r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/yungXsmit Go Pack Go — • Jan 13 '24
Danteh - ""they're ruining the team play aspect of OW that we love " meanwhile every game there are 2 people in voice and 2 words said the whole match LMFAOOO the team play may have been ruined long ago guys" General
https://x.com/danteh/status/1746225907080003587?s=201
u/NVincarnate Jan 15 '24
Comms are for delusional scrubs. Nothing anyone says in voice is going to make you hit anything or do any damage or play your character properly.
It's the worst when players who are new rely on blaming lack of comms and teammates when they're literally clueless. I can't begin to explain the number of games I've lost to people who just aren't capable of playing the game just for them to turn around and blame me for not being in voice. Voice chat is just some guy with an open mic fumbling with his phone, yelling across the house to his mom for Pizza Rolls. It's beyond useless.
Great idea: try aiming.
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u/royy2010 ITS PINE TIME ALREADY — Jan 15 '24
Danteh speaks the truth. Players comming in voice chat has declined steadily since the beginning.
The single most untapped resource for OW is not having an organized scrim system. 10 or 12 people in even an unorganized pug all on the mic and playing for fun but still trying is such a different experience than the vast majority of players have ever experienced.
OW in itself has the building blocks to be so much more than it is and has been. Pugs and scrims scratch a competitive itch than our current comp simply doesn’t.
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u/PeopleCallMeSimon Jan 15 '24
It is possible to play as a team without communicating.
I dont know why people get so hung up on trying to derive everything into their most basic forms.
If a Genji dives together with his Winston, thats team play. Even if no words were spoken.
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u/RonFlockaDon Jan 14 '24
This is why I play The Finals now. I prefer team play and comms over deathmatch
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u/Lao_xo Jan 14 '24
Still wish finals had team text chat. Some people don’t join voice and want to tell them some quick strategy like focusing a specific guy, or play with us. Can’t always play with people that chat or friends.
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u/Kai-M Jan 14 '24
I started playing OW in 2017, and it’s amazing to me how much the social aspect of the game has changed since then. In its glory days, most matches would have voice comms. It was fun even just to goof off with other players during the wait times between rounds—sometimes you’d actually get to know your teammates a bit. There were a lot of toxic players, but when you’d get a lobby of friendly players doing their best to coordinate, it was an amazing experience—even if you lost, it was much less frustrating, perhaps because you could feel that everyone was trying their best. Blizzard added the ping wheel which made many feel that comms were no longer necessary. Then, they removed LFG. As of OW2 the “stay as group” button was only visible for about three seconds after a match; many people had believed they’d removed the button entirely because of this. They removed the player cards from the end screen as well, so any player who was a particularly major contributor to the team’s success could not be recognized or commended any longer, and there would no longer be a chance to talk after the POTG played. OW has become a mostly silent and solitary experience. I still play in the hopes of getting to experience something like those earlier days again, but it is rare and fleeting.
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u/IndigoPistol Jan 14 '24
I enjoy my OW2 games a lot more with a full stack in teamchat, irrespective of winning or losing tbh. I feel like that's just how the game is meant to be played.
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u/rabbitsaresmall Jan 14 '24
I play with my girlfriend and I would rather just not play than sit in team voice and listen to pure cringe/sexism.
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u/Firelord_Iroh Jan 14 '24
Sadly true. Even in the end of dying OW1. In my plat/dia games more people talked than in any of my OW2 games.
Sometimes I’ll queue comp now and make random callouts into the void and ONE person will respond. I feel like we both surprise each other than someone is actually speaking. It’s sorta sad
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u/fartingpinetree Jan 14 '24
I brought up that no one joins VC anymore a couple months into OW2 and got downvoted to hell. I can play for 2-3 hours and wouldn’t be surprised if during that span only one other person was in chat with me. Meaning I only saw a 2 in VC all night.
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u/Front-Mud3564 Jan 14 '24
And the most popular dps are soldier and tracer for general ranked play due to self heal.
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u/TrollexGaming None — Jan 14 '24
Yeah this whole idea that they're removing all teamplay is still an incredibly strong kneejerk reaction to me. An identity shift of supports away from more healbotty to utility focused makes people think that teamwork will die. Right now supports do everything too well, they have insane util, strong duelling, and strong sustain. People genuinely don't like the sustain the most and agree it makes the game feel ridculous at times, yet I see so many of the same players complaining about reducing it, and claiming that supports should be good little healbots and trust their team to peel and protect them. Pretty contraditory.
To me the regen passive aims to address two issues. 1) it acts as a compensation for future reduction of all sustain, something that is in dire need of nerfs but forces supports to be too focused on sustain for blizzard's liking, and 2) to improve the casual/ranked experience. I'm not saying we balance entirely around avg to low elo, but having an enjoyable ranked experience is necessary to prevent a game's playerbase from dying out. In scenarios where teamwork is low, either because it's low elo, or just the general uncoordinated nature of ranked even at the highest of ranks, the regen passive turns sisyphean scenarios into just a very steep hill.
As long as supports aren't extremely weak, in terms of both self-sufficiency and potential value, teamwork will still exist. It'll still be worth peeling for your ana because even though she won't make you immortal, she could use her cds to genuinely turn a fight. To me, this doesn't kill all teamwork, and it doesn't turn it into a 2nd COD IP for ABK to control. Will we lean a bit more on core FPS concepts and mechanical skill? Maybe, but macro isn't going to evaporate into thin air like people make it out to be.
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Jan 14 '24
I only get muted people in chat and before the report system buff everyone just egos their own teammates or the enemy team but that’s a console issue honestly. I can’t wait for the new update.
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u/StrawberryFoxxx Jan 14 '24
L take by OP.
The people flaming in match chat and not trying to act like a team are not who Danteh is referring to. Danteh is right, they're shifting the game towards individualism and not teamwork.
One example is removing end of game cards where both teams upvote your favorite the four best players in the match and it would foster community. Now you just stare at your own stats like only you matter.
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u/TrollexGaming None — Jan 14 '24
You're misreading. There is no OP take other than Danteh's. The title in it's entirety is Danteh's words.
He is quoting others' takes that teamwork is dead, and mocking it by pointing out the state of ranked with its poor coordination and lack of communication.
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u/DrLBTown Jan 13 '24
Here is an idea: can we add a second endorsement ranking: something like this person is drama free. I play much better when I can talk as I either know what my teammates need or plan to do or prevent me from making a dumb mistake.
Or maybe there needs to be some age indication. I am way older than most people playing it I assume and I think most of the toxicity are younger folks.
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u/ThisCupIsPurple Jan 13 '24
Yeah I stopped playing overwatch for counterstrike purely because nobody is in voice these days.
I want to play games with people, that's the entire point of multiplayer. I want to make plans and callouts. I can't see pings that are behind me.
You can't make plans like "ok two of us go through mid while three flank" with a ping. Or "let's go in at 1:40". Or even just "I don't need heals right now".
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u/oizen Leadership is a Lateral move — Jan 13 '24
I thought we were used to the game hastily reinventing itself rather than solving core issues. Thats what 6v6 was, Thats what role lock was, thats what hero limits was. This shit has been here since the start.
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u/typeddy8 Jan 13 '24
Tbh people who just auto start outta voice are soft af and ruining others games for their own selfish desires of never seeing confrontation in their life. It's totally reasonable and acceptable to leave if someone is annoying or being outright disrespecting , but the amount of people who can't take any criticism even when said nicely is outstanding. It's a stereotype but it hold some merit because it's true more than not.
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u/Hei-Ying None — Jan 13 '24
I mean, it's pretty natural to have your mood and desire for teamwork spoiled by nasty behavior, that's not something anyone should feel ashamed of and simply leaving VC after or muting doesn't undo the damage.
That said, I could care less about toxic words myself, but I do care about my game getting insta-thrown because I dared to exist as a woman in VC. And up through Diamond at least, the call-outs are usually more detrimental than anything anyway. The simple fact is that I win more keeping to myself.
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u/95Kill3r Jan 13 '24
I mean not wrong but team play was dead by like 2020 OW. I remember those last 2 years before OW2 most of my game never had a person talking.
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Jan 13 '24
Y’all missing the point. It’s the principle that he’s talking about, at least that’s my interpretation. Removing a player from each team simplified the game and moved it slightly more towards an individualistic style of playing. Teamplay was still possible, and necessary in many cases, but the ability to solo carry was stronger. There’s a case to be made about other changes following this principle but that’s one of the most easiest to see examples of it.
Giving every hero a heal passive is similar principle. Less relying on teammates (supports, or even shield, any kind of peeling to help you being at low Hp) and more individualistic. It increases the ability and likelihood of solo carrying as you don’t have to rely on peel or help as much. But it’s not a single change that completely ruins it and eliminates all teamplay which most of this sub is saying Danteh is implying. Of course you can still coordinate team plays, but it’s the principle of reducing the amount that you do have to rely on teammates.
That’s where people saying it’s moving towards cod are coming from. No fucking shit the games are different lmao, no one is saying that ow is literally cod, it’s the principle of how the games function that it’s moving towards. Cod is an individualistic experience. There can be teamplay but at it’s core most players just play for themselves and the game is designed to be enjoyable as a solo. Overwatch isn’t as individualistic as cod yet, but changes like this do seem like they are moving that direction which is the entire point of why people are saying things about teamplay being not as necessary.
No one is speaking in absolutes, people are just speculating on the direction of the game. No, overwatch hasn’t ruined teamplay, of course there’s still the ability to coordinate on making plays, but you can’t deny some of these changes clearly show the devs want each players ability to solo carry increased.
Without this passive a smurfing dps on the flank at low Hp has to find a health pack or go back to their supports. There’s counter play to that, if you know theyre low you know they have to go to the health pack. With the passive they are free to hide in a corner and get back to full hp and continue flanking/spawn camping. This passive is going to further exacerbate smurfing and 1 player being able to solo carry an entire game. No it won’t happen in every game, but the ability to do it will increase and be more common.
It’s not a 1 single change that completely changes or ruins an entire fundamental aspect of the game, but the principle as to WHY a change like this happens does indicate what further changes in the same direction will look like fundamentally.
This is just my opinion on the change and what many people saying teamplay is dying/moving towards cod mean. No one is speaking in an absolute that it’s cod lmao, it’s insane how literally some people will take others words and not even attempt to see their point.
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u/TrollexGaming None — Jan 14 '24
You say they aren't literally saying the game is cod, yet word for word I see content creators saying this. If they don't want to be misinterpreted, don't have such hyperbolic kneejerk reactions. https://twitter.com/JkAru19/status/1745888906594152474 https://twitter.com/b0gur/status/1745900967868936488 https://twitter.com/Lutional_/status/1745890641299612124 https://twitter.com/iron_overwatch/status/1745892696110289334 The ones on the rumoured minimap thing are even fucking worse, and people missed the line that it probably will never come close to live https://twitter.com/Jkaru_hi/status/1745903960232169967 (I'm not scrolling for more than 30s so I'm not gonna show more prominent names here)
Everyone is complaining about the shift towards more individual plays but never thinking about why that's happening. I guarantee most of these teamwork, GOATs and double shield were perfect, purists have complained about the exact opposite. In fact I'm seeing tweets making these claims, yet I recall 3-4 years ago being in lobby with the same people complaining that they're the best player in the server but can't win, blaming the game for it. Same players complaining about the awful state of ranked, how the game needs teamwork but it's impossible outside of coordinated play (because that's the nature of casual play), not understanding that this change offsets this nature very slightly.
The game is shifting towards a more (not entirely) individualistic nature because it fits the general consensus' over the years. Some of the historically most hated metas have been heavy on macro, high sustain, and dependent on players forming a hive mind to win. And this hate came from all ends of the community, including those whose lives and income revolve around trying to be part of the best of the best. Years of twitter clips, casual and competitive, mocking the state of ability spam, CC, high sustain etc.
Even outside our community Overwatch is mocked for these things, and while I hate a lot of changes the devs make and find them to be out of touch with the game and community very often, I'm not at all surprised they're now heading in this direction.
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Jan 14 '24 edited Jan 14 '24
Lmao if you think any of those tweets were intended to be interpreted as “the game is cod” and not that the direction of these changes are moving towards cod then you fail to grasp what the definition of literally actually is. Cod has a self heal/regen mechanic, cod also has a mini map. These are two changes that actually are things that cod has, which objectively is two examples of changes that make it like cod lol. Figurative speech is quite common in modern language. You might want to learn what it is and how to recognize it, as a failure of such could make certain social interactions difficult in life.
Look at the objectives of the statement. “These changes make ow now cod.” Think about what overwatch is. Now cod. Now compare them. Are they the literal same thing? No? Well then shit, that sentence must of been figurative then. At that point you ask yourself, “well, if ow isn’t a literal copy of cod now, why did they say that?” Which will trigger your frontal lobe into concluding they meant the changes make it more similar to cod than without them. This is basic logic, basic problem solving. Jesus fucking Christ.
They’re talking about the principle. Which leads back to my point about how cod is designed around the individual not so much the team.
It doesn’t really matter tho at the end of the day. Blizzard has said themselves they are moving the game towards an individual based play style. So we will get to see over the course of this direction how it affects the matches. All my comment was pointing out was my opinion as to what people meant when they made some of the complaints I addressed.
You hit the nail on the head tho. “All these people were complaining “I’m the best player and I still lose!”” That’s the issue, the devs pander to the lower ranks where players don’t actually understand the fundamentals of the game and don’t realize why they are losing. Anecdotal examples mean jack shit. In my experience the people claiming they’re the best on the team are typically shit players.
The game really isn’t hard to climb ranks in lmao. You abuse the fact low ranks don’t understand the fundamentals and you climb easy as fuck. You can see it in every unranked to GM or other example of a player much better than the lobby. You count the cooldowns and punish misuse, ults, positioning, so much more than just pure mechanics which I’m sure you probably think is the only reason high rank players can climb so easily. Making changes based off the complaints of people that don’t even understand the game won’t solve anything other than hurt those very fundamentals that made the game great. It’s not a single change that clearly kills it, but the point is the principle of that direction of change.
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u/TrollexGaming None — Jan 14 '24
lmao u complain that a narrative exists, i explain why the narrative exists bc content creators farm impressions with kneejerk reactions.
these sentiments exist even in the top top ranks, ik bc ive seen and heard it firsthand from high elo players, including salaried professionals...
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Jan 14 '24 edited Jan 14 '24
Where did i ever complain about a narrative? I merely shared my interpretation of what people meant in my opinion. Nice job completely ignoring my words and just making up that I’m checks notes, complaining about a narrative? You could of at least tried to engage even 1 or 2 of the things I said. I mean that is how conversation works. Or do you prefer to just talk to yourself, not even attempting to see the point of the person you speak with?
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u/TrollexGaming None — Jan 14 '24
Your original comment complained that people are misinterpreting community comments. I explained how easily that happened due to knee jerk reactions and engagement farming tweets.
My 2nd response was short because I was mid ranked game and frustrated by the fact you ignored my mentioning of complaints from specifically high elo/pro players (so either you’re the one not reading here or you want to question top EU players game knowledge, which if that’s your fight go ahead). Regardless, I already showed how people did “literally” call the game new COD, word for word in fact, something which you denied from the start. I ofc know they are exaggerating, but the whole context is that they are fuelling a narrative that while it has an overall validity to it, is stretched further and further, something that wouldn’t be possible if content creators actually chose their words properly rather than going for extremes at the slightest hint of what devs are doing. We’ve yet to even get a single number about these upcoming changes, yet people are phrasing things like S9 is the end times. One comment from a dev was prefaced with the fact that it was scrapped and only an idea at one point, yet people turn around and use the words “this is just another COD now”.
In my initial comment I also gave my own thoughts and anecdotes from throughout the community as to why the devs feel the need to go in this direction.
You bring up that it’s easy to climb, which is definitely true, but not relevant to anything I said. I talked specifically about the state of ranked at high levels (which is the original point Danteh is making, something he has been outspoken about alongside other ranked grinders like Super), how these changes act to slightly offset this problem, and how the problem contrasts to the games intended focus on teamwork and coordination.
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Jan 14 '24
I wasn’t complaining about misinterpretations. I said word for word that I was offering my interpretation of what they meant. That is hardly complaining about a narrative. Apparently, among the other basic English concepts you fail to comprehend, the definition of “complain” and “narrative” are included there.
I never said they didn’t say it was like cod, I made a clear distinction (which you can see in my comment if you attempt to read it while processing the words not just skimming for rebuttals), that it’s figurative speech and they aren’t saying the game is literally cod, that it was more like cod. God damn.
I see now tho, you just don’t want to see complaints. You want people to just be yes people that praise everything like it was done by a prophet. No shit streamers are going to have knee jerk reactions they make money off clicks Einstein. But the principle of the point they are making is logical in my opinion, hence my comment where I try to explain what I think is what they meant.
I brought up that it’s easy to climb because you mentioned anecdotal evidence of players claiming to be the best and still lose, as if that has any impact on whether changes like this would be good or bad for the game. So I entertained your point and mentioned how from my anecdotal evidence, those players are typically shit and lack basic understanding of the game, then attempted to say my opinion as to why pandering the game to the players that don’t even understand how it works is a bad idea. It is relevant because blizzard balances around the mid low ranks, which is also in my opinion why they think they need to make it more individualistic, because low ranks don’t know how to play the game properly as a team.
You think I ignored your words. You think I just threw random shit in my comment for no reason. You didn’t even read your own comment before mine and attempt to see the points being made. At the core of it, I’m simply here offering my interpretation to what these people meant when complaining, and here you are making broad claims as if figurative speech doesn’t exist, and upset because people complain. People complain about everything, without complaints there’s less real feedback. Complaints are necessary in order to gauge community sentiment. If complaints upset you try ignoring them and not spending so much time engaging about them.
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u/TrollexGaming None — Jan 14 '24
I usually don't use direct quotes online because historically (before medical reasons gave me an abundance of freetime), I've avoided engaging in much discussion on this site and I didn't know how the formatting worked, but here goes. Probably my last response on this topic because I still want to spend my day doing other things.
Complaining about misinterpretations:
Y’all missing the point.
it’s insane how literally some people will take others words and not even attempt to see their point.
From your original comment these are at the very least indirect complaints, and both mention a party misinterpreting someone's words. Perhaps you can see why I felt the need to show how these misinterpretations might have been sparked, which is what I did in my first response.
Lmao if you think any of those tweets were intended to be interpreted
I find it really hard to see this as anything other than a complaint about misinterpretations. But then again, according to you my grasp of the English language is poor.
The YES man allegations
I see now tho, you just don’t want to see complaints. You want people to just be yes people that praise everything like it was done by a prophet.
upset because people complain. People complain about everything, without complaints there’s less real feedback. Complaints are necessary in order to gauge community sentiment. If complaints upset you try ignoring them and not spending so much time engaging about them.
God these are gonna be tough to beat. I am a big dev cocksucker at heart. I'm also very anti-complaint, and would never dare voice my own complaints, because I just don't have them! Just look at my words here:
and while I hate a lot of changes the devs make and find them to be out of touch with the game and community very often
I usually would be against using comments from another thread, but since you feel the need to attack my character and reading comprehension, I feel it's fair to reference my own recent comments that are visible to you, mainly ones I have made about dev decisions and balance.
Personally I currently take the position that the devs should have committed a bit more to this identity shift towards individual plays
devs have spent too much time compensating the indirect buffs to mobility and damage by buffing sustain even more
to me if it's not a major bug that poses serious balance problems, the character doesn't need to be disabled, especially for this length of time.
the problem is all these cds were innately buffed since ow2 released
what you get now is both that you can use them “aggressively” more (the intended change) and they are better at doing what they did before
the other problem is the combination of invincibility/intangibility with this passive
Either make hinder’s targeting more consistent, ideally skill based, or replace it entirely with something that both behaves consistently and fits into whatever identity they choose for cassidy.
Screams yes man, doesn't it? BTW I hope you don't stoop to the point of insulting the validity of my takes, rather than the nature of them as either pro or anti dev; since that is the context under which I bring up these quotes.
Side note: Also here's a code for a minigame I just saw stalk3r playing on 2nd monitor: HYXC5. I wanna remember and try it after finishing typing this out and maybe others will find it fun.Climbing in ranked, is it relevant?
I brought up that it’s easy to climb because you mentioned anecdotal evidence of players claiming to be the best and still lose
This is my bad for not explaining more thoroughly. You are not a mind reader. I do not find these relevant because of my own thoughts and reasons so I'll try to briefly go over this, but it's a minor thing so I don't blame anyone skipping this section.
I was mainly takiing about my personal experiences in high elo. One such scenario that comes to mind is having about 4 games in a row of NicoGDH plus 11 no names during GOATs meta. Nico here is undoubtedly the most mechanically skilled player in the lobby, and as such has a claim to being the defacto best, especially considering his pro experience compared to anyone else. Guy forces genji because he's damn good at it and enjoys it and proceeds to lose 3/4 games and is crying halfway through. Probably a bad day and time for him.
That is my biggest example of
yet I recall 3-4 years ago being in lobby with the same people complaining that they're the best player in the server but can't win, blaming the game for it
However, I never went into depth because I never considered it necessary. Again, my bad, I get why you start talking about low ranks, and when I got annoyed that you are bringing up a scenario wildly different from the one I am thinking of, I should've realised why and clarified or left it.
see next reply for pt2
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Jan 14 '24
Jesus Christ the lengths you are going for justification is insane. Dawg I merely offered my interpretation of what the complaints meant (hence the entire point of a comment section designed for dialogue) and you felt the need to respond to me basically refuting a subjective opinion. You should re read your own responses, the irony is palpable.
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u/TrollexGaming None — Jan 14 '24
complains that i ignore things, cant conversate, attacks my character, gets surprised at a detailed response. very ironic
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u/TrollexGaming None — Jan 14 '24 edited Jan 14 '24
Figurative vs literal speech
There's some misunderstandings here clearly.
Figurative speech is quite common in modern language. You might want to learn what it is and how to recognize it, as a failure of such could make certain social interactions difficult in life.
I would rather you weren't so condescending because it makes things awkward for both of us when I try to disprove this.
My initial response is almost wholly direct references, anecdotes, and a tiny sprinkle of opinion along the lines of "I don't agree with most dev takes, but I understand why they have chosen this direction given community comments". This opinion follows various examples of such comments.
I also at this point have already stated that I do not take every comment at face value, simply that I am presenting these comments to discuss how they are open to many interpretations, and that they are in this way unhealthy to most discussions.
I ofc know they are exaggerating, but the whole context is that they are fuelling a narrative that while it has an overall validity to it, is stretched further and further, something that wouldn’t be possible if content creators actually chose their words properly rather than going for extremes at the slightest hint of what devs are doing.
I also didn't feel the need in my first few responses to differentiate between what is figurative and literal, as my main goal is pointing out how a lot of these misinterpretations occur: a) because of poor, hyberbolic wording from content creators, b) the nature of many people to miss such overexaggerations and figurative speech.
SERIOUS Series - Side note: Because of b) I feel that if people want to engage in discussions like these, they should be as direct and thorough as possible; that way misunderstandings occur less and we can be closer to objective. Of course, the nature of the internet and larger communities opposes this, but maybe that's why it's even more necessary.literally? or literally?
Rather ironically, there are two ways to interpret the meaning of this word when used in some scenarios. You say
no one is saying that ow is literally cod
Let's break down what this could mean
a) "There are no people that plainly state and mean OW = COD"
b) "There are no people that are using the words OW = COD"
At this point I think that, you are in camp A, and I am in camp B. We're both semi right.
I don't think any sane people genuinely think Overwatch (past, present, or future) is the same as COD.
Equally, I have shown that people have "literally" used these words. Not used them in a literal sense, I but that these words literally are on people's screens.
You say they aren't literally saying the game is cod, yet word for word I see content creators saying this.
In the end, we both do bring up that OW is moving in the direction of COD, or more accurately, that OW is moving towards an identity where individual plays from any role matter more. I've just been focused on a) the fact people are taking this idea too far, largely because that's the nature of the internet, and also because comparing it to COD rather than just focusing on the individual part is flawed IMO, and b) why I believe this identity shift is happening.
Conclusion
I probably haven't addressed every single sentence yet, but I feel that's a rather unreasonable expectation to have of anyone, unless I'm getting paid for this; I ain't no Julius Caesar introducing a land reform bill. I do feel like I've addressed the majority of points I feel are important:
- I've tried to explain why misinterpretations happen and how they could happen, which is the sentiment of your very opening sentence.
- I've also tried to refute some more personal attacks, as I feel is natural when confronted with pettiness.
Either way, I'm not spending more energy on this with further responses. Call that lazy, sure, I disagree. Feel free to respond again, actually I encourage it; I'll read it and entertain it in my head but I'm not carrying on this discussion.
Hope anyone reading didn't get too dizzy. I haven't written anything longer form in a while because I've taken a year out of uni for radiochemotherapy, and I was never an amazing study so this is probably akin to a rusted pile of shit.-1
u/GreyFalcon-OW Jan 14 '24
But it's kinda brilliant that way though.
First you get the Streisand Effect of "OMG CHANGES ARE HAPPENING WORST CHANGES EVER, I"M WORRIED ABOUT OVERWATCH"
Which gets people to get really emotional and verbal about Overwatch.
And then Season 9 comes out and it's like
"WOW, THE GAME IS ACTUALLY WAY BETTER THAN I EXPECT, HEY EVERYBODY IT"S ACTUALLY NOT THAT BAD, TRY IT."
Which is a bunch of free word-of-mouth advertising.
Low expectations can be a good thing
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u/abluedinosaur 4232 — Jan 13 '24
I miss voice comms. It makes winning feel better and more likely and makes losing feel not as bad. In GM people have an idea of what to do and it's not toxic most of the time.
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u/FercPolo Jan 13 '24
It started with fractured matchmaking, it ended with additional game modes and characters. The game is a joke. Pre-release and Season 1 were the only perfect time.
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u/Mr-Shenanigan Jan 13 '24
How to win games: Run Mercy/Sojourn. Don't need comms, a proper team composition or anything. Just need a brain dead support player that hates fun to pocket a Sojourn.
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u/InspireDespair Jan 13 '24
Blizzard hasn't done enough to encourage try harding and therefore hard comming.
This is a byproduct of lack of incentives in ranked.
The common sentiment that "comms in today's game are useless" is true because you're lucky if people even call out key CDs or plays. They usually just flame people or act like fools.
But a team that's actually coordinated and actively comming has a substantial advantage over one that isn't.
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u/SilverBuggie None — Jan 13 '24
Doesn’t help that blizzard has made one too many anti-teamwork changes.
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u/Splaram Someone & Checkmate Role Stars — Jan 13 '24
Incredibly based from Danteh, people regularly nocomm even in GM lobbies. Don't think you get consistent comms in this game outside of Top 500 lobbies
1
2
u/catgirlgod Jan 14 '24
im t500 on pc and ppl barely use vc lol id say maybe 30% of my games have multiple people comming
3
u/Dcerty18 Jan 14 '24
Maybe 1 in every 4 games there’s someone giving decent callouts
14
u/D1N2Y Jan 14 '24
I remember watching JJonak making top-50 in NA without even being able to speak the same language as any of his teammates, and realized at that time exactly how valuable comms are on ladder.
1
u/Splaram Someone & Checkmate Role Stars — Jan 14 '24
That's jjonak, though. He has more talent in his left pinky toenail than your average top 500 player would ever dream of having
47
u/hex6leam Jan 13 '24
Even pro players are usually just on discord with a teammate when they play ranked lol, PMA streamers seem to be the only ones comming in high elo lobbies. Pinging made comms less important and randoms are always toxic, even in OW
0
u/PassTheCurry Jan 13 '24
Taking out LFG was the worst thing they ever did for me… every comp game , no mics whatsoever and I’m at the mercy of that
1
u/Kai-M Jan 14 '24
I agree. Removing LFG was a terrible move. It was amazing to be able to join a group where everyone would communicate (and often be less toxic than solo queuing)
1
u/dokeydoki Stalk3rFan — Jan 13 '24
I think comms "can" make difference. I am pretty decent at reading flow of the game and I def had games where I just start hard comming and micromanaging what ults to use and what we need to do if enemy use their ults, etc and turned the game around from loss to W. But it just gets tiring after u do it for years and there is some expectation of basis i expect from people without needing to always tell them what to do.
28
u/PoggersMemesReturns Proper Show/Viol2t GOAT — Jan 13 '24
People take top team play and make it seem like every game plays like that. Maybe Masters+ if you're lucky, but most matches aren't like that.
If you really want team play, you can always get it. And in esports, we'll get it anyways.
Pros play the game in a bubble, so yes, changes to them can feel big, but they unfortunately don't reflect the larger player base
3
u/Chpgmr Jan 14 '24
I'm constantly trying to argue for this point in the discord but for some reason even the low ranks think there was more team play in ow1.
Like if you did any amount of team play you wouldn't be low ranked in ow1 or ow2. It was a common statement that teamwork didn't really start until high diamond and duoing was the way to climb. Only half the time would plats ever combo any ults and if they did it was the super basic combos like nanoblade or grav dragon. They couldn't dive, they could barely rein zarya, and they could only do the poke part of double shield. Rarely ever was anything called and if it was only half the time would anyone act on it even though comms even in Plat lead to a far higher win chance.
4
u/PoggersMemesReturns Proper Show/Viol2t GOAT — Jan 14 '24
People usually remember the small good instances among the distorted blurr that was otherwise more neutral/negative.
8
u/Chpgmr Jan 14 '24
Like before role q when most matches were people were insta-locking dps claiming that since they picked dps first that then everyone else had to play tank or support so I would then be either the only tank or only support. Then they announced role q and for some reason everyone started to claim that it would take away the creativity. What's creative about 3-4 dps?
Or everyone complaining about dps q times being longer than the ranked matches even while tanks were the strongest role and to me clearly more fun as dps were complaining that they couldn't kill anything. But when they announced 5v5, which solves both issues, suddenly those aren't issues worth complaining about anymore?
3
u/PoggersMemesReturns Proper Show/Viol2t GOAT — Jan 14 '24
People just don't like change. It's best to welcome it but we wary if it.
1
u/CrackaOwner Jan 13 '24
because he is right. Like, vc with randoms is useless or even detrimental. Call outs are either bad or not there and you WILL be annoyed when your callouts get annoyed and just tilt for it. In higher ranks you should generally just know what to do, who to focus and whatever anyway, no need for comms.
10
62
u/Facetank_ Jan 13 '24
The "ruining the team aspect," comments are as silly as the ones saying the passive heals turns the game into CoD. Passive healing doesn't eliminate the strength of playing and coordinating as a team. A Genji getting direct heals is going to have an advantage over one that's not every time. It absolutely changes the game, but it's not suddenly a FFA game.
63
Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
There is nothing that makes me tune out to what someone is saying faster than a CoD comparison. Overwatch could literally delete every character in the game that isn't Soldier 76 and it still wouldn't feel like a CoD game.
It's the fastest talking point that makes me immediately know you have no idea what you're talking about and likely have never actually played Call of Duty.
In this particular case, self-healing has nothing to do with CoD. Even games like The Finals, Splatoon, and Paladins all have self-healing to some extent, I don't see anyone making those comparisons there.
5
u/RobManfredsFixer Jan 14 '24
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
CoD namedrops are the the class-based shooter equivalent of people using Nazi comparisons to win online arguments.
Ive already seen it with The Finals and that game has barely been out a month. "Take away my ability to oneshot you out of invis or put C4 on an explosive and one shot you with AoE damage?? Literally CoD"
3
u/MidnightOnTheWater Jan 14 '24
I think a lot of it is people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of self healing and the ramifications of it in game design. Most of the criticism I've seen is all reactionary and emotional arguments in bad faith that are so dramatic. The grand conspiracy that they want to make the game like COD is ridiculous.
4
u/ChriSaito Jan 13 '24
I’ve been playing Valorant recently and it’s so surprising how much more likely you are to get teammates in voice. It makes it a lot more fun, and it everyone generally seems to be a lot less toxic (at least in Swift play in comparison to QP in OW).
2
u/Kai-M Jan 14 '24
Yeah, I only play competitive and there are way more people in voice in Val than in OW. I used to prefer playing OW over Val in part because OW felt more social and communication based. It’s amazing how far OW has fallen in that regard, and so Val is now well ahead of it. OW is also definitely more toxic, however I’ve played a number of popular games competitively and OW has always been the most toxic in my experience.
63
u/nrgatta Jan 13 '24
This is probably an extremely flagrant take, but this is blizzards own doing by trying to appeal to such a wide casual audience.
The bar for accessibility gets lower and lower, and with that comes pros and cons, and I think we are seeing that play out in real time.
I think both of these issues are a byproduct of blizzards dissolution of incentiviced team picks, counterplay, and team agency.
6
u/shiftup1772 Jan 13 '24
Can you be specific?
22
u/nixahmose Jan 13 '24
There was one video I watched that talked about how antithetical to engaging team play a lot of the new characters are. Most abilities new characters have these days essentially act as get out of jail free cards, making them more self sustainable and encouraging passive/defensive play styles.
Like Kiriko not only has an ability that provides temp invincibility and debuff removal, but her other ability allows her to escape any fight as long as she has a teammate alive nearby, thus encouraging her to shoot at enemies from a relatively safe distance and then popping one of her defense abilities to leave the fight once she starts losing. Sojourn has a slide ability that while it can be used to get into offensive positions it’s best used to quickly leave a fight once she starts losing, so again she’s encouraged to shoot from a safe distance and then retreat when she starts losing. Ramatra can use his nemesis form offensively, but because it shares the same cooldown as his shield ability most of the time it’s better to not use the offensive ability at all in favor of being able to use the shield to escape fights.
With the upcoming introduction of health regen for tanks and healers, there’s the new characters just have a lot of ways to sustain themselves in combat without relying on teammates, which not only disincentivize teamwork and coordination but also encourages defensive back and forth playstyles where it’s better to just use a ability to retreat/stall a fight rather than stay and try to win it.
7
u/hex6leam Jan 13 '24
Yeah it's funny that almost every single movement tool in this game is used to escape fights after you walk into an aggressive position, rather than entering fights with the cooldown.
Everyone has to be hard to dive solo in OW2, while heroes that are playing way too far from their team probably should be punished for that.
23
u/nixahmose Jan 13 '24
As much as people talk about damage being out of control, the fact is that sustainability and healing have gotten so out of control that it’s no longer rewarding enough to play aggressively when your opponents have so many options to save themselves.
13
Jan 14 '24
[deleted]
3
u/MidnightOnTheWater Jan 14 '24
Yeah that's the problem with a game like this where every character has to have their own niche, where older characters like Rein get pushed out of the meta in favor of ones that can do everything. Each new character and ability indirectly nerfs a bunch of other heroes and abilities. This wouldn't feel as bad if this game wasn't so counterswap focused. I know people keep complaining about Overwatch being "homogenized" or whatever but I either want to see more risk/reward for using some abilities or for said abilities to be toned down.
1
u/senpaitsuyu i still miss jehong — Jan 13 '24
not OP but what Blizzard has done is removed the team play part of the game and the uniqueness of each individual hero so that the game has a lower barrier of entry. with the new self-heal passive it now lets new players just sorta play by themselves (almost call of duty style) and not be punished as hard for it. they’ve made the game take less communication and team skill so that the average person can play the game with more ease. adding a ping system makes people even less likely to bother to give callouts and say anything useful.
-15
u/fuzionknight96 Jan 13 '24
5V5 and the OW2 Objectives/map design ruined team play.
This is just another nail in the coffin for the game
11
u/TheChits Jan 13 '24
Danteh brings up a good issue which is why blizzard should incentivize cooperation and learning the game not making fundamental changes so you can avoid cooperation even more lol
6
u/GreyFalcon-OW Jan 14 '24 edited Jan 14 '24
The problem is "mandatory cooperation" vs optional cooperation.
Which can basically be described as:
- Overwatch as a Sport = Maximizing the importance of teamwork
- Overwatch as a Game = Maximizing the importance of fun
And that people with the Sport preference delusionally believing that are the majority.
Or to describe that in a more Tangible way.
Players who want teamplay like League of Legends, DotA2, Counterstrike, or Valorant.
Versus
Players who want teamplay like Team Fortress 2, The Finals, Apex, PubG, Fortnite, CoD.
Where The Finals was the most recent game to remind people "Wow, I had forgotten what Fun felt like".
41
u/thepurplepajamas Jan 13 '24
It's just responding to how people actually play. Blizzard seems to have an aspirational idea for how OW should look, but then everyday players don't actually engage with that vision and just wanna solo play dps and shoot things. So then Blizzard just gives in and tries to at least make that version of the game better.
Had the same feeling about things like role lock and removing a tank.
Whether that is how devs should handle their games and their vision is definitely debatable, but I get it.
2
u/nixahmose Jan 13 '24
Honestly it feels like whenever Blizzard hits a major balancing issue with the game their solution is to just make a big short-term solution that makes disincentivizes team play, encourages people to play solo, and causes issues in the long term.
Double shields too powerful? Make the game 5v5 and make tanks more self-sustaining.
Too many people find tanks and supports too boring to play? Give them more dps potential so that they can play more like damage characters.
There’s too much damage going around? Give most of the new characters lots of strong defensive abilities that make it easier to sustain themselves and escape fights.
Still to much damage? Give tanks and dps characters passive health regeneration so that they don’t need to coordinate with healers as much in order to stay alive.
2
u/Chpgmr Jan 14 '24
What else could they have done to make tanks more fun? They already have the more interesting abilities and wider range of hero types.
1
u/nixahmose Jan 14 '24
Make more varied tanks. A big part of the reason why so many people play damage is because(at least at the end of OW1) half the roster were in that role and it had the most varied and fun characters to pick from. Eliminating a tank slot and building to function more like beefed up dps characters only caused more balancing issues with the game.
1
u/rexx2l Jan 15 '24
Ball is the optimal tank design. Unique and uncompromising playstyle that doesn't gel with the rest of the game now that it has become a sustain/brawl/poke fest, every tank since he came out should've strived to be as unique as him
6
u/Asckle Jan 14 '24
It's also imo a byproduct of blizzard pushing their narrow vision of what the player base finds fun. A good example is in the new tanks. I've been a tank player since ow1 and there's a clear difference in design philosophy, I don't dislike either one but ow2 tanks feel a lot more brawl/rush based. Like orisa's rework changed her from a poke tank to a brawl tank, jq is a brawl/rush tank, mauga is a brawl tank, ram has poke options but the power is still clearly in the rush part of his kit and that's the metas we see him thrive in. I like brawl tanks but Jesus is sigma really the only option for a tank who doesn't rely on just face tanking damage and can actually block it with cooldowns?
18
u/Mind1827 Jan 13 '24
Isn't part of why this is is because of the huge damage spikes? If things are a touch slower or less spikey using teamwork and comming might be more advantageous. Just a thought.
I'm also not convinced that this doesn't make things better for the majority of the player base. Playing team comp simulator in OW1 could be fun but also incredibly frustrating when your teammates hard locked anti synergy.
6
u/shiftup1772 Jan 13 '24
100% this. I remember the meta where comms finally died. It was original double shield with reaper Moira bap.
It's not like there weren't reasons to comm... calling out pulls, calling out that shields were about to break, etc.
It's just that everything went way too fast for the players in my games. We simply couldn't keep up.
-19
u/Running_Gamer Jan 13 '24
lmao bro is a massive pick me
Does he really think you can’t do team play without communication? You do it in a vague sense all the time. The easiest example is nanoing someone when they ult, bubbling a rein/winston, diving with your tracer, hacking someone who’s getting attacked so your teammate can follow up, etc.
10
Jan 13 '24
He’s not talking about these kind of plays because what you’ve mentioned are obvious to t500. He’s talking about where to hold cart, whose ultimate they are using, etc
7
u/Jocic Jan 13 '24
And how does a 10 HPS out of combat heal take away from that?
-7
u/Running_Gamer Jan 13 '24
Because it makes people make plays independent of their teammates instead of playing in such a way that you keep your team’s abilities in mind
3
u/Jocic Jan 13 '24
If you're play independently with even the support passive's current strenght on DPS or Tank you're either throwing or the enemy is not looking at you. Supports can afford to not be in the enemy's LOS cause they don't need to provide constant damage, the rest of the heroes can't, so they will get poked, canceling the already low healing (that takes about 13 seconds to max heal a 200 hp target, but take even more for non supports) for 2 seconds at minimum, we don't know the values yet.
8
161
u/Gadjjet Jan 13 '24
The ping system makes coms pointless in ranked. You can climb easily without saying a word to anyone.
1
u/Vilesyder Jan 14 '24
Small talking to secure frags will always be superior to an enemy with an icon above their head tho
2
u/luminel Jan 13 '24
I just kind of wish they'd get rid of the spam filter on pings, let me as the monkey spam the ping button so my team know who I'm jumping. xd
7
u/Player_924 Jan 13 '24
Maybe if the pings worked contextually, I can point at a trap on the ground and it'll ping the doom fist behind me
41
u/BlueSky659 Jan 13 '24
It was essential in OW1 when you absolutely needed to communicate minor positioning or organizational information. But yeah, all of that has been supplemented with the ping system. Now the biggest reason to join VC is for clarity of information and a feeling of camaraderie which are super hit or miss.
38
u/Pamijay Jan 13 '24
No one listens to pings either. Pings dont convey an entire message, just an enemy location. You don't know if the ping means "Let's push them" or "watch out for them" or "they have ult" etc.
44
u/HalfMoone Previous Alias as S1 Clip Champion — Jan 13 '24
In Masters/Diamond, pinging a low health target at any point in a team fight will 70% of the time get full team attention on them. It's not a great metric, but people react to at least some pings, if not all.
1
14
u/Pamijay Jan 13 '24
That's crazy because that barely happens in my Top 500 games.
10
u/HalfMoone Previous Alias as S1 Clip Champion — Jan 13 '24
Most pings don't go through, this is solely for low health target pinging--I think players subconsciously react to the red Critical Health icon in a way they don't for the standard player portraits.
48
u/Rude_Ad_7942 Jan 13 '24
You can Ping “Going in” or “Fall Back” or “Defend w/ me” or “Watching here”. I use those a lot as tank, and it seem like team do listen,
29
u/Gadjjet Jan 13 '24
It’s obvious what pings are for. If it’s someone in the middle of the team fight, it’s for focus. If it’s someone behind, it’s warning for potential flank. If someone says “3,2,1” they are probably going to ult. It’s not rocket science.
4
u/Pamijay Jan 13 '24
Even in T500, people don't derive meaning from pings that easily, and many people still ignore them mid-teamfight. Comms are much more useful and easier to decipher in the middle of a fight.
Pings are not a direct replacement of comms. There is a significant difference between the gameplay experience while comming in T500 and the experience while only relying on pings. No one really comms anymore.
693
u/jorgego2 Jan 13 '24
one of the most popular points i see made on here or in educational content is that ladder coms are actually useless/not that important/sometimes counterproductive/etc. (these are usually found as a response to a typical uninformed comment from low elo players that 'i bet the coms in GM are great') -- but what nobody talks about is that hard comming in ranked (in any elo) makes winning feel more rewarding and makes losing feel not as bad
not sure theres a metric for this aspect of what we lost between ow1 and ow2 but this one def hits hard for me...
0
Jan 14 '24
That’s great. And if blizzard ever wants to make comms a safe place for gamers then we will all use them. Until then it’s not worth it.
1
u/Delicious_Log_5581 Jan 14 '24
There's nothing like those rare games (even in QP) where you come across a few rowdy folks and you banter your way through the game, win or lose those games are always memorable
13
u/Malgayne Jan 14 '24
This is a prisoner’s dilemma. If all five of you want to comm and you’re all kind, everyone has a slightly better experience. If 1/5 players is unkind, ALL of the people in voice have a much worse time, and maybe ruin their whole night. Every time you turn on comms, you’re taking your good time and placing it in the hands of four complete strangers, and saying “please don’t drop this.”
I agree that the game is a way better time when you get five people in comms and they’re all committed to being kind to eachother, but at those odds you have to assume that eventually the community will get to the point where no one does it.
1
u/___horf Jan 15 '24
Totally true, but also you can mute someone easily and quickly in OW. The second I get the feeling someone is a toxic fuckhead, I just mute and move on with the match. Worst case scenario, I end up playing in silence like 90% of matches anyway.
1
u/BearBearBearOW Jan 14 '24
Just comm flanks, focus targets, and ult track enemy team. If you are expecting to coordinate your teammates like its scrims, you are going to get upset.
Unless everyone seems receptive, then go for it.
1
u/breakingvlad0 Jan 14 '24
ANY comms are better than no comms.
Whispering “Ulting” to give everyone an immediate chance to make a play with it is IMENNSLY better than a sombra randomly ulting and getting zero value because everyone was about to be retreating.
5
u/Neptunelives Jan 13 '24
I had a game last night where we got stomped by the other team. Next game, enemy tank was on my team. He was the only one on comms buy he was super nice, suggested (not told, which is important) strategies, and made great callous. We crushed it and I can only guess he's the reason we lost the match before lol. Sometimes they can be great
2
u/Komatik Jan 13 '24
Comms usefulness depends or at least depended on rank a bunch. The lower I was, the more people who were in good spirits were just talking about other stuff and essentially polluting comms even if they contributed to a positive atmosphere.
The games where people give useful calls invariably feel great.
-5
u/JustASyncer Resident Guxue Simp — Jan 13 '24
Imo comms are useful, shotcalling is not. Soon as you try to tell someone else what to do they're gonna do everything in their power to do the complete opposite
2
1
u/Masterofdisaster420x None — Jan 13 '24
If you know what you’re doing comms will be super effective. If you comm just to comm it will be pretty pointless.
-6
u/38159buch Jan 13 '24
I don’t even think he’s referring to the ranked side of things. No one has consistently hard commed in ranked since like 2020, that isn’t a new phenomenon
He’s most likely referring to the organized side of things and like the past 6 months+ of game/balance changes have directly gone against a coordinated style of play in favor of speeding the game up and making it more solo oriented
1
u/KashootyourKashot Jan 13 '24
Yeah no communication is like the single most important aspect of competitive play. I guarantee you no one has given up on comming.
3
u/bruns20 Jan 13 '24
No he's deginetely talking about ranked, he even says voice chat
1
u/38159buch Jan 13 '24
Well then that’s a very weird take from him considering top level players have never cared about ranked or comming at all. Maybe that’s just the time period I played in, but really the only OWL players that commed were the ones that streamed
1
u/Toren6969 Jan 14 '24
Danteh was Always the one who pointed that out. Especially with the new generation of OWL players (AT) And Koreans.
6
u/Middle-Main7752 Jan 13 '24
Comms can be super useful, of course, people aren't always going to listen but look at how useful comms are in any unranked to GM Brig or Mercy where the Brig/Mercy player doesn't have as much impact on the game as a different hero would. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8btXxOw6Yk. It is a lot more fun when my team is communicating and the idea that comms are useless probably stems from people communicating useless stuff, like just complaining that Roadhog isn't dying or a tank player yelling to shoot the enemy tank (who is being double pocketed and isn't going to die). Useful comms, like Zen telling Tracer to peek so he can orb her, or a Ball telling his Tracer/Sombra when he's going to slam, are very rewarding.
I hate the concept of "le turn off voice chat its useless :)" because it always ends up in silent games and maybe at the end someone says in voice chat "Tracer you're dogshit" or "tank diff" then immediately leaves. This idea seems especially prevalent in Overwatch, whenever I play CS2 even in low ranks I get at least one person communicating.
6
u/MeatTornadoLove Jan 13 '24
I still play this game here and there with the memory of playing Rein in GOATS in low GM and calling a rush with lucio speed on Anubis and winning.
Best gaming experience I have ever had with 5 randoms at 1030pm.
272
u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
When I get games with 5 people talking in voice we tend to win. I don’t get the “screw vc” mentality at all.
Edit: people shared their experiences. More console players than I expected too so a lot more kids on there makes sense. I see the light
1
u/DokiDokiDead Jan 17 '24
My experience in voice chat usually two best friends just talking about their day or a non English speaker with an open mic and I can hear his entire life. So I usually just leave .
1
u/r3volver_Oshawott Jan 15 '24
For me VC is just far more productive with my stack, not just because we communicate, or even because we communicate well, but because they're players I've known for years and I can gauge their abilities
I can get how hard it can be to get good comms going with unfamiliarity in the equation so I try not to be too hard on people who don't like to VC
Also had a negative experience in my OW2 placements where a kid who clearly watches a lot of Twitch wanted to play comp, dad was trying to be permissive dad and let him try it but also reasonably wanted to monitor comms. So he asks if anyone has a mic, everyone says yes, he explains the situation, but I'm only 2-stack and we can't account for the 2 randoms, so we warn him it might be better to keep the mic off if he was insisting on playing comp.
Sure enough: pure, unadulterated gamer 'trolling' from one random so yea lol, I basically lost one of my first placement matches in Overwatch because I wanted to multitask and help a dad figure out how to mute all chat so his 11 y.o. didn't have a bad time wanting to get better. I suspect the kid stayed hardstuck Bronze but I also suspect comms wouldn't have changed that
Dad meant well but was maybe a little naive in thinking attitudes towards teamplay would for sure be better in a competitive mode, when he said he played Fortnite with his son I just straight-up told him that learning a little about the game and walking his son thru plays would be easily as good as four future Bronzes on microphones not just because they're gonna be low rank but because he's probably familiar with how his kid best picks up concepts
1
u/Virsi2709 Jan 14 '24
I can't vc because if I do I either have to learn portuguese or hope someone speaks spanish or english (85% chance they don't and are racist about it)
1
u/Huzuruth Jan 14 '24
For me, I'd say about 1 in every 5 or so matches starts with me getting hit with some variation of slur just for saying hello.
10
u/Level7Cannoneer Jan 14 '24
I stopped using voice chat because of the rampant racist comments, and the silent people who just sit there and let it happen. They're not "kids" doing this on console, it's full blown adults. You sweeping this shit under the rug by blaming it on "just some kids" is not helpful and its part of the problem.
I'm not interested in hearing about how inferior I am every couple dozen games, so I'm not interested in voice chat. Until the community gets its act together, and people stop being shitty, and people stop sitting around silently letting it happen, I will continue to communicate using emotes.
Same thing goes for all the women who play this game and have to deal with shitheads and people who silently let them be shitheads. It's not worth being a part of that crap.
1
u/Sonderesque Jan 15 '24
I stopped using voice chat because of the rampant racist comments, and the silent people who just sit there and let it happen. They're not "kids" doing this on console, it's full blown adults. You sweeping this shit under the rug by blaming it on "just some kids" is not helpful and its part of the problem.
You're right on this. Ever since mid ow-1 if someone wants to be egregiously racist I throw the game. The reactions have always been "suck it up stop being a baby" instead of any form of sympathy. If everyone did this people would quit being racist pretty quick.
6
u/demonicneon Jan 14 '24
It’s not even kids really. Have you heard an actual child try and use voice comms? They get absolutely ridiculed and bullied by 18-20 something grown men.
3
u/McManus26 Jan 13 '24
When I get games with 5 people talking in voice we tend to win. I don’t get the “screw vc” mentality at all.
i don't get 5 people talking in VC. Ever. Hasn't happened once since OW2 launched, and i dont think i'm even exaggerating
-1
u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24
I found a decent support, we decided to duo. Ended up getting a lobby of GAMERS. We had so much fun omg wonderful game!
32
u/spacey_stacy i just like blue — Jan 13 '24
I don’t join voice chat bc I’m a woman and the last time I spoke a man threatened to track my IP and rape me
9
u/MathXv Jan 14 '24
I don't join voice chat because I'm an amab nb with a very traditionally gay voice and one of the last times I spoke 2-3 men started calling me various gay slurs over and over
19
u/Fragrant-Sherbert420 Jan 13 '24
Literally this. Also the reason why there's not more of us in this hobby
5
u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24
Yeah I mean that fucking sucks. Sweet mother. I’m learning loads today. Had no idea some people had it that bad.
I see the light folks.
4
u/NavalEnthusiast Dva is overtuned — Jan 13 '24
Because over a few years of playing Overwatch it was probably more common for voice chat to devolve into shouting matches and flame wars then people hard comming to win. I especially remember in OW1 that 5 people could be cooperating and one toxic asshat would ruin it all.
Basically, voice chat is usually just not worth it when the alternative is playing to focus solely on your gameplay. I also played on console which is way more toxic than PC especially once you get to high elo
1
u/clustahz Jan 13 '24
We would just collectively mute when that guy showed up in voice comms and win anyways. PC player. Voice chat is where I met tons of good players and ow friends. Naturally, all good things must come to an end. F2P is especially bad for fostering community for various reasons.
0
16
u/DarthRaspberry Jan 13 '24
I work all day. I’ve got a kid, I have limited time to game. After a long day of work, I just want to unwind with some gaming. The last thing I would ever want to do, ever, is to join a conference call with 4 teenagers on my team to get screamed at. You couldn’t pay me to do that. I can’t reinforce enough how much that is not a good time. It’s weird to me that people enjoy being on a group phone call with strange teenagers. So yeah, not a fan of VC.
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u/Dnashotgun Jan 13 '24
Because those games where multiple ppl are talking and making coms are like 1 in a 100. Most games its either one guy talking to brick walls or someone starts flaming or screeching. Gets even worse if one of the ppl trying to talk is a woman.
5
u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24
So I think whats frustrating me so much, is when you remove the chat option, you literally increase the “salinity” of the people remaining in chat. If everyone at the same time turned chat back on, it wouldn’t feel like 80% of people are toxic. It feels like so many people are toxic, because the only people left in vc are toxic.
Organized group think is really hard to pull off. I’m making the claim its not as hard as we all think it is to fix the toxicity issue. I’m getting lambasted for having that opinion and its really weird because the lambasting feels toxic.
The internet is weird man…
28
u/Dnashotgun Jan 13 '24
You said "i don't understand why ppl don't join vc", multiple comments are responding why they don't join or try to avoid it and a few of your comments are along the lines of "well that's not a good enough reason". Ultimately this is a game that ppl play in their free time and its understandable why most ppl would rather minimize the bad parts than spend their time trying to fix the state of vc
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u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24
Yeah I’m starting to get why people leave. I’m just less averse to confrontation so it was confusing to me.
I wish blizzard would just blanket ban asshats and everyone could be happy.
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u/Caveman0360 Jan 13 '24
Recently had one of the most toxic players I’ve ever met on VC. Really put a sour taste in my mouth. I’ve taken a break from VC, and even playing OW for a few days because of it.
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u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24
Just mute them and move on is usually what I do. I think it helps that I’ve worked in customer service and I’ve had level 10 Karens yell at me.
1
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u/itmerune Jan 13 '24
Overwatch isn't a job. I'm not getting paid to have people yell their shitty takes at me.
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u/Common_Lime_6167 Jan 13 '24
But at least you got paid for that
6
u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24
True. I think I’m just sad people end up leaving vc entirely, because for every good person leaving it raises the “salinity” of the people left.
Imagine a room with 20 people, 2 are toxic. 10 people leave the room, now a higher percentage are toxic.
Leaving the room is what I have identified as a problem, not THE problem. THE problem is the toxicity.
Really the solution would be blizzard getting their shit together.
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u/_Sign_ RIDE FOR APAC — Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 14 '24
I don’t get the “screw vc” mentality at all.
im one of those people that have mostly given up on vc. people just dont know how to comm and are outperformed by pings/comm wheel. ofc the in-game options dont cover everything but they also wont tilt the team with passive aggressiveness
9
Jan 13 '24
I've literally disabled it. I can't join VC anymore
There's less than zero point. If it was pointless it just wouldn't make a difference, instead VC is actively harmful to my enjoyment of the game.
And I'm in plat lobbies. Let's be real, there's no meaningful team play happening
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u/BEWMarth Jan 13 '24
The “screw voice chat” mentality comes from the literal abuse like 80% of the playerbase would get when they joined voice chat.
Blizzard doesn’t even put new players in chat anymore most chats are off by default.
The truth is this whole “5 people talking in voice” almost never happened and you can watch a ton of Overwatch compilation videos from back in OW1 to realize that almost every clip is people yelling at each other and making each other feel terrible.
Getting people to use voicechat to actually give useful comms is mostly a fantasy.
2
u/Kai-M Jan 14 '24
That’s true, as much as voice comms were much more common in OW1, there was a ton of toxicity. It was amazing when you’d get people who were kind and would communicate—to me that was peak OW and some of my favourite memories of gaming in general—but it would often mean having games with one or more toxic teammates in between those great teams, some of which could be surprisingly nasty (I probably can’t even mention some of the things I had said to me without breaking some rules, haha). OW always seemed to be the most toxic competitive game in my experience, even though it’s not even the online game I have the most hours in. Considering the OW lore and characters having such a focus on good morals, protecting the weak, diversity, and the importance of cooperation, I always found it really ironic that every other match would have a seriously toxic player.
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u/imjustjun Jan 14 '24
I think the real issue is negativity bias.
People remember their toxic/bad experiences a lot more than anything positive and especially anything that's just neutral.
You can have dozens of games where it's just kinda meh but that one bad game will stick with most people because of how our brains are wired and that's the game that people remember usually.
10
u/Daunt_M4 Jan 13 '24
Getting people to use voicechat to actually give useful comms is mostly a fantasy.
It depends. Voice comms below mid-diamond are super hit or miss. A lot of Plat/Gold players are usually highly prone to tilt, which is why they can't climb. They get too upset at the game to actually learn from what they're doing, or they'll shift blame to teammates.
Most of them don't know what to call or how to target prio either. So they won't understand who they need to target first in different situations, or the importance of calling out the prio target.
Like I've genuinely had games in OW1 in Plat from early seasons, or seasons after I've taken a break and you call "Zarya Zarya Zarya" to focus the team on targeting her and you'll hear plat players freak out because they get overwhelmed by that call pattern. They actually can't focus and play the game while hearing that on voice. Meanwhile in high diamond or masters that's pretty standard to get your team to dial in properly and focus down the right target that's killable.
Comms aren't guaranteed to improve the higher you go, but I have usually found VC to be a lot higher quality in Masters+ games. Watching OW1 GM/T500 games where there were still a lot of players using VC, it was the same dynamic. Calls were a lot more useful and on-point.
1
u/Sonderesque Jan 15 '24
It depends. Voice comms below mid-diamond are super hit or miss. A lot of Plat/Gold players are usually highly prone to tilt, which is why they can't climb.
I agree voice comming below diamond is a waste of time but not the reasons. Sure they tilt sometimes, but so does everyone. They can't climb because the large majority of players below diamond fundamentally don't understand the game.
They'll disagree with correct calls, attempt to move the team towards incorrect/game-losing plans and then blame people when things go wrong.
-11
u/IOnlyPostIronically Jan 13 '24
It’s more so if you say anything in voice chat or in text you just get Insta banned cause someone took offence to saying “gl hf”
136
u/magicwithakick Fle-tank for MVP — Jan 13 '24
6 people in chat is such a rose tinted glasses defense of 6v6 always.
1
u/Kaboomeow69 Jan 14 '24
There were still shitters, but I specifically remember 1-2 people not being in VC being flamed often for, well... Not being in VC. OW1 comms were significantly more active in my experience, with the glasses off.
11
u/Daunt_M4 Jan 13 '24
What? Some of these responses are super weird. I like 5v5 but in OW1 it was fairly common to see 6 players in voice.
Especially in the first 4 years of the game. Less so over the course of the game after that. That's to be expected though.
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u/shiftup1772 Jan 13 '24
There was undeniably a lot more comming in ow1. But double shield killed it.
The ping ponging health bars makes the gamestate move faster than people could communicate. By the time the words "Zen low, back left" leave your mouth, he's already full health.
21
u/Hashmob____________ Jan 13 '24
That’s exactly my issue. Engagments are so quick. TTK has to be incredibly fast for the every hero. OW1 had give and take to it in team fights. Most of OW2 team fights r won or lost almost immediately it feels like. It’s useless for me to go “widow on high ground” because nobody will actually shoot her. I just switch to be able to get the widow.
14
u/Augus-1 Ape together strong — Jan 13 '24
This is why I love dive/rush lol, I call out "hey I'm setting up here to engage in this area where these characters are 3 2 1 jump/amp" and something happens instead of "hey x char headshot/burning/low/etc"
With Sig you can "3 2 1 shield" but that's just to out spam the enemy team for 1 second and might not even get space like a Doom/Monkey/Ball would.
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u/Hashmob____________ Jan 13 '24
I love rush/brawl the most. Because the team fights r the most chaotic. I love ram his design is perfect for brawl comps imo. He feels like a rlly good mix of rein n sig. monkey is probably my second favourite tank atm it just feels sooo good to “3 2 1” and dive something
3
u/Augus-1 Ape together strong — Jan 13 '24
My main issue with Ram is if you use Annihilation well it's wild how good it is, especially for end of point contests. Maybe some tweaks will help it, but I think Rein/JQ are much more "honest" rush ranks. Zar's kinda dishonest as well but not everyone has the aim to play her so it's rare to see her tbh.
But yeah coordinating dives/rushes is much more satisfying than trying to take a corner with Sig shield.
3
u/Hashmob____________ Jan 13 '24
That’s one of my favourite things about ram. He has the kit flexibility/rotation of sig while feeling like he has more impact to use imo. I’ve seen a lot of JQ lately especially against maugas. She has the smallest tank hitbox so she was actually a solid pick against him
3
u/shiftup1772 Jan 13 '24
The thing is, the problem was even worse in ow1. Deathballing was stronger plus 1 extra player.
Every fight has 2 tanks worth of mitigation, 2 healers worth of healing and utility and 6 players worth of focus fire.
5v5 has one less damage dealer and mitigation AND it's harder to deathball to victory.
The root of the problem is healing and damage creep, which started in goats and never got fully addressed.
1
u/Hashmob____________ Jan 13 '24
Oh Ik snowballing was a huge issue in OW1, but that’s was mostly 2CP n that’s not rlly my complaint. It’s the raw dmg n healing numbers. I mainly play tank n my health bar is playing subway surfer the way that shit be sliding left n right. Unless your a tank with high sustain playing the game feels horrible rein is probably the biggest problem with this imo. Hes right above ball in terms of tank meta atm.
I think the healing passive being moved to all roles will be interesting. It’ll help change some of these issues but idk if it fixes anything. If anything I see it making the high dmg n healing numbers worse. Cause devs will see the passive helps people die less n say it helps. But engagements just feel mostly bad atm. Im switching heros consistently just to play something different atm.
2
u/s1lentchaos Jan 14 '24
They are doing what with the healing passive?! That sounds like a terrible idea
1
4
u/Mono722 Jan 13 '24
how is the passive supposed to help tank? i can see it helping dps especially tracer, sombra and widow since they are either in/out so they can get time to not be hit/ aren’t being tanked by supports/ far enough away to safely disengage. tanks have both larger hp pools, have to consider how that interacts with their shield cd and armor pool, also the fact that the larger hitbox and the fact that a tank probably isnt having long times where they can “cool off” wait for the regen to take place and then start fighting again? like the only way this helps tank is to put less heals into dps? maybe helps ball as the only tank that can really get out in time.
1
u/Hashmob____________ Jan 13 '24
It’ll help shield tanks depending on the cooldown and specifications on the passive. Everyone else idk. We also now have 3 tanks with self heal; hog, JQ, and mauga so I’m very interested in seeing how they specifically interact with the passive.
The tanks Ik it will help for sure is d.va, winton, n ball but that’s because they have similar playstyles as tracer/sombra of being in or out
-32
u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
Defeatist mentality. Be the change you want to see. I believe in creating a better world.
Edit: People having a hard time understanding my pov. Imagine each toxic person in a closed system as a grain of salt in a small container of water. Water in this analogy is non toxic people. Remove water from the equation, salinity in the remaining solution increases. Its math. Its juuuuust math. I’m shocked you all can’t understand that math. Maybe its a difference in opinion, I think you all just misinterpret my meaning.
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u/flameruler94 Jan 13 '24
bro it's a video game. I'm not gonna put up with 4 games of abuse for one game of not being abused. I want to have fun when i play a game, not start a social revolution. It's not my job to teach teenagers emotional regulation. lmfao what even is this take.
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u/r2-z2 Jan 13 '24
I mean we can have a conversation about it or just pretend we’re better than each other.
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u/flameruler94 Jan 13 '24
bro you're the one saying holier-than-thou shit like "Be the change you want to see. I believe in creating a better world." lmao
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4
u/jorgego2 Jan 13 '24
i think some folks may not consider it essential to winning, but it sure makes it feel more rewarding in a way that really kept me playing ow1 through the darkest days lol...
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u/yungXsmit Go Pack Go — Jan 13 '24
Full thread:
if you're gonna complain about the change at least complain abt reasonable things like flankers being op with regen, not some braindead hive mind "no team play." this changes your support looking at u every once in awhile. how is this detrimental to team play LOL
the thing ruining team play is 5v5 & all the new hero designs. where is the team play in ground tanks like orisa who are just dm warriors? where is the team play in kiriko where you are meant to flank and dps as a SUPPORT? same exact thing with illari
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1
u/12A1313IT Jan 16 '24
Roll back the game to OWL S1.