Overwatch

[CarolinaCoolin]

1 hour ago, Zaximus said:

Yeah there will be great people that put in tons of hours, but they will play against OTHER people like that in ranked.   You could always just play quick play like open beta was.  Blizzard has years of experience with WoW's pvp ladder on how to do it (it's not perfect).  But any game will have the people that make it a job, you can't avoid that unfortunately.

I think they need to make it where you can't have more than 2 of the same hero though.   Going against 5 Bastion teams was annoying lol.

5 Bastions is pure aids.

[Seamonk]

Couple tips and comments...

Bastion

Bastion is only OP if you keep running into his fire and chain dying. Hanzo/Widowmaker counter him if he's not being healed by a Mercy. He has a weakspot behind him that does x2 damage to him so if he's ever running away from you, hit that spot. Junkrat is the medium/short range counter. Tracer/D.Va/Junkrat ults flush and/or kill everyone who is healing him/blocking him. Reinhardt can pin him if he's focusing someone else. If you chain die, just run in and go for kills and aren't patient, you will find him OP because you'll just help him charge his ult.

Pubstomping

Quick Play has it's own MMR. Competitive will have another MMR as well. Malicious griefing is part of every game. The difference is Overwatch costs $40/$60. Getting banned for being a dickbag hurts a lot more than CS:GO on sale for $7.50. I also know that (at least for the PC version) there's a preferred player and avoid player list that you can add/remove people to. ~10 minute games and the ability to leave and rejoin with a new team means you don't waste much time getting tilted or getting super salty because of certain players. Getting curbstomped by players that are more skilled than me is the least of my worries. Realistically the people stuck playing with you are just as bad as you.

Play the objective

A lot of people who start out the game wanting to go after kills and prove their superiority. Lock in widowmaker/tracer/hanzo/bastion/whatever but they don't play the objective. Playing the objective and your role nets more elims for you and your team. Bastion's point is to hold down a point of the map. Widowmaker should be hunting priority targets with low HP. Tracer should be distracting the enemy team as they spawn and harassing their healers/snipers. The gameplay is designed to be adaptive. Each hero has multiple heroes they're strong or weak or neutral against.

It's not TF2

It's not. Launch TF2 maybe, but TF2 as it is now is a joke. TF2 has Crits, Hat-focus, and drop dependent entry to play. Overwatch is designed to be balanced from the get go. New heroes might mess up the harmony. Stealth(invisibility) is not a thing and according to the devs, will not be a thing as it's a cancer mechanic. While the objectives are similar (payload and King of the Hill and Capture points), adding in ultimates and other abilities with the ability to use them in combination is a huge swing compared to just a demoman spamming grenades in an area and occasionally using stickies. The element of timing adds depth and an element of teamplay/wombo-combos that surprisingly TF2 only sees at much higher levels.

Learn the meta

I'm not talking about the professional scene meta. I'm talking about hero counters, when to change heroes, learning what your team needs, recognizing different points in the game, etc. One of the things that surprised me about this game much more than TF2 is the depth of the game. There's a lot of different situations and plays that can be made at different points on a map. It encourages you to use the map and be creative. Some of of the best Play of the Games were when 1 person made a creative play. As opposed to the typical bastion/hanzo/torbjorn PotGs where they get away with being bad.

Conclusion

Overwatch is not really a complicated game. The mechanics are simple but they work pretty well even in the beta. Unfortunately the current gamemodes may not appeal to people who prefer to deathmatch. The skill in the game is more seen by how well you play your role or hero, not necessarily how well you aim. If it isn't apparent so far, I've had a ton of fun during the overwatch open betas. If you wanna be good, it really doesn't take 100s of hours of play.

fug Blizzard.

 

[Zaximus]

Yeah there is definitely counters to Bastion, but the game shouldn't always be about ONE hero.   

I always heal so unless my team was doing their jobs I couldn't do much against him lol.

I can't wait to play this.  My friend who I've been playing games with since vanilla WoW won like $16k playing daily fantasy on draft kings a couple weeks ago and is buying it for me haha.

[CarolinaCoolin]

5 hours ago, Zaximus said:

Yeah there is definitely counters to Bastion, but the game shouldn't always be about ONE hero.   

I always heal so unless my team was doing their jobs I couldn't do much against him lol.

I can't wait to play this.  My friend who I've been playing games with since vanilla WoW won like $16k playing daily fantasy on draft kings a couple weeks ago and is buying it for me haha.

Can I be his friend too?

[TbTeRRoR]

Played beta.  Bunch of friends now own it and play it but I won't buy it.  Nothing wrong with it but DIrtybomb is just as good to me and FREE.    Really the only difference to me  OW vs DB is OW has crazier abilities and a price tag.

[Zaximus]

17 hours ago, TbTeRRoR said:

Played beta.  Bunch of friends now own it and play it but I won't buy it.  Nothing wrong with it but DIrtybomb is just as good to me and FREE.    Really the only difference to me  OW vs DB is OW has crazier abilities and a price tag.

 

Dirtybomb has like 5k players at best at any time on Steam.   Not a healthy playerbase and probably will get worse.   The support of that game, won't last like a Blizzard game, also you'll have a player pool of millions.    

[TbTeRRoR]

3 hours ago, Zaximus said:

 

Dirtybomb has like 5k players at best at any time on Steam.   Not a healthy playerbase and probably will get worse.   The support of that game, won't last like a Blizzard game, also you'll have a player pool of millions.    

Just as well for me.  I typically don't play games for more than a year or so anyways. There is always something new coming around the bend and I own so many games that I've not put as much time into as I'd like.    Also the smaller player base is also a blessing of sorts for a short term anyways.   I've played with / ran across many of the same players multiple times which gives it a much more communal feel.    The ranked matches with friends are more fun to me in DB than  any other MP game I've played and I'm a veteran of many clans/ leagues in CS 1.3 to CSGO (4k hrs in CSGO alone) and other games. 

 

 

In the end its all about individuals taste as I said above many of my friends are playing OW.   I just wanted to point out that there was a very similar game that is fun and free.

 

[Cat]

God I love this game. I'm addicted. So far I have the most fun when I'm Zenyatta but enjoy a variety of characters. There are still a few I haven't played that look fun as hell, like Symmetra (because I want to know the boards a little better) and Lucio and the ninja dude. 

[Zaximus]

Yeah I'm still having fun, but read today competitive ranked matches may not be here till end of July (correction, Blizzard just cleared it up, end of June it will be, so not as bad) , that's a pretty big letdown and kind of inexcusable for a game that's been in beta for over a year and a company that has resources like Blizzard.  But, the new league for Path of Exile starts Friday so I'll be able to put more time into that before competitive, so there's that.

So far though, Bastion isn't a problem anymore.   In my time so far, over 40 hours since release, I would have to say the two biggest offenders are easily McCree and Mei.  McCree's  "fan the blades" needs a cooldown, something like 5-8 seconds.  No way it should be spammed, especially considering his single shot does good dmg, he has a stun nade, a roll that instant reloads you, and a super easy ult.   The guy is taking down tanks too easy.  Luckily, Blizzard already mentioned it and I think he'll get toned down.  Mei though, is just broken.  The freeze has too much range and it takes too little time to freeze someone.   Her shot can snipe people and her ult just takes up the entire point you're fighting for.  It's insane and now every team has one.  She has like 250 health too which is pretty good.   Not to mention an iceblock that makes her invuln and heals her up.    Something has to be done.

I have been basically playing support as well.  Mercy for certain attack maps (or if someone is running Lucio already).  A couple defend I use her on but usually Lucio for defense, especially maps where I can knock people over cliffs lol.  Zenyatta is fun and works well with another full healer.   I have main-healed on him before, but it takes a good team to keep them up with him (not goofing off and being close to the ult heal) but I feel pretty good when I get a gold medal in eliminations while healing as well.   Symmetra's turrets can make a big difference.  Just last night they basically won us a payload defense map because we got wiped out and the turrets finished off a few guys letting us get back into the action.  

I will say though, as a healer, Genji is the bane of my existence.  Especially great ones.   I ask groups to focus on him and Mei if they see them, immediately lol.

 

[Seamonk]

Current Meta is Double McCree simply because he's broken and counters everyone who is in range of flashbang and has pretty good damage from range. Mei is more of a nuissance and niche pick. It's annoying to most people but her counters actually see a high rate of play so it's confusing. She exists to slow Lucio and Genji down and to an extent Tracer if she's used her blinks. Reaper, McCree and Widow/Hanzo all ruin her day. Reaper can wraith out of her slow and do massive damage to her, McCree kills everyone, and Widow/Hanzo hit her giant head model. I'd honestly tell anyone who has trouble with Mei to just play as her for an hour or so. You'll completely understand her limitations in that amount of time.

Symmetra is a pug god (Teleporter attempts to fix bad decisions by teammates). Her turrets get countered by Zarya and Winston though. Winston's jump damage clears them all if they're all in one area. Zarya just uses them to charge her weapon. People are still learning how to play against her. It took a long time for people to learn how to turn and shoot her turrets down quickly. I had like a 90% winrate on her for the longest time. Her alt-fire can go through shields (reinhardt/winston NOT zarya) and her left click stream ramps up in damage up to 150hp per second! So if she's ramped it up and switching targets she can melt heavies and squishies alike (i think the ramped up state persists through reloading too).

Zenyatta (150 effective hp) needs a health buff. Widow can one-shot him with a body shot. On Tracer(150Hp) it's fine cuz she's super mobile but Zenyatta isn't. Plus his body is bigger than his head so wtf. his discord and healing orbs go away if they're not in Line of sight for 3 seconds so he has to stay somewhat out in the open. Lack of mobility, small health pool, and average healing, you can see why Lucio and Mercy are much higher tiered supports. outside of that, he's actually pretty easy to play and helps when your team enjoys dying to large AoE ults.

[Joscott]

I've had a good time with this so far. Mercy is my go to for now, still trying to figure out some of the other favorites...still haven't played as everyone. Theres something oddly satisfying about whipping out her pistol and taking out the other teams support.

I want to be good with D.Va but it isn't going very smooth. I'm better with Reinhardt if I go the tank route.

I really like Tracer's abilities, but I'm too wild with her right now.

[Zaximus]

On 6/4/2016 at 5:34 PM, Joscott said:

I've had a good time with this so far. Mercy is my go to for now, still trying to figure out some of the other favorites...still haven't played as everyone. Theres something oddly satisfying about whipping out her pistol and taking out the other teams support.

I want to be good with D.Va but it isn't going very smooth. I'm better with Reinhardt if I go the tank route.

I really like Tracer's abilities, but I'm too wild with her right now.

I go to Mercy for support usually, minus a few defend maps where I have great LoS on the team where 3+ people are getting heals most of the time.    Or if someone picks Mercy, I'll rock out Lucio.  The combo is great actually.   I've turned the tide of a game with a well placed Mercy ress.   It recharges so fast, I usually use it even if a tank dies on a push or 2 people at least are down, since it'll be up fast.  Her damage boost is sweet too.  If you have a Lucio helping out, you can sometimes follow a flanker on the side and heal/damage boost them to really do damage in the backlines of that team.    When following a good Reaper we can be unstoppable.  Also giving damage boost to a camping Bastion is insane or also a great Widowmaker.  

I would like to use Zenyatte more though but I always have to main heal.

D.Va is getting a buff I think soon, so that'll help.   I love healing her though, she's pretty tanky.   Also a great Reinhardt can take over games to the point that I'd almost say he's overpowered with a great player on him but it's not that often.

Tracer and Gengi are getting screwed on this game right now though because of terrible tick rate (the time the server pings each player for their location on the map) and because of shooter priority (gives shooter benefit of doubt on fights) so if you're trying to deflect with Genji or bounce around on Tracer, and are getting shot at, you're at a big disadvantage.

Reading about this lately, this is going to be an issue if blizzared wants OW to really become competitive.  They said they'll balance PC and console differently, so maybe they will fix the PC tick rate.  

[Seamonk]

I play D.va like a tanky Tracer. Just be an annoyance and constantly flank. Her defense matrix is probably one of the best defensive abilities in the game. Her shotguns don't do much damage unless you're really close but since you can fly with boosters you can always end up behind people and get off a lot of damage. Especially if they're a reinhardt and you get them to drop shield or turn.

The mercy+lucio combo is really good as long as you have people who can frag. I don't really like it when the map is extremely open though like the first 2 points on Route 66.

As for the tick rate, a lot of the most competitive games are stuck at 30 and 64 tick rate. League of Legends is 30 tick for a game that's very micro involved. CS:GO matchmaking is 64 tick and people end up paying for ESEA/etc to get 128 tick so they can bhop finally. Part of that is because they're trying to equalize the field for a much more general audience. The other part is that the american internet infrastructure is fuging terrible. Overwatch Tickrate article

Both of those combined, even if you have 128 tick or something, if you're 90ms ping and your opponents are 30ms ping, it's much more disadvantageous than if it was 30 or 60/64 tick. It's very clearly limiting people who have an advantage due to their location proximity to the server and/or ISP routing just so people who don't have a fairer chance. While 2 of the hardest to hit and mobile heroes are being disadvantaged, it's also helping out a bunch of people who would never hope to deal with them if they weren't. Needless to say, it's completely on purpose so much more people can enjoy the game.

So I'll wait until Competitive is out in full force and complain if it's a glaring issue. Right now, for Quickplay, it's exactly where it needs to be.

 

[Zaximus]

I may just disable kill cams, tired of getting killed when behind cover.

Just had a 20 kill streak on symmetra on anubis defend, got cussed out lol.