|
I originally posted this on my wordpress blog, but I thought it was worth sharing here as well to facilitate some discussion.
Competitive Overwatch has always struggled with providing a good viewing experience. To a new viewer, seeing so many projectiles and abilities being spammed everywhere is incredibly confusing and hard to follow. I wanted to write about the current viewing experience a few days after patch 1.5.0.2 hit, but I convinced myself this was just a transition period and it would improve once teams adjusted. Now, one month on, I think we can now agree that it’s the worst it’s been since hero limits were introduced.
Pre-ultimate charge nerf era
Previously, all heroes built ultimates so fast that almost every fight revolved around a combination of ultimates designed to wipe the enemy team. This was more often than not centred around Ana and her Nanoboost or Zarya and her Graviton Surge. As teams were gearing up for a fight, casters would often say things like “Team A has a “big bang” combo available, so they’ll be looking to use that in this fight”, signalling to the viewer what to look out for.
This situation was good for casters, observers, and viewers alike. The predictability of what would be the next “big play”, allowed everyone to focus on a couple of players, making the game much easier to follow. Fights would be decided in a matter of seconds, yet they were dynamic and exciting to watch.
Of course, players weren’t happy with these “ult wars” as it made games very frustrating. Everyone wanted a state that rewarded the mechanical skill of players getting picks without using their ultimates, which often ensured an easy team wipe. That led to the change in ultimate charge time, and the situation we have now.
Be careful what you wish for
The impact of the ultimate charge change was immediate. Fights suddenly became much more drawn out, and it was no longer rare to see teamfights where neither team had a single ultimate available.
However, the viewing experience suffered. Fights were no longer centred around one or two “big plays”, and instead became chaotic messes where casters and observers struggled to follow the action. This was made exponentially worse by the rise of triple and quadruple tank compositions on almost every map, made possible by Ana’s incredible healing output and nerfs to the Nanoboost-based team wipe ultimate combos from the previous patch. This resulted in matches devolving into teams full of unkillable tanks poking at each other around objectives until one team’s Roadhog got a crucial pick needed to push the fight.
At day 1 of MLG Vegas yesterday, triple and quadruple tank compositions made up 96.3% of all compositions played. At IEM Gyeonggi, this number was over 85%. This is what Overwatch has become at the top level.
It’s time for change
For Overwatch to continue its success as an esport, changes are needed to improve the viewing experience. Montecristo has already provided his thoughts about some sorely needed changes to the observer interface, such as having team-coloured projectiles and so on. There is also an almost catch-22 situation with the different camera modes used to observe. The free camera mode predictably allows for the best view of all the action, but it fails to highlight the mechanical skill of the players. The first-person view is the exact opposite – while we are able to appreciate a player’s skill and accuracy, it’s much harder to get an idea of what’s going on in the rest of the fight. While observers are getting better at managing this, some changes to the interface will help greatly.
But most of all, there has to be changes to the game’s balance. While I agree the ultimate charge nerf was needed from a gameplay perspective, the subsequent rise of unkillable “World of Tanks” compositions is not what anyone wanted. The survivability of tank heroes has to be addressed, beginning with changes to Ana and her healing output. Lucio needs to be revisited and possibly reworked. Some maps should be rebalanced to take into account the nerf to ultimate charge rates, which greatly disadvantages the attacking team (especially 2CP maps). Buffs to some offensive heroes may also have to be considered. A well-executed ultimate combo should be able to wipe the enemy team, and offensive heroes should be able to consistently get picks and not be denied every time by burst healing. This will bring some order back into pro games, and observers and casters can default to focusing on the DPS players that should be the stars of the show at the top level. The flow of the game will improve, and the viewing experience will benefit greatly.
Blizzard is pushing Overwatch esports extremely hard. It’s clear they have big plans for the game. However, these plans will all be for naught if there aren’t changes to improve the flow of the game, and the viewing experience as a whole. I’d hate to see the Overwatch League fail because these issues aren’t addressed before it starts.
 
|
I don't think you can say Overwatch always struggled with a good viewer experience after Apex anymore. And they continue to improve the obsing possibilities at rapid speed too.
Ultimate charge nerf has nothing to do with the tank meta. Ana being able to outheal a whole team by herself is the problem. It's like a permanent Zen ult on someone. And just like with Zen, a pro team can kill 200 hp heroes through that heal. Tanks not so much. Unless they use Ana. And Ana blocks the tank buster supports. So everything comes from her Grenade.
MLG and IEM are also bad examples for team compositions. Because teams had no choice on the map pool. What to train for when you have no idea what maps you will be playing on. Of course you train that that works everywhere.
Thats a problem with Blizzard though, as they want to enforce map and gamemode diversity. So the tournaments decided to use a strict map pool (and did so on really short notice).
Which can backfire, if the tournament organizer can't be bothered, like MLG and ESL did. While OGN tried to make it as fair as possible for the teams.
So right now Blizzard wants force their League and doesn't listen to feedback. Which is creating most of the issues in tournaments right now. And it will probably get worse until the League is in place.
I personally don't like switching to old systems, just to get approval of old folks, so you can slowly bring in innovation from that point on, so after a decade or so you are at the point you already were before tech wise.
But atleast sports people then think esports is sports yay...
|
I agree that the viewer experience needs to be improved, and they are improving, but I don't see how hero balance has an impact on viewers.
Regardless of the current meta composition, viewers will have a hard time discerning the action going on. No matter what Blizzard does with the balance, there will always be chaos in OW games. And the changes you suggested won't 'bring some order back into pro games'.
|
On December 19 2016 02:55 FeyFey wrote:
I don't think you can say Overwatch always struggled with a good viewer experience after Apex anymore. And they continue to improve the obsing possibilities at rapid speed too.
APEX was great until the patch hit. After that I felt the viewing experience really suffered, despite the best efforts of the casters and observers. In fact, I first thought about writing this after watching some of the initial post-patch APEX games. Nevertheless, I know this is improving rapidly, and changes to the interface will help as well.
On December 19 2016 02:55 FeyFey wrote:
Ultimate charge nerf has nothing to do with the tank meta. Ana being able to outheal a whole team by herself is the problem.
I am aware the tank meta has been a problem ever since the initial buffs to Ana. However, the Beyblade era was one way teams could deal with this. This meant that teams were still able to run 2/2/2 and rely on Nanoboost for team wipes even if the enemy team ran triple tank. I do agree that she is the root of the problem and needs severe nerfs, but the ult charge change and Nanoboost nerfs weakened these previous comps and made the situation worse.
On December 19 2016 02:55 FeyFey wrote:
MLG and IEM are also bad examples for team compositions. Because teams had no choice on the map pool. What to train for when you have no idea what maps you will be playing on. Of course you train that that works everywhere.
You make a good point. Not having map picks and bans is frankly archaic and we should be putting as much pressure on Blizzard as we can to adopt a picks/bans phase. I also know that teams had limited practice time with the announced map pool because of last minute changes. That said, quad tank has been a problem for some time now, and I think there is an issue when it's the most consistent composition you can play.
On December 19 2016 03:40 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote:
I agree that the viewer experience needs to be improved, and they are improving, but I don't see how hero balance has an impact on viewers.
Regardless of the current meta composition, viewers will have a hard time discerning the action going on. No matter what Blizzard does with the balance, there will always be chaos in OW games. And the changes you suggested won't 'bring some order back into pro games'.
I personally think mirror quad tank is one of the most boring comps to watch in Overwatch. Regardless, I feel the problem right now is that no one can kill each other, which makes the chaos much worse. Yes, Overwatch will always remain chaotic due to the nature of the game, but having some predictability on where the kills will come from and where we can expect clutch plays is better than the current drawn-out brawls between teams full of tanks.
For example, when there are triple tank compositions played, the observer often defaults to the first person view of the single DPS player. This is because we can expect the most exciting plays to come from him, and occasionally the Roadhog. When 2/2/2 was popular, once again the DPS players got the most screentime. This reduced the amount of switching between players necessary to highlight the best plays.
Unkillable world of tanks comps draw out the fight, making things really hard on observers and casters to predict where the kills will come from or which player to highlight. This obviously flows down to us and affects our viewing experience.
When I wrote this I really wanted to focus on what it was like as a viewer to watch the current meta, and how I felt it had really killed a lot of the excitement of matches compared to before patch 1.5.0.2. I didn't really want to talk about balance in a gameplay sense, but I guess a bit of that crept in.
|
I understand what you mean. A stale meta can be bad for viewers, akin to SC2 during the infestor/broodlord composition. But that was only because the game got boring. Every game in ZvP and ZvT it was the same composition. Sure they got there differently, but by the 18 minute mark it was almost always identical.
But I think Overwatch isn't suffering from a stale meta just yet, and neither is it boring to watch. Even 4 tank meta is a bit exciting. However, I agree that watching the 'world of tanks', as you refer it, will get boring to watch if it turns out to be the best comp to run. I think it might be too early to tell though if that's the case.
Although, with OW it doesn't matter what comp is being played, it's still hard to follow the action.
|
Tried watching DH Winter, can't understand what's what. Turn off stream after 2 games. Seriously, it's too hard for viewers that don't play the game. Haven't watch OW again and I don't think I will.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
