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Overwatch 2 battle pass owners will gain automatic access to new heroes hinting that heroes will be initially locked

Solidsnakejej

Solidsnakejej

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,752
Fort Lauderdale
This was first hinted at in a PlayStation Blog post when the F2P announcement came but this seems confirms it. Kirikio is the first new support hero since Baptiste in February of 2019.

We'll see if this sticks since no official announcement but this is the second time this has shown up. We are less then a month away from launch and the OW team has not release any information on how monetization will work among other things. Tuesdays and Thursdays are their usual update dates, with this accidentally going up tonight we might get more information tomorrow.

The good bit of this description is that Mythic skins can be earned through battle pass.


The home base of your new gameplay experience!

The pack includes the following Overwatch® 2 in-game content: Season 1 Premium Battle Pass, 7 Legendary skins (including 2 all-new Space Raider skins), 5 Epic skins and 2000 Overwatch Coins.

With the Season One Premium Battle Pass you can unlock over 80 tiers of rewards including Mythic Cyber Demon Genji, Legendary Hinotori Kiriko, and more. In addition, as a Season One Premium Battle Pass owner you will automatically receive access to Overwatch's latest hero Kiriko!

Includes instant access to Overwatch Legendary Edition.

us.shop.battle.net

Overwatch 2 - Overwatch 2 | Battle.net

Overwatch 2 is a free-to-play shooter featuring 30+ epic heroes, each with game-changing abilities. Choose your hero, group up with your friends and bat...
us.shop.battle.net us.shop.battle.net
They since taken down this description and put the previous back up.

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Tommy Showbiz

Tommy Showbiz

Member
Jul 20, 2022
1,819
This is a very frustrating move if accurate. Even though it's incredibly standard for games like this to paywall new heroes, Overwatch is very different from Valorant or Apex Legends, where the gunplay in those games is more important than your hero selection. Overwatch on the other hand is balanced entirely around hero selection and synergies. Locking heroes behind a temporary paywall will just cause toxicity to explode in scenarios where the hot new hero is totally busted while the enemy team has access to them and yours does not.

The only way I can stomach this decision is if this is simply early access for Quick Play or some kind of Experimental Mode for BP owners where new heroes are playable for a couple of weeks before being opened up for Comp and the rest of the player base.
 
RichardHawk

RichardHawk

Member
Feb 7, 2018
1,600
Los Angeles, CA
Gonna be great when a broken hero is locked and the people willing to pay real cash for it (idiots) are the only ones that have it. I'm sure the community won't mind that at all.
 
Vic Damone Jr.

Vic Damone Jr.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,534
F2P was always gonna make the game more frustrating, I hated this shit in R6S. Grinding for grinding sake
 
5taquitos

5taquitos

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,860
OR
Hopefully for overwatch players it's as easy as it is in Apex. I can buy the next 6 heroes at this point with my saved up currency.
 
dots

dots

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,888
This is concerning but not as concerning as the potential for this to be true for maps as well. Splintering the player base like that would be real bad.
 
ZeoVGM

ZeoVGM

Member
Oct 25, 2017
76,008
Providence, RI
This might be a mistake -- as in something they originally planned and changed their minds about. It was mentioned in the PS Blog post a few months ago but it too was updated to have it removed.

If it is true, it will end up depending on the length of time. If the early access for a hero lasts a full season, that's bad. If it's just a couple weeks, not a big deal. I feel like if you're the kind of player who needs to use the new hero in the first couple weeks, you'll likely be grabbing the battle pass anyway.
 

HockeyBird

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,584
Kiriko is the fox girl, the last hero to be revealed before launch, correct? For a game/series whose biggest complaint has been the lack of new heroes, locking out one of three new heroes at launch won't sit well people.
 
Dark Ninja

Dark Ninja

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,070
Just following the Valorant setup for hero unlocks probably. I await those $100 skins eventually. Battlepass and shop likely setup like COD. Can't wait for even more people to want lootboxes back once they see how popular characters are targeted for skins in the shop and all the trash is in the battlepass. There wont be any more free stuff. I have almost everything from Overwatch 1 so im set. I can't wait to play the game more after the beta though.
 
Tommy Showbiz

Tommy Showbiz

Member
Jul 20, 2022
1,819
I don't play Warzone, but supposedly it's Battle Pass works similarly where you get instant access to new guns for that season by purchasing the BP or you can unlock it later on the BP for free.

Still annoying, but slightly more acceptable depending on how much you need to grind to unlock characters for free (and whether or not that season's hero unlocks automatically at the start of the next one). I could imagine this at least having the net benefit of staggering how many people rush to play new heroes and run up queue times to a significant degree. See also; the 10+ minute queues to play tank in the second beta after Junker Queen launched.
 
dots

dots

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,888
Imagine being in a competitive game as support and the opposing team is playing Pharah so you ask your dps to switch to Cassidy to counter it and they say "sorry, didn't buy him." Or "I didn't play the season he unlocked."

The more I think about this the worse it feels.
 
Zookfoodle

Zookfoodle

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,216
ZeoVGM said:
This might be a mistake -- as in something they originally planned and changed their minds about. It was mentioned in the PS Blog post a few months ago but it too was updated to have it removed.

If it is true, it will end up depending on the length of time. If the early access for a hero lasts a full season, that's bad. If it's just a couple weeks, not a big deal. I feel like if you're the kind of player who needs to use the new hero in the first couple weeks, you'll likely be grabbing the battle pass anyway.
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I suspect if they were going to do hero locking, this is just an early unlock and not an exclusive unlock i.e. you could spend 200 overwatch coins to unlock the dude if u dont have the battlepass, and the battlepass just means u dont have to pay that coins
 
Tommy Showbiz

Tommy Showbiz

Member
Jul 20, 2022
1,819
The way I understood it is,

If you pay for battle pass, you get to play her instantly

If you don't pay, you will play through the free2play pass and unlock her at the end likely, so depending on how you grind you could get her a couple hours after premium payers or days if you take your time.

So it's incentivising for free2players to keep playing, but that's only my interpretation. I don't have a sure answer for you. Not tied closely with that arm of the overwatch team.
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This is from an extremely credible OW2 leaker on reddit.
 
Gentlemen

Gentlemen

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,500
What does '2000 overwatch coins' buy you. Because right now in OW1 2000 points doesn't get you even a single legendary and from what I remember they're playing with the idea of even more expensive 'mythic' skins for the sequel.

This seems like an incredibly bad value proposition and walling off new characters behind a battle pass is tearing away what remaining enthusiasm I had for this game.
 
Lobster Roll

Lobster Roll

signature-less, now and forever
Member
Sep 24, 2019
34,268
Oh hey, the thing I've been beating the drum about for Apex that I have a serious axe to grind with comes to Overwatch. Hopefully this time around people will make their voices heard.
 
Dolce

Dolce

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,230
Tommy Showbiz said:
This is a very frustrating move if accurate. Even though it's incredibly standard for games like this to paywall new heroes, Overwatch is very different from Valorant or Apex Legends, where the gunplay in those games is more important than your hero selection. Overwatch on the other hand is balanced entirely around hero selection and synergies. Locking heroes behind a temporary paywall will just cause toxicity to explode in scenarios where the hot new hero is totally busted while the enemy team has access to them and yours does not.
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in terms of not FPS that use this, LOL and HOTS both do. i don't remember if dota2 does or not.
 
Wii Tank

Wii Tank

Member
Oct 27, 2017
235
Basically confirms to me that the game is moving towards a general meaningless deathmatch style of gameplay rather than the originals more tactical character counter and team comp focus. Unfortunately chasing the success of games like Apex is expected, but very disappointing to me. There aren't any other games like Overwatch to me, and now there never will be now that the original game is being deleted.
 
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OP
Solidsnakejej

Solidsnakejej

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,752
Fort Lauderdale
Gentlemen said:
What does '2000 overwatch coins' buy you. Because right now in OW1 2000 points doesn't get you even a single legendary and from what I remember they're playing with the idea of even more expensive 'mythic' skins for the sequel.

This seems like an incredibly bad value proposition and walling off new characters behind a battle pass is tearing away what remaining enthusiasm I had for this game.
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Coins might be the new name for virtual currency since OW1 is credits. You get 2000 virtual currency which we know battle passes 2 and 3 will cost 1000 virtual currency and mythic skins seem to be apart of the battle pass.
 
gig

gig

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,268
Wii Tank said:
Basically confirms to me that the game is moving towards a general meaningless deathmatch style of gameplay rather than the originals more tactical character counter and team comp focus. Unfortunately chasing the success of games like Apex is expected, but very disappointing to me. There aren't any other games like Overwatch to me, and now there never will be now that the original game is being deleted.
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Huh? Why would this confirm that at all?

Gentlemen said:
What does '2000 overwatch coins' buy you. Because right now in OW1 2000 points doesn't get you even a single legendary and from what I remember they're playing with the idea of even more expensive 'mythic' skins for the sequel.

This seems like an incredibly bad value proposition and walling off new characters behind a battle pass is tearing away what remaining enthusiasm I had for this game.
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A season pass is 1000 coins, so around $20 for 2000 -- it's different from OW1's points.

dots said:
This is concerning but not as concerning as the potential for this to be true for maps as well. Splintering the player base like that would be real bad.
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Early access, maybe, but there's no proven model out there for doing this at the moment so I doubt they'd bother with the risk.
 
Kyle Cross

Kyle Cross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,401
"yo healer gett of marcy we need kiriko"

"i dont buy her"

"other team report xxBapBunsxx for being broke. throwing"
 
Wii Tank

Wii Tank

Member
Oct 27, 2017
235
gig said:
Huh? Why would this confirm that at all?
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Well its either that or the game goes heavy on the pay to win aspect. As is the OW2 Beta took away what made most characters hard counters to others in the first place (shields, stuns, etc) to lean hard into deathmatchy gameplay where your hero comp matters significantly less than it did before.
 
gig

gig

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,268
Wii Tank said:
Well its either that or the game goes heavy on the pay to win aspect. As is the OW2 Beta took away what made most characters hard counters to others in the first place (shields, stuns, etc) to lean hard into deathmatchy gameplay where your hero comp matters significantly less than it did before.
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If the heroes are earnable for free as well, this wouldn't be the case, no?

I'm not particularly defending this decision, just saying
 
Hasney

Hasney

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,558
Wonder what happens in season 2 then. Is last seasons hero unlocked for everyone, or did you miss out? Gonna need that stream soon
 
Wii Tank

Wii Tank

Member
Oct 27, 2017
235
gig said:
If the heroes are earnable for free as well, this wouldn't be the case, no?

I'm not particularly defending this decision, just saying
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I agree with you in theory, but since when has any free to play game made unlocking a paid thing for free not an absolute grind? I highly doubt Overwatch 2 would buck that trend.
 
Mesoian

Mesoian

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
26,381
Wii Tank said:
Basically confirms to me that the game is moving towards a general meaningless deathmatch style of gameplay rather than the originals more tactical character counter and team comp focus. Unfortunately chasing the success of games like Apex is expected, but very disappointing to me. There aren't any other games like Overwatch to me, and now there never will be now that the original game is being deleted.
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I mean...for better or worse, people are going to get the game that they were clamoring for, at least on the high level aspect of it. A very high skill, low TTK, quicker version of overwatch where skill means more than anything.

I said it after the first beta, OW2 is gonna lose a lot of people, if only because the skill ceiling is going to be DRAMATICALLY higher and casual players aren't going to be able to keep up. The most you can hope for is that bronze and silver player pools expand to match.

But it's still going to be incredibly relant on team comps and tactics, the fact that the last beta had a pretty hard meta is evidence of that. THAT isn't going to change.

All that being said, It feels like Blizzard is begrudgingly chasing this model and doesn't have any strong unique plans for it in the wings. If heroes are locked for multiplayer...that's a bad choice. As if they're rolling back to HOTS for inspiration on what to do, rather than looking at what other games are doing.
 
Letters

Letters

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
4,442
Portugal
This is extremely disappointing, considering how Overwatch works everyone should have the new heroes day one.
 
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OP
Solidsnakejej

Solidsnakejej

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,752
Fort Lauderdale
Big Yoshi said:

View: https://twitter.com/Spex_J/status/1567694080909660162

this sucks, this is REALLY BAD, its an ESSENTIAL part of overwatch to swap heroes mid-map, so locking heroes is awful.
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That makes me wonder if you don't play during a battle pass that a heroes is apart of you'll never be able to play them? Or do they just unlock at the end of the season.

Also seeing people say other games do this on the replies doesn't make this ok.

Would be nice if the overwatch team would properly communicate stuff before we have to guess about things.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,881
Sounds like a mistake, Overwatch's focus on team synergy was a big part of what made it unique, it was important that everyone had a chance to play as the whole cast, if nothing else than to understand their abilities.

I imagine a lot of people who might otherwise return will bounce off quickly if it doesn't look like there's many new things available for them to play with.
 
Slowdive

Slowdive

Member
Oct 25, 2017
523
That tweet is getting a lot of backlash already, I can see them reversing this decision fast, I hope so anyway.
 
Gradon

Gradon

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,461
UK
Going F2P really messes up the way a game is designed huh. Just ruins everything for legacy players.
 
Zep

Zep

Member
Jul 12, 2021
1,451
Microsoft will probably offer up all the characters right away through GP when the deal closes..
 
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