Some Quality of Life Changes
Deeper Stat Tracking
In its current form, Overwatch has a pretty extensive stat tracking when compared to most shooters, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better. Compared to most MOBAs, it could be considered lacking.
The biggest issue of stat tracking is the lack of surface level info about hero damage. We shouldn’t have to look up a video or wiki to know how much Symmetra’s photon blast deals per second. This doesn’t sound like an addition that’d take much time or muscle, but we won’t presume to know where this ranks on Blizzard’s to-do list.
Expanded Dialogue Wheel
This is less of a thing for PC players with a constant text chat at their fingertips, but working with the limited dialogue wheel in Overwatch can often leave you wishing there was a better option in there that represented what you’re trying to say.
Of course, Blizzard doesn’t want to add insults or really anything that can be construed as negging to the wheel, but there are some key commands that aren’t satisfied by the game’s automatic callouts. The biggest one that comes to mind is an option to say “Let’s get on the payload” or “Defend our point.”
You’d like to believe a team-based shooter that only gives you one objective at a given time wouldn’t need this said so often, but it does, and a place on the wheel to make that known to players (especially on console, where it’s the only non-voice means of communication) could do a lot of good.
New Heroes
A New Big Healer
Months ago, we were introduced to Overwatch’s first new hero, Ana, a lovable sniper mom who heals as well as she kills. She’s a load of fun once you learn her quirks, but she feels more comparable to Zenyatta as a reliable source of health than the “big” healer picks in Lucio and Mercy.
Suffice to say, when the team is only stacked to have one healer, it always feels more appropriate to count on Lucio and Mercy than Ana and Zen. We’d like that dynamic to change in 2017, and the simplest way would be a new healer that ranks as a “big healer” in Overwatch.
“But we already have a new healer! We could get other new types of characters first.” Yes! A new big healer would be great to have, but other areas of the roster need some love too! Which leads us to…
A New Airborne Hero
There’s really only one way to say this: Pharah feels lonely up in the sky all by herself! With every map designed with high ceilings and open spaces that work for her toolset, she shouldn’t be the only hero enjoying flight.
We envision some cool possibilities for another airborne hero, like one that specializes in melee and slamming down from the sky to score eliminations, or even a deadly sniper that must hover in place to draw their weapon.
Terry Crews as Doomfist
Terry Crews is a self-professed fan of Overwatch, so much so that Blizzard invited him down to the studio for the day. Crews’ visit and his comments from last month saying he’d like to play Doomfist in the game has sparked a lot of obvious theory crafting that he will indeed play the hero, and that’s a pretty damn awesome possibility.
It’s not really known what kind of hero Doomfist would manifest as in practice, but his size would certainly assume that of a tank. We’ll have to see if Blizzard has him ready for fans in 2017.
New Ways to Play
A More Permanent PvE Mode
After Blizzard’s successful experiment with wave-based survival during the Halloween seasonal event, we’d love to see them expand on those ideas and add the mode into the Arcade.
If they wanted to add more features, there are loads of fantastic survival modes to pull the best bits from, like Halo Firefight or Gears of War’s Horde. It’d also be a fun way to earn a few extra loot boxes each week, assuming they’d be included.
A Wider Breadth of Game Modes
What’s really great about Overwatch’s current lineup of maps/modes is that they truly feel balanced and varied, which is something most multiplayer games can’t pull off in their first incarnation. Blizzard does this by not only putting a lot of care into map design, but also designing each map around one (and only one) game mode.
This means that Hollywood is a Payload map, Hanamura is an Assault map, and never the two shall mix. The problem this creates is a general lack of new modes, since it’s not as simple as “try this mode we adapted to other maps.” If Blizzard is ever to add more than its handful of modes, this also means more maps.
So in 2017, we’d like to see Overwatch try something new in its game modes, like a capture mode that involves dynamically taking objectives back from the other team. This also means maps that could feel dramatically different from what we have right now.
Some Key Smaller Fixes
As for some smaller issues that Blizzard should deal with in the short-term, the biggest one is by far the current state of Roadhog’s hook. Even though the developer has stated the hook is working as intended, a gigantic portion of the community has returned with “okay, that’s not a good thing.”
We love the pudgy oaf as much as anyone, but his hook should not be allowed to travel through walls. That’s bad. Nope.
We’d also like to see some more love for healers in competitive. Blizzard has made some strides to make sure support roles are sufficiently awarded at the end of a competitive match, but the current curve still makes it much easier to climb ranks as a more aggressive pick. This is something that will surely be addressed, but it’s a bummer that it’s been an ongoing issue heading into competitive’s third season.
Another tweak that feels inevitable but still worth mentioning is Sombra. She’s a lot of fun, but her current play style places her somewhere around Tracer without all the cool mobility. Sure, hacking players and medkits is incredibly useful for herself and the team, but her combat strategy feels trumped by Tracer in almost every way. We’d like to see her tweaked to stand out from the crowd and be a more effective fighter in the future.
About the author
