Datamining Reveals Overwatch Anniversary Loot Boxes and Game of the Year Edition

[Erttheking]

I didn't insult you! I had no idea you existed until you responded, not my fault you took offense.

The term anit-consumer practice gets thrown around so much it's lost all meaning for me, I personally don't find this to be anti-consumer but A LOT of people do so what do I know?

Listen, you feel very strongly about this, I really don't (or at least not enough to keep going) so lets just call this a win for you? I'm kind of done arguing.

"Am I free to do it or do you want me to shut up? Make up your fucking mind."

Umm, you do realize those things are not mutually exclusive right? Like, I can want you stop complaining about lootboxes but recognize you are free to do so, no? I never once said you (or anyone, for some reason you took this very personally) should not have the freedom to complain.

Also, no, I did not "properly quote" you. Neener neener neener.

You insulted every Overwatch player that was complaining, therefore, you insult me.

I fail to see how attempting to pressure players into paying more in a game that already payed full retail value for can be anything else.

And yet you still reply to my points before saying that you're done arguing.

More like the wording came across as you not having a problem with me complaining. After all, your exact wording was "So yeah, feel free to piss into the ocean," which to me came off as "go ahead, see if I care."

That last bit says a lot.

 

[Proto Taco]

Lootboxes are such a buzzkill for this game, and principally speaking they're just not cool. They're basically using gambling to manufacture scarcity in the hopes of....less money?

I mean basically they're manufacturing scarcity to create a false sense of exclusivity. I suppose they hope it inspires people to burn more time and money on the game to get what they want but most of the people I've talked to say it just kills the mood and makes them not wanna play. I don't know who companies think they're foo-*reads the comments* oh, ohhh, nevermind then....

 

[WindKnight]

Lootboxes are such a buzzkill for this game, and principally speaking they're just not cool. They're basically using gambling to manufacture scarcity in the hopes of....less money?

I mean basically they're manufacturing scarcity to create a false sense of exclusivity. I suppose they hope it inspires people to burn more time and money on the game to get what they want but most of the people I've talked to say it just kills the mood and makes them not wanna play. I don't know who companies think they're foo-*reads the comments* oh, ohhh, nevermind then....

I came close to the point of burn-out trying to get the one item I really wanted during the uprising event. I ground out at least 2 loot boxes a day, earned all the bonus ones from arcade (at least the uprising brawl meant I could dodge no-limits trolling and cheapass win-at-all-costs teams), and even then I had to credit buy the one item I wanted (and yes, I could have done that from the start... but the dup system hung over my head like the sword of damocles).

I played way more than I wanted to, and every session left me feeling like I wanted to jump back in to try again rather than leaving me satisfied with a fun sessions play, because my lootboxes always ended said sessions on a low.

And sure, I bet someone here would have loved some of the lootboxes I got (two gold drops in one box), and I'm sure they got the one drop I wanted, but it was worthless to them.

 

[InflatableHippo]

It's sad to see more people enjoying games going the gambling route.

 

[Elijin]

It's sad to see more people enjoying games going the gambling route.

That's a ridiculous misrepresentation.

Those of us who enjoy Overwatch and don't mind the crates aren't enjoying gambling as you put it. We're enjoying the game of Overwatch, and the skins are totally incidental. We play the game, if we get a skin, neato. If we don't get a skin, and the event closes, oh well, no biggie. Doesn't change the gameplay.

The biggest distinction here is people that are enjoying the game and don't give a crap if they cant 'have it all' in regard to cosmetics vs those who are so focused on the cosmetics its actually hurting their enjoyment of the core game.

I mean hell, there's direct mention of this entire format being a 'siege on patience' and pressuring you to shell out more money for skins. Here's the thing. It doesn't. If you don't support microtransactions, these things are categorically untrue. The only time they enter the realm of possibility is it you're prepared to engage with them. Not getting a skin in a timely fashion (or before the event ends) isn't a siege on my patience. Because I will not ever spend money on lootboxes. People who talk this way are admitting an internal problem. Anything that doesn't impact gameplay, isn't necessary. If you feel pressured to have it and that microtransactions are the devil in this deal, take a breath and re-assess your priorities.

Essentially, this sort of lootbox for silly decorations is only a problem if you see paying for a box as something in your realm of possibility.

 

[WindKnight]

It's sad to see more people enjoying games going the gambling route.

That's a ridiculous misrepresentation.

Those of us who enjoy Overwatch and don't mind the crates aren't enjoying gambling as you put it. We're enjoying the game of Overwatch, and the skins are totally incidental. We play the game, if we get a skin, neato. If we don't get a skin, and the event closes, oh well, no biggie. Doesn't change the gameplay.

The biggest distinction here is people that are enjoying the game and don't give a crap if they cant 'have it all' in regard to cosmetics vs those who are so focused on the cosmetics its actually hurting their enjoyment of the core game.

I mean hell, there's direct mention of this entire format being a 'siege on patience' and pressuring you to shell out more money for skins. Here's the thing. It doesn't. If you don't support microtransactions, these things are categorically untrue. The only time they enter the realm of possibility is it you're prepared to engage with them. Not getting a skin in a timely fashion (or before the event ends) isn't a siege on my patience. Because I will not ever spend money on lootboxes. People who talk this way are admitting an internal problem. Anything that doesn't impact gameplay, isn't necessary. If you feel pressured to have it and that microtransactions are the devil in this deal, take a breath and re-assess your priorities.

Essentially, this sort of lootbox for silly decorations is only a problem if you see paying for a box as something in your realm of possibility.

Let me compare lootboxes to a leveling/cosmetic system I actually liked -

Halo Reach.

I could look at what I wanted, make a plan of what to get, and every individual came could be felt as a contribution. It wasn't instant gratification, but I felt progress. Ticking off individual parts felt good as I got them, and every so often I got new bits to aim for. I didn't mind the long grind for the more expensive items, as I could see actual progress for my aims.

There is no planning with loot boxes, no sense of progress. Yes, you can coin unlock, but coins are just another random drop, so you can very well make no progress towards what you want. And if you do coin unlock, the game can then hand you a duplicate of it in a lootbox, getting back one fifth of what you invested in it.

Throw in time limited items that cost three times the coins, you have a recipe for pressure to do more than you'd like or throw money at a game you bought for ?30+.

 

[Elijin]

Let me compare lootboxes to a leveling/cosmetic system I actually liked -

Halo Reach.

I could look at what I wanted, make a plan of what to get, and every individual came could be felt as a contribution. It wasn't instant gratification, but I felt progress. Ticking off individual parts felt good as I got them, and every so often I got new bits to aim for. I didn't mind the long grind for the more expensive items, as I could see actual progress for my aims.

There is no planning with loot boxes, no sense of progress. Yes, you can coin unlock, but coins are just another random drop, so you can very well make no progress towards what you want. And if you do coin unlock, the game can then hand you a duplicate of it in a lootbox, getting back one fifth of what you invested in it.

Throw in time limited items that cost three times the coins, you have a recipe for pressure to do more than you'd like or throw money at a game you bought for ?30+.

Unless my memory is failing me, Reach was the worst style of unlocking I can think of. Totally linear progression based on your level which was simply an indicator of raw time put in. Its actually at direct odds with a lot of the comments in this thread about not wanting to go all out gaining xp for the loot boxes, in order to have everything. I would say reach required a far larger aspect of grinding out time. Not to mention, if you do want to compare a system like reach, then you have to accommodate the raw time requirement. As soon as you are accommodating that raw time put in, coins from boxes is super reliable, as the collection fills out. So if you want to look at it as something which can be overcome with ridiculous time use, they're fairly similar.

 

[WindKnight]

Unless my memory is failing me, Reach was the worst style of unlocking I can think of. Totally linear progression based on your level which was simply an indicator of raw time put in. Its actually at direct odds with a lot of the comments in this thread about not wanting to go all out gaining xp for the loot boxes, in order to have everything. I would say reach required a far larger aspect of grinding out time. Not to mention, if you do want to compare a system like reach, then you have to accommodate the raw time requirement. As soon as you are accommodating that raw time put in, coins from boxes is super reliable, as the collection fills out. So if you want to look at it as something which can be overcome with ridiculous time use, they're fairly similar.

You're kind of missing the point. In Reach at least you could SEE you were making progress, and progress was reliable. Heck, in Halo 3 where armour was tied to achievements or doing certain things, you knew if you did X, you'd get Y. You chose what you unlocked, you chose what to aim for - it's your choice, and largely in your control. If you unlocked something you didn't actually want, it was because you chose too, rather than the game forcing it on you.

There is none of this reliability in lootboxes. you roll dice, you get lucky, you don't get lucky. You get something 'cool', but it's for someone you don't use. If you go the coin unlock route, you can't reliably get coins - it's a heck of a lot of coins spent to get yourself a guaranteed 30 coins per box. You have very little control over what you get, and what control you do have is mostly buying more dice to roll.

Blizzard put a lot of effort into the cosmetics options because they knew it would be a big thing for a lot of the playerbase.

And then they chose the evilest, most infuriating method possible to unlock these - very deliberately - to try and extort more cash out of the players.

 

[Elijin]

Snip

I'm not missing your point, I'm simply being more honest than you are. Reach customization was locked behind tedious grinding that drip fed you nonsense while keeping the more significant (and thus sought after) items behind very high levels. To hold it up as a better example is nonsense, because in the time you could complete your Reach loadouts, you could probably reliably complete your Overwatch loadouts. You say 'it takes a while to reach a point where coins are coming in' but....how is that different than Reach?

Halo 3 is a good example of a better system. Cosmetics tied to certain in game activities to complete. Use that as your example, and you might seem less ridiculous. The key difference between Reach and OW unlocking is that OW is less obvious that time = everything than Reach. But they're still both systems of 'Put in huge amounts of time and you'll eventually get the lot'.

 

[WindKnight]

Snip

I'm not missing your point, I'm simply being more honest than you are. Reach customization was locked behind tedious grinding that drip fed you nonsense while keeping the more significant (and thus sought after) items behind very high levels. To hold it up as a better example is nonsense, because in the time you could complete your Reach loadouts, you could probably reliably complete your Overwatch loadouts. You say 'it takes a while to reach a point where coins are coming in' but....how is that different than Reach?

Because you could see quantifiable progress with every game, and every play session you could look at what you did and say 'I earned this!' and feel you made progress to your goals. You at least got feedback telling you you did something. You didn't have to get lucky. You didn't have to RNG in your favour. You could end a play session feeling like you'd done something, rather than getting a kick in the teeth when your lootbox gave you nothing, or, again, something awesome that you had no use for.

It's the whole psychology of the thing, if nothing else. And if a game is playing psychological games in order to try to get you to spend real money on essentially a gambling mechanic, that's shady as all hell.

 

[Elijin]

snip

And the xp counter in OW is significantly different from Reach because...?

Because that's the argument you're making here. That at the end of a match you saw your xp increase, which moved the notch closer to the next bar, which indicated another level up, and eventually all the items. Key word eventually. Notice how I could apply that exact same sentence to OW? Shit, you even talk about leveling up and getting a box with nothing that interested you. Take away the word box and that couldn't quantify my Reach experience more. "Oh joy, I leveled up, some shoulder pads which have a slightly different angle are now mine for the taken, that's not what I wanted at all."

The entire crux of your argument is 'In Reach I could see exactly how many hours left grinding out matches until I have them all. But in Overwatch, even though that same time commitment will net me similar results, I cant see an exact counter so its hella shady!'


The big problem here is you and people like you putting the periodic cosmetic rewards over the core game. If you honestly say you don't feel like you've achieved anything because you cant see exactly how many xps until the next unlock you want - stop playing. You're obviously not in the game for the right reason. You know, playing the game.

And most of the complaints about the loot box microtransactions feed into that. People who are concerned about a 'shady' practice because they cant trust themselves to play a game for fun, without caving into the need to drop real $ on having all the cosmetics.

 

[WindKnight]

The big problem here is you and people like you putting the periodic cosmetic rewards over the core game. If you honestly say you don't feel like you've achieved anything because you cant see exactly how many xps until the next unlock you want - stop playing. You're obviously not in the game for the right reason. You know, playing the game.

If they are so worthless and pointless...

Why Did Blizzard Put Them In The Game?

They mean nothing to you? Great! I'm glad for you! you don't get the psychological pummeling the rest of us do.

But.

YOU ARE NOT EVERY PLAYER IN THE GAME.

The cosmetics are in there because THEY DO MATTER to a portion of the players. Can you really not use some basic human empathy to understand this fact?

Blizzard put a lot of effort into them. They would not do this if they did not matter.

Again, they do not matter to everybody, and that's cool with me.

But.

They DO matter to a significant portion of the player base. Blizzard knows this.

They built the leveling and lootbox system to exploit that fact.

And the xp counter in OW is significantly different from Reach because...?

Again... it's something you can plan around. You can make choices. You see what you want, you see how to get it, you work towards it. Its Knowable. I know, if, say, I want that shoulderpad, I can play five games and buy it. That gold visor will be mine eventually. It will take some grinding, but psychologically, I know it will just take time.

Loot Boxes are random, unpredictable... and moreover, their weighted towards trash items. You can't narrow the drop range in any meaningful manner. I might get a cool item, I might not. I might get some coins, I might not. If i'm 50 coins from buying that legendary skin, I could well not have got that 50 coins 10 or 20 loot boxes down the row... and when I do buy it, the very next box may well contain it. The whole thing plays on my mind, make me hesitate to unlock stuff I want 'just in case'. And the time limited items can pile that pressure on harder. I will never buy lootboxes, but the system is setup to push me into buying them.

Maybe there's no difference for you, but there is for me... and quite frankly for a lot of players, or Blizzard would not have set it up the way they did. They could have built the cosmetics system anyway they wanted... and they chose a way to pummel and harass the players into spending more money.