TL;DR: Any recommendations for a game like Overwatch that actually functions? XDefiant was promising, but it doesn’t have “roles” that don’t require shooting, so my friend got frustrated.
As it turns out, it is actually possible to make friends as an adult. Who knew?
She likes MOBAs and such, and I mostly go for shooters so Overwatch was an obvious choice.
The gameplay is fun, and it gives us both something we enjoy, but there are some glaring issues that are best described by just describing my own experience in the game.
First off, the game requires you to win 50 matches in quick play before you’re allowed in ranked. With both of us working full-time, having spouses and whatnot, and dealing with 3 random teammates, that took forever.
I finally got to ranked, she already had a rank. The game “predicted” my rank to be basically the same as hers. Even so, all that’s available are “wide matches”. Average wait time is between 20-30 minutes.
So we started a co-op campaign in Baldur’s Gate 3.
We still would like to find a competitive game to play together, so basically a functional Overwatch.
And that brings us here. Any ideas?
I’d be suggesting Battleborn if it wasn’t dead…
Maybe Predecessor (paragon reboot)?
Marvel Rivals might be a bit too close to Overwatch, or maybe that’s a good thing?
You might consider just not playing ranked. In anything. Assigning a number to my skill level and that of others had a negative effect on my relationship with games and using them to have fun. Recognizing that and just playing to play instead of to appease the rating system, has led to much more fun coming out of my fun.
It doesn’t mean you can’t get better at the game over time, only that you’ll be the judge of your progress, instead of an arbitrary number that won’t ever feel truly fair.
Yeah playing quickplay in Overwatch has all the sweaty counterswapping and flaming for off meta picks as competitive, except with a 5-10 minute queue time instead of 20-30
I completely disabled both text and voice chat, and haven’t looked back.
I kind of quit Overwatch after they sucked the soul out of it and called it a sequel. It’s not entirely a replacement, but as a fun shooter to play with friends/ family, I’ve mostly moved to playing Deep Rock Galactic. In some ways it scratches the itch: various classes/ roles, weapons, abilities, cooperation and teamwork to accomplish objectives, clicking heads and making things die, and purely cosmetic skins. It doesn’t quite have the satisfaction of a good back and forth grudge match (on account of being a PvE game), but the community is super chill, the game design about as far from predatory as you can get (while there are a handful of exclusive fomo items, it’s mostly just annual anniversary hats, or gifts to commemorate steam award nominations and such, there’s no collection interface to mock you or rub it in for not having them), and the devs are just all around great. Bonus points for being able to spin up or join missions pretty much whenever.
Maybe Deadlock?
As someone who has searched hard, there is no high quality replacement.
