The hero shooter Paladins is evolving in a way that Cortyn can only complain about.
Happy Wednesday everyone. Betas are actually a nice thing, if they weren’t such a terrible thing. This might sound a bit bananas (or any other fruit), and it probably is. Let’s talk a bit about Paladins because the game is currently undergoing a transformation that I do not like.
Paladins has changed massively over the last weeks and months. While I liked the hero shooter from HiRez from the beginning, my interest has decreased with each past patch.
Especially, the introduction of “Ultimates” has given the game a rather bitter taste and immediately gave the impression that they are turning it into a “SMITE shooter” or jumping on the Overwatch bandwagon. The worst part for me, however, is that many of the Ultimates were previously ordinary abilities that could be used often and happily. Now they’ve just slapped the label “Super Ability” on them and faced the problem: The ability is boring. As a normal ability, it was great, but for ultimates, they are just too dull.
A good approach has turned into a knockoff
What is almost as shocking to me: I couldn’t handle the game menus anymore, and not as a complete newbie, but as someone who had already dealt with the game a lot before. The menus for creating decks are so confusing, the distribution of “Talent Points” in-game is no longer intuitive. Every hero now has 3 specific decks, while the name “deck” is actually a farce, as it still implies that you could draw or even choose cards during a match. That’s also a thing… without the random factor in card selection, which made Paladins unpredictable but also simply fun, the game is just another “generic hero shooter” with the illusion of talent points.
In summary, I have the impression that Paladins is increasingly trying to be a knockoff of Overwatch – and I find that quite sad because the game simply didn’t need that from my perspective. The maps are fading into the background, the entry gets more complex, less clear, and the motivation to log in decreases with each patch.
I have really thought for a long time about whether I no longer like Paladins because I have enjoyed Overwatch, but I don’t believe that is the case. Paladins was something unique for me, something different and damn cool, as it had many great elements and fun characters – and that is getting trimmed down a bit more with each patch. However, Paladins is still in beta, so it is possible that the mechanics might change fundamentally. But I really don’t like the current direction.
