Overwatch Vs. Atlas Reactor: The Loot Box

Yeah yeah, more Overwatch AND Atlas Reactor. Sue me.

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As you have no doubt heard about Overwatch, the Loot Box system is, to put it politely, not very good. It's microtransactions in a 60$ game, and it's all RNG based, meaning you have no control over what items you get or how much money you get. And to top it all off, cosmetics are all there are to unlock, making an unrewarding system that is a blatant attempt to get money out of consumers in one of the worst ways possible.

I'm saying all this because they could and should have done better. Atlas Reactor proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. It too has loot boxes (called loot matrixes) that you gain at every level, duplicates that give you a small amount of currency, and the whole system in general being dictated by RNG. However, it takes this base and improves, improves, improves. Overwatch is the base, and nothing more. AR is the base and so much more. Let's take a closer look.

We can start with what both games actually have on a base progression level. Overwatch has loot boxes. AR has loot matrixes, character specific matrixes, a mod system to change abilities, rewards for hitting certain levels, and daily/seasonal missions.

Already you can see there's simply more to actually work towards in AR rather than Overwatch. In Overwatch, you either grind out levels or pony up some cash. In AR, if you don't want to grind levels, you can play characters a lot to gain their matrixes. You can work towards a mission for an XP boost. You can try out different mod loadouts. You can work towards a concrete reward rather than a vague RNG box. At all times, you're working towards a variety of different objectives and goals at different points. Missions are brief, and give smaller, faster rewards, while levels take a bit longer. It's all staggered out nicely, and there's never a sense of an endless grind since you're gonna achieve something just around the corner at any moment.

Not only are the rewards more plentiful, but when you actually get them, it's miles better than how Overwatch doles them out. In Atlas reactor, you are guaranteed a character skin/taunt in every matrix. This does wonders for the progression system by itself, let me tell you. Besides the obvious effect of having something of value every time you open a matrix, it also lets the good aspects of using RNG loot come out into the open.

Did you just get a legendary skin for a character you've never played much? Might as well try them out for the skin. Did you get a cool new taunt? Why not give it a spin? Forcing the player into unlockables for other characters lets them expand their play experience and pushes them to try other playstyles. Overwatch doesn't let you do this as much. The odds of getting a skin are already low, as there are icons, sprays, and voicelines in every crate too, and the odds of getting a legendary skin are even lower. So the odds of you getting a cool new skin and trying the character out are just so low as to not even matter.

On a second point, AR has another type of loot matrix: character specific matrixes. Get a character up 5 levels, and the game will give you a matrix guaranteed to give you a character specific skin or taunt. This is one of the many ways in which AR gives you quite a bit of control over the RNG. You get skins for a character you want with these, mitigating the frustration of RNG a lot. It's an important step helped along by missions.

Every day you get a daily mission, and there are season chapters that give you several long term missions. The effect of these are twofold: immediate goals and help with other goals. You get something to work towards, something concrete, not dictated by RNG. A quest like “Play 5 games” or “Play 2 games as a certain class” gives you a short term goal to work towards and contributes towards the longer term goal of a matrix.

Meanwhile, Overwatch has... a first win of the day XP boost. At best, you lose a few games before getting this, not a fun player experience. At worst, you get this already small boost immediately, and then what do you progress on?

And to cap this all off, AR has stuff outside cosmetics to play around with. You can actually change your characters with mods, and try out different playstyles. You get the opportunity to try out individual playstyles, a much more powerful motive than simply trying out a new team composition. Team comp diversity immediately disqualifies solo queue players from this depth, as it's almost impossible to get 5 other people on the same page quickly, if they even want to. And even if you can, you're not changing anything about how you play. If you play Roadhog in one team comp and  then another, well, he's still playing the same. Individual depth lets you take control of the gameplay and have a guaranteed difference in two different games.

So why is this all so important? Like I mentioned in a previous post, progression is a key factor in retaining a lot of your audience for a long period of time. Some people are motivated by gameplay, some by improvement, and some by unlocking stuff. You lose a lot of people if you mess progression up. And even ignoring that, it just makes the game better for crying out loud! Would you rather play a game with a satisfying unlock system or not? Even if it doesn't affect you, it makes the experience better since more people will now be playing.

Look, I've tried to be unbiased and distant throughout this whole thing, but the fact is this demonstrates something quite distasteful on Blizzard's part. They can no longer have the defence of there being no better way to do this system, because another game has just done it better. What reason could there be except wanting more money? I have been thinking on this for days, and I can't think of another reason for the life of me.

Blizzard, you have no conceivable alternative motive at this point. Another game has done your system infinitely better as of now, and you need to step up or fess up. Either improve your system, or just say you want to squeeze money out of people. There can be no other reason.

And as for Trion? Keep doing awesome stuff with Atlas Reactor. If you keep going on like this, I'll be with you all the way.

Overwatch and Progression

Overwatch has a progression problem.

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Overwatch is a fantastic game in so many ways. It's got stellar characters, great maps, grade A game design, and some spectacular sound. But outside that, the actual game, it's got a glaring issue I want to discuss here today. You see, Overwatch has a terrible, terrible progression system.

Now, some of you may be shrugging your shoulders right now and saying “so what”? I'll get back to why this is so bad in a bit, but first I want to start by breaking down how Overwatch fails in this area.

I like to divide successful progression systems into 3 general categories. Gameplay based, unlockable based, and change based.

Gameplay based progression systems either let you unlock more gameplay elements (think Call of Duty), or they let you customize loadouts for many different playstyles (again, like Call of Duty). This lets the player play around with the mechanics the more they play, and the progression comes from a deeper understanding of the game mechanics. Note that this does not just mean getting better at the game. It comes from being able to unlock/use customization ways to change how your character can play.

Unlockable based is a catch-all term for anything you can unlock that doesn't affect gameplay. Cosmetics, emotes, that sort of stuff. It provides progression in the form of more fun stuff to show off, and the ability to customize yourself how you want.

Finally, change based progression is the type of change where the game is balanced and updated over the years. Adding new content and changing the current content, essentially. Look at any MOBA, with many characters and items to tweak, and how different the meta will be from month to month, and you get the idea. This can only really work if the developer constantly updates and supports the game.

So, how does this all relate to Overwatch? Quite simply, Overwatch lacks a good, solid foundation for any of these progression systems. It has nothing to unlock in the gameplay department, as all the characters are open from the start, and no way to change any of the character's playstyles or moves. It doesn't lend itself well to change based progression, as there are only 22 characters to change and update, so Blizzard can't update the meta very much. And finally, I think we can all agree a luck based system for unlockables is a horrible idea.

The loot box system is the only concrete progression Overwatch has, and it fails on nearly every level. It doesn't give the player a goal to work toward, because they can't control what items they buy. Even with the caveat that you can get gold from duplicates, it still means that how much you save is entirely dictated by RNG. And there are seasonal items, still dictated by RNG, but with a time limit, meaning players are locked out from some items as well.

We can quibble all day about why this was done in this manner, but that's unimportant. What is moreso is why Overwatch not having a satisfying progression system is important, and here we come back to what I mentioned at the start. A lot of people reading this are going to say, “So what?” To a lot of people, the raw gameplay should be what really matters, with cosmetics and progression not being all that important. And that's fine, because it's not what's really important to you.

Here's the issue. Raw gameplay isn't enough to keep a lot of people playing for a long time. A lot of people want change as they play, whether that be through gameplay or cosmetics. Having a bad progression system can really hamper how long a game lasts for, as a lot of people aren't going to keep playing if there's nothing satisfying to work towards.

Gameplay isn't enough to keep a lot of people engaged if they're not aiming to get truly good at the game. Overwatch is a special case because it's a lot more cheery and casual than other shooters in tone. A lot of people are going to be playing it because of the characters and world. How do you think they'll feel when the unlocks that let them have fun with the world are completely out of their control?

Overwatch having a bad progression system is not a gameplay issue, it's not a game world issue, and for the truly dedicated, this really isn't an issue in the first place. It's a reach issue. If Overwatch wants to engage more people and get them talking, it would do well to ensure as many people can be motivated as possible.