Leveling up is depressing now.

[Amnaught]

Just atrted playing, and I hit level 3 in the Battle Pass.

Instead of a loot box with a few random small items and a chance for cooler stuff, or even currency.... I unlocked the option to pay cash for a dumb looking banner on my name, same as everyone else at that level.

On its own the Battlepass is bad, but in comparison to OW1 leveling, holy crap, this is just depressing.

And 60 coins per week while epic skins cost 1900, the equivalent of 19USD?? Hot damn, I'm glad I already earned my favorites. Not looking forward to this **wait** replacing the grind.

[Zuben]

I have the premium pass and even with that it's underwhelming. In OW1 with each earned lootbox you'd get four random items, which was exciting before hand and still pretty cool after the fact. With this current system you always know what you're in for next and when you do get it it's just that. I just earned, what, seventh level? And I got a Winston spray I knew was next in line. Hurray.

Maybe they'll adjust it as dissatisfaction of masses accumulates. I mean, they'd have to if people stop dishing out, and it seems there's a large dissatisfaction towards current design.

[Unlimited Power]

Frankly surprised Overwatch "2" is seeing such a resurgence. I'm personally not too fussed until the PvE aspect of the game releases.

As far as rewards are concerned, I'm philosophically against the very existence of loot boxes, but battle passes also rub me the wrong way.

It's basically just another way to repackage FOMO rewards.

It's possible to just have a shop where you can buy cosmetics without it requiring some ridiculous in-game currency you first have to buy to obfuscate the true cost of things or having limited availability on products.

But I guess that's modern video games in a nutshell. Abuse all the psychological tricks to make people engage in monetization schemes rather than making a fun game and having that be the incentive in itself.

[Amnaught]

Frankly surprised Overwatch "2" is seeing such a resurgence. I'm personally not too fussed until the PvE aspect of the game releases.

As far as rewards are concerned, I'm philosophically against the very existence of loot boxes, but battle passes also rub me the wrong way.

It's basically just another way to repackage FOMO rewards.

But I guess that's modern video games in a nutshell. Abuse all the psychological tricks to make people engage in monetization schemes rather than making a fun game and having that be the incentive in itself.

At least loot boxes let us earn cosmetics ingame at a reasonable rate, yknow? Like fuck loot boxes, yeah, but fuck harder this thing where we grind by the week instead of by the game, taking what, 6 months for a single legendary skin if you dont spend the coins on anything else.

I like Overwatch, and I like the cosmetics, and I'm fine with people being able to spend money on them, I just want to be able to get them by playing and not be massively gimped for it. I feel like they nerfed the amount we can earn specifically so they can create less stuff to unlock and not worry about anyone catching up.

[Orby]

they have done the same with Fall Guys, Free 2 Play models are cancer. You cannot just play as much as you want in a day to get what you want and log out, now we get these extra currency that isn't worth anything unless you pay real money for and then the old currency they have capped so you cannot earn as much as you could and cannot buy anything unless you log on every day, and the battle pass doesn't give you enough to warrant getting anything.... Its a horrible design... I just want to play when I want to... why have this hard block on items.

[Voidling]

Im completely with you. Before when i used to play with friends there was at least a chance of something good every once in a while. The free tier has 20 ranks that reward content, and none of it is worth playing for. If they kept the lootbox system and added the option to buy skins id be ok with it, but this new system straight up tells you to pay up or go away.

[Darkeon]

Shocking, really. It's 2022 and people are still being caught off-guard about how predatory Season/Battlepasses are.

[RobertoCarlos]

Shocking, really. It's 2022 and people are still being caught off-guard about how predatory Season/Battlepasses are.

No one is surprised they would just rather discuss it rather than quietly bending over and taking the corporate D because "its always been like that" isn't as convincing of an argument as you think it is

[loras]

Frankly surprised Overwatch "2" is seeing such a resurgence. I'm personally not too fussed until the PvE aspect of the game releases.

As far as rewards are concerned, I'm philosophically against the very existence of loot boxes, but battle passes also rub me the wrong way.

It's basically just another way to repackage FOMO rewards.

It's possible to just have a shop where you can buy cosmetics without it requiring some ridiculous in-game currency you first have to buy to obfuscate the true cost of things or having limited availability on products.

But I guess that's modern video games in a nutshell. Abuse all the psychological tricks to make people engage in monetization schemes rather than making a fun game and having that be the incentive in itself.

This, really.
Bodes ill for the rest of their games.

But on the bright side this stuff is getting so egregious that i think it might be nearing its self-inflicted end.

[Darththeo]

Shocking, really. It's 2022 and people are still being caught off-guard about how predatory Season/Battlepasses are.

There are some that are not, the problem with passes is they are often to design to be predatory.

Technically, Splatoon 3 has a season pass system (called a catalog). But, you get it without anything addition, cannot buy ranks and you get most of what you need for a rank with a daily win/Salmond Run clear. The pass has some gear, but the gear system is fair as there are no unique abilities on the pass so it is effectively 100% cosmetic rewards.

[Darkeon]

No one is surprised they would just rather discuss it rather than quietly bending over and taking the corporate D because "its always been like that" isn't as convincing of an argument as you think it is

Where were their asses when it was announced? Enough outroar and something could've been done, yet here we are with Overwatch players indeed bent over.

There are some that are not, the problem with passes is they are often to design to be predatory.

Technically, Splatoon 3 has a season pass system (called a catalog). But, you get it without anything addition, cannot buy ranks and you get most of what you need for a rank with a daily win/Salmond Run clear. The pass has some gear, but the gear system is fair as there are no unique abilities on the pass so it is effectively 100% cosmetic rewards.

Bolded to me is the biggest joke of the lot, yeah.

Can only imagine how much math wizzes actually sit down and study the metrics to determine the sweet spot to incentivize the (additional) purchase of said levels, after you already purchased the passes and whatnot, just out of the fear of failing to achieve your goal.

I'm still hopeful we see them going back on the entire Unlocking new Heroes, but we'll see. Definitely won't hold my breath.

[Lawlhero]

I despise the battle pass meta every game has now in days. I'd prefer lootboxes to them any day of the week. Especially when you could get everything for free from playing the game. But, I was plat border and had 500 unopened loot boxes, so Im a little biased.

[Voidling]

I despise the battle pass meta every game has now in days. I'd prefer lootboxes to them any day of the week. Especially when you could get everything for free from playing the game. But, I was plat border and had 500 unopened loot boxes, so Im a little biased.

It's extra annoying to see Overwatch abandon its lootboxes because it was hailed as the title that popularized the concept. I hated lootboxes in general too but Overwatch probably had the best implementation since you could earn a currency that gave agency over your rewards eventually.

The battle pass system on the other hand is pretty dirty in design. You are paying for the right to earn rewards within a given time limit and to be frank the effort required to clear the pass is not a small amount. You could pay the lump sum and earn nothing. By design as well, the fault is on the user instead of the company for each item unearned.

[RaoBurning]

I've said it once and I'll say it again: part of why I loved Overwatch was that I could pick it up, go hard for a week, and ignore it for a while and never feel like I was missing out; holiday events aside which is totally fine. It was there when I needed it and asked nothing in return, except for my enjoyment.

I paused updates then uninstalled as soon as the OW1 servers went down. I do not deal in FOMO as a central model on pure principle.

[Delekii]

The whole reward model aside, calling this a sequel is a complete farce. It is exactly the same in every way, besides the rewards feeling worse, an extra couple of characters in a roster of 30, and dropping to 5 a side.

[Kathranis]

Most of the rewards are pretty mediocre, and the rewards that are good are not necessarily going to be for heroes you care about.

The lack of a legacy credits source to buy even the basic cosmetics like default skin recolors is also really hurting the feeling of progression.

That said, BP progress is way faster than I was anticipating from the early reviews.

[Very Tired]

Where were their asses when it was announced? Enough outroar and something could've been done, yet here we are with Overwatch players indeed bent over.

It was pretty much decided when Activision bought Blizzard, not to mention they just saw how much filling up Diablo Immortals with mtx will earn them. Jeff didn't exactly leave the team because he was so happy with the way things were going. No amount of online outrage is going to sway them away from the millions they stand to make.

[Dejiko]

I`m currently rank 9 in the battle pass, unless i go into the BP overview section of the game, i have no idea what i usually earn.
I enjoy loot boxes, but i wish they would be for items earned through in game activities only.
Earning a few items in a surprise box is quite enjoyable and fun, but it`s a shame it`s taken out.

If they insist on having shops in these games, i wish microtransactions would actually live up to it`s name then.

[Linkedblade]

Just atrted playing, and I hit level 3 in the Battle Pass.

Instead of a loot box with a few random small items and a chance for cooler stuff, or even currency.... I unlocked the option to pay cash for a dumb looking banner on my name, same as everyone else at that level.

On its own the Battlepass is bad, but in comparison to OW1 leveling, holy crap, this is just depressing.

And 60 coins per week while epic skins cost 1900, the equivalent of 19USD?? Hot damn, I'm glad I already earned my favorites. Not looking forward to this **wait** replacing the grind.

Well, this is the result of a governments outlawing lootbox mechanics. It sucks i agree.

- - - Updated - - -

The whole reward model aside, calling this a sequel is a complete farce. It is exactly the same in every way, besides the rewards feeling worse, an extra couple of characters in a roster of 30, and dropping to 5 a side.

Few new maps, a gametype, and a few character reworks. But really it's OW1 with a fresh coat of paint.

[Dark-Zarupia]

Blizzard basically stole from us, We all had to buy the first OW and that gave us access to all the content for "free" ( unless you wanted to pay extra for lootboxes) Now this content that we had access to ,old skins, highlight intro's etc etc are behind a paywall, content that you could farm years ago for free is now being sold to you, let that sink in.

And no don't come up with the bs of OW2 is free and yadayada, this ain't even a new game but just a free update.

The new future content will also be behind a paywall, with maybe some few exceptions like we have now in this season pass nonsense.

Wonder if new heroes will be unlockable for free or if you are forced to buy the season pass