One way to breathe a new life into multiplayer shooters could be removing any guns from healers.
Make them potent, but vulnerable!
Why is it important:
- Players that don’t like shooting, but love teamwork would finally be represented (yes, I’m speaking of your girlfriend!)
- Having to protect healers would benefit more organized teams, rewarding teamwork
- Healers would have a more dynamic gameplay revolving around avoiding damage: stealthy movement, ability to quickly traverse dangerous zones, coordination with fellow teammates are all required to benefit your team as a healer
What might need to be tweaked:
- Healers should be made into the only revivors, and we should either punish death more (which we’d better be careful of if that’s a dynamic game) or give buffs on revival
- Healers should get more movement abilities to increase survivability. They may also get speed boost when running towards teammates (similar to Conduit Savior’s Speed in Apex Legends)
- Team compositions should accommodate for several healers as to not introduce a single point of failure
Overall, I think it could introduce a new dynamic to team arenas and skirmishes, as winning now requires more coordination within a team and better understanding of everyone’s roles.
Since so many people played the original overwatch at it’s prime, it was a good way to see what people played and how. The dps queue was sometimes 30 to 40min, while as a healer you got into a game instantly. When Ana dropped, people just played ana and didn’t heal people, because she had a sniper rifle. When moira dropped, people just played her as a dps who could heal herself. Support is very niche already, making it more niche, and only a handful of people would even consider support.
I think the finals did a good job in giving the medium class a healing beam. It’s supper powerful on it’s own, and if your team dies, you can still whip out a very good if not the best gun.