Overwatch has had me obsessive in the same way Pokémon did when I was a kid, and is only rivalled by Persona as my greatest video game obsession as an adult. I love the characters, I love the lore and even though I am terrible at it, I love the game. When I first got it, I levelled up quickly, mainly because I was enjoying the gameplay and playing as the various characters so much, but those loot boxes I got whenever I levelled up were an absolutely wonderful incentive to grind. In these boxes you find randomised items that can be used on your characters, such as cool cosmetic skins (ranging from simple re-colours to full blown alternative designs), emotes, sprays, player icons, in-game currency... the list goes on for a while, but it's always exciting. Well... to a point.
I wanted to write this article so I could get my thoughts out somewhere other than the bubbling bath of displeasure and toxicity that is the Overwatch forums. At the time I write this article I am level 185, plus I've played tonnes of arcade mode, so to cut a long story short, I've had a lot of bloody loot boxes. So many that at this point they are no longer exciting. I've unlocked all the skins and other bits I wanted for all my favourite characters as well as awesome skins for characters I don't play as much. Everything in my Hero Gallery is swell. But unfortunately, with having unlocked so many things in this game, it also means that basically every loot box I receive now contains a duplicate item, which I get currency for, but even that isn't enough to re-ignite my loot box collecting spark. So at this point you might be shouting at your screen, "but what about events?!?" and to that I say, of course, I love the Overwatch events and I love the unlockable items that come with them. It definitely re-ignites that urge to grind, but unfortunately there is always that lingering knowledge that after they event is gone, those items are gone too and cannot be unlocked presumably until next year when the event repeats (we are yet to find out). There are sometimes some great skins available for cheaper during these events, but in the most recent Overwatch anniversary event all of the unlockable skins require players to spend 3,000 coins. I've saved up for that awesome Symmetra skin but that's all I can really afford. So I grind and grind, and I get more loot boxes, but luck doesn't seem to be with me. I've unlocked no legendary skins for this event so far. Of course I could buy loot boxes with real money, but who's to say I'm even going to get anything I want?
The point is, I can't grind for weeks like I could with the non-event items and eventually get lucky enough to find one of these cool skins in a loot box or save up coins to buy them (I try my best to save up, but I only ever get enough for one skin at best, and with so many events so frequently, I can't get enough coins in time if I spend them on each event). We can go back and fourth all day about what I'm doing right or wrong as a player, but what I want to request of Blizzard (I doubt they're going to read this, but one can dream) is that they update the regular lootpool of Overwatch. No, not an event, the normal, bare bones lootpool. They add the occasional emote here and there, as well as skins for the new hero Orisa, and even added in the Nexus Challenge skins, but we need new a whole bunch of new loot for all the heroes to get in those loot boxes as standard, not ones that are locked away the moment events end.
Of course, Blizzard need to make money from the game after its initial purchase, and this is probably the main reason for events and why those legendary skins are 3,000 coins as opposed to the standard legendary skins that are 1,000. This of course, is to bait people into spending real money on loot boxes in hopes they'll either unlock the skins they want or they'll gain enough currency to do so (it would be much simpler if they could just allow you to turn real money into in-game currency instead of gambling on loot boxes). Many will defend Blizzard to the death for this, but I am not here today to discuss that. Blizzard can still hold events, in fact, never stop, I love the new game modes and what not. But players like me wish there were new regular lootpool items, and a lot of them. I mean, those lore-related skins given away in the Overwatch Uprising event should've been in the standard lootpool, just saying. Many of them were not exciting enough to be 3,000 coins each, and the pricing was inconsistent as well. Why was the Tracer Overwatch uniform skin 3,000 coins while Reinhardt's skin, which is of him wearing the same-style uniform as Tracer, only 750? What gives?
The lootpool needs to be updated so us obsessive players aren't just presented with duplicates in every single loot box. That will re-ignite the spark for myself, and I imagine many other players.
