#rosewatcher

[punkitt-is-here]

so sorry abt annoying anons. how has your day been. have any good sandwiches lately?

had a fucking BOMB egg cheese chicken avacado and tomato on a toasted everything bagel sandwich lately and that thing FUCKED

[wheelercore]

Mike gave El flowers (not roses) at the airport. El being strangeled while up against the creel glass rose door while wearing a shirt with pink roses on it. The flowers (not roses) being shown decaying because of the mindflayers particles in the last scene.

[spooky-magnolia]

Khali: When I was a kid, Mera told me that the paper strip that’s in the chocolate kisses were edible and I ate them with the chocolate for a year.

Ayrenn: They are!

Khali: FOR REAL?

Ayrenn: No! Why did you fall for it again?

[faerociousbeast]

like straight posting is only funny if you dont do it All The Time forever 😑 thats just what youre always doing. it is for these same reasons *i* do not currently have a yaoi theme, as i do this regularly on occasions that are not april fools. i foolsed myself into this

[cheerclaw]

u will always be famous rosewatcher!!! @npdfrostfur

[oblivion-yxllow]

psychosis-spec vflower icons .. ! ★

[ requested by @rosewatcher .. ! ]

flag: schizosupport

free to use, please credit if used!

[faerociousbeast]

@rosewatcher

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing (so devoted the lines blur)

[rosemaryandthyme4ever]

First Kill sucks but i’m glad it exists because lesbians deserve representation. they deserve their cringe teen vampire media even if the love story doesn’t really make sense and the budget is a few pennies from a pocket of netflix’s old coat. have fun lesbians :)

[spooky-magnolia]

*The Squad when asked about their earlier confession of love*

Rowan: Yeah, you're lucky. I like you.

Ayrenn: I'd understand if you didn't feel the same way...

Khali: *has a panic attack* What confession?

Loghain: *winks* I know, babe. You like me too.

Anora: So what? Are you going to date me or not?

Mera: It was a dare.

[oblivion-yxllow]

system vflower icons .. ! ★

[ requested by @rosewatcher .. !]

flag: the entropy system

free to use, please credit if used!

[bigwonlyshop]

[pippytmi]

tagged by @lexasdagger - thanks for the tag!  💕

Rules: tag 9 people you want to know better

Three ships: like 3 im currently obsessing over, or... 🤔 i’ll write down the 3 im currently writing for: supercorp (will live & die by sc, probably will never get over them), wildmoore (new obsession and. CAN U BLAME me), and sagelyn (yes, in this year of the lord 2022...humberly gonzalez just lives in my head rent free).

Last song: “worms (in my brain)” by noahfinnce 

Last movie: birds of prey (a rewatch, predictably, i never see new movies)

Currently watching: far too many tv shows...finished my rosewatch rewatch (still devastated by the cliffhanger, btw), currently keeping up w/ batwoman, the rookie, abbot elementary, and euphoria. also binging/finishing supergirl, the flash, castle, & archive 81 - there are probably more, i have issues watching 1 thing at a time 

Currently consuming: so much tea. is it SO COLD

Currently craving: sushi....like i always do

tagging: all my mutuals, always, in my <3 

[sukitattoocologne]

@sukitattoocologne #watchtattoo #watchtattoo #tattoostyle #blacktattoo #tattoos #tattoorose #colognetattoo #tattoocologne #tradworkers #rosetattoo #rosewatch (hier: Sukitattoo Cologne) https://www.instagram.com/p/ButVP_-FHVw/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=3qxl2ert8e5

[faerociousbeast]

@rosewatcher

i could be your yaoi girlfriend or yuri boyfriend. but it has to be weird.

[rosemaryandthyme4ever]

Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998)

[Henry smiles from fascination at her words]

Danielle: [smiles at him] I am sorry. My mouth has run away with me again.

Henry: [smiling] No, me lady. It is your mouth, that has me hypnotized.

[They share a kiss]

Henry : How do you do it?

Danielle : What?

Henry : Live each day with this kind of passion. Don't you find it exhausting?

Danielle : It is not fair, sire. You have found my weakness, but I have yet to learn yours.

Henry : But I should think it was quite obvious.

[Danielle blushes]

[looking at the books in the Franciscan monastery]

Danielle : It makes me want to cry.

Henry : Pick one.

Danielle : I could no sooner choose a favourite star in the heavens.

…

Henry : In all my years of study, not one tutor ever demonstrated the passion you have shown me in the last two days. You have more conviction in one memory than I have... in my entire being.

Henry : You swim alone, climb rocks, rescue servants, is there anything you don't do?

Danielle : FLY!

Danielle : What bothers you more, stepmother? That I am common, or that I am competition?

Henry : So much life to live. But I no longer imagine it alone.

Danielle : [in tears, full of sorrow for she knows she must confess her true identity] You’re not making this easy…

Henry : I have not slept for fear I would wake to find all this a dream.

Danielle : [to Henry] Why did you have to be so wonderful?

Henry : Perhaps you would be so kind as to help me find the owner of this rather remarkable shoe? She is my match in every way. Please tell me I haven’t lost her.

Danielle : You, sir, are supposed to be charming.

Henry : And we, princess, are supposed to live happily ever after.

Danielle : Says who?

Henry : You know, I don't know.

♡ ♡ ♡

[commandtower-solring-go]

The problems of Overwatch’s Role-Lock

Overwatch’s solution to its team imbalances present a deeper problem to the game, one underlined by player psychology and Blizzard’s push against human nature. Role-lock, heralded as the be-all solution to imbalanced teams forces players to choose either DPS, Tank or Healer, the game’s three core categories of character and enter separate ques. No game can launch unless there is 2 of each, and so high demand roles lead to higher wait times. 

On paper, this makes a lot of sense. It helps resolve the problem of the oppressive GOATS strategy (3 Tanks, 3 Healers), which dominated competitive Overwatch for many years. It helps prevent games where every player on a single team chose DPS. Or worse yet, when a team has no, or only a single healer. It has since helped to lift the load off of any one player and done much to end ‘carrying’ simply because everyone else was too stubborn to switch.

For a long time Role-Lock was heralded as the solution to many of the problems inherent to Overwatch since its inception by fans. But since its inception, Role-Lock has only gone against the ways that players play. Mark Rosewater wrote in his 20 years 20 lesson talk, article and podcast series on the importance of incorporating player psychology into your games. In fact, its his first lesson “Fighting against human nature is a losing battle”. This represents the problems of Role-Lock. Which, in this new light, reflects deeper problems with Overwatch as a whole. Put simply, Overwatch is torn between its competitive and casual sides. 

Competitive Overwatch, particularly that of the Overwatch League (OWL) is fundamentally different to that of its casual cousin (or in-game competitive Overwatch). Sold as a team-based shooter, the capacity for a team to work together casually is next to none. Anyone who has played with a friend of theirs who they can talk to can attest to this, as even with only 2 people playing together, the game is dramatically tilted in their favour. I have flashbacks to late nights where I’ve been thrown into games against a 6-Stack (6 players on one team) only to face, in real time, the horrible death that is born of acute coordination. The capacity to coordinate with a team takes Overwatch to another level. However, in so much as it is ‘intended play’, it is rarely ‘common play’. Loading into a game of Quick Play is a frustrating mess of uncoordinated teams and certain death. 

To this end, the kind of characters chosen by players changes accordingly. GOATS, as mentioned before, dominated the OWL, but was almost unheard of in casual play. Coordination is at its core, as its unique combination of AoE healing, speed and Dive-esque attacks require a level of coordination rare to find anywhere outside of the OWL, let alone in quickplay. However, due to its massive presence, and the slow decline of the popularity of OWL as a result, many of the Tanks and Healer’s popular to the strategy where nerfed (systematically reduced in power level) while DPS characters were buffed in order to make them more viable. 

But GOATS wasn’t popular in quick play. Because coordination was next to unheard of, the option to rely on your other teammates to win was declining. Sure, it was optimal, but it wasn’t always fun. What was more fun was big swingy attacks and killing lots of enemies. After all, this was the heart of other FPS games. “Get on the payload” was a common turn of phrase in a world where DPS players often ran away to ‘farm kills’. The frustration was there for none-DPS players who cared about winning, but so often they were matched with players, or teams full of players only interested in farming kills. Overtime, trying to coordinate became less and less fun. 

To this end, Role Lock was the saving grace for both sides of the equation. OWL lost GOATS and Quick Play forced players to care about something other than DPS. But there were other problems.

First, Blizzard nerfed nearly all of its Tanks and Healers in an attempt to kill GOATS, but never buffed them again. Some were reworked to be more fair, but others were strictly worse than they had been before and were never turned to their former glory (RIP Brig). This further incentivised players who had previously wanted to play Tank/Healer to jump ship if, for no other reason, than to feel like they had an impact on the game.

Second, there is a greater diversity of DPS characters than both Tank and Healer combined. As such, even if you were to choose a character at random, its more than likely you’ll choose a DPS character. For the simply sake of variety in a game limited to a number of linear game modes with only a handful of maps, players want to enjoy many heroes, rather than mastering a few. 

Third, the game allows players to switch heroes mid game. Every hero can counter another, and as such, there is a certain flow to switching it up to suit the needs of the situation. 

Fourth, the ideal of role-lock is that more wait time in order to play one kind of hero will act as a natural incentive for players to choose another queue. However, this isn’t the case. DPS has wait times often 100 times longer than Healer. Even practical intensives like loot boxes and in game currency aren’t enough. 

The problems are, unfortunately, inherent to what the game is. Team based shooters have always been a bit niche while that can be a problem to the game’s bottom line, it always allows what fandom it does foster to care. Overwatch, being as big as it is, has always been fighting with the nature of its fans. There never used to be so many DPS heroes. They were split into Attack and Defense. But no one played them as such. There were always reminders to play a balanced team, but no one ever did. There has always been a disparity between creating a competitive friendly game and a casual friendly game. Role-Lock fixes none of these. its a band-aid of a rotting wound. 

Deep down I don’t think these problems can be fixed without making Overwatch a fundamentally different game. I say this because it would be impossible to fix the disparity between DPS and Tank/Healer variety without either reworking a lot of heroes, banning existing ones, or introducing a lot more heroes. The first and last takes time and the second will result in a lot of rage. The problem of not unnerfing heroes can’t be fixed without banning heroes. The problem of role-lock and switching heroes can’t both exist. 

I loved Overwatch when it first came out, and I’ve been playing it regularly since. To an extent, I can’t tell if the problems of the game are as bad as they are, or if it is just becoming a different game. I can see the potential for it, but I can also see why its never been realised. Nevertheless, I am hopeful things change for the better. I mentioned previously Mark Rosewatch’s 20 lessons, lessons he learnt in his 20 years working on a single game. I think that as developers there is a lot to learn there because many of them are recognition of easy mistakes. But before I finish, i would like to frame my words within the context of Lesson #19 - “Your audience is good at recognising problems and bad at solving them”. I am no games designer, and I have no idea what its like to deal with the problems of Overwatch. But nevertheless, being so exposed to the output of the game, these are the problems I recognise.