Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
Progression in Overwatch 1, outside of Ranked mode SR, was solely cosmetic. One of the larger reasons for smurfing was literally just to shed the tacky/garish borders and avoid the stigma of "being a plat-border in plat" if playing the game casually.

In Overwatch 1, each time you "leveled up" you got 4 random rewards, with only the slimmest chance of them not being crap. Most of the best skins were also only available during seasonal events, available once per year, or occasionally during a specific other event that'd briefly unlock all seasonal skins, but such would also be horribly 'overpriced' if purchased outright instead of gained as random rewards.

In Overwatch 2, each time you "leveled up" your Battle Pass, you'd get an exact reward that you knew from the start you'd get at that level, with anything not crap being spaced out very infrequently and the majority of crap rewards (and a significant but not overwhelming number of the good ones) being available only to Battle Pass holders, which you could usually afford by having done the previous Battle Pass. If you don't get it during the Battle Pass, it's available only for ridiculous prices (relative to the grind during the BP that granted it).

Neither was/is good, but OW2 did not significantly remove a preexisting structure of progression. It merely traded out general levels and RNG rewards the size of the entire loot table (since you could and would get things you already owned for a pittance in exchange-value) and event-specific skins for BP-specific levels and known rewards among BP-specific skins (with BP seasons lasting far longer than any of the old events).

What was awful was simply the sudden price-inflation on anything from OW1 once the shift was made (RIP anyone who didn't spend all their in-game currency prior) and the new surplus of skins available only via direct purchase (previously limited just to the MVP skins).
Yet even this simple progression is still missed today. I really don't care about some BP bullshit simply because you can buy levels, so you never know if someone actually achieved the level, or if he just outright bought it. I don't even know if you can see other's people levels, and it also resets every season, so it's whatever, it's really hard for me to care about this "progression".

I don't even care about the items in OW2 (or well, in those first 2 seasons that I tried to like that dumpster fire), I did somewhat care about skins in OW1, but having simple level up and being rewarded with a dumb lootbox every now and then still added nice flavour. It also made events interesting, it was simply fun to farm events. There was also bonus lootboxes for doing weekly arcades. Now you get like 60 credits for weeklies, but you need like 1800 for single legendary skin. None of these are some significant progression systems, but it's still nice to look at your account and see big numbers and how many cosmetics have you unlocked. Considering that you cannot just get better equipment in this kind of games, I would say that was somewhat solid system. And I don't know anyone who was actually buying lootboxes, you could get most of the stuff without any MTX, unlike OW2, where you cannot get nearly any skin without opening your wallet, legendary skin takes like half a year to get without paying.

And no, removing levels certainly does classify as significantly removing preexisting structure of progression, along with other major changes.