A reflection; is Overwatch a good GAME?

[Paragon Fury]

And by that, does it function well and properly as an actual GAME, with well-understood and learn-able rules that apply equally to all players, that accurately tests and allows for those with greater skill and understanding to consistently defeat those who do not? Does it actually have mechanics that appropriately reward skill and quick, accurate decision making? At the end of day, does it feel like most wins and losses were actually under the control of the player and not outside forces such as RNG or poor teammates (IE: You could actually try harder or learn and more improve, rather than relying on teammates)?

This much time in....I don't think you can actually justify that Overwatch is actually a good game. It's a good piece of media, with interesting and fun characters, a story and setting that is enjoyable and fantastic artwork and design.

But as an actual game, OW doesn't seem to fair too well. To make a short list;

- Terrible matchmaking that creates horribly unbalanced matches

- Many mechanics and skills that are poorly defined and presented to players; the exact reach of Genji's Sword and Ult, Mei's Ult, Reinhart's Ult, Junkrat Grenades

- Inverse skill relationship; many of the most effective characters - Pharah, Winston, D.Va, Mercy, etc. require little skill to actually be effective, while other Heroes that require more skill (such as Widow, McCree, Hanzos who don't spam Scatter etc.) often require such a massive amount of effort and time to get to the level where they have as much of an impact as characters who require little time, much less to surpass them

- Characters are often hard countered so hard they cannot actually even play if their counter is in the match; conversely some characters actually counter or tie their own counters, muddling and defeating the purpose of the system (IE: Pharah)

- Poor netcode and networking decisions create frustrating situations frequently (IE: I was fully behind that cover, but Favor the Shooter means that Genji still got me etc.)

Not to mention other faults (IE: Blizzard's update schedule, balance issues like Dive Comp etc.)...

If we imagine OW had been made by Nexon or Hi-Rez and thus couldn't afford all the fancy graphics, pretty cinematics and couldn't have a team solely devoted to building the world and characters, and instead OW had to power through on just sheer gameplay alone; would it still be around?

 

[TakeyB0y2]

Any time you do a random match-make, you always run the risk of being brought down by poor teammates, it really doesn't matter what game you play. I came into Overwatch after playing Dota 2 for a couple years and I find it's about the same, although at least Overwatch matches aren't as big of a timesink.

Now I do think Overwatch has it's issues, but I'm also not the kind of person who really digs deep and examines each character and the meta and all that jazz, I just kinda go with the flow even when I'm playing comp. Honestly, it doesn't matter the situation, each character's going to have someone complaining about them being over-buffed/under-nerfed after each patch.

You're gonna have to explain to me what's undefined about Mei's ult. Rein's I understand, as several times I've found myself several feet in the air, yet still managed to get hit by it, although that did get a bit of working on.

And yeah, it is true that heroes like Pharah and Mercy are easy to play and don't require a lot of skill like Hanzo and Widow, well... If you actually DO put in that time to get skilled with them, then you'll be one-shotting those Pharahs and Mercys out of the sky. They're effective but can be pretty frail and are highly dependent on one-another (unless Mercy has someone else that can get her airborne), and if they're in the sky they won't have any protection.

Hard counters are kinda... Ehhh? I honestly don't think about that too much anymore, not when I've been wasting enemy Winstons lately with Symm despite him supposedly being her counter. If you think hard there's always ways you can try and skirt around counters and at least partially nullify them.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Competitive MP games should have a level system based on skill as a standard feature because 1) it makes fairer matches and 2) it's so easy to implement.

 

[CaitSeith]

I expect this kind of posts for walking simulators or games saturated with cutscenes. But Overwatch!? Overwatch is 90% gameplay and 10% storefront. But don't let me stop you. I can't wait to see which hilariously arbitrary redefinition of "game" the forum will come up with next!

 

[DaCosta]

Yes. Of course it's a good game. Don't be ridiculous.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've never played Overwatch and even I can tell you it's a good game, if nothing else because I can make sense of the havoc that are the matches. Your post just sounds like you want to air your multiplayer misfortunes, and I've never known a single multiplayer game that didn't make me want to do exactly that.

The only 2 things for which I can fault the game are its lack/waste of a story, which seems to exist exclusively in tie-in merchandise, and my own personal disinterest with online multiplayer.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Issues 1-6 from my thread on this matter with no elaboration; take them or leave them at face value.

Issue 1: No in-game story line.

Issue 2: Giving content only to later take it away.

Issue 3: Convoluted character abilities.

Issue 4: Buffing and nerfing the game too strongly too often.

Issue 5: Developers punish you and break your game if you leave or your Internet crashes too often.

Issue 6: Diversity for diversity's sake rather than for improving the individual characters.

Now let's neatly incorporate OP's additional unique issues into the list.

Issue 7: Terrible matchmaking leading to imbalanced matches.

Issue 8: Lack of in-depth explanation on mechanics and skills.

Issue 9: Inverse relationship between skill required versus difficulty playing a character.

Issue 10: Characters so hard-countered that they can't be used in certain matches.

Issue 11: Network gameplay tweaks leading to frustrating unfair situations.

Issue 12: Frequent inconvenient scheduling of updates/maintenance.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Can't these issues be applied to most, if not all class-based team shooters? Frankly, I think Overwatch does a better job than most when addressing these issues. It had a dedicated Training mode and offline bot matches out of the gate, something that most games of its ilk lack entirely. TF2 didn't have these features until nearly three years after launch, and even then it only covers the most basic of lessons...and that's assuming you can even access it on account of it being bugged for many players.

This may be heresy to some players, but I like the fact that some characters have a lower learning curve than others. It allows newer players to ease into the game, along with providing lower stress options for those times where you just want to unwind. It's good to know that, as I continue to age and my reflexes begin their slow but inexorable decline, I can still be a valuable team player. In any case, a skilled player is still going to get more mileage out of them than an unskilled one.

Regarding update schedules, as a former TF2 player, I'll take Blizzard's method over Valve's hands-off, radio silence approach any day of the week. The sheer amount of content we've gotten over the past year is impressive, with new maps, heroes, game modes, cosmetics, etc. It's also refreshing to have developers actively engaging with the community and listening to feedback. While TF2 players have been without a major update for over a year now, desperately clinging to filmsy half-promises and failed deadlines, for OW we have bigwigs like Jeff Kaplan himself actively engaging with the player base on a regular basis on the forums, Reddit, YouTube and Twitter. Best of all, so far all of the updates fit thematically with the game's visual style rather than breaking it over its knee like what happened to TF2. I just wish obtaining cosmetics wasn't so reliant on RNG, limited time unlocks and the shitty loot box system in general.

I will agree that the counters are too extreme. Back in my TF2 days I liked to play Spy, which meant Pyros and Scouts tended to be the bane of my existence. That said, I still managed to put up a fight or make a solid attempt to flee most of the time. I even stood a decent chance of beating them if I was the better player. I can't really say the same about Overwatch, as there are certain heroes that are near-impossible to beat depending on who you play as. I also have issues with ults, namely that they're wildly unbalanced depending on who you play as and match outcomes rely far too heavily on them. A part of me thinks the game would be better if they were removed completely and the normal hero abilities tweaked to compensate for this. Finally, Blizzard has made some ham-fisted attempts at balancing at the expense of what made certain heroes so distinctive and fun to play (RIP Roadhog).

Actually, I forgot one more thing; Blizzard can be too heavy-handed with the suspensions/bans. The most egregious example I can think of is when they started banning players for finding creative ways to obtain more loot boxes, such as creating idle custom games. Dick move, Blizzard. Dick move.

In the end, while I have my issues with Overwatch, I'd say it's still the best team based shooter currently out there.

I expect this kind of posts for walking simulators or games saturated with cutscenes. But Overwatch!? Overwatch is 70% gameplay and 30% waifus.

FTFY

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Overwatch is 96% social justice warriors and 4% doomfist.

FTFY

 

[Yoshi178]

I've never played Overwatch and even I can tell you it's a good game.

No you can't. you can only tell us that other people have told you it's a good game whether it be friends or reviewers who told you.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The "Inverse relationship between skill required versus difficulty playing a character" argument is bullshit. It is, arguably, good design to have some characters that are easy to just pick up and play, because they allow newcomers to feel as if they aren't just getting pounded into the dirt by the pros. Those characters (Pharah, Mercy etc.) will, as others have said, be left in the dust by an experienced McCree, Widowmaker or Tracer. It is a sign of good design that the characters available in OW spans from "get good with in 5 minutes" to "master after 40 hours of play", because it caters to all kinds of players, from the casual player who just wants to put rockets into people's faces to the hardcore ESL pro who will be practicing 180-scoping for hours just to get the right Widowmaker twitch.

I am no particular fan of Overwatch, but the lengths some people go to to justify their hateboner for it is astounding.

 

[McElroy]

Hard counters are kinda... Ehhh? I honestly don't think about that too much anymore, not when I've been wasting enemy Winstons lately with Symm despite him supposedly being her counter. If you think hard there's always ways you can try and skirt around counters and at least partially nullify them.

Sym beats Winston if she can wind up her vacuum cleaner before the engage.

- Many mechanics and skills that are poorly defined and presented to players; the exact reach of Genji's Sword and Ult, Mei's Ult, Reinhart's Ult, Junkrat Grenades

This is indeed very annoying, and that's just the beginning of a long-ass list. Another similar thing is the lack of a match history because "it's too toxic" even though just showing hours played can get your teammates irate as heck.

Otherwise I like the game, though I was getting full of it and uninstalled.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Ive only played casually think I clocked about 6 hours game time before I sort of drifted away so my take is purely from a casual perspective i.e never played ranked just random online MP with a friend for about 2 of those 6 hours.

The presentation is good as is the character visual design. The gameplay is solid and builds of long established mechanics but there is not a lot of game there. Feels like it takes after SFV and Destiny tbh some stuff done very well but really barebones for the price and just has a bit of a half arsed feel to it. I would say its a good game for what it is but good value hmmm maybe not so much.

I feel that like SFV if this did not have the pedigree of past success to back them up then it would not have lasted long.

 

[IceForce]

You're gonna have to explain to me what's undefined about Mei's ult.

The animation is misleading and inaccurate for the actual reach of the ult.

Mei's ult animation always covers a full circular range with a fixed radius from the center (even through walls), but the ult itself requires LOS. This means you can stand well within the freezing circle, but as long as you break LOS with the small drone thing in the center, you never get frozen.

It's little idiosyncrasies like that that can make certain elements of the game unclear or difficult for newcomers to pick up.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Overwatch is the most overrated game that is for sure.

Pisses me off because it just showcases the kind of people running Blizzard now.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Overwatch is the most overrated game that is for sure.

Pisses me off because it just showcases the kind of people running Blizzard now.

Legend of the Fat Princess was a better game and it cut as many corners as Portal did. Just thought I'd mention that vastly superior class-based MMO.

 

[TakeyB0y2]

You're gonna have to explain to me what's undefined about Mei's ult.

The animation is misleading and inaccurate for the actual reach of the ult.

Mei's ult animation always covers a full circular range with a fixed radius from the center (even through walls), but the ult itself requires LOS. This means you can stand well within the freezing circle, but as long as you break LOS with the small drone thing in the center, you never get frozen.

It's little idiosyncrasies like that that can make certain elements of the game unclear or difficult for newcomers to pick up.

Ah alright, I hadn't even noticed. Then again, I haven't seen people playing her all that much recently, I haven't played her myself for some time.

 

[Paragon Fury]

You're gonna have to explain to me what's undefined about Mei's ult.

The animation is misleading and inaccurate for the actual reach of the ult.

Mei's ult animation always covers a full circular range with a fixed radius from the center (even through walls), but the ult itself requires LOS. This means you can stand well within the freezing circle, but as long as you break LOS with the small drone thing in the center, you never get frozen.

It's little idiosyncrasies like that that can make certain elements of the game unclear or difficult for newcomers to pick up.

The animation also does not show that the Ult is in fact a Sphere which affects the 3D space both above and below it, making for some very frustrating moments of getting slowed/frozen when it seems like you should not (especially getting frozen while above Snowball).

However, someone brought up to me earlier that if you think about it, Overwatch's designa and a lot of the decisions made early in it's release seem to indicate that OW was never meant to be a PvP game, but rather started as a PvE game (likely from the remnants of Titan as Blizzard has said it did) and then got made INTO a PvP game, but kept a lot of the design decisions and ideas from when it was PvE.

- Many character abilities and designs make far more sense and seem far more fair in a PvE-orientated environment than a PvP one (S76's Ult, Roadhog's Hook, Mei's Existence, Mercy's rather dull but influential playstyle, Sombra's kit etc.)

- Netcode decisions like Favor the Shooter make perfect sense in a PvE game, where you want players to feel good and the AI doesn't care, but make little sense in a PvP game where it often creates huge frustrations

- A massive amount of story and character work that is VERY atypical of a PvP-orientated game, even compared to League of Legends or Halo

- All the PvE events have shown that OW works excellently and perhaps better as a PvE game than it does a PvP game

While it's obvious that Blizzard made the switch early, it feels like it's worth some thought that maybe OW would've been better off as a cooperative PvE game.

 

[Parrikle]

At the end of day, does it feel like most wins and losses were actually under the control of the player and not outside forces such as RNG or poor teammates (IE: You could actually try harder or learn and more improve, rather than relying on teammates)?

What you are describing might be a good solo game, but would be a poor team game. In a team game you should win by teamwork, not by being carried by an individual player. A good player in a bad team should lose, while a less skilled player in a good team should have a decent chance to win.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

Are a lot of people enjoying it? Then yes, it's a good game.

What you're asking is if it's well crafted. Well, about as well as any game really. Overwatch does things that other games do indeed do better, but Overwatch also does things that other games can't even manage on a smaller scale.

But this is all obviously highly debatable, obviously, or else you wouldn't have felt the need to ask.

Are there hard counters to many characters? Yes, it was designed that way. But those characters that are countering you also have their own counters.

Out of the 25 characters that Overwatch has, if you're only playing exclusively two or three of them, you're not playing Overwatch at its full potential.

But really, skill is a factor. Not immediately of course, but a skilled player could indeed overcome a counter with some work. Not consistently, sure, but it's possible.

If you find that no matter how hard you try your counter is still getting the best of you, well, Overwatch is a team game, and you'll have to ask your team for help. And you might not always get that help. That's not the game's fault, that's the playerbase.