Overwatch: Thread of the Game

[Keltest]

I meant the whole discussion My point was just that something doesn't necessarily have to fully sentient to have gendered characteristics.

But closer to what you said, yeah, Bastions aren't fully sentient, not like Zenyatta. Come to think of it, I wonder if Null Sector omnics like the AR-14 are sentient?

Theoretically there had to be some sapient omnics somewhere organizing everything, but my understanding is that the combat units ie the null bots, bastions and OR-14s are all largely just simple combat AIs and not full fledged personalities. Orisia had to have special parts ordered to make her fully sapient, IIRC.

[Chromascope3D]

You don't think a giant centaur-robot or a pair of cyborgs push realism?

But how about we drop the whole thing? I don't think we'll be getting anywhere, and there's little point in annoying each other.

Probably for the best.

[The_Jackal]

So here's how excited I am for Ashe, Hero 29: I'm installing the PTR client, just to get adjusted to her kit early. This is the kind of Hero that OW needs more of: Skill-based, with solid movement abilities, and potential for synergies and combos to reward strong mechanics.

[Keltest]

So here's how excited I am for Ashe, Hero 29: I'm installing the PTR client, just to get adjusted to her kit early. This is the kind of Hero that OW needs more of: Skill-based, with solid movement abilities, and potential for synergies and combos to reward strong mechanics.

As far as her kit goes, she feels a lot like McCree, only with bigger weapons. Rifle instead of revolver, Dynamite instead of a flash bang, displace in any direction instead of just forward...

BOB is different, of course, but he doesn't really need that much getting used to on his own.

I do like it though. I feel like 76 and McCree have been too alone in the mid range point and click role. Having another character who can see a phara and just shoot her will be nice.

[The_Jackal]

Yes, she does seem more like a "Let's fix McCree" toon as much as anything else. But that's all good by me. I like the feel of a rifle you can over a pistol you shoot from the hip, and I like the trade of dropping a stun for raw damage and mobility, and I'm super-excited over a usable ultimate, as opposed to the suicide pact that is High Noon.

And yeah, I'd argue that neither Soldier nor McCree were ever very strong Pharah counters, at least prior to her splash nerf. I haven't been playing either character since that change, so I can't comment on how they match up. IMO, the only true Pharah counters are Widowmaker and D.va. Ashe has the potential to offer a strong counter to Pharah while still delivering some good up-front muscle to brawl in places no sane Widowmaker would dare to tread.

[GolemsVoice]

The new LEGO sets have been confirmed, by the way, and there even is a new Bastion kit that actually can transform.

https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Overwatch-Sets

[The_Jackal]

Yes, she does seem more like a "Let's fix McCree" toon as much as anything else. But that's all good by me. I like the feel of a rifle you can over a pistol you shoot from the hip, and I like the trade of dropping a stun for raw damage and mobility, and I'm super-excited over a usable ultimate, as opposed to the suicide pact that is High Noon.

And yeah, I'd argue that neither Soldier nor McCree were ever very strong Pharah counters, at least prior to her splash nerf. I haven't been playing either character since that change, so I can't comment on how they match up. IMO, the only true Pharah counters are Widowmaker and D.va. Ashe has the potential to offer a strong counter to Pharah while still delivering some good up-front muscle to brawl in places no sane Widowmaker would dare to tread.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to get any quick play time on Ashe on the PTR, as literally everyone is joining lobbies, finding Ashe to be taken, and then leaving.

[Keltest]

Unfortunately, I can't seem to get any quick play time on Ashe on the PTR, as literally everyone is joining lobbies, finding Ashe to be taken, and then leaving.

Arent there lobbies for custom games where everybody is Ashe?

[The_Jackal]

Arent there lobbies for custom games where everybody is Ashe?

Yeah, I should do that, but I feel like that's not really good practice for actually playing the game.

[The_Jackal]

Yeah, I should do that, but I feel like that's not really good practice for actually playing the game.

Aaand.... I was right. I lobbed onto PTR, jumped into a bunch of 'all Ashe' lobbies, and quickly discovered two things: 1) My aim is rusty as Hell, 2) An Ashe FFA deathmatch lobby bears no resemblance to the regular game, as it is played when there are tanks, healers, and other DPS. Don't get me wrong, she's fun, I love precision Heroes, which is top 5 heroes by play time are McCree, Ana, Hanzo, Sombra, and Widowmaker, but there's a big difference between playing 12 on 12 FFA where at any given time you're being flanked by 2 or 3 players, no matter where you are on the map, and playing an objective mode with a proper team.

I do hope she'll be what the game needs to deflate the current GOATS Deathball meta, but I think that her kit is just challenging enough to keep the silver-gold level players I find myself playing with from being effective in neutralizing the Brigitte cruise-control I-win button. What I feel Ash WILL be good for is stuffing Pharah players at low-mid tiers of play, as Ashe is a strong ranged hitscan with a non-joke of an ultimate (as compared to suicide at high noon or wallhacks which are meaningless when the entire team is stacked up in a giant wad under 4 meters of barriers). But this may have the opposite effect of what I think Blizz intended, by making Brigitte MORE powerful at low SR. We shall see, I suppose.

I did get a bunch of regular quick play games, and I'm not sure why, but I've found quick play to be slightly less like to be composed to 5 DPS plus me. I guess the endorsement system is working as intended, by fostering people's willingness to slot into healer/tank roles. Maybe it's just dumb luck though. Once again, I really wish quick play would report losses, so I could actually see if my instinct that I was winning more as a consequence of having non-BS comps really bears out.

[The_Jackal]

Looks like the #DeleteBrig movement has fully picked up steam. Seagull posted a video on the state of Overwatch currently, and I have to say, I'm in full agreement with his assessment of the situation:



Give this a watch, it's quick, and it's dead on, in my opinion, as to the state of the game, its flaws, and the effect it has on the community, the players, and the fun. What do y'all think?

[Rynjin]

Basically what I've been saying for a while now. Blizzard is inexperienced at balancing competitive games, and FPSes in particular.

They've charged headlong into making a lot of the mistakes the fringe communities for TF2 were clamoring for, and reaping the natural results.

Mistake 1: Balancing for the esports community. Great for esports, bad for everyone else. When they add, remove, or tweak something they always look at it from the perspective of what the highest level, most skilled players want, need, or can deal with. This shows in small ways (like the disparity between how useless Ana is in Quick Play and how good she is in Ranked) and the larger ones of COUNTERS being more important than COUNTER PLAY; this is fine, if uninspired and boring in an environment where you can expect any given teammate to take one for the team (swapping from a character they enjoy to what is needed), but basically impossible to expect except at the very high pro levels or full stack queues.

Mistake 2: CC/Movement controlling abilities. Valve realized this was a mistake early on, hence why things like the Sandman were nerfed into uselessness, and movement controlling abilities in general either always have BASIC level competence counterplay (surfing explosions) or were tweaked to do so (changing the Pyro's airblast to no longer eliminate momentum, so characters have air control, and as a side effect eliminated Groundstalling).

CC in an FPS is big deal Not Fun. FPS games are meant to be fast and furious affairs, and anything that slows the games down will instantly cut the fun factor. Related is:

Mistake 3: Tanks and healers being such a dominant meta force. Big meat walls that soak bullets and not much else, paired with people that replenish said meat wall and make it bigger are also Not Fun. This is most prevalent at the lowest levels of play, but ironically also hinders Overwatch's potential as an esport or spectator sport kind of game. Overwatch is unbearably boring to watch in part because of this, and in part because of the ult system. Primarily the issue with Overwatch is:

Mistake 4: Games are determined by macro level decisions, not micro ones. There are a surprisingly small number of moment to moment decisions to make at most levels of play in OW, because generally speaking nobody on the team matters as an individual. One person can't generally eliminate a meat wall on their own, forcing teamwork. When both teams are made of walls of meat bolstered by meat replenishing beef hoses all that ends up happening in the minute to minute is a bunch of people futilely slapping each other with noodles until some or all of one team gets to drop a Beef Deleter on the field (aka an ultimate ability) to shift the game in one team's advantage.

Essentially Mistake 4 is OW's real problem, from which all its other issues are symptoms: Overwatch is a MOBA in an FPS skin, where team comp and ult/ability economy matters more than anything else. but in addition to being a bad competitive FPS, it's also a pretty bad MOBA, because MOBAs still have more significant moment to moment decisions to make, AND more nuanced macro decisions to make (character builds as opposed to strict counters and counter-counters). It this weird beast that sucks at both things it's trying to be and only gets worse as the meta becomes more obviously polarized.

This last bit is a problem bafflingly shared by Hearthstone as well, where what KIND of deck you're playing vastly outweighs any decisions you make on your turn; many games are won and lost on turn 1, just like a lot of games of OW are determined the instant someone on either team picks a certain type of comp to stick with.

[The_Jackal]

Rynjin, I mostly concur with your analysis, except that the 'First person MOBA' is not the core problem plaguing Overwatch. Yes, Overwatch draws some inspiration in design of a few Heroes from MOBAs, and yes, MOBAs also suffer from a lack of counter-play, but there's also a much lower common skill ceiling in an Isometric game (well, until you're talking about a real RTS, where APM and unit control becomes a factor, but that's irrelevant in a MOBA) compared to a FPS. But Overwatch is much more of a class-based team FPS, it's got much more in common with TF2 than League of Legends. There's no creeps in Overwatch (not in competitive play, at any rate), there's no treasures, no in-game progression or unlocking of abilities, there's no enemy fortifications to topple or troops to farm. Oh, and you can't swap Heroes mid-match in a MOBA.

I put it to you that what really troubles the game is that Overwatch has wildly different skill requirements between Heroes, and ultimately, balancing a low-skill hero like Mercy or Brig to be comparable in power and effectiveness at the highest levels of play with a high-skill hero like Widowmaker is poison to a competitive game. It's not a coincidence that the most widely derided Hero problems in Overwatch were accompanied by Heroes whose abilities were incredibly easy to bring off, and very difficult to counter: Roadhog hook 1.0, Mercy rez, both Original and Extra Crispy, Original D.va defense Matrix, McRight-click, Brigitte, Rocket punch 1.0.

To me, that incongruity between the challenge/reward premise of Heroes is the ultimate problem with Overwatch. I'm entirely okay with there being less mechanically challenging roles in Overwatch, but their power and impact needs to take a backseat to heroes with a higher skill ceiling, otherwise you see the current status quo, where play is governed by resource utilization: Whose cooldowns run out first, or whose ultimates charge faster, and are used more judiciously. There's strategy in there, and gameplay, but not particularly interesting strategy, nor very satisfying gameplay.

I really do like your comparison to the Hearthstone design philosophy, which is also governed by rock-paper-scissors matchups, meta-stomping card changes, and of course, incredibly power creep. I see the parallels in OW as well, with Heroes like Reaper, Soldier, and McCree rotting in obscurity, as new FOTM additions are added to destroy the current meta-game.

[calvinn]

I think it's boring game

[The_Jackal]

I think it's boring game

I mostly agree, but I prefer to discuss why it is boring, and what might be done to address it. In my opinion, the game skews far too heavily toward preventing damage. Healing, Matrix, Armor, Barriers, there's just way too many ways to prevent player death.

[Keltest]

I mostly agree, but I prefer to discuss why it is boring, and what might be done to address it. In my opinion, the game skews far too heavily toward preventing damage. Healing, Matrix, Armor, Barriers, there's just way too many ways to prevent player death.

I find the things that prevent player control to be far more annoying. There should be diminishing returns on CC, because getting stun locked is just completely un-fun given how easy it is to be blown up if youre held still.

[The_Jackal]

I find the things that prevent player control to be far more annoying. There should be diminishing returns on CC, because getting stun locked is just completely un-fun given how easy it is to be blown up if youre held still.

I don't disagree, but I think those effects are only powerful to the extent that all other means of eliminating enemies are ineffective. In a world where McCree can two-tap you from 30 meters (one headshot and one body shot), who cares if he or Brig can stun you from less than 10 meters away. The reason these stun and done or one-shot mechanics govern the game is because all other means of eliminating enemies are thoroughly ineffective.

[Rynjin]

I don't disagree, but I think those effects are only powerful to the extent that all other means of eliminating enemies are ineffective. In a world where McCree can two-tap you from 30 meters (one headshot and one body shot), who cares if he or Brig can stun you from less than 10 meters away. The reason these stun and done or one-shot mechanics govern the game is because all other means of eliminating enemies are thoroughly ineffective.

McCree's stun is a poorly designed mechanic for the same reason the Jarate/Bushwacka combo for Sniper was in TF2; it eliminates a weakness the class archetype has and turns it into an advantage. McCree is a solid long-ish range hitscan damage dealer who naturally should have a weakness in close range combat...but basically auto-wins any 1 v 1 in that range.

The only reason it's merely questionable instead of outright stupid (aside the fact that there are too many beef slabs in the game to make McCree an astounding hero in the first place) is that he's a mid-range "sniper" instead of a long range one. The design flaw would be much clearer if it was part of Widowmaker's kit instead.

[mythmonster2]

McCree's stun is a poorly designed mechanic for the same reason the Jarate/Bushwacka combo for Sniper was in TF2; it eliminates a weakness the class archetype has and turns it into an advantage. McCree is a solid long-ish range hitscan damage dealer who naturally should have a weakness in close range combat...but basically auto-wins any 1 v 1 in that range.

The only reason it's merely questionable instead of outright stupid (aside the fact that there are too many beef slabs in the game to make McCree an astounding hero in the first place) is that he's a mid-range "sniper" instead of a long range one. The design flaw would be much clearer if it was part of Widowmaker's kit instead.

Uh, flashbang+fan the hammer has been a part of McCree's kit since he came out. I haven't played in a long time, but McCree used to be a midrange sniper AND an anti-flanker, since he could stun those pesky Tracers and Genjis.

[Rynjin]

Uh, flashbang+fan the hammer has been a part of McCree's kit since he came out. I haven't played in a long time, but McCree used to be a midrange sniper AND an anti-flanker, since he could stun those pesky Tracers and Genjis.

None of this contradicts my post; unclear why you decided to mention it.

[Resileaf]

None of this contradicts my post; unclear why you decided to mention it.

I think that what he means by that is that close-range is not supposed to be a McCree weakness, but that he's both a mid-range sniper and a close-range attacker.

[The_Jackal]

McCree's stun is a poorly designed mechanic for the same reason the Jarate/Bushwacka combo for Sniper was in TF2; it eliminates a weakness the class archetype has and turns it into an advantage. McCree is a solid long-ish range hitscan damage dealer who naturally should have a weakness in close range combat...but basically auto-wins any 1 v 1 in that range.

I can tell you've spent little to no time playing McCree, because a) He is not a long-ish range Hero. His falloff in damage starts at 22 meters. Very quickly, outside that range, he can no longer 2 shot anyone with a headshot + bodyshot, which is really his only real chance of overcoming the massive amounts of healing which pervade Overwatch right now. And let's not pretend that headshots are easy to score. The average McCree boast an 8.8% crit rate, that's across all enemies, and includes the post-flashbang headshots. Against nimble Heroes with small hitboxes, his crit rate is going to be much less consistent. The best McCree in the world might boast a 14% crit rate, but it's worth noting that McCree's usage drops sharply once you climb out of Platinum.

The only reason it's merely questionable instead of outright stupid (aside the fact that there are too many beef slabs in the game to make McCree an astounding hero in the first place) is that he's a mid-range "sniper" instead of a long range one. The design flaw would be much clearer if it was part of Widowmaker's kit instead.

He's not a sniper, and has only been a sniper for a few months after his first post-launch nerf, when they buffed his ranged execution to compensate for the fix to his absurdly overpowered fan the hammer, which was melting tanks with six full 70 damage bullets, followed by a roll, and 6 more. For that brief moment, he had comparable range falloff to Soldier, and no sooner did that happen than Hanzo and Widow players railed (justly) at having been made irrelevant. What McCree is is a close-ranged duellist who has a 10 second cooldown to deter enemies from just running him over, which they do anyway, because Flashbang is trivial to counter. A tank can body it, D.va can eat it, and many more mobile Heroes can juke it.

Of all the things that are wrong with the Overwatch meta, McCree isn't it. He's only better than Sombra in terms of overall win rate, and I marvel at his continued popularity among Gold through Diamond players, in spite of his efficacy being so poor. Once you reach Masters however, the best players have cottoned on to his rather weak toolkit, and shove him aside in favor of tank & support heavy rotations, because right now, this game is ruled by ultimates, because DPS struggles to produce entry picks.

[Sariel Vailo]

Welp im dying for the sugarplum fairy mercy skin.

[Keltest]

Welp im dying for the sugarplum fairy mercy skin.

Ditto. Im really satisfied with my Sigrun skin, but sometimes you want to change it up a bit, you know?

[chainer1216]

Welp im dying for the sugarplum fairy mercy skin.

Ive watched anime, i know a succubus when i see one.

Dont fall for the propaganda.

[NeoVid]

Well, that Junkrampus skin is beyond perfect. I know what I'll be saving my credits for this year.

Also, who else is enjoying Brigitte's shield bash having its damage reduced by 90%?

[The_Jackal]

Well, that Junkrampus skin is beyond perfect. I know what I'll be saving my credits for this year.

Also, who else is enjoying Brigitte's shield bash having its damage reduced by 90%?

It's definitely progress, but I don't think it will fix her core design problem. She can still solo flank and burn squishies, it just takes a second longer, and in solo queue, nobody's going to peel for them anyway. What it will do is give mobile characters the chance to pop a cooldown to leave, but those characters never really shoul get caught by her to begin with, and more to the point, Brig is wasted as a flanker, compared to her immense power as a brawler. In the middle of GOATS, her 45 damage drop is meaningless. It just means that someone else's bullet will get to hit before you die. The inspire nerf is a much bigger hit to her value, but not nearly big enough, because her core deliverable is 75 armor followed by 150 health a bit later. It never misses, it can't be blocked by shields, and it doesn't disappear like a Zarya bubble. This nerf won't dislodge GOATS, any more than the Doomfist nerfs will, because there's still no composition that can reliably counter W+left-click, and Brig isn't the only component that makes GOATS what it is. There's also D.va for boops and Matrix, Zarya for anti-dive and DPS, Rein for cleave and ultimate advantage, and Moira for complete BS.

[Sariel Vailo]

Welp i i was in a all hitscann team,And exploded i think im banned? I havent checked im gonna destress and go tilt somewhere else,or go play minecraft its an easy game no stress.

[The_Jackal]

Welp i i was in a all hitscann team,And exploded i think im banned? I havent checked im gonna destress and go tilt somewhere else,or go play minecraft its an easy game no stress.

Sorry to hear that, but it seems to me that Overwatch couldn't be more perfectly designed to engender feelings of impotent rage, as you're completely dependent on uncaring strangers to provide a good quality play experience. Classic Blizzard, they've polished every part of their game except the parts which require understanding of player psychology.

[Rising Phoenix]

I've...given up on this game...And I can say that I don't regret one bit of it. The toxicity in the community is overpowering...much better of playing other games.