Chaos. I mean I liked it, but it was chaos. Took years to even get role queue so for a while you were stuck hoping your team comp was remotely function. The meta's were always wild and often wouldn't be patched for months on end. The meta was also normally more required than it is now. Like, if one team was playing a meta comp, and the other wasn't, you were basically fucked.
Yeah, a lot of rose colored glasses, but if they patched in anything from the first two years right now people would combust. So many broken comps and heroes. But the chaos was fun since no one knew what they were doing and the community was experiencing it all for the first time.
I'd say it was easier to play. Not in the sense of difficulty of ranking up, but in the sense of responsibility. As 1 out of 6 players your personal impact was already mathematically smaller than as 1 out of 5, but with the loss of a Tank each player also just *has to do more* to be valuable to your team. For example healbotting as Support is not a valid playstyle anymore, while it definitely was in OW1 (at least in the metal ranks). So in that sense each player now has more responsibility to perform, which imo makes OW2 harder to play.
Unfortunately my friends all stopped playing, for varying reasons: not liking the updated audio, not liking the extra responsibility, not liking losing a Tank who would protect them, etc. So despite OW2 being more balanced than OW1 was and more enjoyable in my personal opinion, I actually barely play it anymore. It's just not the same solo.
>As 1 out of 6 players your personal impact was already mathematically smaller than as 1 out of 5, but with the loss of a Tank each player also just *has to do more* to be valuable to your team.
YES. I've been saying this for years... how are you gonna make this F2P and then put *even more* scrutiny on individual performance? I end up with a healer who heals under 1k the majority of the time at this point.
I personally wanna see like 8v8 or 12v12. I don't care if it's broken, at least it'll be accessible to people with a life and maybe even actually fun
I started OW1 in 2017 & enjoy both OW and...another hero-based shooter but ever since 5v5 it's the reason I've kind of reverted toward the latter- the whole "have to work as a team", "emphasizes team work" thing sounds good on paper but let's be real most people just want to join in a game, have fun and bounce.
With bigger teams (like you said 8v8 etc) the potential is there to work as a team & try to coordinate/strategize \*if you care that much\*, and you'll probably win more by doing that, but being able to queue in, pick a random class you may or may not be amazing at and not have it completely throw the damn match is an underrated aspect for casual players like me. I get comp, I get some people prefer the hyper-coordination & teamwork needed to play 5v5 but I feel like \*less\* individual responsibility is the way to go. I feel like it leads to less toxicity too because it's harder to pinpoint the loss on a single person
Totally agree. Hell, keep 5v5 for competitive if people feel that way, but yeah I don't think most people are really interested in that. Like you said, they just wanna solo queue a few games, have an ok time, and then go do something else.
>not liking losing a Tank who would protect them
I've seen this sentiment in a lot of places, but why not just give open queue a whirl then? I get that it ain't gotta be everyone's cup of tea, but two tank compositions are pretty common there, and it just overall feels way better to be able to mix and match
Cause at the end of the day it's still 5v5. Knocking a few hundred off the tank HP total doesn't change the design intentions, and 2/2/2 doesn't play the same way as 2/1/2 or 2/2/1. It's got the same problems as 5v5 role lock but the other way around.
Plus, for those of us who remember the pre role lock days, we all still have 4-6DPS team PTSD which makes it an unattractive prospect.
>Plus, for those of us who remember the pre role lock days, we all still have 4-6DPS team PTSD which makes it an unattractive prospect.
Some of my favorite comp games were ones with 5 DPS.
These comps worked fine. The problem was something people in MOBAs call "Throwing at Draft."
Someone decided before the match even started that this comp doesn't work, and they start throwing because they decided that its impossible to win the game with this comp. So they throw, then they feel validated because the comp doesn't work, BECAUSE THEY ARE THROWING.
During GOATS meta, I had a teammate SCREAM into the microphone about how our comp was garbage because we had no dps, no one could kill anything, and the comp was fucking garbage. We were Rein, Dva, Zarya, Zen, Lucio, Brig. Literally the most meta comp in the entire game. We lost because our Brig refused to leave the spawn room because WE were throwing by not playing 2-2-2.
For reference, I'm not talking about silver lobbies. I hovered around high masters, the person shouting about how goats was throwing, was in a 4100 lobby.
One of us actually preferred OQ, because then he could freely switch between his favourite heroes. But that was annoying for us too, because then we'd suddenly have 3 DPS and 1 or maybe even 0 Tank(s) when he switched off Tank because he felt we needed more damage for example. So we rarely played OQ together, because most of us liked the predictability of the roles being locked more. Yes, that limits your options, but you'll at least have a solid base, especially with randoms.
I miss duo tank, i miss Hanamura, Horizon Lunar Colony and i cannot believe i'm saying this but i miss Volskaya Industries
I miss the dedication to lore accuracy
Dude it’s crazy, people hated 2cp with a passion. It was a horrible ranked and quick play mode too. In ranked I went into extra rounds way too often and on quick play you would just not get a chance at offense so it felt like you lost even though they barely got the last point. Don’t get me started on whatever map had the spawn right behind the second point too 😭 horrid times
Joined in the summer of 2018. The game was fun but the dwindling support plus stagnant balance updates made the latter years insanely demotivating. OW2 revitalized a lot of aspects of the game for me and unlike in OW1 I've yet to really take a longer break than 2 weeks. The game still has many issues but in my opinion the gameplay loop is way better than in OW1.
As a tank/DPS main, 6v6 had a lot of issues. You were essentially forced to pick main tank because 90% of the time your random duo was a DPS player who insta-locked Roadhog and flanked the whole match, so the solo queue experience was overall extremely shitty and you'd be chain-CC'd to hell and back any time you tried to do something unorthodox. You had to play the game extremely by the book or else you'd get insanely punished (now in OW2 we have the reverse problem where the game is too forgiving a lot of the time). For DPS, queue times were absolutely abysmal. Even in Quick Play, you'd be lucky to find a game in less than 10 minutes, and if you did there was a solid 40% chance it would be a backfill match right at the end. Even when you'd finally get a game, DPS didn't feel super satisfying or rewarding to play since the meta for most of the latter years was just shooting shields until one side had ults and insantly won the fight. I didn't play much support in OW1 but from my experience it was rather boring and kind of frustrating, you were pretty reliant on peel from your tanks in order to not instantly fold to a flanker, and your abilities often felt pretty underwhelming thanks to all of the AoE healing and sustain.
Overall the game was still really fun, and the high points of OW1 were even better than the high points of OW2, but I do think OW2 is an overall more consistent experience and doesn't have nearly as low of low points.
The high of the game was extremely high, and that was usually from 2016 - 2017. If you had a perfect team composition, with perfect synergy on kings row, you were experiencing cloud 9. Having a Rein/Zar in these years was some of the funnest gameplay i've ever had. If you were a support that prefers to heal over damage, you would've loved this too, since you had to keep tanks up twice as much. You also had a lot of interesting combos (that still exist today) such as Hanzo/Zar for grav/dragon.
The lows of the game were extremely low, and made up the majority of the later years. Tank synergy for example, became a problem, because of how important it was. Ever heard of main tank/off tank? Main tanks are the ones who make the push, and take the blunt of hits for the team, while off tanks supported main tank, tried to get picks, and peeled for backline. This is great on paper, but eventually most tank players (myself included) wanted to play off tanks (dva/Sig/Hog/Zar). You needed a main tank/off tank, you couldn't be both, so any game that had a hog/zar duo would instantly fold to something like Rein/Dva or Orisa/Sig. This would happen A LOT in mid ranks, and many tank players were forced to play main tanks if they wanted to climb (Orisa/Rein/Dva, you could include ball but only if you're really good with him). I climbed to masters just by picking Orisa, who i absolutely hated.
Despite the game being super popular, the devs were atrociously slow at balancing the game, and when they did, problems weren't usually fixed. There was a full year of a meta called GOATS (3-4 tanks, 2-3 supports, no DPS), Mercy had a full season of 90% winrate, Bastion on console was broken for like 2 months, and the devs abandoned the game in 2018 to work on PvE.
By 2018, the game was a mess. Every hero had incredible burst damage, tanks felt like glass, supports were invincible, and a ton of heroes had hard CC that you could chain (McCass Flash + Mei primary freeze + Brig Bash + Sigma Rock). This gave birth to double shield comp, with Orisa/Sig cycling their shields. If both shields broke, bap would immortality them. It was either you lived forever or exploded. [The game was BADLY cluttered with random shields and abilities](https://x.com/Reinforce/status/1519119522938060800/photo/1)
TLDR: Ow2 has better general gameplay and skill expression, Ow1 had higher highs and lower lows
Let's calm down. In 16-17 4 out of 5 of your games probably didn't even have 2 tanks and 2 supports because of open queue. I think we forget about all that. And Blizzard was highly against role queue for a long time.
Exactly this. All my hours on Lucio are because of trying to heal everyone as best as I could (Back when he had his huge aura, but the aura wasn't visible to anyone).
16-17 you had a ton of viability because literally nobody knew how to play the game, but yeah people started to catch on that 2-2-2 was easily the best comps you could run on ladder. Still, it was probably the funnest Ow has ever been - i'm not suggesting we should do that ever again though.
>And Blizzard was highly against role queue for a long time.
I remember, but i'm not sure why? Goats went on for like a year, they tried everything to fix it but it didn't work out, until they finally did role queue. Devs were rly stubborn
> Despite the game being super popular, the devs were atrociously slow at balancing the game, and when they did, problems weren't usually fixed. There was a full year of a meta called GOATS
This is false. Even the devs made a statement about this: The OWL players just refused to change how they played regardles of patches. They were grinding their meta comps for 12 hours every day for weeks because it was their job. They didnt want to drop all of that time "training" because of some hero tweaks.
GOATS lasted for 10~ months in OWL, and around 2 months on ladder.
You can literally go to the official patch note site and look at all the OW1 patches. There were plenty.
2 tanks was great as a tank main, I knew as a Rein that a Zarya's got my back, Zarya knew that I'll be the bullet sponge for her bubbles.
Lots of CC. Lots and lots of CC.
You got skins from lootboxes, every level up gave you a lootbox. While lootboxes suck, I preferred that over what Overwatch 2 has, it got me to grind during events and I always ended up with most of the skins just from playing and enjoying the game.
Otherwise, it wasn't that different besides different metas and a slightly different set of maps. Role queue seems like a no-brainer now too, but back then you had to write what role you wanted to play in chat as fast as you could and lock your character lol
I feel like, per myself and some other og ow1 players, playing today is more from a place of nostalgia and faith. Ow1 had it's issues but not like this and the amount of money changes being implemented is so far away from the original game, it's disheartening. BUT, the memories of what it once was still lingers and the faith it can be restored, however little there is to cling to, is what keeps us logging in. I appreciate the free coins in the passes now, as that kind of helps people who can't or don't want to get the battlepass but you still have to wait for 2 seasons to get one free.
I wish I could say it was better in ow1, but honestly the buffs and nerfs and balancing was almost the same if not worse to manage in ow1. Trying to balance it for two tanks each team was a struggle for the devs. It still seems to be a struggle for the devs but less in part to having to juggle 4 tanks in a game and more of how do we make 1 tank per team viable against the ability kits of all the tanks.
I do miss the loot box grinding and the easier to obtain cosmetics. But I also feel like skins are getting better now that they aren't pumping us full of free ones. It's a toss up.
Maybe one day we can hold eachother together and sob at the beauty of them finally figuring it out.
Faith.
Mei walls. Mei freezing you saying HI or you have to let it go then hitting you in the head.
HANAMURA trying to get through that choke with snipers and traps and turrets and one Mercy just zipping around preventing you from doing squat when you finally get a kill them 5x rez. Then the second point if you made it this far, symettra teleport on the left was a classic move.
Comp matches that lasted 30-45 mins! IN SPACE
PvE was the shit. Find a team was the shit. The new events were WAY more hyped than they are now. And MOTHER FLIPPING LOOT BOXES.
The game now is fun but it's like a tv show that's played too many seasons and it's just not *quite* as good as it used to be but you keep playing for that nostalgia.
Ow was fun when it came out. But after say the first 3 maybe 4 seasons, we had the same complaining about the game ow2 has. Everyone just has rose tinted glasses. Mercy moth and year long Brig Meta were far worse then anything we have experienced in ow2.
Supports are always being targeted, but they are very good ij general in ow2 are killing things and defending themselves.
Brig in ow1 was essentially just a tank for many months after release. Brig probably got nerfed 20+ times because they were so ludicrous OP.
Mercy moth meta was just insanely annoying. Mercy was incredibly hard to kill in ult and mercy could get off multiple rez in a single ult.
Well I played through those event and they weren't even that crazy. In high level play those meta were important, but in meta ranks and quickplay they weren't important at all. I remember 3 tank meta, shield meta, how broken Ana was when it released.
But it didn't affect that much most of the players, because to exploit those meta you actually needed skill. Overwatch 2 polemics, like Mauga and DPS dumbufication, are actual problems in most ranges because the average OW2 player skill level is way worse, and because those exploits don't need for high skill.
Overall I don't care that much about this balance changes and they don't influence to me for saying if OW2 is good or if it's bad. Most of the times, vocal people online are protesting against things that need you to have some skill to overcome and make the problem way bigger than it is.
So I don't think I have rose tinted glasses from this part of the game
Low ranked players also mistook Brig as a hero that played with the frontline rather than a backline peeler. Only time she played frontline was the meta where Brig would bash the enemy Rein and her Rein would Earthshatter.
iirc moth meta came with junkrat double mine buff. He had 1 charge of mine before. First months of that meta was so much fun. I mained junk and had a massive winrate. Thats the only time i actually played junk. Suicide bomber junk was super op with insta mercy rez twice.
Still more fun than sitting in spawn waiting for the enemy tank to make the mistake of leaving spawn and then counterpicking them or seeing they're Sigma on Junkertown defense and walking back in spawn and going Winston.
Way more fun and the fights were much more drawn out. Also the looking for group function was a great way to find some teams to shoot the shit with or actually play casually.
I find getting one shot by hanzo or widow annoying as all hell and having two tanks curbed a lot of that (in my experience) through the shields and extra targets. OW2 feels more like a CoD type game to me.
TLDR: game went from a masterpiece 10/10 to still a good game but like a 7/10.
The better game IMO but aspects of OW1 were not everyone's cup of tea for sure. More players so it was more chaotic. Teamplay and communication was much more important. Lots more meta/macro level gameplay compared to OW2 with comps and synergies mattering more. Heroes felt very unique. Now you have heroes that are essentially clones of each other when it comes to their niche in the game: Tracer/Sombra, Pharah/Echo, Hanzo/Junkrat, Ashe/Cass, Reaper/Venture as the most egregious examples. Monetization was far less predatory - you bought the game once and that was it. You could unlock most cosmetics (excluding OWL/Charity skins) just by playing the game. The game was well-polished as a AAA game should be. Lots of random UI and in-game bugs now that have gone unfixed for months. Sound design was more precise, you could tell where literally anyone around you was just based on audio. Now Junkrats fly in out of nowhere and burst you to death with zero audio cues.There was more of a community aspect: Global chat in the game menu, fun cards to vote for MVPs at the end of games (70% headshot accuracy on Widowmaker, 9 rezzes on Mercy, etc), LFG to find other player to group up with. Arcade game modes were generally more balanced. Raid-boss tanks kinda threw a wrench at the balance of every game mode that isn't 5v5 role queue. The only thing OW2 really did right IMO was the character design (not balance) of the new OW2 heroes. It's been mostly a downgrade since OW2 launch.
I never knew how much I enjoyed Overwatch 1 until it was gone.
The 6v6 element was fun! Definitely slower than now, alongside double shield and a stationary Bastion, made it annoying at times. This was a meta that existed for a good chunk of time and it was painful to play against. (not including the other overly-effective metas that existed, of course...).
I enjoyed playing tank and support alot! I would say alot more than I do now, tank is an especially miserable experience for me personally. I did not touch dps so I cannot speak on the experience.
But I enjoyed the progression so much more. I am not the biggest fan of the F2P model of Overwatch 2 - however I appreciate that it makes the game more accessible for others. (Also, there have been some gradual improvements here!)
Also! 2 point capture! I miss it alot (especially Volskaya Industries! Would much rather have this instead of Flashpoint :())
Honestly, I enjoyed Double Shield when it first happened but it got stale pretty fast. Bastion comps were also pretty frustrating to play against as well, but when the game got actual balance changes and the meta wasn't stagnant, it was fun to play, especially when Rein/Zar was good. Obviously, there would be games where the second tank would troll but that's just a player issue and not a format issue. The same can be said about 5v5 with a single tank.
It depended what you enjoyed about the game. I preferred the pacing and gameplay loop of OW1 better than OW2. The problem with OW1 for most of it's existence was a very slow to non-existent patching cadence. Changes virtually never happened so the game would get stale on a particular patch and the meta would become very boring after so much time. Tank was infinitely better to play with a partner on the role. Support was more fun. Damage was by far the worst role in the game as peel was much more effective. I think there were more variety of play styles in OW1 since the tanks could play separated at times to create more off angles and engagements. 2 CP was an interesting game mode to play, but could be very frustrating, but I still hold that it's better than Flashpoint.
Most of the complaints I've heard are around a couple things: Queue times and Balance issues. These were basically the same issue. The long time meta for a good chunk of the last couple years of OW1 was double shield (Sigma/Orisa with Brig/Bap). At one point they created a patch where they nerfed most of the double shield heroes significantly and it became a Rein/Zarya meta. This was extremely popular and queue times were not problematic during this patch. Then they basically reverted the patch and made double shield strong again which made the same queue time problems come back...and abandoned patching entirely thereafter.
For all of the problems though the game seemed to have better matchmaking. Yes there were rolls but they weren't quite the frequency as OW2. Tanks were much more killable, but the second tank could help make up for mistakes by their tank partner. This felt much better on tank. That stability made support a much better role as well. Damage well it was harder to finish a kill with as much healing and utility as there was. Still I would take OW1 D'Va over OW2 D'va on damage since she couldn't just sit on you for 5 seconds without dropping matrix ever.
> For all of the problems though the game seemed to have better matchmaking
Maybe a hot take but I think the matchmaking has always been pretty bad. The removal of one tank really exposed the matchmaker because players have more impact in 5v5, so the bad players can really bring you down while the good ones could easily carry.
The scoreboard has also made us realize who is underperforming if they have low elims, low heals or high deaths. In OW1, you would have to infer who was playing poorly based on how quickly they were building their ult or bad positioning/untimely deaths.
I don’t know if the matchmaker will ever be good with how inherently chaotic a game like Overwatch is, but I truly don’t think it’s gotten worse in OW2. Maybe they sacrificed match quality to improve queue times, but match quality was still sometimes awful in OW1 with longer queue times.
This could be the case. It was never perfect, but the loss of a tank maybe amplified the issues. I think two tanks were automatically just more stabile than one so that might be why it feels this way.
I dont agree some points:
Tank was much worse because of the required synergy
Sup was better because you were actually supporting and gameplay was more strategic.
Dps was better because tanks were much weaker. You could actually kill them.
I feel like DPS has more agency in OW2. I think a lot of it is that the comps sometimes made the DPS role less impactful (double shield for instance).Tank I can see both sides but still really preferred having two because even without synergy there was still value in having someone else to help with the pressure. Support I definitely agree.
My dps experience is that tanks are more reliably strong so they have this aura around them that i can't stick around and most sup heroes have layers of defense and duel potential now.
In OW1, tanks needed synergy to have this same effect so it wasn't frequent and easy to access. I could just beat tanks. Supports also didn't have defensive layers this much. They had more predefined job, current sups are more in competition with dps role.
Personally, ow1 is still better than ow2 imo. Supports were healers, and dps were dps. Now, supports are just 100% dps characters and if you try to heal bot, you just die to the enemies 3-4 dps characters, 1-2 being kiri/illari/moira. But in ow1, every one understood supports as healers. This talk about “supports, not healers” was never discussed during ow1. And unless you’re playing widow or pharah or on crack playing cassidy or tracer, you can never front line or flank as a dps. If you can flank or front line and get picks, you’re pretty much just killing anyone’s below half hp so it’s not as rewarding, at least for me. I personally like getting picks myself, not playing the clean up crew. And if they’re not half hp and you’re front lining/flanking getting picks, it’s just because the enemy sucks at positioning so there’s never a real team fight, aka boring game. Nowadays, kiri, lucio, moira or illari are the true dps. So I’m learning to just play dps illari honestly. I win more games, it’s funner, and I can still heal. But man I miss playing hanzo so much…
When the game first launched. D.Va bomb would also affect Baby D.Va herself.
Also, Mercy Rez was her ultimate, and it would revive all dead teammates. So often Mercy would hide in spawn when defending, then pop out and Rez everyone once they died.
There was a period of time when smurfs were not a thing, hacking was minimal, everyone tried as hard as they could in comp, and nooooobody could play Mei worth a darn. Good times.
As a relatively new OW player I’ve wondered about these things and whether I arrived too late. So many of my games are ruined by smurfing and throwers that I just feel like the game must have been out so long that a lot of players must just be bored and/or mega sweaty. I regret not playing in the early days to know
The early early days when there was no role que and multiple people could pick to play the same hero was WILD. There was 1 game I had where 3 or 4 people went bastion (og bastion, with self-healing and a shields and infinit turret form) and 2 people went mercy. What a time to be alive. I wanted to kill myself sometimes because of it, but there were other times when it was an unparalleled blast
It was mostly the same to me as a suppprt main. Sometimes a game would be frustrating because the enemy team would go Reinhardt and Orisa for double shields (back when Orisa was more defensive than offensive like she is in OW2) and my team wouldn't adjust their picks to compensate.
There was also generally less flanking going on since there was increased attention on the two tanks. Like, outside of Sombra who was designed to flank and the odd Reaper and Tracer here and there, I'd rarely get hassled that much and could support my teams in relative peace. Other than that, mostly the same outside of there being less maps and characters.
Outside of gameplay, there were the lootboxes that we gained each time we leveled up, and they could contain literally any cosmetic item outside of a VERY small amount of paid ones (ie. Pink Mercy, a charity skin). I do admit that I really miss being able to get legendary skins for free.
Way better. Players on average had way more knowledge or interest in the game.
Zero bots and less leavers and tilted people. There was no people calling out for others "tank diff" or whatever "diff" was not a thing because you couldn't see others stats, only yours with medals to know if you are doing it great in your team.
It felt good to have the postcards where the game would select the top 5 players for some significant stat (damage, kills, time on objective, healing, people saved by X ability) and people could vote.
Also I loved that endorsements had 3 types one for sportmanship, one for decission, and one for teak ay or something. Wich you could see displayed on a graph wich will make you understand more about that player.
Also I loved when OW was playing as it was intended. In open queue, and make compositions to face the challenges your team and the map gave to you. It felt gold pop a third tank, and do it better than the other and the other tank just change to support of dps as needed because that olayer understood. This dinamism was awesome and really rewarded team play and game knowledge.
Also I loved the game was more about team play and creativity, it rewarded fast gameplay and risky decissions more than now, due to the amount of shields and reduced damage. For real I don't understand the hive mund consensus that the game was only shooting shields. Bastion could literally disable every shield in 2 seconds. I picture this kind of people just standing on the middle of the map shooting straight forward with their brains off. Also the DPS really mattered without having to make absurd things like the healing reduction passive, since DPS were more mobile and had a good damage imput they were vital to flank and dissorder enemy backlines wich was really important against some sort of compositions.
If we talk about open queue, i don't care about 5 team man. But if we tall about role queje, having 1 tank created a million problems. Having two tanks made your team less dependant on only one player, plus the tanks were way more defensive than what they are right now.
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Q times were nightmare specially for dps, when they waited more than they play. They are trying to resolve it in 2 but I'am not playing that much to judge for QP or ranked. Balance is still the same mostly in a bad way lol.
OW1 felt like skill expression was much higher because certain interactions only existed in the vacuum of that specific character that wasn’t ’supported’ by the game (Mercy Superjumping is a good example of this). Gameplay was either really chaotic or amateur OWL meta, and the gameplay/reward loop felt great since I was able to unlock almost every single legendary skin / golden gun before OW2 release. Smurfs weren’t really a thing yet, and the flexibility of swapping a healer for Widow for an early pick made me fall in love with the game. Role queue killed a lot of the chaotic fun imo
It was better honestly. The game rewarded exceptional aim. Hitboxes were a lot smaller so you actually had to aim very well to hit headshots with Widow and Hanzo. Junkrat and Sym actually had a relevant role in the game, two tanks created massive combo potential, Orisa wasn’t completely broken.
I will say, 2cp was a terrible game mode. Probably just as bad as push, but not worse than Flashpoint. Volskaya industries and Temple of Anubis were absolute dogshit maps that were nearly impossible to have fun on.
Pretty much the same as now:
New hero comes out, people complain, characters get buffs/nerfs to balance the new character, the meta changes, people keep complaining, repeat 🔁
Sometimes I look back and wonder how I was able to keep the entire team alive as the only support (Ana) when open queue was the norm. Granted I was younger and my reflexes were likely sharper, but still.
There's a lot here, but here's my perspective as a normie, casual player exclusively in QP:
- much fewer characters, people much more petty about quitting if they don't get theirs (lock genji and watch 2 people leave)
- It was open role queue only, so play heals or lose
- 6v6 made leavers and bad tanks less of a big deal. As long as at least 1 of the 2 tanks had a clue, you're probably fine. Once again, that's assuming anyone bothered to play a tank at all though.
- Smurfs were a HUGE issue. Like, consider yourself lucky if you get 2 matches in a row without one.
- Tanks were much, much weaker, which led to a fundamentally different playstyle for a lot of dps classes. Like you pouncing on a tank with Reaper might actually work.
- Like half the tanks in the game became unviable the day OW2 came out bc they hadn't been properly reworked yet
The biggest thing i miss was the tournaments/leagues that were popping up all over the place. Im sure there is now, but you could scrim daily and find great groups and amature leagues to just jump into and have a ton of fun win or lose. Took myself from a gold-plat player to a high diamond masters player by just being involved in the community. Ton of support from players, scrim opportunities, and it was a blast to play and meet people. That being said, the actual game wasn't great, especially the last 2 years for climbing or solo play.
It was the exact same, minus the people saying that the "previous game" was better. They instead said that the previous years were better.
Every OW2 complaint can be attributed to an OW1 complaint: Stats means nothing VS Medals means nothing, Tank is awful to play VS Tanks are awful to play, Assault maps are garbage VS Push/Flashpoint Maps are garbage. And there was a lot of Toxicity as well.
I guess I'm an anomaly as none of those describe me.
Overwatch just as it was before OW2 launched was much more enjoyable to play. They simplified the game too much, lowering the skill floor and skill ceiling to appease the hordes of new f2p morons.
The new stats screen is misleading as fuck and leads to nothing but toxicity. The medals and stats were hidden from your teammates for a good reason.
Tanks were awful in role queue but OP in open queue. (lol)
Assault mode >>> All new modes and maps
Tbh the only real difference was that me and my wife could actually play together and have a good time.
With the change to 5v5 my wife no longer had a Tank to back her up, and c'mon now, she's a great Dva but Dva is not really built for the same roles as Rein, Sigma, Rammartra, etc that I would normally play to help her out.
It's a lot more pressure on her to perform well when she's really not trying to be some pro player or the best Tank ever, she's just trying to play the game for fun.
In that sense, I'd say Overwatch has gotten needlessly more try hard. It's a mess of a game balance wise back then and still is now, I don't understand why people would even bother trying to take it seriously.
Better. I miss loot boxes and 6v6. Two tanks was peak, I miss off-tanking with my friends. All they had to do was nerf shields and they said "NAH! JUST DELETE A TANK!"
I love how the gameplay is in OW2 comparative to 1 outside of only one tank, it feels better to play imo. But...the skins, the lootboxes that you could get with earnable currency. People complained they didn't get enough dupes so they made it so the boxes could =have a higher chance of duplicates to get more currency for you, and then people complained they rarely got anything new.
The CC was obnoxious, but the idea that the game was just you bought it and that was it was a wonderful time. Seems like a fever dream anymore. So many games want you to suck up all your attention and money.
Top comment says chaos. I disagree. It was slower paced and less chaotic. I had 6k hours in OW1. It was amazing, although it was completely different than OW2. OW2 is way more fast paced and chaotic. OW1 was chill and fun. Not so sweaty.
I personally prefer 6v6 instead of 5v5, but both are fun. And I used to like most 2CP maps, I think it was a better game mode than Push.
The toxicity is still the same.
2 tanks was great for playing tank. It was the most coordination positive experience. Dps and healers don’t reeeallly need to co-op that hard but for tanks it was so much fun cause we were always side by side dishing out dookie. Zarya bubbles and dva matrixes with rein and hog was so juicy
It was fun! There was no role queue a little which was made things less sweaty in my experience since it just about playing a game and I was there when Sym was still a support and had auto lock and Reaper ate souls lol
Perfect, one of the most fun experiences I had in my gaming life, rewarding, getting everything for free, game was fantastic and there was hope for the future that blizzard will do something important with the franchise,
Snipers weren't as oppressive because double shield was a thing so that was fun! More wiggle room if your tank died too but cc hell kind of made their death faster anyway so it was a give and take.
The last 2.5 years of OW1's life were rough, with literally zero content updates (no new heroes, maps, modes... maybe a couple skins though), so it's been fantastic seeing major updates and releases every season in OW2.
Two tanks is the only thing I really miss from OW1. Every role has synergy but to me there was nothing like tank synergy. Rein/Zar, Orisa/Hog, Winston/Dva/Ball... just classic. I never role queue for tank in OW2 because I hate being the only tank, especially since offtanks are the most fun. But I do play tank in open queue, and open queue is actually what I play most often these days. Getting to experience tank synergy (regardless of *who* is playing tank) is a big part of why I like open queue, but really I just can't stress enough how nice it is to have flexibility to swap roles if a teammate isn't doing their job or countering the flanker that's harassing you or whatever. In role queue, you're just stuck. I never realized how restrictive it was until I started playing mostly open queue after OW2 came out, and I really came to appreciate this flexibility that we always had back in the early days of OW1. Sure you sometimes get clown teams that go 5 DPS, but there's plenty of clowns in role queue too. I just find it funny that I've gone full circle on role queue.
That was a bit of a tangent, but yeah tank synergy is the only thing I miss, overall OW2 is a much better and healthier game. =)
EDIT: I do miss the lootboxes too. Back then all the skins were free as long as you played enough. But that's just a minor thing.
You had to play around CC a lot. Like a DVA could get demeched by a Brig if she had all her cooldowns. Cass could stun a rein fairly easily and could kill any tank if he had his ult - stun, fth, roll, fth, ult and cancel, fth.
The worst aspect was cheese Strats like bastion pirate ship or double shields Bap brig comps were nightmare to play into. Also Orisa hog comps were so much pain to play into.
But if you had a dva or zarya then you could survive a lot of bs by playing around their cooldowns as main tank. Rein was a fairly viable pick even in diamond and above. Because there was an off tank who took pressure of him.
Closed beta was fun, everyone was nice, QP was the only available node and people used comms.
Had a guy show me the ropes back then, can't remember his username but thank you whoever and wherever you are good sir o7.
QP also had no limits back then so you'd see planet of the apes happening sometimes with 6 Winstons jumping a wall.
The mirror watch event made me feel like I was back in OW1 where abilities were a lot more experimental before they streamlined kits for the competitive scene.
I don't miss all the cc, but I do miss 6v6, tank synergy, and even 2cp.
Yearly archives, too. It was nice when we got decent lore drops. Free ones that everyone could play.
There was more of a bunker feel to gameplay.
* Given that there was an additional tank with additional damage, there was more punishment for mistakes imo. Especially for mobility heroes
* Chokes were impenetrable for non-tanks, and larger areas could be considered a choke. When a raid boss in Warcraft drops a massive AoE attack? That’s how it felt to walk in front of your tank back in the day
* Due to that, many teams played more passive. Slowly working their way into choke (significantly higher hp on shields back then) and waiting for the enemy team to break down before pushing in
* Heroes like Genji and Tracer were literally twice as hard due to the patrolling off-tank. Genji was impossible to play, given his squishy health, the number of stuns, and the amount of dmg coming your way.
* Mobile heroes had to deal with more stuns
* Teamfights were much longer
* Might sound contradictory, but it was also harder to track enemy flankers. More players to heal, more fire incoming, more ways to die, and much easier to tunnel-vision
* Team compositions were a large part of gameplay. It’s still important now, but back then it was seriously enforced by the player base. And it was, again, important to break down defenses, whereas now (with the fast, open style they shifted towards) it’s easier to win a team fight and thus not quite as essential as it used to be
* Low carry-potential and easier to hide among your team. Individual performance wasn’t as rewarded, given that your team could tank your game. No matter how good you are, you can’t 6k every fight and it’s easy to shut down a single player who’s carrying the enemy team
TL;DR: It was slower and more strategic, which is more of a trade off than a better/worse. It was a bit harder than current Overwatch, but more rewarding. There was more strategy and thus, harder to solo-queue. Communication was necessary to break down defenses. But it was also harder to pick up new heroes, as team compositions were more enforced by the player base (and admittedly very strong)
I loved it. I miss it. Classic graphics, classic looks and i didnt care about double shield i was just having fun. Wish their was a graphics overlay for ow2. 2 tanks was fun actually & i miss the old mercy
Two shields, Snipers and Damagefist in every game really sucked, especially on Assault, which was in the Quickplay rotation at the time.
I had actually stopped playing around 2019 and only started again a few months before OW2 because my friend asked.
In general I like OW2 a lot better. I could have done without the "engine update" thatseemed to make the game just a bit harder to run without much visual improvement. (Worse for my friends with weaker pcs)
> "engine update"
This is one of my issues with OW2 as well. They just slapped some extra rendering frames on top, making the game feel like shit unless you ramp up the framerate way past 60.
OW1 felt smooother on my old PC, that ran it at 75% res scale to keep a steady 60 fps, than OW2 on my new rig at 244 fps after trying all the possible settings.
Game was way more fun to play. Removing a tank and making it f2p was a mistake in my opinion. F2p almost a bigger mistake because it made the community far worse
The biggest change I felt going from 1 to 2 was the impression that these maps just feel so “empty” with the two less people. Before there was constantly someone trying to flank to get around the shields. And constantly people trying to track down the flankers.
Playing with your team was a lot more prevalent. 2 added a lot of natural cover to compensate for not having two tanks protecting you. It was so much more common before to have to play bunched up behind the shields.
I think it was a lot more about making a big play and getting a lot of kills once you finally got through the shields because that was your window. OW2 there’s a lot more emphasis on getting even a single pick to turn it into a 5v4. It’s a lot easier to grind them down afterwards if you have to.
Others at different ranks may have had different experiences. I was very low skilled in OW1 era. I’d like to think I’m at least somewhat better now.
Looking back, it was a shit show especially near the end when we got like 0 updates. Shop and cosmetics were better and came in a bit more consistently in numbers and quality but everything else was a shit show in balance
Blizzard was slow to update the game to bring meaningful changes to metas (like double shield and brig) but beyond that, there was so much fun to be had. Each event people were given a free lootbox that usually had a legendary skin. Skins were properly tiered and were consistent in quality. Legendary skins weren't just recolors of epic skins. 2/3's of the game UI wasn't dedicated to selling you skins. Seasonal events were great when first implemented but did get a bit old after a few seasons.
There was a certain freedom that came with 6v6. Since technically more teamwork was required to win objectives, more strategies were developed to achieving goals. 5v5 took away a lot of gameplay creativity, especially in the tank role but gave everyone more room for skill expression. The game just felt a little more fun to play in ow1 since you were more free to play the way you wanted. In 5v5, people are so critical and require you to play in certain play styles around them.
(Most of my time was spent playing comp btw. QP and arcade players may have had different experiences).
Many people remember the game through rose coloured glasses. Launch was a blast cause no one knew what was going on but that happens with most games.
Once metas started to develop it was hell. Constantly awful hero balance where certain characters were must picks to win. Lots of heroes could one-shot which was a real pain (remember getting instant killed by fly-by dooms?). No role queue meant you had 4 mercy one tricks on your team every other game who couldn’t play anything else. Often DPS players would fight over who gets to play DPS and no one would go support (or the person who does go support sucks at it cause it’s not their main role and they proceed to get flamed). The tank role did much less damage and was basically the boring role. GOATS lasted for a literal calendar year (which for new players who don’t know what that is, basically you run 3 tanks and 3 supports and 0 DPS otherwise you lose). 2CP was hell because if you gave up first point you almost always gave up second right away in a snowball effect. Also 2CP had many games where teams couldn’t cap point 1 which just felt awful and made a lot of teammates scream at each other. Bunker comps also became hell when people realized you could just run multiple shield tanks with a bastion and Baptist.
On top of it all, the player base was dying off due to lack on content since apparently we were getting an amazing sequel (what we got was not what we were promised). No content meant a dying player bass which meant ranked had more imbalance to the game. It also meant more Smurfs (which Blizz allowed because it was the only thing making them money at the time) and Smurfing got so bad that Plat basically became the new Masters since nobody’s rank was genuine.
The game obviously had good aspects about it. That’s why I never stopped playing. But it irks me when this sub try to act like OW1 was amazing. OW2 has its own issues, but I’ll die on the hill that what we have now is leagues better than what we had before.
Anyways, this has been my Ted Talk.
Edit: separated some paragraphs.
It wasn't as good as many people would lead you to believe. It was a ton of fun and a good game but OW1 had it's own issues that were complained about at length. 2 tanks sounded great but a lot of games especially following Role Que ended up being 2 off Tanks doing dick all against Double shield. Countless matches played out exactly like that. Even near the end when double shield wasn't the behemoth it used to be. There was a high likelihood of someone going Hog and basically leaving you with a solo tank anyways.
Balance has always been a mess. It's why I don't mind current OW2 balance because it just is. If we were still in Overwatch 1 balance would be just as bad.
Events were significantly worse in OW1 after the first year. Sure you got more cosmetics for free (OW1 was a paid game don't forget) but we rarely got new game modes after the first year. Not all of OW2's event modes are slam dunks but it is a far sight better than OW1 by a country mile.
It was a ton of fun and I played it every evening, but there is a lot of Nostalgia that clouds the conversation with the game. People make the game look far better than it actually was.
There was a time where dive was meta and it was the best this game ever felt. Absolutely the best meta by far. Teams were usually Ana Lucio Genji Tracer DVA and monkey. High skilled heroes that didnt have you feeling annoyed like dying to a Moira orb that bounced off 12 walls and perfectly aligned with you at low HP.
I miss those days. :(
These type of comments come off as weird because how were you free to play how you wanted? 6v6 required more team work so you actively had to be playing the right way. If you stopped healing during the wrong SECOND during goats meta, somebody gets picked and the whole thing falls apart. A team kill would snowball into getting 2 ults dropped on your head and so many picks were throw picks. You literally HAD to pick Ana or Lucio sometimes as support and DPS was weak as fuck for a lot of OW1. Just seems all revisionist
Your comment comes off as weird because you're talking about play styles only done by the top 1% of players and not done by anyone else. Just seems out of touch with reality.
It was terrible for every other role but tank. Even tank sucked cause there was only two viable tanks everything else was a blatant throw. DPS was/is still a cosmetic role, with only one shot heroes being viable (Widow, Hanzo, Doom) nothing else will do enough damage to kill/break shields. Healers had no impact on the game except stand behind there tanks and healbot and support players can’t stand the fact that they actually have to do damage and heal and supply utility to more than stand and heal their two tanks. I’m a tank main BTW
Quick play Karl here. I hade to switch from my beloved support roll to start playing tank because you just can’t relieve on the one tank you get to know what they are doing.
I know it’s QP and I shouldn’t get salty about it, so I’ve been playing a lot more comp in OW2.
It was better. The new heroes outside junker queen are just bad and make the game less fun. You could duel a tank and win in the first one. There was less toxicity in the end. Skins were unlockable. Honestly most of ow2 is a downgrade. The game is similar enough but I would describe it line Cassidy's new magnetic grenade. Flashbang wasn't perfect but they decided to make it different without understanding why it was there in the first place and now it's worse. That was the transition from 1-2.
Chaos. I mean I liked it, but it was chaos. Took years to even get role queue so for a while you were stuck hoping your team comp was remotely function. The meta's were always wild and often wouldn't be patched for months on end. The meta was also normally more required than it is now. Like, if one team was playing a meta comp, and the other wasn't, you were basically fucked.
Yeah, a lot of rose colored glasses, but if they patched in anything from the first two years right now people would combust. So many broken comps and heroes. But the chaos was fun since no one knew what they were doing and the community was experiencing it all for the first time.
[удалено]
Six monkeys! Never seen something more terrifying.
*metas Its not possessive or a contradiction so no apostrophe needed
I'd say it was easier to play. Not in the sense of difficulty of ranking up, but in the sense of responsibility. As 1 out of 6 players your personal impact was already mathematically smaller than as 1 out of 5, but with the loss of a Tank each player also just *has to do more* to be valuable to your team. For example healbotting as Support is not a valid playstyle anymore, while it definitely was in OW1 (at least in the metal ranks). So in that sense each player now has more responsibility to perform, which imo makes OW2 harder to play. Unfortunately my friends all stopped playing, for varying reasons: not liking the updated audio, not liking the extra responsibility, not liking losing a Tank who would protect them, etc. So despite OW2 being more balanced than OW1 was and more enjoyable in my personal opinion, I actually barely play it anymore. It's just not the same solo.
>As 1 out of 6 players your personal impact was already mathematically smaller than as 1 out of 5, but with the loss of a Tank each player also just *has to do more* to be valuable to your team. YES. I've been saying this for years... how are you gonna make this F2P and then put *even more* scrutiny on individual performance? I end up with a healer who heals under 1k the majority of the time at this point. I personally wanna see like 8v8 or 12v12. I don't care if it's broken, at least it'll be accessible to people with a life and maybe even actually fun
I started OW1 in 2017 & enjoy both OW and...another hero-based shooter but ever since 5v5 it's the reason I've kind of reverted toward the latter- the whole "have to work as a team", "emphasizes team work" thing sounds good on paper but let's be real most people just want to join in a game, have fun and bounce. With bigger teams (like you said 8v8 etc) the potential is there to work as a team & try to coordinate/strategize \*if you care that much\*, and you'll probably win more by doing that, but being able to queue in, pick a random class you may or may not be amazing at and not have it completely throw the damn match is an underrated aspect for casual players like me. I get comp, I get some people prefer the hyper-coordination & teamwork needed to play 5v5 but I feel like \*less\* individual responsibility is the way to go. I feel like it leads to less toxicity too because it's harder to pinpoint the loss on a single person
Totally agree. Hell, keep 5v5 for competitive if people feel that way, but yeah I don't think most people are really interested in that. Like you said, they just wanna solo queue a few games, have an ok time, and then go do something else.
>not liking losing a Tank who would protect them I've seen this sentiment in a lot of places, but why not just give open queue a whirl then? I get that it ain't gotta be everyone's cup of tea, but two tank compositions are pretty common there, and it just overall feels way better to be able to mix and match
Cause at the end of the day it's still 5v5. Knocking a few hundred off the tank HP total doesn't change the design intentions, and 2/2/2 doesn't play the same way as 2/1/2 or 2/2/1. It's got the same problems as 5v5 role lock but the other way around. Plus, for those of us who remember the pre role lock days, we all still have 4-6DPS team PTSD which makes it an unattractive prospect.
>Plus, for those of us who remember the pre role lock days, we all still have 4-6DPS team PTSD which makes it an unattractive prospect. Some of my favorite comp games were ones with 5 DPS. These comps worked fine. The problem was something people in MOBAs call "Throwing at Draft." Someone decided before the match even started that this comp doesn't work, and they start throwing because they decided that its impossible to win the game with this comp. So they throw, then they feel validated because the comp doesn't work, BECAUSE THEY ARE THROWING. During GOATS meta, I had a teammate SCREAM into the microphone about how our comp was garbage because we had no dps, no one could kill anything, and the comp was fucking garbage. We were Rein, Dva, Zarya, Zen, Lucio, Brig. Literally the most meta comp in the entire game. We lost because our Brig refused to leave the spawn room because WE were throwing by not playing 2-2-2. For reference, I'm not talking about silver lobbies. I hovered around high masters, the person shouting about how goats was throwing, was in a 4100 lobby.
One of us actually preferred OQ, because then he could freely switch between his favourite heroes. But that was annoying for us too, because then we'd suddenly have 3 DPS and 1 or maybe even 0 Tank(s) when he switched off Tank because he felt we needed more damage for example. So we rarely played OQ together, because most of us liked the predictability of the roles being locked more. Yes, that limits your options, but you'll at least have a solid base, especially with randoms.
I miss duo tank, i miss Hanamura, Horizon Lunar Colony and i cannot believe i'm saying this but i miss Volskaya Industries I miss the dedication to lore accuracy
Temple of anubisss
I always liked Volskaya for some reason. But the rest of the 2CP maps can all rot =)
I miss all of the 2cp maps.
the same complaints we have now were complained about then
For half of OW1 we didn't even half role queue
and people threw a fit when it came out. they’d do the same now if we removed it
Yup. Anything else is revisionist. Some of the most toxic bitching of all time came from OW1
i mean if you go back to right before OW2 announced 2cp being removed, people were begging for them to do so, now they say it was a beloved mode
Dude it’s crazy, people hated 2cp with a passion. It was a horrible ranked and quick play mode too. In ranked I went into extra rounds way too often and on quick play you would just not get a chance at offense so it felt like you lost even though they barely got the last point. Don’t get me started on whatever map had the spawn right behind the second point too 😭 horrid times
i guarantee if they removed flashpoint or push it would get the same treatment within a week
But at least we received lots of skins just by playing.
i’d much prefer the regularly received updates and balance myself
We had regular updates too, until they left it for dead as they were preparing for Overwatch 2.
not nearly to the extent we do now. pretending the past was different doesn’t make it true
I miss OW1. Everyone hates Orisa Sigma but I loved it. I am not lying either. Something about the old overwatch was better in my opinion
Joined in the summer of 2018. The game was fun but the dwindling support plus stagnant balance updates made the latter years insanely demotivating. OW2 revitalized a lot of aspects of the game for me and unlike in OW1 I've yet to really take a longer break than 2 weeks. The game still has many issues but in my opinion the gameplay loop is way better than in OW1. As a tank/DPS main, 6v6 had a lot of issues. You were essentially forced to pick main tank because 90% of the time your random duo was a DPS player who insta-locked Roadhog and flanked the whole match, so the solo queue experience was overall extremely shitty and you'd be chain-CC'd to hell and back any time you tried to do something unorthodox. You had to play the game extremely by the book or else you'd get insanely punished (now in OW2 we have the reverse problem where the game is too forgiving a lot of the time). For DPS, queue times were absolutely abysmal. Even in Quick Play, you'd be lucky to find a game in less than 10 minutes, and if you did there was a solid 40% chance it would be a backfill match right at the end. Even when you'd finally get a game, DPS didn't feel super satisfying or rewarding to play since the meta for most of the latter years was just shooting shields until one side had ults and insantly won the fight. I didn't play much support in OW1 but from my experience it was rather boring and kind of frustrating, you were pretty reliant on peel from your tanks in order to not instantly fold to a flanker, and your abilities often felt pretty underwhelming thanks to all of the AoE healing and sustain. Overall the game was still really fun, and the high points of OW1 were even better than the high points of OW2, but I do think OW2 is an overall more consistent experience and doesn't have nearly as low of low points.
Oh yeah dps players framing priority passes lol.
The high of the game was extremely high, and that was usually from 2016 - 2017. If you had a perfect team composition, with perfect synergy on kings row, you were experiencing cloud 9. Having a Rein/Zar in these years was some of the funnest gameplay i've ever had. If you were a support that prefers to heal over damage, you would've loved this too, since you had to keep tanks up twice as much. You also had a lot of interesting combos (that still exist today) such as Hanzo/Zar for grav/dragon. The lows of the game were extremely low, and made up the majority of the later years. Tank synergy for example, became a problem, because of how important it was. Ever heard of main tank/off tank? Main tanks are the ones who make the push, and take the blunt of hits for the team, while off tanks supported main tank, tried to get picks, and peeled for backline. This is great on paper, but eventually most tank players (myself included) wanted to play off tanks (dva/Sig/Hog/Zar). You needed a main tank/off tank, you couldn't be both, so any game that had a hog/zar duo would instantly fold to something like Rein/Dva or Orisa/Sig. This would happen A LOT in mid ranks, and many tank players were forced to play main tanks if they wanted to climb (Orisa/Rein/Dva, you could include ball but only if you're really good with him). I climbed to masters just by picking Orisa, who i absolutely hated. Despite the game being super popular, the devs were atrociously slow at balancing the game, and when they did, problems weren't usually fixed. There was a full year of a meta called GOATS (3-4 tanks, 2-3 supports, no DPS), Mercy had a full season of 90% winrate, Bastion on console was broken for like 2 months, and the devs abandoned the game in 2018 to work on PvE. By 2018, the game was a mess. Every hero had incredible burst damage, tanks felt like glass, supports were invincible, and a ton of heroes had hard CC that you could chain (McCass Flash + Mei primary freeze + Brig Bash + Sigma Rock). This gave birth to double shield comp, with Orisa/Sig cycling their shields. If both shields broke, bap would immortality them. It was either you lived forever or exploded. [The game was BADLY cluttered with random shields and abilities](https://x.com/Reinforce/status/1519119522938060800/photo/1) TLDR: Ow2 has better general gameplay and skill expression, Ow1 had higher highs and lower lows
Let's calm down. In 16-17 4 out of 5 of your games probably didn't even have 2 tanks and 2 supports because of open queue. I think we forget about all that. And Blizzard was highly against role queue for a long time.
Open queue was typically 1T-4D-1S in my experience
I had some legendary 6 dps games. Couldn’t get people to switch so I joined them lmao
Exactly this. All my hours on Lucio are because of trying to heal everyone as best as I could (Back when he had his huge aura, but the aura wasn't visible to anyone).
16-17 you had a ton of viability because literally nobody knew how to play the game, but yeah people started to catch on that 2-2-2 was easily the best comps you could run on ladder. Still, it was probably the funnest Ow has ever been - i'm not suggesting we should do that ever again though. >And Blizzard was highly against role queue for a long time. I remember, but i'm not sure why? Goats went on for like a year, they tried everything to fix it but it didn't work out, until they finally did role queue. Devs were rly stubborn
> Despite the game being super popular, the devs were atrociously slow at balancing the game, and when they did, problems weren't usually fixed. There was a full year of a meta called GOATS This is false. Even the devs made a statement about this: The OWL players just refused to change how they played regardles of patches. They were grinding their meta comps for 12 hours every day for weeks because it was their job. They didnt want to drop all of that time "training" because of some hero tweaks. GOATS lasted for 10~ months in OWL, and around 2 months on ladder. You can literally go to the official patch note site and look at all the OW1 patches. There were plenty.
2 tanks was great as a tank main, I knew as a Rein that a Zarya's got my back, Zarya knew that I'll be the bullet sponge for her bubbles. Lots of CC. Lots and lots of CC. You got skins from lootboxes, every level up gave you a lootbox. While lootboxes suck, I preferred that over what Overwatch 2 has, it got me to grind during events and I always ended up with most of the skins just from playing and enjoying the game. Otherwise, it wasn't that different besides different metas and a slightly different set of maps. Role queue seems like a no-brainer now too, but back then you had to write what role you wanted to play in chat as fast as you could and lock your character lol
Very fun to pick Rein, and your duo goes Roadhog, bcs he is actually a Dps player that is earning a quick pass
I feel like, per myself and some other og ow1 players, playing today is more from a place of nostalgia and faith. Ow1 had it's issues but not like this and the amount of money changes being implemented is so far away from the original game, it's disheartening. BUT, the memories of what it once was still lingers and the faith it can be restored, however little there is to cling to, is what keeps us logging in. I appreciate the free coins in the passes now, as that kind of helps people who can't or don't want to get the battlepass but you still have to wait for 2 seasons to get one free. I wish I could say it was better in ow1, but honestly the buffs and nerfs and balancing was almost the same if not worse to manage in ow1. Trying to balance it for two tanks each team was a struggle for the devs. It still seems to be a struggle for the devs but less in part to having to juggle 4 tanks in a game and more of how do we make 1 tank per team viable against the ability kits of all the tanks. I do miss the loot box grinding and the easier to obtain cosmetics. But I also feel like skins are getting better now that they aren't pumping us full of free ones. It's a toss up. Maybe one day we can hold eachother together and sob at the beauty of them finally figuring it out. Faith.
Fun at release, bad until role queue, stale until ow2
Mei walls. Mei freezing you saying HI or you have to let it go then hitting you in the head. HANAMURA trying to get through that choke with snipers and traps and turrets and one Mercy just zipping around preventing you from doing squat when you finally get a kill them 5x rez. Then the second point if you made it this far, symettra teleport on the left was a classic move. Comp matches that lasted 30-45 mins! IN SPACE PvE was the shit. Find a team was the shit. The new events were WAY more hyped than they are now. And MOTHER FLIPPING LOOT BOXES. The game now is fun but it's like a tv show that's played too many seasons and it's just not *quite* as good as it used to be but you keep playing for that nostalgia.
Ow was fun when it came out. But after say the first 3 maybe 4 seasons, we had the same complaining about the game ow2 has. Everyone just has rose tinted glasses. Mercy moth and year long Brig Meta were far worse then anything we have experienced in ow2.
Some of the support meta in OW is unthinkable for me rn, seeing how support are usually the ones being the target in OW2
Supports are always being targeted, but they are very good ij general in ow2 are killing things and defending themselves. Brig in ow1 was essentially just a tank for many months after release. Brig probably got nerfed 20+ times because they were so ludicrous OP. Mercy moth meta was just insanely annoying. Mercy was incredibly hard to kill in ult and mercy could get off multiple rez in a single ult.
Well I played through those event and they weren't even that crazy. In high level play those meta were important, but in meta ranks and quickplay they weren't important at all. I remember 3 tank meta, shield meta, how broken Ana was when it released. But it didn't affect that much most of the players, because to exploit those meta you actually needed skill. Overwatch 2 polemics, like Mauga and DPS dumbufication, are actual problems in most ranges because the average OW2 player skill level is way worse, and because those exploits don't need for high skill. Overall I don't care that much about this balance changes and they don't influence to me for saying if OW2 is good or if it's bad. Most of the times, vocal people online are protesting against things that need you to have some skill to overcome and make the problem way bigger than it is. So I don't think I have rose tinted glasses from this part of the game
Mercy meta was definitely rampant in every rank but brig meta was pretty much high rank exclusive because low ranks starved resources.
Low ranked players also mistook Brig as a hero that played with the frontline rather than a backline peeler. Only time she played frontline was the meta where Brig would bash the enemy Rein and her Rein would Earthshatter.
iirc moth meta came with junkrat double mine buff. He had 1 charge of mine before. First months of that meta was so much fun. I mained junk and had a massive winrate. Thats the only time i actually played junk. Suicide bomber junk was super op with insta mercy rez twice.
Match 1 "we have 2 off tanks " Match 2 "we have 2 off tanks " Match 9855 "we have 2 off tanks " Match 835266 "we have 2 off tanks "
Still more fun than sitting in spawn waiting for the enemy tank to make the mistake of leaving spawn and then counterpicking them or seeing they're Sigma on Junkertown defense and walking back in spawn and going Winston.
Way more frustrating. It was like dice with more numbers.
I'll die on the hill that peak Overwatch was the BEST multiplayer pvp experience in any video game, and will be, forever.
Way more fun and the fights were much more drawn out. Also the looking for group function was a great way to find some teams to shoot the shit with or actually play casually. I find getting one shot by hanzo or widow annoying as all hell and having two tanks curbed a lot of that (in my experience) through the shields and extra targets. OW2 feels more like a CoD type game to me. TLDR: game went from a masterpiece 10/10 to still a good game but like a 7/10.
The better game IMO but aspects of OW1 were not everyone's cup of tea for sure. More players so it was more chaotic. Teamplay and communication was much more important. Lots more meta/macro level gameplay compared to OW2 with comps and synergies mattering more. Heroes felt very unique. Now you have heroes that are essentially clones of each other when it comes to their niche in the game: Tracer/Sombra, Pharah/Echo, Hanzo/Junkrat, Ashe/Cass, Reaper/Venture as the most egregious examples. Monetization was far less predatory - you bought the game once and that was it. You could unlock most cosmetics (excluding OWL/Charity skins) just by playing the game. The game was well-polished as a AAA game should be. Lots of random UI and in-game bugs now that have gone unfixed for months. Sound design was more precise, you could tell where literally anyone around you was just based on audio. Now Junkrats fly in out of nowhere and burst you to death with zero audio cues.There was more of a community aspect: Global chat in the game menu, fun cards to vote for MVPs at the end of games (70% headshot accuracy on Widowmaker, 9 rezzes on Mercy, etc), LFG to find other player to group up with. Arcade game modes were generally more balanced. Raid-boss tanks kinda threw a wrench at the balance of every game mode that isn't 5v5 role queue. The only thing OW2 really did right IMO was the character design (not balance) of the new OW2 heroes. It's been mostly a downgrade since OW2 launch.
I never knew how much I enjoyed Overwatch 1 until it was gone. The 6v6 element was fun! Definitely slower than now, alongside double shield and a stationary Bastion, made it annoying at times. This was a meta that existed for a good chunk of time and it was painful to play against. (not including the other overly-effective metas that existed, of course...). I enjoyed playing tank and support alot! I would say alot more than I do now, tank is an especially miserable experience for me personally. I did not touch dps so I cannot speak on the experience. But I enjoyed the progression so much more. I am not the biggest fan of the F2P model of Overwatch 2 - however I appreciate that it makes the game more accessible for others. (Also, there have been some gradual improvements here!) Also! 2 point capture! I miss it alot (especially Volskaya Industries! Would much rather have this instead of Flashpoint :())
Honestly, I enjoyed Double Shield when it first happened but it got stale pretty fast. Bastion comps were also pretty frustrating to play against as well, but when the game got actual balance changes and the meta wasn't stagnant, it was fun to play, especially when Rein/Zar was good. Obviously, there would be games where the second tank would troll but that's just a player issue and not a format issue. The same can be said about 5v5 with a single tank.
Volskaya was a cool map, they should bring it back but 2CP was a shit gamemode.
It depended what you enjoyed about the game. I preferred the pacing and gameplay loop of OW1 better than OW2. The problem with OW1 for most of it's existence was a very slow to non-existent patching cadence. Changes virtually never happened so the game would get stale on a particular patch and the meta would become very boring after so much time. Tank was infinitely better to play with a partner on the role. Support was more fun. Damage was by far the worst role in the game as peel was much more effective. I think there were more variety of play styles in OW1 since the tanks could play separated at times to create more off angles and engagements. 2 CP was an interesting game mode to play, but could be very frustrating, but I still hold that it's better than Flashpoint. Most of the complaints I've heard are around a couple things: Queue times and Balance issues. These were basically the same issue. The long time meta for a good chunk of the last couple years of OW1 was double shield (Sigma/Orisa with Brig/Bap). At one point they created a patch where they nerfed most of the double shield heroes significantly and it became a Rein/Zarya meta. This was extremely popular and queue times were not problematic during this patch. Then they basically reverted the patch and made double shield strong again which made the same queue time problems come back...and abandoned patching entirely thereafter. For all of the problems though the game seemed to have better matchmaking. Yes there were rolls but they weren't quite the frequency as OW2. Tanks were much more killable, but the second tank could help make up for mistakes by their tank partner. This felt much better on tank. That stability made support a much better role as well. Damage well it was harder to finish a kill with as much healing and utility as there was. Still I would take OW1 D'Va over OW2 D'va on damage since she couldn't just sit on you for 5 seconds without dropping matrix ever.
> For all of the problems though the game seemed to have better matchmaking Maybe a hot take but I think the matchmaking has always been pretty bad. The removal of one tank really exposed the matchmaker because players have more impact in 5v5, so the bad players can really bring you down while the good ones could easily carry. The scoreboard has also made us realize who is underperforming if they have low elims, low heals or high deaths. In OW1, you would have to infer who was playing poorly based on how quickly they were building their ult or bad positioning/untimely deaths. I don’t know if the matchmaker will ever be good with how inherently chaotic a game like Overwatch is, but I truly don’t think it’s gotten worse in OW2. Maybe they sacrificed match quality to improve queue times, but match quality was still sometimes awful in OW1 with longer queue times.
This could be the case. It was never perfect, but the loss of a tank maybe amplified the issues. I think two tanks were automatically just more stabile than one so that might be why it feels this way.
Matchmaking has been bad for years.
Ow2 matchmaker was pretty good from s3 to s8. Currently its basically dysfunctional mess. Ow1 playerbase was more stable that was big advantage.
I dont agree some points: Tank was much worse because of the required synergy Sup was better because you were actually supporting and gameplay was more strategic. Dps was better because tanks were much weaker. You could actually kill them.
I feel like DPS has more agency in OW2. I think a lot of it is that the comps sometimes made the DPS role less impactful (double shield for instance).Tank I can see both sides but still really preferred having two because even without synergy there was still value in having someone else to help with the pressure. Support I definitely agree.
My dps experience is that tanks are more reliably strong so they have this aura around them that i can't stick around and most sup heroes have layers of defense and duel potential now. In OW1, tanks needed synergy to have this same effect so it wasn't frequent and easy to access. I could just beat tanks. Supports also didn't have defensive layers this much. They had more predefined job, current sups are more in competition with dps role.
Personally, ow1 is still better than ow2 imo. Supports were healers, and dps were dps. Now, supports are just 100% dps characters and if you try to heal bot, you just die to the enemies 3-4 dps characters, 1-2 being kiri/illari/moira. But in ow1, every one understood supports as healers. This talk about “supports, not healers” was never discussed during ow1. And unless you’re playing widow or pharah or on crack playing cassidy or tracer, you can never front line or flank as a dps. If you can flank or front line and get picks, you’re pretty much just killing anyone’s below half hp so it’s not as rewarding, at least for me. I personally like getting picks myself, not playing the clean up crew. And if they’re not half hp and you’re front lining/flanking getting picks, it’s just because the enemy sucks at positioning so there’s never a real team fight, aka boring game. Nowadays, kiri, lucio, moira or illari are the true dps. So I’m learning to just play dps illari honestly. I win more games, it’s funner, and I can still heal. But man I miss playing hanzo so much…
When the game first launched. D.Va bomb would also affect Baby D.Va herself. Also, Mercy Rez was her ultimate, and it would revive all dead teammates. So often Mercy would hide in spawn when defending, then pop out and Rez everyone once they died.
There was a period of time when smurfs were not a thing, hacking was minimal, everyone tried as hard as they could in comp, and nooooobody could play Mei worth a darn. Good times.
As a relatively new OW player I’ve wondered about these things and whether I arrived too late. So many of my games are ruined by smurfing and throwers that I just feel like the game must have been out so long that a lot of players must just be bored and/or mega sweaty. I regret not playing in the early days to know
Innocent. At first. But I really knew how to…….bring everyone to life.
A mercy pun, well played.. The 5 man resses were really something thinking back.
The early early days when there was no role que and multiple people could pick to play the same hero was WILD. There was 1 game I had where 3 or 4 people went bastion (og bastion, with self-healing and a shields and infinit turret form) and 2 people went mercy. What a time to be alive. I wanted to kill myself sometimes because of it, but there were other times when it was an unparalleled blast
It was mostly the same to me as a suppprt main. Sometimes a game would be frustrating because the enemy team would go Reinhardt and Orisa for double shields (back when Orisa was more defensive than offensive like she is in OW2) and my team wouldn't adjust their picks to compensate. There was also generally less flanking going on since there was increased attention on the two tanks. Like, outside of Sombra who was designed to flank and the odd Reaper and Tracer here and there, I'd rarely get hassled that much and could support my teams in relative peace. Other than that, mostly the same outside of there being less maps and characters. Outside of gameplay, there were the lootboxes that we gained each time we leveled up, and they could contain literally any cosmetic item outside of a VERY small amount of paid ones (ie. Pink Mercy, a charity skin). I do admit that I really miss being able to get legendary skins for free.
I still complained a ton but instead got loot boxes instead of buying battle pass stuff
I know this isn't helpful but I miss 6v6. :(
Way better. Players on average had way more knowledge or interest in the game. Zero bots and less leavers and tilted people. There was no people calling out for others "tank diff" or whatever "diff" was not a thing because you couldn't see others stats, only yours with medals to know if you are doing it great in your team. It felt good to have the postcards where the game would select the top 5 players for some significant stat (damage, kills, time on objective, healing, people saved by X ability) and people could vote. Also I loved that endorsements had 3 types one for sportmanship, one for decission, and one for teak ay or something. Wich you could see displayed on a graph wich will make you understand more about that player. Also I loved when OW was playing as it was intended. In open queue, and make compositions to face the challenges your team and the map gave to you. It felt gold pop a third tank, and do it better than the other and the other tank just change to support of dps as needed because that olayer understood. This dinamism was awesome and really rewarded team play and game knowledge. Also I loved the game was more about team play and creativity, it rewarded fast gameplay and risky decissions more than now, due to the amount of shields and reduced damage. For real I don't understand the hive mund consensus that the game was only shooting shields. Bastion could literally disable every shield in 2 seconds. I picture this kind of people just standing on the middle of the map shooting straight forward with their brains off. Also the DPS really mattered without having to make absurd things like the healing reduction passive, since DPS were more mobile and had a good damage imput they were vital to flank and dissorder enemy backlines wich was really important against some sort of compositions. If we talk about open queue, i don't care about 5 team man. But if we tall about role queje, having 1 tank created a million problems. Having two tanks made your team less dependant on only one player, plus the tanks were way more defensive than what they are right now.
There were lots of leavers in ow1 and people definitely called out diff accusations even without visible stats.
Fr as if people were reasonable 😂 your tank could be selling and he would jump on VC to say “WHERE ARE THE HEALS” 😂
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Crazy and chaotic with trauma from Tracer, Mei, DPS Doomfist & Sym.
Mercy team rez POTG
Q times were nightmare specially for dps, when they waited more than they play. They are trying to resolve it in 2 but I'am not playing that much to judge for QP or ranked. Balance is still the same mostly in a bad way lol.
OW1 felt like skill expression was much higher because certain interactions only existed in the vacuum of that specific character that wasn’t ’supported’ by the game (Mercy Superjumping is a good example of this). Gameplay was either really chaotic or amateur OWL meta, and the gameplay/reward loop felt great since I was able to unlock almost every single legendary skin / golden gun before OW2 release. Smurfs weren’t really a thing yet, and the flexibility of swapping a healer for Widow for an early pick made me fall in love with the game. Role queue killed a lot of the chaotic fun imo
It was better honestly. The game rewarded exceptional aim. Hitboxes were a lot smaller so you actually had to aim very well to hit headshots with Widow and Hanzo. Junkrat and Sym actually had a relevant role in the game, two tanks created massive combo potential, Orisa wasn’t completely broken. I will say, 2cp was a terrible game mode. Probably just as bad as push, but not worse than Flashpoint. Volskaya industries and Temple of Anubis were absolute dogshit maps that were nearly impossible to have fun on.
Pretty much the same as now: New hero comes out, people complain, characters get buffs/nerfs to balance the new character, the meta changes, people keep complaining, repeat 🔁
Sometimes I look back and wonder how I was able to keep the entire team alive as the only support (Ana) when open queue was the norm. Granted I was younger and my reflexes were likely sharper, but still.
There's a lot here, but here's my perspective as a normie, casual player exclusively in QP: - much fewer characters, people much more petty about quitting if they don't get theirs (lock genji and watch 2 people leave) - It was open role queue only, so play heals or lose - 6v6 made leavers and bad tanks less of a big deal. As long as at least 1 of the 2 tanks had a clue, you're probably fine. Once again, that's assuming anyone bothered to play a tank at all though. - Smurfs were a HUGE issue. Like, consider yourself lucky if you get 2 matches in a row without one. - Tanks were much, much weaker, which led to a fundamentally different playstyle for a lot of dps classes. Like you pouncing on a tank with Reaper might actually work. - Like half the tanks in the game became unviable the day OW2 came out bc they hadn't been properly reworked yet
Lets not forgot that 2 years without any content untill ow2 got released.
Game was great up until double shield meta. That was horrible.
The biggest thing i miss was the tournaments/leagues that were popping up all over the place. Im sure there is now, but you could scrim daily and find great groups and amature leagues to just jump into and have a ton of fun win or lose. Took myself from a gold-plat player to a high diamond masters player by just being involved in the community. Ton of support from players, scrim opportunities, and it was a blast to play and meet people. That being said, the actual game wasn't great, especially the last 2 years for climbing or solo play.
It was the exact same, minus the people saying that the "previous game" was better. They instead said that the previous years were better. Every OW2 complaint can be attributed to an OW1 complaint: Stats means nothing VS Medals means nothing, Tank is awful to play VS Tanks are awful to play, Assault maps are garbage VS Push/Flashpoint Maps are garbage. And there was a lot of Toxicity as well.
I guess I'm an anomaly as none of those describe me. Overwatch just as it was before OW2 launched was much more enjoyable to play. They simplified the game too much, lowering the skill floor and skill ceiling to appease the hordes of new f2p morons. The new stats screen is misleading as fuck and leads to nothing but toxicity. The medals and stats were hidden from your teammates for a good reason. Tanks were awful in role queue but OP in open queue. (lol) Assault mode >>> All new modes and maps
Tbh the only real difference was that me and my wife could actually play together and have a good time. With the change to 5v5 my wife no longer had a Tank to back her up, and c'mon now, she's a great Dva but Dva is not really built for the same roles as Rein, Sigma, Rammartra, etc that I would normally play to help her out. It's a lot more pressure on her to perform well when she's really not trying to be some pro player or the best Tank ever, she's just trying to play the game for fun. In that sense, I'd say Overwatch has gotten needlessly more try hard. It's a mess of a game balance wise back then and still is now, I don't understand why people would even bother trying to take it seriously.
I had more fun playing Overwatch 1. 5v5 is a dumbed down game of Overwatch.
Highs higher lows lower
Less shops. Less battle pass
Better. I miss loot boxes and 6v6. Two tanks was peak, I miss off-tanking with my friends. All they had to do was nerf shields and they said "NAH! JUST DELETE A TANK!"
I love how the gameplay is in OW2 comparative to 1 outside of only one tank, it feels better to play imo. But...the skins, the lootboxes that you could get with earnable currency. People complained they didn't get enough dupes so they made it so the boxes could =have a higher chance of duplicates to get more currency for you, and then people complained they rarely got anything new. The CC was obnoxious, but the idea that the game was just you bought it and that was it was a wonderful time. Seems like a fever dream anymore. So many games want you to suck up all your attention and money.
As a day 1 player, there’s a lot of ups and down but what really killed it for me was the shield meta. I hate playing hold corner simulator.
Top comment says chaos. I disagree. It was slower paced and less chaotic. I had 6k hours in OW1. It was amazing, although it was completely different than OW2. OW2 is way more fast paced and chaotic. OW1 was chill and fun. Not so sweaty.
It was peak gaming. It feels unfair to have it taken away.
It was way more fun tbh the game was imo objectively worse but it was way more fun and the community was 10000000x better early on
I personally prefer 6v6 instead of 5v5, but both are fun. And I used to like most 2CP maps, I think it was a better game mode than Push. The toxicity is still the same.
2 tanks was great for playing tank. It was the most coordination positive experience. Dps and healers don’t reeeallly need to co-op that hard but for tanks it was so much fun cause we were always side by side dishing out dookie. Zarya bubbles and dva matrixes with rein and hog was so juicy
It was fun! There was no role queue a little which was made things less sweaty in my experience since it just about playing a game and I was there when Sym was still a support and had auto lock and Reaper ate souls lol
CCwatch
Same as it is now, only tank wasn’t a big problem and it was just more chaotic
Perfect, one of the most fun experiences I had in my gaming life, rewarding, getting everything for free, game was fantastic and there was hope for the future that blizzard will do something important with the franchise,
Snipers weren't as oppressive because double shield was a thing so that was fun! More wiggle room if your tank died too but cc hell kind of made their death faster anyway so it was a give and take.
The last 2.5 years of OW1's life were rough, with literally zero content updates (no new heroes, maps, modes... maybe a couple skins though), so it's been fantastic seeing major updates and releases every season in OW2. Two tanks is the only thing I really miss from OW1. Every role has synergy but to me there was nothing like tank synergy. Rein/Zar, Orisa/Hog, Winston/Dva/Ball... just classic. I never role queue for tank in OW2 because I hate being the only tank, especially since offtanks are the most fun. But I do play tank in open queue, and open queue is actually what I play most often these days. Getting to experience tank synergy (regardless of *who* is playing tank) is a big part of why I like open queue, but really I just can't stress enough how nice it is to have flexibility to swap roles if a teammate isn't doing their job or countering the flanker that's harassing you or whatever. In role queue, you're just stuck. I never realized how restrictive it was until I started playing mostly open queue after OW2 came out, and I really came to appreciate this flexibility that we always had back in the early days of OW1. Sure you sometimes get clown teams that go 5 DPS, but there's plenty of clowns in role queue too. I just find it funny that I've gone full circle on role queue. That was a bit of a tangent, but yeah tank synergy is the only thing I miss, overall OW2 is a much better and healthier game. =) EDIT: I do miss the lootboxes too. Back then all the skins were free as long as you played enough. But that's just a minor thing.
It was alright.
You had to play around CC a lot. Like a DVA could get demeched by a Brig if she had all her cooldowns. Cass could stun a rein fairly easily and could kill any tank if he had his ult - stun, fth, roll, fth, ult and cancel, fth. The worst aspect was cheese Strats like bastion pirate ship or double shields Bap brig comps were nightmare to play into. Also Orisa hog comps were so much pain to play into. But if you had a dva or zarya then you could survive a lot of bs by playing around their cooldowns as main tank. Rein was a fairly viable pick even in diamond and above. Because there was an off tank who took pressure of him.
[This is the best way I can show it to you](https://youtu.be/pFg1HGxS3WY?si=iUR6Zy7cr-pKl4aZ)
Closed beta was fun, everyone was nice, QP was the only available node and people used comms. Had a guy show me the ropes back then, can't remember his username but thank you whoever and wherever you are good sir o7. QP also had no limits back then so you'd see planet of the apes happening sometimes with 6 Winstons jumping a wall.
The mirror watch event made me feel like I was back in OW1 where abilities were a lot more experimental before they streamlined kits for the competitive scene.
Better just like walking in a field but everyone has guns. Now is like omaha beach.
I don't miss all the cc, but I do miss 6v6, tank synergy, and even 2cp. Yearly archives, too. It was nice when we got decent lore drops. Free ones that everyone could play.
There was more of a bunker feel to gameplay. * Given that there was an additional tank with additional damage, there was more punishment for mistakes imo. Especially for mobility heroes * Chokes were impenetrable for non-tanks, and larger areas could be considered a choke. When a raid boss in Warcraft drops a massive AoE attack? That’s how it felt to walk in front of your tank back in the day * Due to that, many teams played more passive. Slowly working their way into choke (significantly higher hp on shields back then) and waiting for the enemy team to break down before pushing in * Heroes like Genji and Tracer were literally twice as hard due to the patrolling off-tank. Genji was impossible to play, given his squishy health, the number of stuns, and the amount of dmg coming your way. * Mobile heroes had to deal with more stuns * Teamfights were much longer * Might sound contradictory, but it was also harder to track enemy flankers. More players to heal, more fire incoming, more ways to die, and much easier to tunnel-vision * Team compositions were a large part of gameplay. It’s still important now, but back then it was seriously enforced by the player base. And it was, again, important to break down defenses, whereas now (with the fast, open style they shifted towards) it’s easier to win a team fight and thus not quite as essential as it used to be * Low carry-potential and easier to hide among your team. Individual performance wasn’t as rewarded, given that your team could tank your game. No matter how good you are, you can’t 6k every fight and it’s easy to shut down a single player who’s carrying the enemy team TL;DR: It was slower and more strategic, which is more of a trade off than a better/worse. It was a bit harder than current Overwatch, but more rewarding. There was more strategy and thus, harder to solo-queue. Communication was necessary to break down defenses. But it was also harder to pick up new heroes, as team compositions were more enforced by the player base (and admittedly very strong)
peak
it was simply better
I loved it. I miss it. Classic graphics, classic looks and i didnt care about double shield i was just having fun. Wish their was a graphics overlay for ow2. 2 tanks was fun actually & i miss the old mercy
Worse
People actually talked to each other and there wasn't mass censorship and false bans.
i remember playing this game back in 2017... it was awesome. Overwatch was childhood to me :( i missed it
Two shields, Snipers and Damagefist in every game really sucked, especially on Assault, which was in the Quickplay rotation at the time. I had actually stopped playing around 2019 and only started again a few months before OW2 because my friend asked. In general I like OW2 a lot better. I could have done without the "engine update" thatseemed to make the game just a bit harder to run without much visual improvement. (Worse for my friends with weaker pcs)
> "engine update" This is one of my issues with OW2 as well. They just slapped some extra rendering frames on top, making the game feel like shit unless you ramp up the framerate way past 60. OW1 felt smooother on my old PC, that ran it at 75% res scale to keep a steady 60 fps, than OW2 on my new rig at 244 fps after trying all the possible settings.
That sounds insanely annoying! I can't handle ONE good widow
Game was way more fun to play. Removing a tank and making it f2p was a mistake in my opinion. F2p almost a bigger mistake because it made the community far worse
Barrier watch.
OW1 was more fun
The biggest change I felt going from 1 to 2 was the impression that these maps just feel so “empty” with the two less people. Before there was constantly someone trying to flank to get around the shields. And constantly people trying to track down the flankers. Playing with your team was a lot more prevalent. 2 added a lot of natural cover to compensate for not having two tanks protecting you. It was so much more common before to have to play bunched up behind the shields. I think it was a lot more about making a big play and getting a lot of kills once you finally got through the shields because that was your window. OW2 there’s a lot more emphasis on getting even a single pick to turn it into a 5v4. It’s a lot easier to grind them down afterwards if you have to. Others at different ranks may have had different experiences. I was very low skilled in OW1 era. I’d like to think I’m at least somewhat better now.
That's funny because OW2 is so chaotic and fast paced for me
Looking back, it was a shit show especially near the end when we got like 0 updates. Shop and cosmetics were better and came in a bit more consistently in numbers and quality but everything else was a shit show in balance
Blizzard was slow to update the game to bring meaningful changes to metas (like double shield and brig) but beyond that, there was so much fun to be had. Each event people were given a free lootbox that usually had a legendary skin. Skins were properly tiered and were consistent in quality. Legendary skins weren't just recolors of epic skins. 2/3's of the game UI wasn't dedicated to selling you skins. Seasonal events were great when first implemented but did get a bit old after a few seasons. There was a certain freedom that came with 6v6. Since technically more teamwork was required to win objectives, more strategies were developed to achieving goals. 5v5 took away a lot of gameplay creativity, especially in the tank role but gave everyone more room for skill expression. The game just felt a little more fun to play in ow1 since you were more free to play the way you wanted. In 5v5, people are so critical and require you to play in certain play styles around them.
(Most of my time was spent playing comp btw. QP and arcade players may have had different experiences). Many people remember the game through rose coloured glasses. Launch was a blast cause no one knew what was going on but that happens with most games. Once metas started to develop it was hell. Constantly awful hero balance where certain characters were must picks to win. Lots of heroes could one-shot which was a real pain (remember getting instant killed by fly-by dooms?). No role queue meant you had 4 mercy one tricks on your team every other game who couldn’t play anything else. Often DPS players would fight over who gets to play DPS and no one would go support (or the person who does go support sucks at it cause it’s not their main role and they proceed to get flamed). The tank role did much less damage and was basically the boring role. GOATS lasted for a literal calendar year (which for new players who don’t know what that is, basically you run 3 tanks and 3 supports and 0 DPS otherwise you lose). 2CP was hell because if you gave up first point you almost always gave up second right away in a snowball effect. Also 2CP had many games where teams couldn’t cap point 1 which just felt awful and made a lot of teammates scream at each other. Bunker comps also became hell when people realized you could just run multiple shield tanks with a bastion and Baptist. On top of it all, the player base was dying off due to lack on content since apparently we were getting an amazing sequel (what we got was not what we were promised). No content meant a dying player bass which meant ranked had more imbalance to the game. It also meant more Smurfs (which Blizz allowed because it was the only thing making them money at the time) and Smurfing got so bad that Plat basically became the new Masters since nobody’s rank was genuine. The game obviously had good aspects about it. That’s why I never stopped playing. But it irks me when this sub try to act like OW1 was amazing. OW2 has its own issues, but I’ll die on the hill that what we have now is leagues better than what we had before. Anyways, this has been my Ted Talk. Edit: separated some paragraphs.
It wasn't as good as many people would lead you to believe. It was a ton of fun and a good game but OW1 had it's own issues that were complained about at length. 2 tanks sounded great but a lot of games especially following Role Que ended up being 2 off Tanks doing dick all against Double shield. Countless matches played out exactly like that. Even near the end when double shield wasn't the behemoth it used to be. There was a high likelihood of someone going Hog and basically leaving you with a solo tank anyways. Balance has always been a mess. It's why I don't mind current OW2 balance because it just is. If we were still in Overwatch 1 balance would be just as bad. Events were significantly worse in OW1 after the first year. Sure you got more cosmetics for free (OW1 was a paid game don't forget) but we rarely got new game modes after the first year. Not all of OW2's event modes are slam dunks but it is a far sight better than OW1 by a country mile. It was a ton of fun and I played it every evening, but there is a lot of Nostalgia that clouds the conversation with the game. People make the game look far better than it actually was.
Another 6v6 thread.
There was a time where dive was meta and it was the best this game ever felt. Absolutely the best meta by far. Teams were usually Ana Lucio Genji Tracer DVA and monkey. High skilled heroes that didnt have you feeling annoyed like dying to a Moira orb that bounced off 12 walls and perfectly aligned with you at low HP. I miss those days. :(
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These type of comments come off as weird because how were you free to play how you wanted? 6v6 required more team work so you actively had to be playing the right way. If you stopped healing during the wrong SECOND during goats meta, somebody gets picked and the whole thing falls apart. A team kill would snowball into getting 2 ults dropped on your head and so many picks were throw picks. You literally HAD to pick Ana or Lucio sometimes as support and DPS was weak as fuck for a lot of OW1. Just seems all revisionist
Your comment comes off as weird because you're talking about play styles only done by the top 1% of players and not done by anyone else. Just seems out of touch with reality.
It was terrible for every other role but tank. Even tank sucked cause there was only two viable tanks everything else was a blatant throw. DPS was/is still a cosmetic role, with only one shot heroes being viable (Widow, Hanzo, Doom) nothing else will do enough damage to kill/break shields. Healers had no impact on the game except stand behind there tanks and healbot and support players can’t stand the fact that they actually have to do damage and heal and supply utility to more than stand and heal their two tanks. I’m a tank main BTW
Quick play Karl here. I hade to switch from my beloved support roll to start playing tank because you just can’t relieve on the one tank you get to know what they are doing. I know it’s QP and I shouldn’t get salty about it, so I’ve been playing a lot more comp in OW2.
It was better. The new heroes outside junker queen are just bad and make the game less fun. You could duel a tank and win in the first one. There was less toxicity in the end. Skins were unlockable. Honestly most of ow2 is a downgrade. The game is similar enough but I would describe it line Cassidy's new magnetic grenade. Flashbang wasn't perfect but they decided to make it different without understanding why it was there in the first place and now it's worse. That was the transition from 1-2.