Overwatch - That time Blizzard made a non-Diablocraft game.

[shindigs]

I didn't mean to imply that competitive TF2 or regular TF2 doesn't do anything to promote teamwork and strategy. Obviously even in pubs, having an organized plan is super helpful in fighting against chaos.  Apologies for wording that very poorly. 

 

My TF2 experience is mainly pub based - which means jumping on any server in quick match or server browsers where there are a lot of modifications to player limits + respawn timers + other whacky stuff.  

 

I think Blizzard mentioned did touch on whether you can jump in and out of overwatch games (can't remember if it was confirmed or denied) but I really hope they retain a pre-made matchmaking option to emulate the matchmaking at Blizzcon.

[Hermie]

Shindigs, can there be multiple of the same character? And can you change your character in the middle of the round?

[shindigs]

Yes you can have multiple characters in a game, and you can change characters when you die (at spawn? unsure on the exact mechanic).

 

We tried all tracer teams - really hard

All Bastion teams (sentry robot) - pretty funny / mowed newbies

Two Rheinhearts (shield + hammers) + Two Bastions + 1 Medic = Really good! 

[osmosisch]

I hate to give Blizzard shit for releasing the first new IP (ugh) in 17 motherloving years, but it's, eh. There's a dwarf with a 'hammer time' joke. The lady characters seem at first glance to have really similar faces (what was that called again?). On a personal note, I don't like this type of game, or rather it doesn't do much for me, so I'll just stick to the cinematic.

This sums my feelings up in a nutshell.

[BadHat]

Yes you can have multiple characters in a game, and you can change characters when you die (at spawn? unsure on the exact mechanic).

 

We tried all tracer teams - really hard

All Bastion teams (sentry robot) - pretty funny / mowed newbies

Two Rheinhearts (shield + hammers) + Two Bastions + 1 Medic = Really good! 

 

Whoa, this is huge and instantly makes it way less DOTA-like. I like the idea of locking into a team roster for at least the length of a round, and being able to double up on characters makes them seem less like "characters" and more just like classes. I was kind of hoping for more of those Lords Management trappings, with the way they've presented the game so far.

[Hermie]

Yeah, that's my reaction too, BadHat. I'm worried that will make it less tactical and more chaotic, more like (pub) TF2.

[Denial]

Has there been anything so far on monetization? I think that's something I'd be really interested in...

[Twig]

I thought the competitive scene for TF2 was really fun for a while, though I personally haven't played the game in years. I still watch some ESEA pugs every now and then though. Did Valve say what their intended number of players was when designing the game? I know you can play with more but just based on the maps I always felt like it was intended to be 6v6 in the same way that Counter Strike is meant to be 5v5, but that could just be the result of the community leaning towards maps that play best as 6v6 giving me a biased impression.

It's definitely 12v12. The competitive TF2 scene has never been important to them.

[shindigs]

Denial, no definitive word on monetization. 

[Badfinger]

AHA, an Overwatch thread DOES exist! I can answer the monetization question. It's $60 or $40 depending on platform.

 

Is anyone else in the beta and playing? I'm enjoying my experience so far. It is very vanilla TF2. That's a compliment in that it has nuance and team strategy, but visuals matching gameplay style is straightforward.

[sclpls]

I finally got into the beta this weekend, but I didn't have a very good time with it to be honest. I got completely stomped, and I don't feel like there is a good way to learn how to use all the different character abilities. I am probably just being impatient with the game, but it was a really rough starting experience.

[Dinosaursssssss]

I played a bit this weekend during the stress test too and wasn't really feeling it. It looks fantastic and I feel like it's successful in its marriage of loma and fps mechanics, but the shooting just doesn't feel satisfying to me. It seems like there's a lot of potential depth in making interesting team compositions, so maybe there'll be a competitive scene, but I don't think I'm gonna pick it up.

[undermind9]

i had a really good time in the beta weekend - but depth of play seemed limited; hero loadouts are the same each match and seemingly no plan to add weapon modifiers or a level/rank-up talent tree

 

It ran surprisingly well on my machine, which is very speedy but with a set of aged cards.  I am still not good at these kinds of games and much more enjoyed the support/tank roles.

 

If I had a group of friends who all got into it the $40 version for PC would be swallowable...but feels more like a $20 initial investment knowing that in a few months there is going to be paid DLC maps/characters.  If they made an announcement about continued support (akin to diablo) for initial buy-in I would be much more inclined to get at full price and let the additional gameplay added overtime substantiate my view of the value

 

FPS seems more than any other genre to suffer from fragmented communities with dlc tiers; I noticed first hand in Space Marine crushing available match numbers - but didnt Titanfall also buckle under the weight of tiered buy-ins?

[Latrine]

I'm enjoying the game. Actually rather than vanilla TF2, because of the range of possible heroes it actually feels more like TF2 after the initial loadout updates that opened up new playstyles to the TF2 classes. I've seen people complain about the lack of progression hooks and loadouts, but I'd much rather just have a larger roster of characters that are unlocked from the get go. 

 

My concern now is just having a regular group of players to play with. I never found a gaming group for Titanfall or Evolve and so those games quickly went by the wayside. TF2 I played a lot because the GamersWithJobs server had regular packed game nights with 12v12 teams. For Overwatch it seems you're limited to matchmaking with a group of 6.

[YoThatLimp]

i had a really good time in the beta weekend - but depth of play seemed limited; hero loadouts are the same each match and seemingly no plan to add weapon modifiers or a level/rank-up talent tree

 

It ran surprisingly well on my machine, which is very speedy but with a set of aged cards.  I am still not good at these kinds of games and much more enjoyed the support/tank roles.

 

If I had a group of friends who all got into it the $40 version for PC would be swallowable...but feels more like a $20 initial investment knowing that in a few months there is going to be paid DLC maps/characters.  If they made an announcement about continued support (akin to diablo) for initial buy-in I would be much more inclined to get at full price and let the additional gameplay added overtime substantiate my view of the value

 

FPS seems more than any other genre to suffer from fragmented communities with dlc tiers; I noticed first hand in Space Marine crushing available match numbers - but didnt Titanfall also buckle under the weight of tiered buy-ins?

 

I had the same feeling playing the beta, I feel like it is an incredibly solid base of a game that is missing a layer of gameplay usually brought in with loadouts.  

[Badfinger]

Interesting.

 

I think loadouts would fracture this game like they did (for me) with TF2. The comfort of seeing a silhouette and knowing exactly, to the number, what they're capable of is very key in a character driven game. Seeing a demo man and it turns out he actually has a sword and pistol or something is game breaking to the experience I first purchased.

[Architecture]

I have never played a Blizzard game before, but I want to start with this one. The art direction (particularly the character design) is so strong that I have to get my hands on it.

[Bucket_of_Lizards]

Played this during the recent beta weekend and had a real great time with it, probably most fun I've had with a multiplayer shooter in a long time.

 

I actually enjoy the absence of that grindy progression had actually started to turn me off of shooters. Being able to dive right in to any character immediately without a handicap was refreshing, letting me just explore the playstyle and role of each one. Once I got going, completely forgot about the lack of loadout stuff, to me the game works pretty well on it's own terms.

[YoThatLimp]

Yeah, I think I've come around to the simplicity of it, I really dig this game a whole lot. I probably played 10 hours or so this weekend.

[prettyunsmart]

I only got to play a few matches as my Saturday turned out to be really busy, but I really liked what I played of it. I really liked playing medic with Mercy. Zooming from ally to ally keeping everyone healed and buffed was pretty fun, and doing it with an ability that basically let me fly was pretty neat. 

[Gwardinen]

I'm not sure what it is about Overwatch that isn't quite clicking with me. I've played it a few times over a couple of beta phases, and I've enjoyed my time with it. But then when I'm done... I feel absolutely no need to come back. It's sitting installed on my computer, but I really have no particular desire to load it up.

 

Maybe I just got enough TF2 from TF2, but there is definitely something missing for me.

[prettyunsmart]

The Open Beta is on, and I'm really enjoying the game so far. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that my game playing friend group all jumped in at the same time and have been cooperating pretty well. Still, this feels like early days of TF2 for me. It's a colorful team based shooter that has enough variations in play style to keep things interesting. Are other thumbs giving it a shot?

[Patrick R]

Is this graphics intensive? I love TF2 and would enjoy jumping into the ground floor of a similar game, but I only have my laptop that generally can't really play new generation games. 

[Brannigan]

Worth a shot? My cpu is way below spec but I can play fine somehow.

[prettyunsmart]

The minimum specs look relatively forgiving, though it's always hard to say how laptops will handle things. It's probably worth downloading before the open beta ends to check out at the very least.

 

EDIT: I will say that it looks great. The art style, kind of like TF2's, will probably allow it to scale really nicely from low to high end machines.