Okay, so I have tried putting up this post on Overwatch general discussions page in hopes of someone from Blizzard reading it, but there were so many posts at the time that my post just immediately got pushed back.
So here's my second attempt. This time on Over.gg. Maybe if my ideas make sense, it will get attention from other Overwatch fans and get Blizzard's attention. Even if not, maybe this will start a discussion for people with bright ideas for better future of Overwatch. So here it goes.
I believe the main problem of Overwatch is that it depends so much on who you get as your teammates. Yes, over time, you will be matched with a better team about 50% of time. But it is so frustrating when you lose just because you are matched with a weaker team. Also, it is not as fun when you win just because you simply had stronger teammates.
This is why Blizzard tried hard to come up with a good match-making system, but I think many people will agree that it is far from being excellent. Getting to 50% win-rate once MMR stabilize is not necessarily a good indication that match-making is working properly. It only means that you get a good enough team to win a match 50% of the time. I would love to be able to win when I play well and lose when I don’t (with respect to my skill rating).
I am NOT here to say a better match-making system is necessary as I understand that it is very tricky to improve. I believe the solution I am here to suggest will eliminate the need for a better match-making system. I believe it will even solve the issues related to trolls and hacks.
I have two suggestions to solve the problem of the Overwatch being so dependent on who you get for your team.
First, get a clan system (with a way to rate members of the clan)
I know this has been mentioned before. But I think Blizzard is underestimating the importance of this. Just because of the nature of the Overwatch, good teammates and good teamwork is essential for winning, and for that reason, it would make sense to be able to choose who you get on your team. Yes, that is why we have a group system. HOWEVER, unless you are part of a pro or semi-pro team or have a bunch of close friends who play Overwatch, finding a fine group of teammates is not always easy to do. Even the pros don’t seem to utilize the group system as they should. It would make sense for them to group up with their whole team and practice team strategies, but it is very rare for that to happen because that is considered as “almost cheating” to some people. We really need to encourage people to use group system far more than people do now, and having a clan system will certainly help with that. Yes, it would be very difficult for a group of amateur players to beat pro teams, but a good clan system will help amateurs practice team games more, which will benefit the Overwatch E-sport in the future as well.
It would not require anything fancy. People will be able to search for teammates to group up with more easily with something as simple as a clan chat. Having a separate tab to view the members of the clan who are online will also help. Along with this, if there is a way to rate teammates after each match, clans will be able to distinguish players who tend to be cooperative from the ones who likes to troll if things don’t work the way they want. This rating system will also help to eliminate hacks and trolls from the game as people will need to play cooperatively for a long period of time to build a good reputation.
Finding a good teammate doesn’t only depend on finding a cooperative player, but it also depends on finding a player with compatible hero pool. One problem people often neglect related to current random matching system is that it matches players only based on skill rating. But having a team with six DPS main players certainly is not same as having a team with balanced hero pool. Yes, it is important to be able to play multiple heroes to be flexible, but some people simply are better or enjoy one role over others. It would be much more enjoyable to play Overwatch if I can play what I enjoy the most.
Second, make it easier to carry a team with individual performance by tweaking the objectives a little
The second point is a little more complex, but I still think it shouldn’t be too difficult to accomplish. One of the FPS games that I enjoyed the most was “Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.” Although Wolfenstein is a very different game from Overwatch, it entails some of similar features to Overwatch: the game has players with different roles and have objectives that build up into a final game-finishing objective. One crucial difference was that it was possible to achieve the final objective without going through other objectives (these mini-objectives were not essential, but achieving them helped to get to the final objective more easily). Of course, it was very difficult to accomplish the final objective without most of the objectives accomplished because you needed a spy who stole enemy’s uniform along with an engineer who can install a dynamite to go through the enemy spawn without getting caught, and defend the dynamite from the opponents who can simply spawn very close to the final objective. But because of this option, even if your whole team is being beaten horribly in the front line, there was an option to “backdoor” with a few good teammates (sometimes even just by yourself).
The reason I am saying this is because one of the reasons it is so difficult to carry a team by individual performance in Overwatch is due to only having single objective (at a time) with pretty much single path to achieve that. For this reason, if your team is not putting a good focused effort into that objective, there is no way for you or part of your team to work around it. Why not tweak it a little? For example, for the capture and escort maps, why not make it possible to start moving the payload before capturing the point A? Of course, it would be very difficult to move it far as the enemy spawn is much closer to the payload, but getting on payload can force the opponents to come toward the payload and off from the capture point (assuming the initial payload location is changed to be a bit apart from the capture point). Who knows? Maybe setting up Bastion, Orissa, Reinhardt, etc on payload might allow one to move the payload far without capturing point A. Or maybe the defensive team will not notice the payload moving far and pull a C9. This change will most certainly allow more creative plays.
For escort maps, having several spawn points that teams can capture would be interesting. Currently, you need to push the payload a certain distance to get new spawn location, so if your team is not doing well pushing the payload, you have no other option but simply to try harder. What about having several spawn points you can capture like capture points? This way, if your team isn’t doing well at pushing payload, you can try going for capturing some spawn points to help the team. Again, more strategies, more interesting plays. Is it only better for offensive teams? Well, allowing the defensive teams to capture the spawn points back is certainly an option. This change will also lead to usage of more defensive heroes even on attack.
For capture point maps, simply allowing the attacking team to capture point B without having to capture point A would probably not work. Although it is harder with further spawn location without capturing point A, if the attacking team manages to set up at point B, it is quite a distance for defensive team to go back to defend. Maybe having more obstacles until point A is captured would be necessary for that to work. Also, making it take much longer to capture B without capturing point A is an option.
It won't let me write more. Maybe I reached maximum length? I will continue in comment.
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