Overwatch: Boop!

[Psyren]

To me, that's even worse. Because then I get stuck getting dropped into a game that's 20 seconds from the timer running out, and get to do nothing....a complete and total waste of my time.

If you have a Hanzo AND Widowmaker on attack, say "screw it" and take Anna and have 3 snipers on attack. Or you can take Widow and spend half your time finding ways to get behind the other team with your zip line...use the time to find new routes or hiding spots, but don't just quit, unless you quite immediately. Try to consider the poor unsuspecting soul that's going to get dropped into the game to replace you.

By "wait for a bit" I meant still at the beginning of the match, before the attackers leave the spawn. Not 20 seconds left in the game. (Not sure where you even got that from )

[Psyren]

Bump for new short on Mei's origins:

Spoiler

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Though beautifully animated, there are a few plot question marks I have about this one. And I get that "talking to herself" is pretty much the only dialogue we were going to get for obvious reasons, but there seemed to be a loooot of unneeded narration going on even taking that into account. Show don't tell, people!

[Rising Phoenix]

Bump for new short on Mei's origins:

Spoiler

Show

Though beautifully animated, there are a few plot question marks I have about this one. And I get that "talking to herself" is pretty much the only dialogue we were going to get for obvious reasons, but there seemed to be a loooot of unneeded narration going on even taking that into account. Show don't tell, people!

A rather weak video compared to their other entries

Spoiler

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Also Blizzard, if you're going to use climate change, call it climate change

[Psyren]

I'm really confused by Mei's role in Overwatch now. Apparently she built her ice gun after coming out of stasis, meaning she wasn't actually a fighter before. But the whole point of Overwatch was to fight killer robots. Even if you say she was just one of their researchers before then, what the heck does climate change have to do with stopping gun-toting omnicidal mechs?

[Morty]

My take is that they're making this lore up as they go along.

[Winthur]

I'm really confused by Mei's role in Overwatch now. Apparently she built her ice gun after coming out of stasis, meaning she wasn't actually a fighter before. But the whole point of Overwatch was to fight killer robots. Even if you say she was just one of their researchers before then, what the heck does climate change have to do with stopping gun-toting omnicidal mechs?

I suppose she and her division might have been some sort of a "conscience". "This Omnic business is terrible and it's right here and right now, but let's remember about the future and about the Earth that we borrow from our children. All of the smoke from the smoldering craters is further ruining the ozone layer, and Australia just suffered the greatest man-made ecological catastrophe in the history of the world. As we in Overwatch keep the peace, we must also make sure that we act as a deterrent force in multiple environments" I assume her science background has been pretty relevant to whatever else the organization was doing; scientists in fantasy universes just know science, m'kay?

Either that or whatever, a scientist-turned-thicc-Sub-Zero may very well not have any bigger role in the organization. She may very well have been mainly a scientist and only went to battle when necessary, Mercy-style. Apparently if you look at her idle animations she doesn't even keep her aim steady. Given that she can cryo-freeze herself at will, she might have excellent knowledge of biology and whatnot. Might very well be a medical assistant to Mercy.

[The_Jackal]

Those numbers seem a bit skewed towards smallish sample sizes, though. Most of those top 20 Roadhog players have fewer than 100 games with Roadhog in the sampling time. By comparison, of the top 20 Winston players, only two have fewer than 100 games with him in the current sampling period.

I suspect that the "something" these players know is which situations Roadhog is and isn't viable in, and that the situations where he isn't good significantly outnumber the situations where he is viable.

If there was really a special sauce to playing Roadhog with a consistently high winrate, this list would have more members with numbers that suggest they are maining Roadhog, like Winston's numbers have.

Also, it's possible that nearly any character which rewards good aiming and positioning and isn't nerfed to six feet under can do reasonably well in the hands of someone who has aimbot-like precision and thousands of hours of experience developing gamesense.

So how much of this is the dive meta being the predominant form of play, and how much is the non-viability of Roadhog? I do agree, he needs help, I'm just not sure how much help he really needs. I like the idea of giving him a longer clip for more sustain has potential, and maybe some passive damage reduction, even something small like 10-15%, to take the edge off his 'ult battery' downsides maybe in order. If that doesn't do it, then maybe pulling down his hook cooldown back to 7 or even 6 seconds may also help. I just don't think a return to the old 'Hook == Death' is the move.

That would force many (including myself) to only do quickplay..... that would be so cruel.

But the trade off with that is if there's more players who actually care about winning into quick play, it wouldn't be such a dumpster-fire. What I'd really like to see is 3-fold: 1) solo queue competitive is gone. 2) all extrinsic in-game rewards (skins, gold guns, sprays) removed from comp, to keep only those who care about their ladder ranking in competitive. 3) An arranged-team only competitive queue, with good tools to allow players to find teams, advertise their preferred roles, make friends, and actually put onus on *finding* and *keeping* friends to play with. Because what ultimately is toxic about the current competitive game is the expectation that you're going to trust 4-5 strangers you've been piled into a room with, and come up with a working composition and strategy in 30 seconds.

Ultimately, I don't think the SR system is healthy, because the design of a proper MMR doesn't translate to team games, unless the TEAM has the MMR, and a proper MMR system isn't a "ladder". A ladder implies that you should be climbing it, or something is wrong. That's not what should be happening. You should settle at an MMR that reflects your level of skill, and only climb when you actually improve as a player, and far too many players have unrealistic notions about their own level of skill. That's just human nature. In the immortal words of Garrison Keillor, "All the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above-average".

I'm with Psyren: I've got no truck with elitism, I only want the games to be interesting. I'm willing to swap into a role to help my team, but I don't want to be stuck playing #@$&*! Lucio or Reinhardt every game. I don't drop games, I agree that's not a good solution, but yes, if I'm getting farmed by Genji as the solo healer, or I'm running into a wall with Winston because nobody follows my initiation, guess what? I'm swapping off to Sombra or Widow to screw around. I think the current paradigm where the performance metrics favor playing one-tricks, and in particular, off-meta one-tricks, is what's making the competitive scene as toxic as it's become, but at the end of the day, there's always going to be more players wanting to play Hanzo and Widow than there are teams who need that player, which is why I think competitive is always going to be a bit of a garbage-fire, so long as there's an anonymous queue.

I get far too many people in my Quickplay games just being idiots who all pick DPS with me being the only Support or Tank.... Banning me from playing competitive just because my friends don't play overwatch would leave me stuck with a very annoying group of players.

My point is that if you're in an arranged team format, where they give us matchmaking tools to find players, and develop comraderie, you're going to be able to build relationships and trust, and you're going to get a chance to swap off support/tank roles with your other players. Also, you do have friends who play Overwatch. You've got us. The battletag list is in the top post.

[chainer1216]

I'm really confused by Mei's role in Overwatch now. Apparently she built her ice gun after coming out of stasis, meaning she wasn't actually a fighter before. But the whole point of Overwatch was to fight killer robots. Even if you say she was just one of their researchers before then, what the heck does climate change have to do with stopping gun-toting omnicidal mechs?

Overwatch started out as a force for fighting omnics, sure, but after the war it transitioned into a peace keeping force as well as a general humanitarian aid group, they had plenty of scientists on staff doing research to advance and aid the recovery of the world after the war.

Do you thing the hardline pacifist Mercy would be a part of a combat-only organization?

[NeoVid]

I'm really confused by Mei's role in Overwatch now. Apparently she built her ice gun after coming out of stasis, meaning she wasn't actually a fighter before. But the whole point of Overwatch was to fight killer robots. Even if you say she was just one of their researchers before then, what the heck does climate change have to do with stopping gun-toting omnicidal mechs?

Whatever "The Anomaly" is, it's something bad enough to make Overwatch plant a secret research station in the middle of the Antarctic and for Mei to believe that the data on it could save millions of lives. It being connected to the Omnic Crisis would be no surprise. Of course, they were purposely vague enough that they could connect it to anything that makes for a good event in the future.

[Psyren]

Do you thing the hardline pacifist Mercy would be a part of a combat-only organization?

Depends on how she views omnics, particularly the hostile ones like the Bastion units that shoot on sight. Not seeing those as "people" would therefore not conflict with a pacifist viewpoint. It certainly didn't stop her from enlisting when shooting robots was OW's primary schtick at any rate; remember, the Insurrection event was actually canon, and she was there, pistol and all.

I suppose she and her division might have been some sort of a "conscience". "This Omnic business is terrible and it's right here and right now, but let's remember about the future and about the Earth that we borrow from our children. All of the smoke from the smoldering craters is further ruining the ozone layer, and Australia just suffered the greatest man-made ecological catastrophe in the history of the world. As we in Overwatch keep the peace, we must also make sure that we act as a deterrent force in multiple environments" I assume her science background has been pretty relevant to whatever else the organization was doing; scientists in fantasy universes just know science, m'kay?

Either that or whatever, a scientist-turned-thicc-Sub-Zero may very well not have any bigger role in the organization. She may very well have been mainly a scientist and only went to battle when necessary, Mercy-style. Apparently if you look at her idle animations she doesn't even keep her aim steady. Given that she can cryo-freeze herself at will, she might have excellent knowledge of biology and whatnot. Might very well be a medical assistant to Mercy.

It seemed like they were studying something specific though. I can buy that premise, I just want to know (a) what the specific thing is and (b) why Overwatch are the ones studying it. It's not like they're the only scientific outfit on earth (see also Volskaya and Vishkar) so I assume whatever she was up there for related directly to their mission in some way.

Whatever "The Anomaly" is, it's something bad enough to make Overwatch plant a secret research station in the middle of the Antarctic and for Mei to believe that the data on it could save millions of lives. It being connected to the Omnic Crisis would be no surprise. Of course, they were purposely vague enough that they could connect it to anything that makes for a good event in the future.

That fits with Morty's assessment. Sigh.

[Milo v3]

But the trade off with that is if there's more players who actually care about winning into quick play, it wouldn't be such a dumpster-fire.

Except the general view of Quick Play is that "Lol, it doesn't matter". I don't see how pissing off solo querers by forcing them to do Quick Play instead will make it less of a dumpster-fire.

Also, you do have friends who play Overwatch. You've got us. The battletag list is in the top post.

That's no different to solo queue to me since either way you're playing with random strangers that you don't know + I play console.

[Mutazoia]

That's no different to solo queue to me since either way you're playing with random strangers that you don't know + I play console.

1. Form teams with players while you play
2. Add those players that you work well with to your friends list.
3. When you log into Overwatch, it tells you how many (if any) of your friends are currently playing.
4. Join the game your friends are playing.
5. Reform a group until you have enough for Comp.
6. Switch to Comp as a team.

[Geno9999]

Except the general view of Quick Play is that "Lol, it doesn't matter". I don't see how pissing off solo querers by forcing them to do Quick Play instead will make it less of a dumpster-fire.

Really if they were to change anything about Solo Queue Competitive, they should follow the HotS route: separate Solo and Team Competitive into their own queues with their own SR.

[chainer1216]

... remember, the Insurrection event was actually canon, and she was there, pistol and all.

The broad events of the Uprising event are canon, yes, but as always the characters in-game abilities are non-canon. Junkrat isnt actually immune to his own explosions, Bastion CAN headshot people, Tracer can blink more than 3 times, more than 5 feet and vertically too...probably. I highly doubt Mercy can actually ressurect the dead in an area around her, and in the vein of all of that, its debatable that she even has an actual gun in universe.

[Psyren]

The broad events of the Uprising event are canon, yes, but as always the characters in-game abilities are non-canon. Junkrat isnt actually immune to his own explosions, Bastion CAN headshot people, Tracer can blink more than 3 times, more than 5 feet and vertically too...probably. I highly doubt Mercy can actually ressurect the dead in an area around her, and in the vein of all of that, its debatable that she even has an actual gun in universe.

Full-on, magical resurrection, probably not - but some kind of field resuscitation ability isn't hard to believe, they are working with nanites after all.

Also, your logic is specious - "She doesn't actually return people from the grave, therefore her simply having a sidearm is equally incredulous" is a fallacy.

[chainer1216]

"She doesn't actually return people from the grave, therefore her simply having a sidearm is equally incredulous"[/I] is a fallacy.

Ok, if the idea of a pacifist not having a "Caduceus Blaster" is so incredulous why dont you just show us a piece of in canon work where shes shown to carry it, like maybe the comic for the event you mentioned.

Ill wait.

[Psyren]

0:55 during Commander Morrison's broadcast.

Your turn, prove she doesn't.

[BRC]

Yes, They ARE just making this up as the go along, but Mei's role isn't counter-canon.

Overwatch started as a 6-man strike team (And, presumably, associated support staff) to fight against the Omnic Crisis. After they succeeded, the organization Overwatch was founded as a general peacekeeping/humanitarian/"You saved the world now do what you want" group. In addition to combat teams they had scientists and the like. They were not just the Robot Fighters, (Although they did, illegally intervene against Null Sector in London).

That said, I've concluded that they were perhaps the most incompetent organization of all time.


Previously, we assumed that Mei and her team went under around the time Overwatch fell. They were forgotten amidst the chaos of the base exploding and everything falling apart.

But, now we learn that the Ecopoint team went to sleep nine years ago, four years before the fall of Overwatch.

Either the Ice Storm lasted 4+years, or people at Overwatch just forgot about what I'm guessing is a multi-million dollar research base (it's not cheap to build in Antarctica) with six staff members.

Even if the communications system was damaged by the Ice Storm, did they never send another supply drop? If they thought everybody was dead, did they not send a team to recover bodies and equipment?


Edit: As for "The Anomaly", Mei was a climatologist, at what we've been told was a climate research station. "The Anomaly" could just refer to some specific climate change based phenomenon that they were observing.

[chainer1216]

0:55 during Commander Morrison's broadcast.

Your turn, prove she doesn't.

that's in-game footage.

And i'm not saying it for sure doesn't exist, only that its Schrodinger's gun. just because she goes into the field doesn't mean she actively fights, she's very clearly there to save lives.

and before you scoff and say its ridiculous to be a soldier, even a medic, in the field with no weapon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss

[Psyren]

that's in-game footage.

The events of the trailer are canon; notice how it starts with "7 Years Ago" and talks about being Tracer's first mission? Unlike other events/game modes, they placed it in the timeline.

And i'm not saying it for sure doesn't exist, only that its Schrodinger's gun. just because she goes into the field doesn't mean she actively fights, she's very clearly there to save lives.

As any good Mercy will tell you, sometimes saving lives means pulling out your gun. In-universe, she's a Technical Pacifist because she only uses it on omnicidal robots - much like how in D&D, an Apostle of Peace is allowed to fry undead and constructs.

[Velaryon]

But the trade off with that is if there's more players who actually care about winning into quick play, it wouldn't be such a dumpster-fire. What I'd really like to see is 3-fold: 1) solo queue competitive is gone. 2) all extrinsic in-game rewards (skins, gold guns, sprays) removed from comp, to keep only those who care about their ladder ranking in competitive. 3) An arranged-team only competitive queue, with good tools to allow players to find teams, advertise their preferred roles, make friends, and actually put onus on *finding* and *keeping* friends to play with. Because what ultimately is toxic about the current competitive game is the expectation that you're going to trust 4-5 strangers you've been piled into a room with, and come up with a working composition and strategy in 30 seconds.

While we're at it, I'd like to see character selection changed so that people can choose either Hanzo or Widowmaker, not both. I mean, it's never gonna happen, but I doubt they will ban solo queueing from competitive, either (though personally I don't care since I stick to Quick Play and Arcade).

That's no different to solo queue to me since either way you're playing with random strangers that you don't know + I play console.

PS4 or XBox?

[Psyren]

While we're at it, I'd like to see character selection changed so that people can choose either Hanzo or Widowmaker, not both. I mean, it's never gonna happen, but I doubt they will ban solo queueing from competitive, either (though personally I don't care since I stick to Quick Play and Arcade).

There's nothing wrong with having two snipers, especially on defense. One problem you might be having with them in your games though is that their skill ceilings are much lower on console, so they're indeed less likely to add value than other classes.

[The_Jackal]

There's nothing wrong with having two snipers, especially on defense. One problem you might be having with them in your games though is that their skill ceilings are much lower on console, so they're indeed less likely to add value than other classes.

Please allow me to respectfully disagree. A double sniper comp may work versus an enemy who refuses to adjust their team composition to counter them, but a double sniper lineup is trivially easy to abuse with the right comp. I think Hanzo is probably the more flexible pick among the two, and I do think that Hanzo gets a lot of undeserved hate, along with Sombra, based on the spurious notion that they're throw picks. But stacking double snipers commits almost no pressure on the objective, and it's far too easy to simply dive on the point/payload, win a quick 6 on 4, then stay out of view of the sniper duo. Then there's also the overlap in their team utility, namely the wallhack abilities. Having one teammate providing wallhacks is very useful. Having two has much lower marginal utility.

However, this is all moot. The real reason everyone hates double sniper is not because of how the comp ought to work, or can work, but how, in practice, they do work. Your snipers stand back, plink ineffectually at the enemy, don't get enough picks to justify their slot, and everyone else gets curbstomped by a 4 on 6 fight. 95% of the time, it's an indication that your game is going to be a loss.

[Psyren]

Bump for HUGE changes to Mercy.

1) Her Resurrect ultimate is going away.
2) She now resurrects single-target as her E ability, 30s cooldown.
3) Her new ultimate is Valkyrie. It lets her staff abilities chain to multiple targets, makes her gun fire faster, lets her regen continue even while being shot at, increases the speed and range of her Guardian Angel shift ability... and oh yeah, it lets her actually fly!

https://dotesports.com/overwatch/new...verwatch-16884

[The_Jackal]

Bump for HUGE changes to Mercy.

1) Her Resurrect ultimate is going away.
2) She now resurrects single-target as her E ability, 30s cooldown.
3) Her new ultimate is Valkyrie. It lets her staff abilities chain to multiple targets, makes her gun fire faster, lets her regen continue even while being shot at, increases the speed and range of her Guardian Angel shift ability... and oh yeah, it lets her actually fly!

https://dotesports.com/overwatch/new...verwatch-16884

This is AWESOME. I love that they've made Rez a tempo ability, killing both the 'I'm saving my rez' problem, and also addressing the 'Mercy main' issue where people were climbing on the back of pullling off lots of 5 man rezes. I'm more of a Zen guy myself, but I'll definitely put some more time into Mercy with these changes.

I've been putting a bunch of time recently into Tracer, and I've been having a lot of fun. She's got a very steep learning curve, you've got to be very aware of your team's disposition, and that of the enemy, because her margin of error is so slim. However, when you play her right, you can DOMINATE. One-clipping the enemy Mercy from behind her team is almost as satisfying as popping headshots with a sniper, with similarly devastating effects on the enemy team. I had a great play yesterday playing defense on Anubis, point 2, where the enemy team was balling up for an attack via the tunnel ruins (to the right of the point, from the defender PoV). I was sneaking up behind them intent on some mischief, and our Zarya graved the whole ball of them. They had a Reinhardt who shielded the rest of the team in front, but I had a marvelous view of them from behind, dumped a clip into them, charged by ult, and killed 3 of them with my pulse bomb, then finished off Roadhog before he hit the ground. Play of the Game, glorious. The only thing was marred slightly by me getting crushed while chasing their lone Doomfist back to spawn (I probably should have let him go, since no one else on my team was giving chase).

[Psyren]

I like the change too, and I think Seagull will as well: I Hate Mercy So Much

[BRC]

New Res seems like it will make her more fun to play. It's something to do besides holding down the heal button. But it's basically exclusively going to be used on Tanks.

That said, I think it's going to make a lot of people very angry.

1) A mercy screws up who they've selected when they use it.
2) Somebody runs in and dies. "MERCY RES ME!" *Mercy rezes somebody else* "WTF MERCY WHY NO RES??!?!?!?!?!?". Without the "Waiting for multi-rez" excuse, everybody is going to assume that they're the top performer who needs to be rezzed.

On the other hand, it will make it safter for me to take a bite of my snacks when I die, and not have to jump back to the keyboard with a mouth full of grapes.

[Psyren]

The flight ability is interesting too - pop ult to save yourself from a boop, or to escape from an assassin.

But I have a feeling we'll see fewer Mercy PotGs now though.

[Morty]

It certainly makes more sense than the changes to D.Va. I've never seen the issues with Mercy's ult they describe, but I only play QP, and on a level best described as random flailing.

[The_Jackal]

I imagine her beam chaining will actually wind up being the most powerful effect of that ultimate. "Entire team, get 30% more damage" has the potential to be stupidly powerful. Stack that on Orisa's supercharger on defense, and hoo-boy.

New Res seems like it will make her more fun to play. It's something to do besides holding down the heal button. But it's basically exclusively going to be used on Tanks.

I don't think so. I think it goes down the very first moment someone on your team snuffs it in a position that isn't immediately suicidal. 30 seconds is not a long time, so you'll want to have that ability on cooldown as much as possible. I wouldn't hold it for a tank, at any rate. In point of fact, it effectively can let your play healing your low HP heroes more recklessly, and focus on keeping your bigs upright.

That said, I think it's going to make a lot of people very angry.

I think the folks who are naturally predisposed to blame others for their own failings are going to find someone to blame no matter what happens. You want to get healed? Protect your healer and don't die stupid, and you'll get healed. You're off by your own flanking? Go find a health pack. You need me to pick you up of the floor so you can start dominating? Why, was there something wrong with you before you died that's going to change after I rez you?