Shroud’s opinion on Overwatch shouldn’t be taken seriously He simply can't know better at this point. Screenshot via Shroud's stream

“Thinking it Over” is a short opinion piece to encourage debate around a specific topic.





The recent improvements to Overwatch with the introduction of 2-2-2 role lock, the replay viewer, the workshop and now Sigma have the wider gaming audience looking towards Overwatch again. Play rate metrics are pointing upwards and naturally the streaming community took notice.





Twitch streamer Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek tried out the game again after having played only a couple of hours of it when the game first came out. Shroud, known for his outstanding aim in multiple FPS titles, was quick to reach a verdict about one of Overwatch’s core design features. “This game with no ults would be so good”, he stated during a broadcast while playing the game. He had been pummeled by ultimates for most of the stream and had gained limited value out of his own which is absolutely expected for a new player to a game that has yet to learn how to work with a team to counter ultimates and who is used to be able to impose his will through sheer mechanics upon his opponent. He did as well as you could reasonably expect.

















As an off-hand comment that would describe his personal feelings on the game, it isn’t particularly troubling to me. I also don’t know if Shroud would really want to die on this hill or if it’s just one of those comments one ignorantly makes while learning a new game like we’ve all done in the past. Moreover, it isn’t clear if he really means that Overwatch would be a generally better game without ultimates or if it would just be more fun for him. If we assume it to be the former, however, this may be a classic case of the “Dunning-Kruger-effect”, a cognitive bias that causes individuals to feel more confident in their competence when they are at a low skill level at any activity. It is indeed an acquired skill to learn what you don’t know and can’t speak on. The latter would make sense in the context that Shroud is likely to enjoy games that reward great aim which he already excels at, and not Overwatch’s MOBA aspects like cooldown management and ultimate economy.





“Everything should be a nail”, said the hammer is understandable stance from a selfish point of view in how we personally choose games and want them to develop, not when making a comment on what would work for most players.





No matter which case it may be, Shroud’s platform bears a certain threat towards not only granting authority but also of becoming a commonly held opinion outside of the Overwatch player base and could act as a deterrent for new players. As an FPS veteran and one of the best aimers to ever touch a mouse, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there are enough transferable skills from other games he was one of the top players in.





I myself am not fond of how ultimates work in Overwatch at the moment, but to arrive at the opinion that getting rid of them entirely would be a good move for the game appears utterly indefensible. If he meant to say that the thinks ultimates should be less powerful so the game revolved around them less and more around the standard abilities and FPS core mechanics, it’s a point worth discussing but he couldn’t possibly have the insight to decide to what degree.





Ultimates are perhaps the most core feature to the Overwatch experience. They are a reward structure as much as they are a great moment creator. They add strategic depth and shape every fight to be much more unique than they otherwise would be. What one really seems to be expressing in saying that ultimates should be taken away is that you don’t want Overwatch to be Overwatch but another generic FPS shooter.





Overwatch isn’t your traditional FPS, if it could even be classified as one overall, and it attracted an audience that apparently liked exactly that about it. To label and think of it as an FPS experience and make decisions based on that blueprint pushes it into a corner that the genre has tried to escape from. Shroud as a seasoned WoW player himself likely also knows this. Yet in the emotion of being overwhelmed by what must feel like extremely oppressive mechanics that you have yet to learn to play around, being forced towards the average when you’re used to being one in a million in any other game that puts a virtual gun in your hand is not a state of mind you can expect reasonable game design insight from.





With less than 30 hours of playtime, no access to the analytics of player behavior, no experience in game design and limited MOBA background it would be shocking if Shroud was to immediately articulate one of Overwatch’s core issues. I hope the wider gaming community can contextualize his opinion in this compassionate way and will be able to smirk at this take as I’m sure Shroud will when he learns more about Overwatch.





You can watch Shroud at twitch.tv/shroud.