Overwatch marks a new low in Unlocking and Microtransaction systems that I'm aware of

bigdaddygamebot said:
Marks a new low in microtransaction systems?

clearly needs to play more games.

Try Dead Space 3. An IP that they dismantled entirely for the sake of promoting their lottery-loot boxes.

Or Mass Effect 3 multiplayer.


Or countless other games that do it far...far worse for much more than simple cosmetics. OP...mad as a hatter you is.
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He needs to play the one he's complaining about first. It's almost absurd to me that he'd write an essay about a game he hasn't played. I imagine he gets up in the morning and looks at what's hot and then thinks about how he can shit on it, for what reason I don't know. If all MT systems were this fair we'd all be a lot better off.
 
Avallon said:
Did OP even play this game or is he just looking for a reason to bitch?

Those screenshots are from Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann, not the OP.
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Quite a few of the people complaining in this thread have admittedly not played it.

I sometimes think people enjoy being outraged over nothing.
 
Coffee Dog said:
"But it's fun" doesnt dispute the fact that the unlock system of the game is all about sinking time into it to obtain currency to obtain minor unlockables. It just so happens that in this case, you are having fun grinding out that money because you think overwatch is fun. And that's fine, because that is how many modern games work, hence why i brought up phone games. One man's grind is another man's 1000 hour game that they spend $40 in microtransactions on.
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You assume everyone "grinds" for the unlockables or spends money on them.

I just play the game.

Not everything has to be some capitalist scam trying to snare millennials.
 
Coffee Dog said:
"But it's fun" doesnt dispute the fact that the unlock system of the game is all about sinking time into it to obtain currency to obtain minor unlockables. It just so happens that in this case, you are having fun grinding out that money because you think overwatch is fun. And that's fine, because that is how many modern games work, hence why i brought up phone games. One man's grind is another man's 1000 hour game that they spend $40 in microtransactions on.
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Hey yo Cofee Dog, truestatic had the best response and you seemed to have missed it:

truestatic said:
The problem is that you're looking at the game as something you have to do in order to get cosmetics. On the contrary, the cosmetics are just a minor, fun byproduct of playing the game.

This is a terrible game to play if its primary appeal for you is collecting the cosmetics. If that's the angle of attack you're taking on this problem, then I really don't think this game is for you. The game is supposed to be innately fun and rewarding. The unlockables are just gravy.
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Coffee Dog said:
"But it's fun" doesnt dispute the fact that the unlock system of the game is all about sinking time into it to obtain currency to obtain minor unlockables. It just so happens that in this case, you are having fun grinding out that money because you think overwatch is fun. And that's fine, because that is how many modern games work, hence why i brought up phone games. One man's grind is another man's 1000 hour game that they spend $40 in microtransactions on.
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This is an argument about the quality of the game then though and really doesn't have anything at all to do with microtransactions.

People aren't playing Overwatch to get the "minor unlockables" (Well, some people probably are, but that isn't why its popular). People aren't playing to "grind for money." People are playing the game because they enjoy playing it, and they happen to get something additional out of that play time.

Edit: Ha, agreed with what was quoted above me.
 
Vince McMahon said:
Thing is those were great systems,and worked!

Love ME3's multi so much. SO much.
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For Dead Space 3...if you mean their micro-transaction format was a vessel for gutting their IP...then yes. It worked excellently.

As for ME3...I'm not talking about the multiplayer game itself which was fun enough but the blind loot boxes you could/needed to purchase in order to unlock new characters etc was pretty damn ruthless.
 
Japanmanx3 said:
I don't even know how to even use the sprays honestly and I've unlocked tons of them already. Does that break the lore? Haha haha. This thread is an aneurysm waiting to happen.
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Up on D-pad if you're on consoles. It's super dumb stuff. People only use it during the preparation section most of the time.
 
Bulzeeb said:
see that command that says "voice line" yeah thats the only one, a single line that gets spammed at start of the game that serves no purpose other than spamming for attention.
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Are you sure this isn't a crucial piece of character development, in a team based shooter?
 
St3v3 said:
He needs to play the one he's complaining about first. It's almost absurd to me that he'd write an essay about a game he hasn't played. I imagine he gets up in the morning and looks at what's hot and then thinks about how he can shit on it, for what reason I don't know. If all MT systems were this fair we'd all be a lot better off.
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Ha...I didn't know that he hasn't even played the game. I'm terrible at Overwatch. I'm around level 14 and I am sitting on 600 "Overwatch Bucks"

I can't help but think that if I really wanted the additional audio lines then I could start purchasing them without much grind at all.
 
the voice lines don't even make sense as spammable taunts most of the time.

the only ones that really work to rile people up are "a-mei-zing!" and "KEEP CLAM AND TRACER ON!"

but again,no one uses any emotes or sprays or voice lines outside the spawn room.

I have never once seen a spray in the actual level.
You can't really make out voice lines cause you are busy listening to other things.
And an emote locks you in place which means you are usually dead or no one looks at you anyway.
And if you want to use it for the killcam, no one watches the killcam ever. You skip it immediately and go back to the game.

This thread makes no sense.
 
Coffee Dog said:
"But it's fun" doesnt dispute the fact that the unlock system of the game is all about sinking time into it to obtain currency to obtain minor unlockables. It just so happens that in this case, you are having fun grinding out that money because you think overwatch is fun. And that's fine, because that is how many modern games work, hence why i brought up phone games. One man's grind is another man's 1000 hour game that they spend $40 in microtransactions on.
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How is this no different than "grinding" for coins in Smash (Which, might I add, you earn while playing the game on your own time... which wouldn't be grinding at all? Grinding would entail that there is a grind--a chore to the method. But you're earning these by simply playing on your own time and having fun.) for a chance at a random trophy?
 
notaskwid said:
So, how are microtransactions any better than those options?
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If Overwatch had no microtransactions the team would now be a skeleton crew working on balance and server issues while the rest work on paid DLC or Overwatch 2.

With microtransactions the dev team stays in place and continues to work on free content for the current game.

Seems like a fair trade off to me.
 
SocksAndShoes said:
You assume everyone "grinds" for the unlockables or spends money on them.

I just play the game.

Not everything has to be some capitalist scam trying to snare millennials.
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This is exactly what I was thinking. I just play the game, open loot boxes as I get them, spend credits as I get them on a skin I want. I don't really care that much about the cosmetics because I enjoy the actual gameplay so much.
 
St3v3 said:
But why do you even care if you don't play the game? Do you just go out of your way to find things to be upset about?
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Because it bums me out? Because it might result in more games locking away speech? Because if were to play Overwatch i would be displeased with speech being locked?

Jebusman said:
Locking voice lines behind a grind is silly, I am not going to debate that.

It's not the end of the fucking world.
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You don't need to lock speech to make money. Blizzard will be making money of skins and other stuff to finance continued development of the game. Stop making it an all or nothing situation. Blizzard could have 'spared' speech from the unlocking treadmill.

And like i said, i know how paradoxical i sound. Gameplay unlocks are garbage but you could see it coming or how some devs would chose it. Who the heck saw speech unlocks coming? Who thought these characterization and 'personalitization' voice lines as something too add to the unlocking process. Blizzard went there. They went somewhere no one thought existed.

Gipsy Danger said:
The lines are literally just a bit of fun. You equip them like you do skins. You can only have 1 at a time and they mean nothing. The game still has a ton of voice acting in it, both useful and superfluous. It isn't a lore issue because you can just preview the lines in game. This is no different than Dota 2 locking taunts behind a paywall. This thread can't be real.
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It's great there's speech that's freely available but it's also bad there's speech that is locked away. The quality of locked lines or how you like them are not the issue.
 
aeolist said:
oh my god tracer is so bad

i keep thinking she can't get any worse and then she does
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that is why she is the best.
a character with insane strengths, barely any weaknesses and the most annoying personality and voice you can think of.

EVER HAD THAT FEELING OF DEJA VU???
 
notaskwid said:
Imagine for a second that they were unlocked from the start, or you could insert some sort of cheat code to unlock them.
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People always say this but always fail to provide a actual example of one of them "old-school games that had cheats and skins for everything" that has even 1/10 of the cosmetic content this game has.
 
p3n said:
Well, it makes sense from a business perspective. They just can't sell skins and voice/spray packs for offensive prices like in Heroes of the Storm. See, only a handful of skins are even worth buying as the rest are just lazy re-colors - it simply wouldn't work.

Instead they make you buy 50 loot boxes for the EU-equivalent of $45 which, on average, will get you 2.5 epic and 0.5 legendary "loot" items. So a single legendary skin nets them $90 on average. That is amazing.
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I spent 5 bucks and got 2 legendaries and a bunch of epics! Ahhhh.

Also the speech thing is getting a bit overblown, they still have voice lines and they still quip. You are literally complaining about a line like "No, I do not want a banana." being locked away by RNG. You're not getting any character development that.
 
Klyka said:
that is why she is the best.
a character with insane strengths, barely any weaknesses and the most annoying personality and voice you can think of.

EVER HAD THAT FEELING OF DEJA VU???
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they just need to add U WOT M8 and SWARE ON ME MUM and she'll be a perfect black hole of obnoxious overdone english stereotypes
 
Saty said:
It's great there's speech that's freely available but it's also bad there's speech that is locked away. The quality of locked lines or how you like them are not the issue.
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It's not locked away though, you can listen to them from the menu.

If you want to use them ingame though, you need to unlocked them.

They add literally nothing to the game though, I'd suggest keeping your currency for cool looking skins.

A lot of your misconceptions seem to stem from not having played the game.
 
Saty said:
Because it bums me out? Because it might result in more games locking away speech? Because if were to play Overwatch i would be displeased with speech being locked?


You don't need to lock speech to make money. Blizzard will be making money of skins and other stuff to finance continued development of the game. Stop making it an all or nothing situation. Blizzard could have 'spared' speech from the unlocking treadmill.

And like i said, i know how paradoxical i sound. Gameplay unlocks are garbage but you could see it coming or how some devs would chose it. Who the heck saw speech unlocks coming? Who thought these characterization and 'personalitization' voice lines as something too add to the unlocking process. Blizzard went there. They went somewhere no one thought existed.



It's great there's speech that's freely available but it's also bad there's speech that is locked away. The quality of locked lines or how you like them are not the issue.
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On a certain level, I appreciate your commitment to this outrage that you seem to have, but take a breath, step back, and look at why you're trying so hard to get other people riled up about this. They are all two to three word lines. They do nothing to actually fill out any of the characters. You get currency a quick enough rate that unlocking all of them, if you really care that much, shouldn't take long at all.

Smile more and try to aim that righteous fury at something worth getting upset over.
 
This is definitely going to go down as one of the worst complaint threads GAF has ever had. So much false indignation is hilarious.
 
I don't like the microtransactions being there (I'd much rather support development with one time purchases of new content) but an all time low? Not really.
 
Saty said:
Because it bums me out? Because it might result in more games locking away speech? Because if were to play Overwatch i would be displeased with speech being locked?
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You can listen to the lines on the character profile. Also, with probably 4-5 hours of play you can unlock all your favorite lines with in-game currency.

I get you are taking some sort of principled stance here but you are totally making a mountain out of molehill. And you would know that if you actually bothered to play the game.
 
It takes way too long between loot crates, and I feel like its even harder to accumulate currency. I'm at level 26 and only have 450 "overcoins," or whatever they're called.

STILL. If this is how they plan to support the game for free (hint: judging by the other games that do the same thing, I'm sure it is) then I'm okay with it. But its very unsatisfying.

I look forward to the update in 6-12 months that boosts the rate of loot acquisition.
 
i dont think blizzard blind fans will be able to see this as a complaint. i bet they see it as a great thing and the greatest f2p cosmetic system ever made.
 
We're seriously complaining about cosmetic microtransactions and how they're executed now?

Nobody needs cosmetic items. If you're that obsessed with getting them all, then that's on you.

The microtransactions in Overwatch are fine for any sane person.
 
pantsmith said:
It takes way too long between loot crates, and I feel like its even harder to accumulate currency. I'm at level 26 and only have 450 "overcoins," or whatever they're called.

STILL. If this is how they plan to support the game for free (hint: judging by the other games that do the same thing, I'm sure it is) then I'm okay with it. But its very unsatisfying.

I look forward to the update in 6-12 months that boosts the rate of loot acquisition.
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I'm sure they plan on adding loot crate drops as incentives to try arcade, try new modes, do daily quests, etc.
 
Coffee Dog said:
"But it's fun" doesnt dispute the fact that the unlock system of the game is all about sinking time into it to obtain currency to obtain minor unlockables. It just so happens that in this case, you are having fun grinding out that money because you think overwatch is fun. And that's fine, because that is how many modern games work, hence why i brought up phone games. One man's grind is another man's 1000 hour game that they spend $40 in microtransactions on.
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Why would you give a shit about minor unlockables in a game you don't enjoy putting time into?

Move on.
 
Carlius said:
i dont think blizzard blind fans will be able to see this as a complaint. i bet they see it as a great thing and the greatest f2p cosmetic system ever made.
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This person is saying all the things everyone else is too afraid to say. Grab your broad brushes people! Start painting!
 
Carlius said:
i dont think blizzard blind fans will be able to see this as a complaint. i bet they see it as a great thing and the greatest f2p cosmetic system ever made.
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I've played maybe 3 hours of Blizzard games before this, and it's easily one of the best implementations of "microtransactions" I've ever seen.

But what do I know, right? I'm just one of those crazy blind blizzard fans!
 
BernardoOne said:
People always say this but always fail to provide a actual example of one of them "old-school games that had cheats and skins for everything" that has even 1/10 of the cosmetic content this game has.
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Or that has to deal with server, bandwidth and continuous development of free content.
 
The general responses here are very... Interesting. Looks like Overwatch is in fact getting a free pass by some people.
 
Saty said:
You don't need to lock speech to make money. Blizzard will be making money of skins and other stuff to finance continued development of the game. Stop making it an all or nothing situation. Blizzard could have 'spared' speech from the unlocking treadmill.

And like i said, i know how paradoxical i sound. Gameplay unlocks are garbage but you could see it coming or how some devs would chose it. Who the heck saw speech unlocks coming? Who thought these characterization and 'personalitization' voice lines as something too add to the unlocking process. Blizzard went there. They went somewhere no one thought existed.
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You know what? They could've. They also could've arbitrarily spared any number of systems away from the unlock treadmill. They ALSO could've abritrarily added yet more systems into the unlock treadmill.

I do not think it's a radical idea that they would lock certain taunting voice quips behind the treadmill because at the end of the day they need everything they can to subsidize the future development of this game. While I think we can all assume Blizzard is going to make their money back on this, at the same time we have to think about how this all started. Is Overwatch not sort of the remnants of the failed Project Titan? How many years and money was thrown away on all this during that time? And then they come out and still say "Oh by the way all future maps/characters will be free for people who bought the game". They needed every little thing that they could nickle and dime to make the risk assessement of this work, while still not crossing the line into "Direct gameplay affecting unlocks". And very likely, even something as dumb as voice taunts got stuck in there too.

That's all it is. I personally would love to live in a world where MTAs didn't exist. But I don't think we can reasonably expect a company the size and scope of Blizzard to function on just the game sale alone anymore. Especially if they plan on continuing to develop/support the game. MTAs are a necessary evil to keep the bloated triple A machine alive. Making them affect as many non gameplay affecting things we can is the best case scenario we can get.

Either that, or be willing to accept an overall increase in the upfront cost of a video game from this point on.

If anything this should be more of a criticism of how AAA games need to function to survive. The kind of money they need to bring in just to be successful/break even. Development costs go wildly up, but the upfront cost of games isn't changing enough to compensate. MTAs are the compromise.
 
Microtransactions are ubiquitous to point where if they weren't in Overwatch, there would be a vocal minority asking for them to be included. And it makes all the sense in the world for Blizzard to accommodate. I am having a really easy time ignoring the option.
 
DR2K said:
The general responses here are very... Interesting. Looks like Overwatch is in fact getting a free pass by some people.
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It's really not. There is no issue to begin with. OP has taken an incredibly minor complaint and tried to turn it into an example of bad microtransactions, when there are 1000+ better examples on the market right now.

This is what happens when you make a thread and you don't know what you're talking about.
 
Carlius said:
i dont think blizzard blind fans will be able to see this as a complaint. i bet they see it as a great thing and the greatest f2p cosmetic system ever made.
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Never played any blizzard game before in my life though.

You can think what you want about microtransactions, that's completely fine and understandable, but I can't take seriously anyone playing games in 2016 that claims this is a new low.
 
Just scrap out all the "voice lines" from the game already then
except winky face and a-mei-zing ofc
. It's silly they're unlockables, but far from a "new low".
I'm already happy with the ones that really matter to the game lore, compiled here and with no purchase needed.

pantsmith said:
I look forward to the update in 6-12 months that boosts the rate of loot acquisition.
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Then by the time they raise the loot acquisition rate, they'll have already doubled the amount of unlocks!
 
DR2K said:
The general responses here are very... Interesting. Looks like Overwatch is in fact getting a free pass by some people.
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Did you pick up the season pass?
 
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