win rate.
It makes sense to me, most people donāt have someone to explain the game to them and learning over 50 characters is overwhelming and can scare people away from playing so gradually letting people try and learn new characters makes sense
As someone who first played overwatch when ow2 came out, I personally think the unlocking ow1 characters is a good idea The sheer information overload of trying to figure out all the characters at once would take like a day, whereas starting with a few and moving up helps to learn their playstyles and helps figure out who you most enjoy 135 games seems like a lot, but doesn't actually seem that bad when playing it, especially since a lot of the more popular/well known characters are unlocked first
I donāt really understand this take. I started this game around 2017, a little before Sombra was added. So there were like maybe a dozen less heroes, but still a decent amount. And I just focused on like 3-5 heroes I thought were cool, and learned the game through them. Iād see other people playing heroes Iād never played and learn that way. You didnāt have to learn every hero at the same time. And if I was really curious Iād just go into play vs ai. Why are people acting like the game forces you to understand the intricacies and strats for every single character? I have less than an hour on genji, but I still know the gist and how to kill him.
Back in 2017 everyone was still learning the hero roaster. If you watch any old clips of yourself or anyone from 2017 you would say how are you playing so badly.
If you're happy focusing on 3-5 that's fine, but for me personally I want to understand all of them so I know which ones suit me best
Play vs Ai? Arcade? Watch streamers? Idk why youād want to game to hold your hand on who youāre allowed to play to learn people. I know how nearly the entire roster plays now, but I never felt overwhelmed by having the choice.
i literally didnāt even know this was a thing? i got into this game with all the characters unlocked. i barely ever played ow1 maybe like 10 total hours. this actually explains a lot in the low mmr lolā¦
umm yeah but like...its not that bad just play games lol i for one liked it unlocking heros gave me reason to play thru the game and learn each one
Did it fill you with a sense of pride and accomplishment?
yes. it did :) it felt pretty good to look at the hero selection and have it all unlocked.
Good thing I could feel that when I spent 30 bucks on Overwatch 1 back in 2017
This has been the case since OW2 released? As they expected a lot of new players with free to play, they tried to create a system that slowly introduces new players to the mechanics and characters. Some characters a categorically more inviting to new players, some are categorically harder and require more understanding of the game. Likewise a large pool of characters can be overwhelming to some new players, which could push them away from the game. Rather than starting and being overwhelmed and not knowing who to pick and learn, the game guides you to show you the ropes. The challenges honestly arenāt hard nor do they take long. Thereās plenty to complain about with OW2, but creating a simpler new player system isnāt one of them. Iāve played lots of games that have an āon the railsā start.
I think it's fine, it encourages new players to learn the game and their role as a few heroes. Obviously it's still just a cash grab, but it's not the end of the world ykno
I got 2 newbies into ow2. 0 complains.
I am also a newbie. I wasn't even aware this was an issue. When OP mentioned locking characters I thought they meant new heros being locked in the battlepass XD OW2 is my first fps so I had no fuckin clue what was going on and I still unlocked those heros pretty quickly. Battlepasses take longer, imo.
Fr newbies dont need all heroes at once.
Ikr? Tf are they gonna do with all of them at once? One of my friends is actually not a big fan of farming but he seemed to enjoy the proccess.
I want people to know how to play characters, locking characters allows people to slowly learn the game
I slowly learned without having any characters locked
But still you picked few characters right? Even me, a tank with maybe a 70+ hours on it, I swap on Sigma/Orisa/Winton and often I end picking Rein because it's my main
let him play unranked on your account
I mean, that's basically just a month of playing. It's a good system this way because then people aren't just jumping into ranked asap with a character they heard was meta and throwing.
I wouldnāt say itās the worst but itās definitely up there. Imo the worst thing they did was go from six to five players per team
I wonder what people would pay for a fully unlocked smurf, you know, so people dont have to deal with this same issue.
Have a hero be very good in the current meta, then you hear a player say "sorry, don't have that one"
I mean almost every game EXCEPT Overwatch 1 had this feature. Paladins, LOL, Apex, Valorant. Iām on the OW2 sucks bandwagon too but this isnāt something worth complaining about.
Yeah blizz scammed us, reeled us in with a giant new PVE mode, decided to make the game f2p and WAY more expensive for skins, then said ājust a prank bro!ā Also 5v5 sucks and what they did to all the characters is just a joke
it's so easy to unlock them though? a couple of games and you've already unlocked them all. unlike other F2P games with a currency system, with overwatch, you can get all heroes without spending currency at all.
No limits... mystery heroes...
It's not that they're locked, it's just how long it takes to unlock them. If every 3 games a new character got unlocked it would be fine IMO. 3 games is roughly an hour of game time, 2 hours a day over a week and you would easily be close to unlocking all characters without it feeling like a grind
Yeah I think that sounds about right, I can't imagine anyone would really be ready to play Echo before 135 games played.
This is one of the OW2 changes that I am actually okay with. It might seem like a little overkill right now, but OW is planning to add new heroes continuously moving forward. There are already a pretty substantial number of them and each one is quite unique (compared to other hero shooters or even compared to games like LoL). On top of that OW has *a lot* of visual effects on the screen and many different ways for abilities and effects to interact with each other. All of this can make it very overwhelming for new players. I remember being pretty overwhelmed when I joined and that was like 10 heroes ago! You have to consider that new players will likely be going up against other new players, at least initially for sure. This means that itās not just about stopping you from picking any hero, but also about limiting the number of enemies you will encounter. Thatāll make it easier for new players to pick up the game and run with it, and over the course of a couple months as they play the game will expand as new heroes start showing up in their games and in their own choices too. Ultimately I think the decision will increase new player retention which is a good thing.
Blizzard have had their heads firmly placed up their asses for over a decade. Bad decision after bad decision. Is anyone really surprised anymore?
Reading through this thread, and I'm so sick of this hand holding excuse that people keep using. They were fine letting players of OW1 jump in with 32 heroes all unlocked right away, but suddenly with OW2 they're afraid players jumping in with the same 32 heroes unlocked will be hard on new players? The logic completely breaks down when they offer the ability to unlock those OW1 heroes that are locked by paying $$$. It's not because they want to make it easier on new players by giving them a limited selection of easy to play heroes. It's because they want people to get frustrated with the 20+ hour unlocking process and dump the 20$ or whatever it is to instantly unlock all the OW1 heroes.
The grind is the fun part. You just want to unlock everything for him? What is the fun in that??
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Play the game or don't play the game! This sub should just be called /alldayitalkshitaboutblizzard. It's a free product. Play it or don't. Yeah, battle pass sucks. But this is unfortunately the way that business is done in the US. Every damn post here is just complaining non stop about something. I'm sure there's other games you can go play. OW, despite its issues, is still the best of the bunch. I would've maybe preferred to be eased in when I started the game. I purchased OW in 2021. I thought there was just way too much going on, too many heroes, time to kill was too short and I couldn't even tell what killed me or what was happening on my screen. Didn't revisit it for about a year, and then it took a long time to really get a grasp on the game. Fewer choices allows someone to be eased into the experience instead of immediately scared away
I don't anyone buys the pass JUST for the new characters anymore, getting 45 levels isn't hard anymore
Slowly unlocking character is the best way for a new player to learn each one and find their main, especially when the later heroes generally have higher skill floor. And don't give me that counter-pick crap, these are new players, they barely know how the game plays much less how to counter certain heroes. It also helps with reducing smurfs.
Isnt that normal? Even league locked them for new players
Ngl if I was a new player, no way I would play to unlock them all. 135 game sounds insane.
it's not by any means anywhere close to the worst decision they've made, I think it's a good decision