Win Back The Crowd / Overwatch

• Almost no one was pleased by the second version of Competitive Mode. The single most reviled feature of it, the Sudden Death coin toss (which puts a team randomly on Attack or Defense) was announced to be removed in Season Two. In its place, Payload maps will incorporate the "time bank" system of Control maps, allowing teams to push a payload as far as they can with the time remaining.
• Another reviled feature of Competitive, the two-minute buffer on Final Attempts^note If a team finished a Control map with less than two minutes remaining, it was automatically boosted to two minutes for the Final Attempt is being reduced in half to one minute, and whatever amount of time is added from the buffer is also added to the other team as well, giving less of an advantage to a losing team.
• In the first Summer Games, the fact all event-based cosmetics were only attainable through loot boxes was reviled for being a cash grab on the part of Blizzard, since there would be no way to directly purchase loot with any currency whatsoever, meaning you just had to buy loot boxes for a chance at getting what you wanted, and only while the event was still going on. Starting with the later Halloween event, all event cosmetics are now purchasable with in-game coins, albeit at triple the normal price and only during the event.
  • When the same event came back the next year, it was also revealed that while new content will still be triple the normal price, this does not apply to older returning cosmetics, and their prices will be reduced to normal.
  • Similarly, after a massive outcry regarding the Anniversary event's treatment of loot boxes and its absurd dependence on the Random Number God, loot boxes were tweaked so that duplicates would be drastically reduced, and they'd give much more credits to use if they were to occur, giving players much-improved chances in order to get what they properly want (or at least not to get something you already have). Blizzard was so confident in the changes that they offered 5 free lootboxes in the PTR to test the algorithm changes, and the response has reported little to no duplicates even from high-level players.
• Many players were annoyed by team stacking in Quick Play, where there were no limits to how many people can choose one hero, and Competitive was the only way out, but that was the opposite extreme due to the serious nature of the mode. Blizzard responded by limiting the selection to one hero per team in Quick Play, just like in Competitive, and made a separate mode called "No Limits" in the new Arcade mode for those who want to stack.
• Arcade itself. After six months many players had been feeling the lack of variety, and Blizzard introduced Arcade to help alleviate it. In the place of Weekly Brawls, there are instead five permanent modes, including one that shuffles between Brawls every round. Reception to this was positive, though some are worried that it'll segregate the community too much. Additionally, Blizzard released the server browser, with gameplay modifiers allowing for an endless amount of different fan-made custom game modes (which even award XP in public/private games). Many players have taken as an assurance for the game's lasting replayability.
• For a while, Blizzard received backlash from the South Korean fanbase for not taking proper measures against the many hackers and cheaters in their region caused by the prominence of PC bangs, allowing those found and banned to create another account for free to wreak havoc all over again. Thankfully, Blizzard made it so starting mid-February 2017, you would have to play using your own Battle.net account in PC bangs, which drastically reduced the problem, and there was much rejoicing. The fact that Blizzard further enacted major legal action against cheat-makers (including an $8.5 million lawsuit against Bossland) served as the icing on the cake.
• The Assault gamemode (A.K.A. 2CP) is arguably the least-liked gamemode out of all of them. This is because of its high draw rate in Competitive matches^note It reached a staggering 18% draw rate on Hanamura, and the second point's heavy advantage in favor of the defenders. At the end of February, Blizzard released a patch which increased the defenders' respawn time up to a maximum if there are more attackers than defenders on the point, greatly reducing the effectiveness of stalling. What really won back the crowd, however, is the change implemented in April 2017, which incorporated a max progress system as seen with Payload segments, significantly reducing the chances of a draw, as teams no longer need to completely capture a point to gain an advantage. While the gamemode is still the least liked out of them all, the fanbase universally agrees that it's much better than before.
• The transition from season 5 to season 6 introduced a ton of significant changes, most in direct response to the fanbase's impatience with the lack of development with the game:
  • Seasons were announced to be reduced to 2 months per season instead of 3, giving players enough time to properly develop their SR, but not enough that they get burnout and stagnate as hard near the end, and hopefully making it so feedback can be addressed and changes can be implemented more frequently. Competitive rewards were also adjusted to account for this change.
  • SR decay has become more lenient and less punishing, placement matches have been designed to be much more accurate to players' current skill rating, and matchmaking is continuously improving to be more even.
• After almost an entire year of reused events from 2018-19 (with the exception of Storm Rising, which received tepid to negative reaction), players began to doubt the longevity of the game. Then Blizzard introduced the Workshop, which was almost universally well-received for bringing a whole new level of user customizability and variety to the game, as well as laying the groundwork for future updates to allow the game to become as engaging with its playerbase's modders as its competitor, Team Fortress 2.
• After over three years of a broken Competitive matchmaking system that often resulted in horrifically lopsided teams (typically resulting in Curb Stomp Battles that were fun for absolutely no one involved), encouraged one-tricking due to the system effectively punishing flex players, and fostered hostility among players who were forced into roles they weren't skilled with, Blizzard finally capitulated to fan outcry with the introduction of the much-asked-for Role Queue and 2-2-2 role enforcement. Not only did the new system guarantee viable team compositions by removing the dice roll that one would end up on a team of 5 DPS heroes, and allow players to play the heroes they actually wanted without fear of throwing the team composition off balance or being accused of throwing, it also resulted in much more balanced teams thanks to role-specific rankings ensuring that everyone on each team was as close to equal skill level as possible.^note Much of the previous balance issues were caused when players who had gotten to a certain rank with one role were suddenly forced into a role they were less skilled at due to the matchmaker throwing too many players of that role together into one team Within hours of the new system being released on the PTR, the player base resounded with near universal praise, proclaiming that Ranked mode had finally become the more serious, organized, and competitive mode it was originally intended to be, instead of the toxic, less fun version of Quick Play it had devolved into over time. Even better was when Blizzard experimentally reintroduced the Open Queue — a competitive bracket lacking the current role enforcement for those unsatisfied with the new format (or DPS mains sick of long queue times in Role Queue) — which turned up so successfully that they sought to make it a permanent option, allowing players and Blizzard to have their cake and eat it too.
• One of the first major gameplay changes announced for Overwatch 2 was the shift from games of 6v6 to 5v5, limiting the amount of Tanks per team from two to one. This garnered a really contentious initial response, with many lamenting the slashed potential of Tank duo synergy, and even with Blizzard's promise of reworking existing Tanks for the new context, there were widespread fears that it would cause balancing chaos where Tank players would suffer the most. However, once the first beta launched and players got a hold of the system, the response slanted much more positively, many citing that having one Tank per team made games less chaotic, less overbearingly focused on coordination, yet also much faster-paced, with the actual Tanks getting time to shine as feeling more individually impactful and exciting. Combined with later well-received hero reworks, such as with the likes of Orisa, the shift from one-Tank 5v5s ended up becoming one of the most praised improvements to the game in 2 among audiences and critics alike, especially after years of metas greatly defined by overlapping, game-padding multi-Tank comps.

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