If you set the server config to limit one player per class, and set the max team size to like 8, you basically have a hero shooter. That’s not an unusual config- some servers were just like that for years.
What’s missing ? “Each class has two powers” is an extremely specific metric I don’t think is a requirement for hero shooters, and even if it was you have the unique grenades on top of the more obvious “he can build a sentry, he can turn invisible”.
You could maybe argue there aren’t enough classes, but I don’t buy that. As long as you have enough for everyone on the team to play something different, you’re good. The characters in TF2 certainly have personality.
I knew someone who got really upset when I compared overwatch to TF2, but I think it was because they were emotionally invested in overwatch and felt bad when I was like “it’s kind of like this much older game I like more”. Saying the thing they love is kind of a knockoff made them feel bad.
Anyway. To your point. I wouldn’t call tf2 a hero shooter first. It’s not the best representation of the genre, probably. But to my point, I still stand by overwatch added very little on top of TF2. Most of Blizzard’s changes were changes in minor detail. It’s basically "more classes, fewer game modes, you can’t run your own server, and we’re going to try to sell you micro transactions "
I stand by my assessment that overwatch is essentially team fortress 2 with a limit of one player per class and fewer game modes.
I don’t know the name of the trope, but it’s like when a cover gets more popular than the original. Except the person doing the cover (blizzard) is a huge scumbag.
I think I played maple story in like 2007 and it was garbage then. My excuse at the time was I was broke, and there weren’t many good free games out. Path of Exile wasn’t until 2013. Same with Warframe. Huh I never realized those came out the same year.
D&D 5e is kind of bad system. It’s “good” in that it’s hard to make a bad character, and it’s popular, but that’s most of what it has going for it. It’s missing a lot of rules you’d want for a general purpose RPG. Centering it on rests only works in rather specific kinds of games. The magic system is very bespoke and thus clunky. The dice math if 1d20+stuff gives you a flat probability, which is often unsatisfying.
Pathfinder 2e is widely considered better than 5e in every way, unless you actually specifically want the simple+shallowness of 5e. Which is a fine thing to want, but that is a pretty big trade off. If you were just playing with friends, you’d probably be better off with Fate or maybe a PbtA game if you want simple narrative stuff, or Gloomhaven if you just want a board game.
My post came out more victim blaming than I meant. “how to get people to stop paying for exploitive games” might be regulation or education. I don’t have an answer.
On the other hand, casinos have been around forever so maybe we’re stuck as long as we’re human.
It’s frustrating because like … people could just not spend money on garbage. Like there are exploitive games that make a ton of money, right? How do we get people to stop spending money on them?
We probably can’t because many people are morons who can’t pass the marshmallow test.