Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
You... could also buy Lootboxes. Which was the sole thing the OW1 "levels" gave. It was literally a just counter of how many lootboxes you'd gotten in-game without weekly Endorsement rewards, but those Levels' reward was likewise purchasable with real money then, just like the result of BP "Levels" can be purchased with real money now.

I preferred the OW1 model, but they're identically illusory in terms of any indication of 'progression'. The main difference is simply that you tended to get drab generic rewards 85% of the time and cooler thematic FOMO event rewards 15% of the time before, and the availability of generalist skins has since declined far more than the event skins (BPs being those FOMO events now) have increased.


Those levels still exist, though? They're just Season-specific.

Or does Savage progression not exist simply because it's effectively reset each new 'season' (Savage tier)?

They're the same. I say this as someone who played since Beta and preferred OW1. OW2 has the same degree of (or, maintains the same lack of) progression that OW1 had. It was purely cosmetic then, and it's purely cosmetic now; it was --if pure cosmetics could ever warrant the term-- just as 'pay to win' in terms that progression back in OW1 as it is now in OW2.
You could not buy levels, that was second most prominent indicator of you as a player, right after your rank. There was much better form of progression for "f2p" players, because you could get theoretically anything. In OW2, getting skins as f2p is chore and it is impossible to keep up, no matter how much you play. So even if you consider BP as a meaningful progression, this progression is limited to people who bought it (unless you're satisfied with the free leftovers in BP). And yes, it's all illusory, it makes you think you're progressing something when you're not, it's just like EW relics, but at least in OW1's case, it gave a decent illusion of progress. Same cannot be said about OW2 or EW relics.

And obviously it's all cosmetic, what else do you imagine OW could give you?

In the end, OW1 progression isn't masterpiece, but it's still miles ahead of it's pathetic "sequel".