Congrats, Blizzard. You played yourself.

Play of the game is bad for Overwatch.

Which sucks. It's a fun feature I'm surprised hasn't been thought of before, and it's a brilliant idea. In a void where player emotions and goals are all perfectly aligned. See, what I think Blizzard hasn't realized is that POTG does not exist in a vaccum. If players were robots only concerned with victory, it'd work perfectly. That's not how we think, alas, and it's created a system that actively hampers the overall skill level of the game and makes everyone play worse.

It weakens certain characters

Look, POTG is so inherently biased towards characters who deal damage it's not even funny. The supports and anyone else who doesn't have a high damage ult are very, very unlikely to obtain a POTG compared to the rate a Reaper or D.Va will get them. And because POTG is a fun and enjoyable thing to get, people will naturally want to, well, get them. So it pushes them towards offensive characters and making supports an even rarer sight. It's not exactly grade A design when a mechanic limits team comp in a game revolving around diverse team comp.

These poor, poor souls.

It's a bastion of individuality

Overwatch is a team game. Every single part of it hammers it into you how you need to work together, counter the enemy, and achieve dominance as a team.

POTG ignores all that and gleefully hoists one player above all. OK, OK, that's not really what it's meant for. It's meant to encourage congrats and highlight great play, something I'm all for. However, it's been twisted into showing how awesome one person is, and that fosters competition where there needs to be none. Anything that could potentially create something like this isn't good. And it's not potential. I've seen people rage in chat about how they didn't get POTG and seen people gloat rather unsportsmanlike about it. It's not creating those congratulations, that's for sure.

Group? What group?

POTG focuses on one player. That's fine. I bet you anything Blizzard struggled like hell to even implement it, and the fact that it's even in the game impresses me. It would likely be nigh impossible to get it off that one person because of technological limits.

But that's not good enough, and I feel that POTG right now simply can't tell the full story. Take Zarya. Poor, poor Zarya. Her ult sucks all enemies into a single point. This is an excellent moment for allies to unleash their firepower/their own ults. I think we can all agree that plays like that were made possible in 2 parts, a supporting start and an offensive move. It's only the character who goes on the offensive that gets the POTG, however, and completely ignores the set up. It's just too individual, again, and ignores the group.

Gameplay is King

You could ignore all my other points. I could literally write this with only this point and I'd still consider POTG a big issue that just needs fixing.

POTG makes everyone play worse. POTG makes people work together less. POTG hinders the overall skill growth of Overwatch as a whole.

I'll keep it quick and simple. What POTG does is, well, make you want to earn it. Everyone wants their skills shown to all in the match. It's fun. But the fact that it's a prestigious achievement makes it a goal for many, and will affect how they play. Sure, using your ult as Reaper to take out just the enemy healer, breaking their line and forcing the team back as a whole is a valuable contribution to the game. But it will not ever earn you a POTG. So, y'know. Why do that, when you could save it to kill 4 enemies at once at a point when it wouldn't matter? You'd get POTG! It'd be all good!

Look, you may say it doesn't affect you. But I know the pull, and I know how tempting it is. I myself am guilty of saving ults because subconsciously, I know it wouldn't nab POTG. I see players not popping ults when they should because of POTG. And it's not just ults. POTG runs off kills most of the time, which encourages people to run after enemies, abandon teams, and not being careful to defend the point. When a mechanic limits team comp, when a mechanic limits cooperation, when a mechanic makes people play worse,

Is that really worth keeping?

Well, uh, yes

Ok, I've talked a lot of shit about POTG. But I really, really want this system to work sooo badly. It creates and fuels water cooler moments, and is likely a large catalyst of why Overwatch is everywhere on the internet right now. So fixing it is definitely the better option. How?

1. Credit more than 1 person

This would immensely help team playing and a mindset. The video below is a great mockup, but it may not be feasable. Perhaps they could implement an “assist” function where say, if a Zarya set up a POTG or a Mercy was damage boosting the player their portrait and username could be off to the side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RlhTSuWc2I

2. Lessen the impact of ults

Look, ults are cool, fun, and powerful. And yet they don't quite fit POTG that well. There's a reason the phrase “Q of the game” is used rather derisively. Ults are too low effort to get POTG's with, and I think the best way is to simply lessen how heavily the game weighs ultimate kills compared to ordinary kills.

3. Help the supports

Supports struggle to get POTG, and as a result that pushes players away from them. I'm not entirely sure how to fix this, but it may have to be integrated into the “assist” feature I proposed earlier. They could also just add some mechanics to help them. For example, when Lucio ults, if an enemy would deal mortal damage if not for the shield, it could count as an “ally saved”. That'd help Lucio get POTG more often.

So, yeah. POTG is something I feel could be so much more, because it's a great feature. In theory. And I want that caveat gone.

Want to discuss this article with me and others? Then this Discord server's for you.
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