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Theres been a lot of feedback about the scoreboard and more. Feeling not satisfied with the information given back to us as players. Sloggra gives a break down on why and ideas.
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This is going to have some unpopular opinions in it, but please take a minute to read and consider what is written below before commenting. I actually enjoy the gameplay of Overwatch, but I think it has major issues that will turn away a majority of FPS genre veterans. What subtracts the most from the experience and fun of the game is the lack of feedback and a competitive environment.
For reference, I ‘ve played CS for 15 years (pro level in 2000s), CoD since CoD2, TF1 and TF2, Quake and UT. I’m an avid FPS player and very passionate about the genre.
1)
There is no publicly visible feedback /reward for doing well/poorly that is meaningful.
In my opinion this is the biggest problem the game is facing. FPS games are extremely competitive by nature. The FPS games that have been historically very successful (CS, Halo, CoD, TF2, Quake, UT) have all had scoreboard feedback, milestone achievements, a kill feed during the game, a ranking system. Overwatch has none of these. The lack of any of these features presents a game that at its core is fun mechanically when you first pick it up, but quickly becomes forgettable and boring as there is nothing to work toward. You have nothing to show off to your friends and rivals. You have nothing to reference for how you’re improving or performing. And you have nothing to show for longer hours played. I feel these should be first priority for Blizzard and address very quickly if they want a relevant player population in this genre.
A)
Having no scoreboard/kill feed means you have absolutely no gauge for how well you did relative to your opponents or your team. This leads to low incentive to improve or play for someone other than you in a team based game.
B)
This gives you no idea how well the other team is doing. In particular, how well certain players are doing so that you can target them and shut them down in a competitive environment or change your strategy accordingly.
C)
This gives you no indication if you’re helping or even hurting your team with the way you’re playing, and therefore again gives you no reason to improve or change the style/character you’re playing.
D)
This gives you no feeling of accomplishment when “carrying” a game or doing better than you usually do, which again lowers incentive to improve your own gameplay. I had a 23 kill streak in a game today and it was acknowledged only at the end of the game on the “mvp screen” that I’ve never seen 10+ players participate in so far. It didn’t “feel” like I dominated a game and ended 29-3, it just felt like I won another 10 minute game that seemed to blend into my memory with a mass of other forgetful games that I played throughout the day.
E)
Lastly, this gives you no rivals within the games you’re playing. When playing CS:GO or CoD, you hold tab and can quickly reference “oh, that guy is doing really well, I want to beat him”. You want to overcome your challenger. You want to stop your competition from dominating you. You want to win and fight back. In Overwatch, it’s just an endless process of dying, respawning, and dying with no real objective in mind other than “don’t die and push the cart” or, if you’re an attacking character, “get my ultimate and try to get the play of the game with it”.
2)
All the (limited) glory goes to attack characters.
Because the only forms of praise are the “plays of the game” which seem to be completely based on kills, and the “mvp votes”, it gives players lower incentive to play support and tank roles. Although I’ve seen a few tanks get the play of the game, in general it seems about 85/15 lopsided to characters like McCree, Widowmaker, Reaper etc. This once again offers no reward for doing well on a majority of the characters, especially if you played a more selfless role like healer.
A)
The “mvp votes” at the end of a match are meaningless, offer nothing but something to click after the game, and often not voted on or cared about by a majority of the lobby unless they are the players being shown. I’ve never once had 10 votes for an MVP in Overwatch.
B)
The “Play of the Game” seems to be based completely on kills, and is therefore not fun for supports and (usually) tanks to look forward to. It is also, ultimately, pointless.
3)
Blizzard should know better by now.
The “competition without actually acknowledging that anyone is better than someone” style of gaming is something that Blizzard seems to be continually trying and failing to implement into their games lately. Want evidence? Look no further than Heroes of the Storm.
If you look at or played Blizzard’s prior “first try” into a new competitive genre, Heroes of the Storm, you’d see same type of issues as the ones listed here. A huge population of genre veterans played it, got to “max rank” with little or no effort, and quit because there is no reward for playing well beyond that. Being “Rank 1” meant nothing because there was a huge disparity in skill level at the highest rank and there was nothing to strive for further to showcase your skill.
Blizzard acknowledged this and finally released leaderboards for HotS a few months ago after endless complaints from the competitive community. In fact, Blizzard will soon be adding a version of the Hearthstone “legendary” ranks to HotS to give players proper feedback for being competitive, which will essentially just be the leaderboards displayed as a value inside of the game.
Unfortunately for HotS and Blizzard, it’s too little, too late in the case of HotS. Simply loading up the game directory on Twitch will give you an idea of how releasing a competitive game without allowing it to be competitive went for Blizzard. Hots is regularly being overshadowed in viewer count by games like “World of Tanks”, “Poker”, and other single player games that have no more than 3,000 viewers. It almost always has around 2 thousand viewers, with no more than 5 to 6, in the most popular genre in the world right now. Just look at the user numbers Dota 2 and League of Legends generate.
4)
Some simple solutions / ideas.
I didn’t want to type an essay of just complaints without offering some solutions that would be quick and easy, although I’m sure Blizzard could implement solutions of better quality.
A)
Create a scoreboard, and put meaningful values on it. Healing count, shield count, damage count.
B)
Create a kill feed somewhere on the screen. There is a great feeling of inspiration that happens when you see one of your team mates get a quad kill or a point cap, and pride when you’re the one flooding the feed with positive feedback for your team.
C)
Make the “MVP” votes at the end of the game mean something, or take them out. It comes off as patronizing and lazy as it offers nothing. If you have a feature like MVP voting, at the very least add something to count how many “mvp” votes you’ve won on a player profile or something.
D)
Give players something to work toward, and make it meaningful. Tf2 has items, CS has ranks, CoD has new weapons and prestige levels, Halo had ranks. Things that come to mind are matchmaking ranks, leaderboards of top scoring players per character (something like most kills on McCree, most healing on Lucio etc.), and things of that nature. Basically, add something tangible for players to strive toward that can be referenced as an accomplishment. Not everyone wants to just “play a quick game and log off for the night”.
All of these problems lead to an experience that is best summed up as “I feel like I should be having fun, but I’m not” when loading up Overwatch for me and many others that I’ve spoken with. There is just no point in playing extensively except for the gameplay itself which, sad to say, is not enough in online gaming most of the time – especially in a genre like FPS where the games are short and the competitive spirit is strong. There is no replay value to just winning over and over on your favorite characters on a few maps with 1-2 modes. It becomes boring alarmingly fast. Something needs to be changed before this game is released to the public, or I can almost guarantee it will wind up in the same boat HotS is in and will most likely remain in – fun to play, not fun to replay.
For reference, I ‘ve played CS for 15 years (pro level in 2000s), CoD since CoD2, TF1 and TF2, Quake and UT. I’m an avid FPS player and very passionate about the genre.
1)
There is no publicly visible feedback /reward for doing well/poorly that is meaningful.
In my opinion this is the biggest problem the game is facing. FPS games are extremely competitive by nature. The FPS games that have been historically very successful (CS, Halo, CoD, TF2, Quake, UT) have all had scoreboard feedback, milestone achievements, a kill feed during the game, a ranking system. Overwatch has none of these. The lack of any of these features presents a game that at its core is fun mechanically when you first pick it up, but quickly becomes forgettable and boring as there is nothing to work toward. You have nothing to show off to your friends and rivals. You have nothing to reference for how you’re improving or performing. And you have nothing to show for longer hours played. I feel these should be first priority for Blizzard and address very quickly if they want a relevant player population in this genre.
A)
Having no scoreboard/kill feed means you have absolutely no gauge for how well you did relative to your opponents or your team. This leads to low incentive to improve or play for someone other than you in a team based game.
B)
This gives you no idea how well the other team is doing. In particular, how well certain players are doing so that you can target them and shut them down in a competitive environment or change your strategy accordingly.
C)
This gives you no indication if you’re helping or even hurting your team with the way you’re playing, and therefore again gives you no reason to improve or change the style/character you’re playing.
D)
This gives you no feeling of accomplishment when “carrying” a game or doing better than you usually do, which again lowers incentive to improve your own gameplay. I had a 23 kill streak in a game today and it was acknowledged only at the end of the game on the “mvp screen” that I’ve never seen 10+ players participate in so far. It didn’t “feel” like I dominated a game and ended 29-3, it just felt like I won another 10 minute game that seemed to blend into my memory with a mass of other forgetful games that I played throughout the day.
E)
Lastly, this gives you no rivals within the games you’re playing. When playing CS:GO or CoD, you hold tab and can quickly reference “oh, that guy is doing really well, I want to beat him”. You want to overcome your challenger. You want to stop your competition from dominating you. You want to win and fight back. In Overwatch, it’s just an endless process of dying, respawning, and dying with no real objective in mind other than “don’t die and push the cart” or, if you’re an attacking character, “get my ultimate and try to get the play of the game with it”.
2)
All the (limited) glory goes to attack characters.
Because the only forms of praise are the “plays of the game” which seem to be completely based on kills, and the “mvp votes”, it gives players lower incentive to play support and tank roles. Although I’ve seen a few tanks get the play of the game, in general it seems about 85/15 lopsided to characters like McCree, Widowmaker, Reaper etc. This once again offers no reward for doing well on a majority of the characters, especially if you played a more selfless role like healer.
A)
The “mvp votes” at the end of a match are meaningless, offer nothing but something to click after the game, and often not voted on or cared about by a majority of the lobby unless they are the players being shown. I’ve never once had 10 votes for an MVP in Overwatch.
B)
The “Play of the Game” seems to be based completely on kills, and is therefore not fun for supports and (usually) tanks to look forward to. It is also, ultimately, pointless.
3)
Blizzard should know better by now.
The “competition without actually acknowledging that anyone is better than someone” style of gaming is something that Blizzard seems to be continually trying and failing to implement into their games lately. Want evidence? Look no further than Heroes of the Storm.
If you look at or played Blizzard’s prior “first try” into a new competitive genre, Heroes of the Storm, you’d see same type of issues as the ones listed here. A huge population of genre veterans played it, got to “max rank” with little or no effort, and quit because there is no reward for playing well beyond that. Being “Rank 1” meant nothing because there was a huge disparity in skill level at the highest rank and there was nothing to strive for further to showcase your skill.
Blizzard acknowledged this and finally released leaderboards for HotS a few months ago after endless complaints from the competitive community. In fact, Blizzard will soon be adding a version of the Hearthstone “legendary” ranks to HotS to give players proper feedback for being competitive, which will essentially just be the leaderboards displayed as a value inside of the game.
Unfortunately for HotS and Blizzard, it’s too little, too late in the case of HotS. Simply loading up the game directory on Twitch will give you an idea of how releasing a competitive game without allowing it to be competitive went for Blizzard. Hots is regularly being overshadowed in viewer count by games like “World of Tanks”, “Poker”, and other single player games that have no more than 3,000 viewers. It almost always has around 2 thousand viewers, with no more than 5 to 6, in the most popular genre in the world right now. Just look at the user numbers Dota 2 and League of Legends generate.
4)
Some simple solutions / ideas.
I didn’t want to type an essay of just complaints without offering some solutions that would be quick and easy, although I’m sure Blizzard could implement solutions of better quality.
A)
Create a scoreboard, and put meaningful values on it. Healing count, shield count, damage count.
B)
Create a kill feed somewhere on the screen. There is a great feeling of inspiration that happens when you see one of your team mates get a quad kill or a point cap, and pride when you’re the one flooding the feed with positive feedback for your team.
C)
Make the “MVP” votes at the end of the game mean something, or take them out. It comes off as patronizing and lazy as it offers nothing. If you have a feature like MVP voting, at the very least add something to count how many “mvp” votes you’ve won on a player profile or something.
D)
Give players something to work toward, and make it meaningful. Tf2 has items, CS has ranks, CoD has new weapons and prestige levels, Halo had ranks. Things that come to mind are matchmaking ranks, leaderboards of top scoring players per character (something like most kills on McCree, most healing on Lucio etc.), and things of that nature. Basically, add something tangible for players to strive toward that can be referenced as an accomplishment. Not everyone wants to just “play a quick game and log off for the night”.
All of these problems lead to an experience that is best summed up as “I feel like I should be having fun, but I’m not” when loading up Overwatch for me and many others that I’ve spoken with. There is just no point in playing extensively except for the gameplay itself which, sad to say, is not enough in online gaming most of the time – especially in a genre like FPS where the games are short and the competitive spirit is strong. There is no replay value to just winning over and over on your favorite characters on a few maps with 1-2 modes. It becomes boring alarmingly fast. Something needs to be changed before this game is released to the public, or I can almost guarantee it will wind up in the same boat HotS is in and will most likely remain in – fun to play, not fun to replay.
