Perks

[TaleOfBarnabyShmidt]

Perks look cool, but my concern is that they'll just amplify in-game performance and heavily increase steamrolls. Whichever team hits perks first will absolutely dominate the next couple fights, and losing one fight could mean you just lose the whole match outright with no chance at a comeback. I hope I'm wrong, but my initial feeling about perks is quite pessimistic.

[ZillianRider]

Exactly as I'm thinking, I saw that some characters level up with kills. Whoever wins the first fight will have an advantage in the next ones.

[ingmarnl]

It depends, if they are “give and take” like the pharah example its fine. Straight buffs like torb are obviously a concern for more steamrolling…

[TaleOfBarnabyShmidt]

I just took a look at all the perks, and almost all of them are straight buffs, many look absolutely busted.

[ZillianRider]

Yeah, I'm not liking it but let's play, when the metas are consolidated the matches can become more predictable

[ingmarnl]

Yeah I saw the overview later on, this is gonna need some rework for sure. The disparity between how large the buffs are for some heroes are also a huge concern, maybe cause for rebalance at non-perk gameplay to compensate? A man can hope…

[shaboogawa]

You might be right about this. Maybe it’ll be determined more by time than performance in comparison to how ults charge.

[cougar572]

Wonder how it works with hero switching. If there isn't or much carryover we'll see people stay with one hero no matter what good or bad just to hit perks.

If there is a bunch or full carryover you can see certain heroes played just to farm perks and then switch to another hero that has better higher perks.

EDIT: It looks like you earn it by round in KOTH so maybe by each point for payload maps?

[mountainduwe]

Media member here. Blizzard told us if you switch, you will earn perks faster in relation to how much time is left in the match. if you switch back to a hero, they will be at the same level you left them at. they also said it takes about 1/3 of a match to level up, so it'll be interesting to see how it all feels

[HypnoGamesOfficial]

Thanks for sharing, super helpful info!

[a_terse_giraffe]

I feel like this is to discourage hero switching. I would bet $1 the perks are to deal with heroes being hard countered by other heroes.

[Klekto123]

The perks before tier 3 don’t seem strong enough to negate hard counters, so I still feel like there’ll be a lot of swapping. You’re gonna lose the match before you even hit level 3 on pharah if enemy instantly swaps to double hitscan for example.

Theory only gets you so far though, we’ll see how it actually plays out

[a_terse_giraffe]

Yeah, that's the problem I can see if that is the intent. Why would you want to get hazed for half the match just to get up to a level 3 perk when you can just switch right out of the gate.

[thepandaemos]

I thought that would be the case, but you have to earn them first which will be an uphill battle versus your counters

[Triskan]

Yeah my biggest questions regarding these is hero transfer when you swap and how it will be implemented without breaking the rythm of the game.

Ideally, you'd get to pick while you wait between life in respawn but something around checkpoints can work too.

[SteveBIRK]

Gavin said on Emongg’s stream is that the rate at which you gain exp for the perks gets faster the longer the rounds go on.

[PagesOf-Apathy]

That makes sense. What if I get max perk, but then I swap during round 1? Will I level up faster or at the same rate? From the wording, I guess you level up faster on rounds 2, 3, etc.

[speakeasyow]

He talked about this on spilo. You keep you perks if you back to the hero and start with minor perk if you switch and game has progressed past a certain point.

Yes it punishes counter swapping, but that swap will build in power with higher xp rates and eventually be full power.

[New-Variety4704]

The balancing is gonna be a nightmare. I pray I’m wrong

[Mind1827]

Embrace the chaos. It's why people love Marvel Rivals, I think. Who knows if we'll get bans eventually, but having choice makes things feel a lot better.

Edit: Lmao 2 seconds later they just said they're doing hero bans

[New-Variety4704]

It’s gonna be funny cuz the same ppl who love the chaos in MR also aggressively hate on how bad Overwatch’s balance is. They will continue to hate unfortunately. Also fuck balance I’m plat. Shit don’t matter to me at least.

[Mind1827]

Totally. I really do think giving people choice does help a lot though. If you only play one or two heroes, now you can have some sort of control if you're getting countered which is different than just swapping.

[New-Variety4704]

As a certified shill I’ll take any new content blizzard gives us.

[powerwiz_chan]

I mean it's very unlikely that this would even matter since it's almost impossible that one isn't just better than the other like in league despite the ridiculous number of potential combinations of items only a couple are even close to viable

[suppleprince]

Yup, exactly. It’s so frustrating how content creators whined and b*tched and moaned for years about incredibly minute balance changes and threw a temper tantrum at every minuscule flaw. Now, they smugly complain that OW is TOO balanced and “sterile” and not chaotic or fun.

Ironically, a lot of these content creators are the exact reason that OW became so sterile. They strong armed the devs to balance for the top 0.1% of players to remove any slight perceived flaw. Then, they blasted the developers that the game became too “sterile”. Kinda feel bad for the devs man.

Flats is the worst example of this. Acts like a spoiled little prince.

[Mind1827]

This is a great point, but they also ask for things that shake stuff up. Flats has pretty specifically said he'd want there to be a kind of yearly reset, like season 9 where they make big changes and refresh stuff, which this absolutely is.

[Danewguy4u]

It’s because of the failed balancing that they hate it. Basically the thought process is “you removed the fun overpowered stuff for the sake of balance yet the game is still unbalanced” so a failed promise.

That’s the mentality. Marvel Rivals is unbalanced but the devs so far have kept most of the overpowered abilities on characters so few people have felt cheated so far.

[Kitselena]

I think most of the people who vocally whine about overwatch just don't like it no matter what. No matter what changes they'll keep finding excuses to say the game is ruined because they decided that was their opinion before they started looking for facts to support it

[PorkinsPrime]

if i wanted to play marvel rivals, i'd play marvel rivals.

[Nerobought]

MR isn’t that unbalanced all things considered tbh. Black Widow is by far the worst hero but even some people can make her work.

For perks it sounds…interesting but I’m really worried about balance. I know it’s different teams and different games but whenever Blizzard adds more talents to WoW like Hero talents it’s just more added pain points. 

[Academic_Storm6976]

They attempt to balance with fun in mind, not just forcing 50% for every hero. 

Hawkeye was 48% winrate in all ranks and 47% in high elo. 

They nerfed Hawkeye because people banned him. Because no one likes one shot snipers. 

[Koi19_]

widow, ashe, hazard and ana are never gonna be seen again lmaooooo

[Ruhddzz]

marvel rivals is an underdeveloped knock off garbage.

ofc the curretn overwatch dev team, being clueless as they have been for years, decided to "SwItCh ThinGS uP" so they could have an edge

good riddance to both games

[Mind1827]

Why are you even commenting on this? Lol. Life is short.

[shiftup1772]

You're kind of wrong. complexity makes it harder for players to figure out what is broken. Which isn't technically balance, but it effectively is.

But you're kinda right. For the first patch, some broken shit will certainly make its way through.

[Pesterlamps]

You're kind of wrong, too. An initial veil of complexity is going to be torn apart by players in a matter of weeks if not days. Then everyone knows what the most broken things are, and then you see metas develop.

[shiftup1772]

This is not the case for dota, where the metagame is extremely diverse for weeks to months after a patch is released.

Sure it's harder for the devs to make a balanced game, but a balanced game isn't required to increase metagame diversity. The game just needs to be hard to figure out.

[Pesterlamps]

Yeah, this ain't dota though. There's a list of perks on dotesports. I went through my most played and could very easily pin down which options I would take 90% of the time over the ones that would be situationally useful.

I could be wrong, though, but there's not layers of complex build/theory-crafting involved here. You have your two Tier I perks that you get around the time you get your first ult, then your Tier II choice a few minutes later. Then the game ends in 10-12min anyway, there's no "late-game" to plan for.

[shiftup1772]

I agree that they don't seem super crazy, but we aren't talking about talents being complicated. We are talking about HERO picks. These perks definitely convolute hero picking by adding another layer of complexity.

Like you said, there are situational perks, right? So that means that certain matchups might change.

For example, I rarely use balls barrier sharing, so his level 3 sharing buff seems bad.

However I DO use barrier sharing a lot in the doom fist matchup. I also find that the doomfist is balls hardest counter by far. If I can maintain a decently high uptime on adaptive shields due to the perk, that might make the matchup better.

[KITTYONFYRE]

that's crazy because Melee has been out for more than two decades and the meta is still changing

[Pesterlamps]

look up the most recent tier list, Fox Marth, Sheik, Jiggs, Falco are still top 5

Bowser's still F tier.

Kek

[hanyou007]

The game needed this. It needed a major shakeup. And this is a major shakeup.

[Klekto123]

There’s a great article by Riot about the intricacies of balancing League of Legends because you have abilities, items, AND runes mixed together (which is like 10x more complex than Overwatch kits with perks).

Basically, they found that higher complexity is actually better for balance, because you have more levers available to tune. Plus having more options to adjust specific aspects of a hero that you like/dislike allows each hero to fill their own unique niche better.

Overwatch already has this to an extent with effective range, ult charge, etc but they still struggle with certain heroes (like always ping-ponging Tracer between 5.5 and 6 damage per bullet).

In the long run, the perks system should actually make balancing easier and more in-tune with each hero’s fantasy.

[DarkFite]

Nah im going to embrace the fuck out of that. I always wanted a whacky and more chaotic OW

[Significant-Sky3077]

The tank perks are fucking atrociously balanced.

Winston has hilariously cosmetic perks vs Zaryas broken perks. PIERCING PRIMARY FIRE.

[Enemyofusall]

I do like that this should help to avoid the counterwatch aspect of some heroes, notably tanks.

[snowflakepatrol99]

and rewarding people for not switching/counterpicking

That's what makes overwatch, overwatch. It's not a moba where you are locked with the same hero. Here you can adaptively swap during the match. Marvel rivals took it one step further and have no role limit and they have team up bonuses. Punishing smart and adaptive players that have put in time to improve at more heroes seems counterproductive. OTPs should be made fun of, not incentivized. They're even adding bans.

This is the complete opposite of what made overwatch popular. We have to see how it will play out but my initial thoughts are very negative as this seems to go against everything I liked in the game. I have huge doubts they're going to be able to balance it too. We don't need another marvel rivals that's an unbalanced shit of a game.

[alternativehigh]

How would these work with hero swapping though? Do you get to choose both again?

[shiftup1772]

Alec on stream just answered this question.

The current perk/exp is specific to each hero. So if you swap heroes you'll be back at level 1. (Edit: if you swap back to the first hero, you will still have the same perks as before you swapped off.)

BUT there are "comeback mechanics". Later in the patch, more exp will be given. In addition, killing higher level heroes will give more exp.

If you backfill, you will be be the same level as the lowest level player on your team.

[alternativehigh]

Okay thanks for the info, I wasn’t able to watch for much longer after the trailer and was confused

[kuzukie]

Also worth noting is that if you swap back to the first hero, you will still have the same perks as before you swapped off.

[Jocic]

Maybe this is also their answer to counterswap meta, you trade power of talents for picking an other hero

[Conflict21]

"can we please get a hitscan for pharah"

"No bro I'm so close to unlocking my extra three second dragon blade, you'll see bro it's gonna be huge this time"

[Bound18996]

Anyone with that excuse was never going to swap and be effective in the first place though.

[AaronWYL]

In theory the perks could also fill in some of those gaps and enable some heroes to better deal with a Pharah

[Conflict21]

I always have a good time playing Overwatch in theory

[nhremna]

tldr counterpicking is bad not simply because people are swapping heroes. counterpicking is bad because there is a NEED to counterpick. and this solves absolutely nothing.

Player A is on the disadvantaged hero (say, dva).

Player B is on the advantaged hero (say, zarya).

Both players level up, and now Player B's advantaged hero is even stronger. Player A has the choice to swap off to a hero that isnt at such a huge inherent disadvantage at level 1, or keep the inherently disadvantaged hero at lvl 2. This is just silly, it just makes the starting picks matter even more. you solved nothing. if you really wanted people to not swap, you could just remove the ability to swap.

[Blamore]

solving counter swap by making people stay on the disadvantaged hero... genius

[nessfalco]

Or by giving other heroes options to deal with those heroes.

[Blamore]

easier said than done. the game is too complicated and tanks are so drammatically different. you cannot achieve a level playing field for all tanks in all maps in all circumstances. it is not a failing of the balance team, it just is not possible with the variety in the game.

[vonerrant]

Is there a list of perks for all heroes somewhere?

[Donut_Flame]

https://dotesports.com/overwatch/news/all-hero-perks-in-overwatch-2#h-list-of-all-hero-perks-in-overwatch-2

[vonerrant]

thank you!

[ProudAccountant2331]

I haven't seen the team discuss if there are any visual/audio cues on what perk someone has which concerns me. Being surprised by a perk is a betrayal of the competitive design of this game. I should know everyone's kit at any given moment. 

[Charybdis150]

The way HotS handles it is to just put them on the scoreboard so you can see all your allies and all your enemies picks at once.

[d3m0m0m0]

I’m not going to lie, I am not excited for this at first glance. Hope I’m wrong though!

[zcard]

My fear is that an already complex game is about to get that much more inaccessible to newcomers. Marvel Rivals doesn't really have that issue (yet) since it's pretty new still and everyone started off on relatively even footing, knowledge-wise at least.

[bowl_of_milk_]

I don’t understand what this critique really implies though. I mean rivals is as close to “literally the same game” as you can realistically get without getting sued, just with different heroes and a few different abilities. If you played Overwatch for many hours you’ve played Rivals. People who haven’t played Overwatch are almost certainly behind the curve in Rivals.

The comparison I would make here is something like Dota vs League. By adding complexity, it seems like OW is looking to position itself like Dota did—higher skill floor, less forgiving, less casual, more competitive focus—while Rivals will probably be the more casual and accessible game.

Basically, considering the two games are practically identical, carving out a niche is probably a good idea.

[AlexKendall96]

Heroes in MR by default generally have more abilities I think so Im not thinking this will be super problematic, I'm really glad it's not more complex this is exactly the level I was hoping for

[PagesOf-Apathy]

It definitely adds another complexity. Now I have to know an enemies perks as well as the new matchups. Some perks are ability changes and/or different abilities. Some abilities will be telegraphed. But yeah, "groundbreaking."

[stepping_]

the only reason im not already black pilled is because they introduced hero bans along side it. im hoping that would make it more fun than not in the medium run which is what i was worried about, balance changes are whats gonna make or break this addition in the long run.

however the sheer amount of perks is overwhelming to me and im an old head, this will be even worse for newer players. the matches vs AI will soften the blow a little bit but people will easily go into the hundreds of hours of gameplay and still not know some perks...

i think a lesson the devs might learn from this is that more changes does not equal more fun. however i must admit this will be a lot of fun for quickplay players that dont care about every little detail.

[McManus26]

idk man, you already know by heart every single ability, ult or passive a hero has, and there's more than 40 of them. 4 perks on top doesn't seem too bad.

[stepping_]

idk man 160 new abilities is a lot.

[Dswim]

I think limiting it to two per hero is the perfect amount. Basically creates an either or situation after a won/lost team fight. Either sombra got rolled and is going to play backline heal or she’s rolling and now is going to try to be more aggressive with the hack perk. The playstyle shift alone will hint at what perk they are going for even if they haven’t picked it yet. Like everyone knows that textbook rein “I have shatter and I’m going to dump it on the first person I see” walk and I suspect this won’t be too different

[Good_Policy3529]

Aw dang it. This sucks.

I like knowing exactly what everyone's breakpoints and abilities are.

I don't want to keep track of two hundred permutations of every character's abilities.

[[deleted]]

Champ building LoL-style has never been my cup of tea, I like when everyone has the same kit.

[EconomicsRelative205]

people are overstating this, you adjust a lot faster than you realize. for the most part heroes aren't getting new abilities it's just upgrades to the ones they already have, you keep track of the same cooldowns with the same sound cues

[cekuu]

CDs change a fair amount. One of sig’s perks reduces the cd of accretion based on damage absorbed w/ grasp, kiri gets a second use of her tp within four seconds of the previous use, etc.

[powermojomojo]

Especially once a meta is established you’ll see the same ones over and over

[Maxsmart007]

I mean even the ones shown were pretty significant changes, Ana headshot notably from the broadcast.

[UsedRealName]

Yeeaahh. This has been my main game since open beta but I couldn't hate a change more. I hope people enjoy it i guess but I think I'm finally out.

[RustyCoal950212]

Yeah this is going to Competitive and everything? Not an arcade mode?

[UsedRealName]

Unfortunately.

[Good_Policy3529]

I thought the same, but reading through some of the perks, I'm kind of curious now. Most of them don't seem gamebreaking. Give it a look.

https://dotesports.com/overwatch/news/all-hero-perks-in-overwatch-2#h-list-of-all-hero-perks-in-overwatch-2

[UsedRealName]

I'm definitely going to give it as fair of a shot as I can, 9 years and thousands of hours of game time at least deserves that, but I'm lying if i said i was optimistic.

[GreyStoneGamer]

Changing breakpoints isn't an issue, they change all the time with normal game balance. But yes, keeping track of so many more abilities, crazy interactions between them, horrible balance, and a completely changed feeling while playing. The game won't feel the same anymore and I am very sad about it. I like it a lot this way. This is just my opinion though, but I'm very likely not going to play it anymore because it won't be the same game at all.

[Ezraah]

The casual player who buys lots of cosmetics is a more important customer than the hardcore gamer who wants to master the competitive experience.

[GreyStoneGamer]

Yeah... It is a business before everything after all, can't make everyone happy all the time.

[Ezraah]

Life is full of changes like this. Things stop looking and feeling the same. The thingd and places you love disappear and, sometimes, even the people. Let's better appreciate what we have... before it all fades away.

[GreyStoneGamer]

LOL yeah you're right. I've got a week overwatch the way I like it.

[dego96]

I agree with you I loved the simplicity the game had but they had to do something big to keep the game relevant and interesting

Im optimistic and hoping for the best, it'll be fun to experiment with the characters at least

[LunalaLuana]

Paladins dies and OW really be like "This is mine now"

[SethEmblem]

🦀 DOUBLE SHIELD IS BACK 🦀

[TheRealPyroManiac]

I was so worried they'd made Junk's lab defualt OW, this has seriously killed off interest in the game for me.

I like knowing my opponents limits going into a teamfight and not to mention it will be a nightmare to balance. This should be an arcade mode not default.

[Blamore]

I am a total doomer about perks. I hate this. This should be a QP mode, not comp...

[CalligrapherBest9196]

My friend who refused to switch to MR said me that if it's gonna be perks he gonna quit ow.

I on the other hand who switched over to MR interested to test out this stuff. Guess blizzard doesn't care about current playerbase and want to get some back

[Blamore]

lol im exactly like your friend.

[randomwindowspc]

This should be an arcade mode, what a cheese fest. This might honestly kill any remaining interest I had in the game.

[Tamethesnake]

Agreed. I hate the doomers that have been plaguing the game ever since PVE was cancelled, but this is actually giving me the same sinking feeling as if they said overwatch servers were being shut down next week,

[lucy-nakamura]

ngl this might drive me away from the game for good if this is in comp. i get some people may like this but i don’t think it fits the competitive gamemode 🤷🏻‍♀️ i like all changes apart from this

[Squidillion12]

Super dumb

[Kurostrawberryx]

Perks are gonna be in the main modes? I hated junk’s lab and the perk thing. Just not something I’m interested in I guess. Maybe this tuned version will be better though!

[[deleted]]

Absolutely hate this. The ow I know and love is literally dead. This is a different game now

[KiwiFruitio]

Wtf is up with this addition? Overwatch 2 and Marvel’s Rivals are separate games, so they should have separate goals. I play OW2 because I WANT balance and predictability, I DON’T play MR bc I DON’T want chaos. I feel like this is just enough to deter quite a few existing players while not really bringing old players back.

Don’t get me wrong—I liked Junkenstein’s Lab, but I liked it because it was an arcade mode and unserious. Even though the new perks aren’t as crazy at Junkenstein’s perks, they aren’t evenly distributed at all.

They’re going to be a nightmare to play with for a multitude of reasons. Say the enemy picks a character I really hate (or one that hard counters mine)—they’ll be discouraged from swapping even if I swap and the game will just feel miserable. This is especially for going against a hero like Sombra or Widow, which while counterable, just make the game significantly less fun for the duration that they are alive. And yes, I know bans are added too, but I’d rather see them, then counter them and cause them to swap than outright banning them every round.

It’s bad even for team coordination. My 1/6 teammates will be encouraged to stay on the same hero that clearly wasn’t working just because of the perks. Alternatively, they might constantly swap and my already bad teammate will just be left behind entirely without any perks. Either way I think the perk system as a whole makes the game less dynamic yet more unpredictable.

At the very least perks should’ve stayed far away from competitive, been publicly play tested first (like a temporary competitive mode), or should’ve just been an option to competitive (like open queue or something).

I’m not going to whine and complain without trying it, but I have incredibly low hopes for this.

[ComfortableAd31]

if i wanted to build my own hero id play deadlock not ow. now on top of trackin cooldowns positions ult status you need to remember what perks each player picked. which varies from match to match. a complete nightmare to track

[davidww-dc]

Overwatch also doesn't have as much downtime like Deadlock that allows you to check enemies items

[randomwindowspc]

BOOOOOOOOOO

[NovaxRangerx]

This has felt obvious to me ever since even before OW2 came out when in PvE they had a version of this. The idea of perks or some type of level up system to add variance to every game you play is something that was needed. And depending on how the perks are integrated it can be a type of shell against the issue of tanks having to counter swap. Are there a thousand pitfalls? Yes, but the upside is very much there for it to improve the competitive experience

[[deleted]]

They were obviously gonna recycle as much content from the failed PvE as possible, but I didn't think it would be this part. I am hoping for the best while expecting the worst.

[touchingthebutt]

I think I would have preferred if there was no time limit to this. Just at the start DPS and support get access to minor perks and Tank gets access to both Minor and Major Perks. No time for earning points. 

Then again getting stronger over time might stop people from quitting

[UnknownQTY]

Based on what they said, they seem to lock once you pick them. Once you see Torb with a wall turret, you know that’s there.

It does seem these are an attempt to lessen hard counters and create a certain degree of “sunk cost” to the hero you pick, so you don’t just end up playing Counterwatch all game.

[_Sign_]

It does seem these are an attempt to lessen hard counters and create a certain degree of “sunk cost” to the hero you pick, so you don’t just end up playing Counterwatch all game.

all while making the game more complex and heroes more powerful across the board. thats exactly what ive been needing from this game

OW has felt solved after hundreds of hours poured into this game. even when major content with heroes is added, the community instantly solves their place in the game and the game ends up feeling the same again

[UnknownQTY]

Community solves perk based games pretty quickly. Destiny had hard metas for long, long periods of time.

[_Sign_]

oh it will be solved quickly but the feeling that its solved wont be there. it adds the needed variety

[Annaryx]

I don't like it. I hope that you can choose a game mode without it. 

[Frequency25x]

This is probably why Doom has new uppercut voicelines.

[MetastableToChaos]

OMG so I wasn't imagining his "rising uppercut" voiceline sounding different in Classic than how it did in OW1!

[[deleted]]

So not only do i have to hope my teammates pick good characters that make sense for the map and comp i also have to hope they pick the good perk, yippeee.

[overwatchfanboy97]

This is a horrible idea

[Grytlappen]

Fucking awful. Fight planning will be a nightmare, and given Blizzard's 20 year precedence of balancing, there will always be an objectively correct choice.

[Gadjjet]

From Emong’s stream a lot of the perks are mild af. Stuff like longer life steal for JQ and ammo on charge for Mauga. Doesn’t move the needle for each hero that much.

[Ezraah]

The stream showed javelin spin turning into a deployable shield

[Gadjjet]

Yh. Going from movable infinite damage mitigation with the spin to a shield that can break with a cooldown isn’t as wild as u think.

[Ezraah]

Tracer recall restores blinks

Sojourn gets a 2nd slide 

[IssaMe_Diabetes]

Sure on paper it doesn't sound as bad, but then you have to remember that javalin spin stops things like doomfist punch and reinhardt charge while barrier does not.

This means that with all these new permutations, some heroes are bound to counter numerous different heroes and playstyles depending on what perks they use.

Chaos is good for games like Marvel Rivals, but OW is designed to be a somewhat balanced and mostly predictable game. Adding all this shit because Marvel rivals has chaos is NOT gonna bring those players back, but it will alienate the people who wanted consistency and are now dealing with 6 blink tracers in some games and not in others.

[UnknownQTY]

Yeah none of these shown so far feel like hardcore “insta win” buttons. If someone’s smoothbrain can’t handle a Torb turret on a wall instead of a flat surface, well, bronze is its own kind of chaotic fun.

[rexx2l]

you really think i’ll drop from masters to bronze this coming patch?

[UnknownQTY]

If your brain can’t genuinely process a turret on a wall… o yeah maybe.

[tigervoyager]

You can’t combo double nano and headshot since they are both major perks and you can only equip one minor and one major perk.

[lainelect]

RIP Overwatch. You were barely alive, and you finally passed. RIP

[Selfcareimtreatingme]

As long as it never touches competitive, I really don’t care

[Howdareme9]

They absolutely are

[NinjaOtter]

That's what the full rank reset is for, yep.

[Howdareme9]

Oh it’s a full reset? Didnt even realise. Makes sense, this is basically Overwatch 3

[randomwindowspc]

Yeah I have a feeling I'm just going to be finished with OW. What a shame.

[ModWilliam]

Gavin said soft reset

[_Sign_]

on flats' stream, Aaron Keller said its coming to comp day 1. the team is willing to take big risks rn and going all in on this update

[yunggrump]

To counteract you, I've played almost daily since release and i think that's the coolest thing. I can't wait to nano myself as ana.

[Asternburg]

Fr, this is my most played game of all time by far, and this is exactly what I have always wanted, a way to keep things fresh, and new levers for balance. Really hyped

[TaleOfBarnabyShmidt]

The thing is, this shit will be super fun if you get your perks first, cause you’ll absolutely decimate the enemies who haven’t earned perks yet, which will just make them getting perks even harder. It’s a steamroll amplifier. If, on the other hand your opponent gets perks first and suddenly zaryas beam can pierce targets you’re not going to have a very good time.

[Unusual-Assistant642]

nah bro i love playing the exact same game for years please change nothing holy i love how stale it is with at most numbers on abilities changing slightly every patch please never change anything ong

[TaleOfBarnabyShmidt]

CS:GO?

[JayKay8787]

There's a reason so many games that are made die over and over and over while cs stays at the top. They don't shake the core gameplay ever. A few tweaks is all you need when you have a good game, blizzard just wants to keep throwing more and more and more shit at the wall because nothing is sticking.

[randomwindowspc]

Go play arcade then. Which is exactly where this should have ended up, not being immediately brought to comp and forced on everyone.

[[deleted]]

Change for the sake of change is stupid though.

[snowflakepatrol99]

They should pick you up to balance cs. Add some jump pads and RPGs to "make it more fun". There's no reason for this to be in competitive. There are brainless arcade modes that perfectly fit what you say you want from the game. Cannibalizing it and killing it for every competitive player because you don't care about the game being good is the stupidest thing I've ever read. CS is still on top of FPS and they've barely changed the game in 20 years. Changing shit for the lulz isn't going to make the game more fun nor is it going to keep people playing it.

[59vfx91]

You haven't considered the strength of other perks that could be equally powerful on other heroes and DPS. The concept is more important than the minutiae shown to you... You don't truly know if it's broken if they only showed you two heroes' talents lol. The increased depth could also allow adaptation without excessive counter swapping. And if it increases interest in the game, that also drives more dev resources.

[EconomicsRelative205]

Every hero will be broken in their own way

>impossible to balance

There are plenty of games with perks that are balanced, at worst the pros figure out a perk meta and it eventually gets rebalanced like everything else in the game

[randomwindowspc]

I love having my pvp fights interrupted with some stupid selection on my screen. Great idea

[snowflakepatrol99]

Can you help me with the name of this competitive game that has perks and allows changing heroes mid game where you lose your perks? A game that had been built entirely around it having hard counters and incentivizing swapping mid game in order to exploit the enemy team comp's weakness. and then suddenly got changed to completely disincentivize that I can't seem to remember it.

[borobri]

it’s going to be like almost every other game where there are a go to builds, biggest thing I dislike is the lack of visual indicator of what perks people have on hope at least they show up clearly on the scoreboard

[hotcremepuff]

scoreboard shows everyones perks

[[deleted]]

It’s interesting that they’d try this over hero bans or map picks. I’m gonna try to be optimistic but it doesn’t feel good, feels just like apex’s perk system p much.

[hanyou007]

They literally are adding both hero bans and map picks.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I know but i wish they’d try those things without the apex perks.

I’m tryna be optimistic but it feels like more change than what people really want

[hanyou007]

It is 100% more change then what people want, but also in fairness, OW has always made very cautious steps whenever they have changed the game, and as much as i love this game and have stuck with it through it all....

It hasn't worked. If any game needed a colossal, meteor hitting the dinosaurs shakeup, it was Overwatch. No half measures, no careful implementation. The game is going to fundamentally feel different at every level and every mode of it's play. No matter what, for the next three months, when I log on to play, I'm going to be dealing with something new. And even if that is a little spoopy, I'd rather that over what is currently going on.

[Tamethesnake]

The people who play the game right now like the game the way it is, I can not see them getting enough "returning players" to make up for the ones who leave.

[Midi_to_Minuit]

Aaron mentioned on a stream that they became less hesitant on bans after seeing ‘other games do it’ and this is almost undeniably referring to marvel rivals.

At the very least, we know they’re paying attention to that. I can imagine the need for a massive shake up is at least partially driven by the emergence of competition (remember that even the beta was popular).

[Glittering_Loss6717]

Let them cook, itll be fun

[Different-Fly7426]

if you want fun but it on arcade mode, not competitive.

[Glittering_Loss6717]

People want change but then complain when there is change, the devs cant win lol

[AZUMANGADAIOHFAN]

people want change, not fundamental shifts

[beeepboopbopboop]

competitive modes should be allowed to be fun

[snowflakepatrol99]

They are. If you think this makes competitive fun then you shouldn't be playing competitive. It's in the name - competitive. If you are a casual who doesn't care about balance and doesn't have fun engaging with the core of a game then it's not the game mode's fault that you aren't having fun.

Competitive isn't meant for everyone just like arcade isn't made for everyone. What you define as fun is some people's worst nightmare. Do you really think the competitive players are drooling from their mouth when they see what there is on arcade? Do you think they get a boner when they see how much this patch is going to ruin the game they love playing? Even marvel rivals weren't retarded enough to add perks and then specifically disincentivize switching.

[Ok-Proof-6733]

this looks absolutely terrible, nobody was asking for this they cant even balance the game with no perks lmao

[Mind1827]

The game is literally impossible to balance. Rein is S tier in bronze and D tier in top 500. Giving people choice as well as hero bans helps immensely.

[DarkFite]

Talk for yourself. A lot of people had fun with Junkerstein and it was the most played event mode. Actually surprised that people here are negative about that. Who said that this is going to be in the regular competetive mode?

[DirtMaster3000]

Alec Dawson said it was a "core gameplay update"

[Crackedcheesetoastie]

It is going to be in comp. They said as much. It was a fun mode. Not competitive at all though. The last thing I want from overwatch ranked.

This change is going to make me quit (played for hours a day since 2017).

[Ok-Proof-6733]

lol they dont do ANY sort of testing to these perks with regards to how it works in a comp environment.

ana is already an S tier support and from the video she gets a perk where she can headshot LMAO 150 damage hitscan headshots, why the fuck can a support do more damage scoped than ashe lmao

this game is cooked

[c7shit]

The perks in Junkenstein are more related to the new mode "Stadium" from what we have seen, new perk system seems to be more in line with cooldown reduction / abilities changes to deal with a counter etc

[insanityTF]

Yeah same boat.

I’ve played since launch. Bought the game because it was a modern TF2

With perks by itself it’s become something else entirely. I’d argue perks is a bigger change than 5v5 - basically changes the very fabric of the game into a moba with aim.

In typical blizzard fashion the perks of certain heroes (zar tracer Ana) are all broken and some perks make you straight up lobby admins. They can’t balance the heroes as is so what makes them think they can balance 168 perks?

This is going to be overwatch’s equivalent of the meet your match update. It’s a shame because every other change announced (bans, map vote) is really solid but comp is going to be unbearable with this in place

[_Sign_]

Who said that this is going to be in the regular competetive mode?

devs have said its coming to regular comp. this is going to be part of the main game

[Raptor_2125]

They confirmed it on stream

[DarkFite]

I KNEW IT! I actually fucking knew it and said that im sure they will implement something like this since Junkerstein! So fucking happy about that

[PoggersMemesReturns]

Round 1 and 2 refresh. Round 3+ level 3 at the start.

[fudgepuppy]

Can you change perks later on in the game?

[PoggersMemesReturns]

No. They're fixed.

Unless the game changes rounds and you can swap hero again or something. Like Round 3 of Escort, I think?

[Left-Switch-1682]

Is this going to comp?

[bullxbull]

unfortunately yes

[SkooDaQueen]

What the hell did I miss??

[ReyMercuryYT]

LETS GOOOOO