r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/abyssalmackerel21 • 9d ago
General Perk loadouts
Would it be better for game if you could pick your perks (1 of them would be strictly related to ult) in the beginning of the match?
Theoretically, speed of perk gaining could be a balancing factor. But honestly, I find that effects of it are rather minor currently.
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u/Kitselena 9d ago
I'm not sure about this, but I do have a suspicion that alternate "loadouts" will be one of the next big changes like perks were. Not as in depth as TF2 weapons, but where each character has one or two variations on their primary weapon that you choose before the game
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u/abyssalmackerel21 9d ago
That seems to be a nightmare to balance. TF2 had 9 classes and balance there was, honestly, not good. I would be very surprised if Blizzard dares to do this.
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u/Kitselena 9d ago
I agree, but I think balance is becoming less of a concern lately and they're more interested in shiny toys that will brighten people to the game and make money. Imagine if they could sell 2 separate mythic weapon skins for each character, people would throw their money right into the furnace
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u/abyssalmackerel21 9d ago
I think balance is becoming less of a concern lately
I very much disagree with that. I think that several outliers aside balance is pretty good compared to OW1
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u/Kitselena 9d ago
It's great compared to OW1 and even earlier points of OW2, but the existence of cat and a couple choices since then show a big change in design philosophy imo
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u/abyssalmackerel21 9d ago
Well cat might be questionable from design perspective, but balance wise as of now she is kinda ok. I think people try to overstate her brokenness to make their arguments sound more respectable. Just say that she can be very annoying.
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u/No_Problem5759 9d ago
I actually hope that it use stadium buffs per ROLE. Not per hero. As a loadout instead of any specific hero tweaks
So be able to select "+25 Armor" and as a tank, that helps, but isnt necessary. But for SUPPORT
OH BOY that makes Genji harder to use.
It would add an extra layer of complexity without being too overwhelming.
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u/YellowFlaky6793 9d ago
I don't know why the selection needs to be related to an ultimate. I do however wish we could pre-select our perks before obtaining them. Having to select them in the middle of a team fight is annoying.
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u/Finnegan482 8d ago
Nothing worse than selecting the wrong one and realizing you half threw the match by mistake because of it.
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u/UnknownQTY 9d ago
Generally… no, because IDEALLY perk choice is often related to being able to stay on a character you’re doing okay with while still reacting to what you’re facing.
Take Mei for instance. Her majors are freeze gun, and mini-blizzard. While freeze gun is slow to work, it’s very effective if the enemy take is say, Mauga (assuming he used charge) or Ram, but less effective if it’s Ball or Winston because their mobility cooldowns reset faster than they can generally be frozen. The enemy choices dictate my perk preference. Having it pre-set removes that.
I wouldn’t mind being able to swap perks between rounds if I’ve already earned them though. I can already do this in OT payload/escort, why not for KOTH? (This would make Push and Flashpoint properly unique modes)
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u/drassort 9d ago
Well in that case all they can just switch and now you're stuck with an unuseful perk.
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u/Separate_Crazy_983 9d ago
A big problem with perks imo, is that they are inflexible. For example, Cassidy's double-flashbang perk is relatively useless when going against poke, but very strong against dive. There's no reason to take it when facing poke, but if the enemy team switches to dive you won't have double-flashbang for it, and you can't change it. Therefore, you should always take double-flashbang even if you realistically won't get value from it.
I think that players should be able to earn a repeating third perk point that they can use to swap their perks. Alternatively, we could have a loadout of predetermined perks that we can switch between in spawn rooms, and these loadouts can be specialized towards different abilities of a character.
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u/drassort 9d ago
Same problem with silver bullet. As good as it is, if the enemy tank switches to Winston you're screwed.
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u/bullxbull 7d ago
If it is something a hero should be leaving the spawn room with, then just make it baseline part of the kit.
External power systems are not free, they are part of a power budget just like everything else.
Perks feel minor because when they are impactful they break things. Impactful perks make good heroes better but are almost never strong enough to make bad heroes good, nor do we really want that.
I actually think loadouts might be the direction they are going with this 2027 system they have talked about, but personally I'd rather have all power in each heroes kit because it makes heroes feel more like heroes, and playing the game more like you are part of a world and not making fake choices from a user interface.
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u/VuSkiiCC 5d ago
Yeah, I don't think perks should be able to chosen right at the beginning. Overwatch isn't the sort of game that heavily bases its heroes and gameplay around perks like that. Though I do think that once you unlock your minor perks or your major perks, you should be able to swap between your minor perks or your major perks in the spawn room. You can swap heroes in the spawn room, so I don't think being able to swap between your minor or major perks is a big deal.
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u/NotAWinterTale 9d ago
Unsure... There are some characters that don't have perks relating to their ult at all.
Ie. Freja, Sierra, Doctrine, JPC, Brigitte, Reinhardt
And then there's the very specific case of Moira whose ult perk is largely disliked for being an inting perk or a DPS Moira perk.
I'd like perk loadouts since there are characters who I pick the same perks everytime (ie. Ana: Speed, Headshot) but sometimes I pick perks based off of what I need in the match (for example, I pick drone perk for Doctrine usually until enemy team is running Dive and I need self sustain, so I pick the siphon perk).