After deciding on the next game, Chen Mo started writing the design concept for Overwatch.
As a competitive game, Overwatch didn't have a lot of content. Whether it was the number of heroes, skills, map elements, or other aspects, it was lacking compared to the big games.
In Chen Mo's plan, the first version of Overwatch was as follows:
In terms of heroes, the initial 22 heroes would be released, followed by new heroes after Black Shadow.
In terms of maps, twelve maps would be released, Eichenwald and later maps would be closed.
This was mainly to ensure the most basic gaming experience for the players. If the content was cut down any further, it would be too little, and the gameplay would be greatly affected.
Apart from that, some of the more important systems needed to be done, such as training mode, hero skins, loot boxes, outstanding performance, social interaction, career overview, options, etc.
The rest were changes to the game, with the biggest change coming from the game's modes.
Chen Mo had thought about this a lot.
Strictly speaking, Overwatch wasn't a particularly successful competitive game. In terms of game balance, player retention, tournament viewing, popularity, and many other aspects, Overwatch was much worse than Dota, LOL, and CSGO.
Apart from the tournament aspect, Overwatch had many flaws when it came to the player's gaming experience.
One of the core problems was that this was a game that tried to eliminate negative feedback, but the players received more negative feedback than most other games.
The players were very excited when they first came into contact with this game. They felt that everything was perfect, but after playing for a long time, they felt a deep sense of powerlessness.
For many players, a question that they didn't understand was, what should I do to win when my teammates aren't good enough?
What should I do to become stronger?
In terms of gameplay, Overwatch inherited the gameplay of Legion Fortress 2, but it faced a problem that Legion Fortress 2 didn't face.
If it was just a niche game, both Legion Fortress 2 and Overwatch could do well. However, what if they wanted to replace MOBAs and spread this new game model to the entire world, becoming one of the mainstream games?
It was too difficult.
There were many reasons for this, but the core reason was that Overwatch itself wasn't a mature game model, and Blizzard didn't have the ability to make it perfect.
Overwatch was a skill-based FPS game, combining both MOBAs and FPSes, but at the same time, there were many new problems.
Due to the different roles and skills of the heroes, the counters between the different heroes were too obvious. For example, Genji was naturally countered by Winston, which was something that couldn't be made up for with skill. This went against the habits of FPSes.
In FPSes, as long as your shooting was good enough, you could solve most problems, but that wasn't the case in Overwatch.
At the same time, because Overwatch's main gameplay was FPS, even the slightest changes to the numbers would have severe consequences. Therefore, the balance of heroes was much more difficult than in MOBA games, which directly led to the slow update of new heroes and the rigid lineup in high-end games.
At the same time, Blizzard's preferred "Warrior, Mage, and Priest" iron triangle also reduced the fun of the game.
Overwatch was a game that relied heavily on the team. Therefore, some heroes that could provide a lot of benefits to the team, such as Reinhardt, Anna, and Lucio, were very popular. No matter how they were played, they would still be popular. On the other hand, heroes that could not provide benefits to the team, such as Black Lily, Hanzo, and so on, would not be accepted by the team even if the player's skill was high.
To put it simply, it was the same 6v6, but all the heroes had a score of 1 point. Some heroes had a total of 6 points, while others had a total of 100 points.
At the same time, the competitive mode also accelerated the exploration and development of this game mode. Most players would force their side to choose the best lineup in order to win, which led to hero discrimination even before the match began.
You chose to rebuild the empire? I don't care if you play well or not, I'll spit on you first.
('Rebuild the empire' was an Easter Egg that was triggered when Hanzo and Black Lily were chosen at the same time. These two heroes were similar to Snipers, which gave almost zero benefits to the team. Therefore, many players believed that they would not win if they chose them.)
That was why the 303,402 lineup was so popular, causing the game to lose the fun of both MOBA and FPS games. In addition to that, the slow update time, the low number of players caused by the buyout threshold, the unreasonable competitive mode, and many other problems caused the popularity of the game to quickly fade.
For Chen Mo, what he needed to do was to keep the strengths of Overwatch while avoiding the weaknesses as much as possible, allowing the game to have a longer lifespan in VR.
The core idea behind the changes was to completely abandon the competitive mode, making Overwatch more of an entertainment game.
Specifically, he didn't want to open up the ladder system, nor do any tournaments.
It might seem like a ridiculous move, but it was the result of Chen Mo's careful consideration. While making Warcraft and LoL, Chen Mo was very clear on how important the ladder and ranked system was to competitive games. It could be said that for LoL, high-level tournaments were an important part of it, and only an idiot wouldn't do it.
However, for Overwatch, the ladder system and tournaments didn't have that much of an effect, and instead had a negative impact on the game.
In Chen Mo's previous life, Overwatch's tournaments were also very popular, but there were two problems that couldn't be solved.
The first was the viewing factor. This was similar to other FPS games, a small problem that couldn't be solved.
The second was the choice of lineup. Professional players would find that 222 or 303 was the best lineup under the current mechanics of the game. Some heroes just couldn't be played, and some heroes were basically useless.
This trend would quickly spread from competitive matches to high level matches, and then to the fish pond, affecting the players' evaluation of heroes. In the end, it would lead to a situation where 'rebuilding the empire will lead to criticism'.
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