Overwatch open beta - What are your impressions?

[scw55]

I didn't preorder; God Himself would have to descend from Heaven and command me to preorder this game. It's also still far too expensive; I saw people on the beta forums defending the price point, saying that for the price of a nice dinner, you get hours upon hours of entertainment. This is true, but I can also get hours and hours of entertainment for less than half the price if I go get CS:GO, or even free if I play Warframe or Team Fortress. There is just not enough content here to justify the pricepoint.

Regarding Blizzard's pricing. I complained on the forums about the price of character transfers on World of Warcraft regarding keeping up with friends who jump servers/factions constantly. You invest a lot of time in these characters and so it sucks when your friends put you in this position.

The comparison of a holiday with mates was brought up. It was a bad comparison because your friends will come back home afterwards. They don't stay in Spain for life until they move on.

I also find it hard to justify the price point since the rest of Blizzard games are effectively free to play. Exceptions are Diablo and World of Subscriptioncraft.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Very very well made game. Excellent sound and graphical assets, a fantastic and responsive engine, fluid game play, very good game pacing. Surprisingly well balanced, in similar sense to how DOTA is balanced (everyone is situationally OP). Price point should help keep the community at least somewhat curated.

There will be MAJOR issues with match making until the game has been in full release for at least a couple of weeks. Anyone with any experience with ELO and how matchmaking works for games like this will recognize that. Yes, it's very frustrating to go five games in a row against MLG all stars who are head-shotting you from across the map when you're trying to learn the game. That WILL sort itself out, but the system cannot properly stratify players without any data.

When games are close, it's extremely fun.

I also find it hard to justify the price point since the rest of Blizzard games are effectively free to play. Exceptions are Diablo and World of Subscriptioncraft.

I hate to say it, but unless you're an extremely patient person or willing to play a single deck ad nauseum, Hearthstone is anything but "free to play". Free to participate maybe. Free to get your teeth kicked in.

This old Penny Arcade about LoL properly sums up the "Free to Play" nature of some of these games:

 

[major_chaos]

Then we have D.VA for example who's a tank with short range blasts.... only they seem to be hitting people from across the map, but if you take that away the character is useless again.

What? D.Va can get hitmarkers at range but at anything beyond wet cough distance you're looking at low single digit damage, functionally useless for anything other than making people reflexively take cover. And beyond her weapon D.Va has massive utility, shoving foes out of position with her dash, covering advancing teams with her shield, and her ult has enormous clutch play potential on both offense and defense.

OT: My impression thus far is that its like TF2, if TF2 was balenced again. And matches didn't last an hour. And the playerbase wasn't 50% raving psychopaths. And the devs actually gave a damn. So basically its TF2 without all the things that make me fucking loath TF2, so put me in the "preorder confirmed" category.

 

[Fappy]

-Snip-

I'd take buying a game like Overwatch at retail price over the "free-to-play" model Hearthstone has any day. You summed up my thoughts on that game perfectly. As for Overwatch, you actually unlock things at a reasonable pace and have access to everything that actually matters right off the bat. Everything you unlock is aesthetic, so balance is unaffected. As it should be.

 

[Paragon Fury]

I've been psyched for the game since it was announced, and have loved all my time in the multiple Betas. Hell, I've even been recording my time with the game.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I hope they get on things like aimbotting extremely quickly and hard though. Even in the open beta you're seeing players (generally Hanzo) where in the killcam they track your head through a wall, shoot you, then instantly snap to another player's head, and repeat.

What do you think the appeal of this is? Like, at that point you're not even playing the game. Why bother at all?

OT: I downloaded the beta last night but haven't gotten a chance to try it. I've been itching for a good fps lately so I'm anxious to give it a shot. Well, this and the Doom singleplayer.

 

[Cryselle]

I hope they get on things like aimbotting extremely quickly and hard though. Even in the open beta you're seeing players (generally Hanzo) where in the killcam they track your head through a wall, shoot you, then instantly snap to another player's head, and repeat.

What do you think the appeal of this is? Like, at that point you're not even playing the game. Why bother at all?

OT: I downloaded the beta last night but haven't gotten a chance to try it. I've been itching for a good fps lately so I'm anxious to give it a shot. Well, this and the Doom singleplayer.

You're always going to have people who care more about winning than playing, you're not going to have a game that has any form of competition and not have that show up to some degree or another. Hell, you can't have a discussion about a game without someone being more interested in winning the discussion than anything else. It's not even really an inherently bad thing, lots of people use the desire to win as motivation for self improvement, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But it's one of those things that Blizzard needs to be extremely proactive about if they want the game to last for very long. With most of the other Blizzard games, they generally watched cheaters for a while to get a good grasp of how the cheat worked before doing a mass ban wave, but I think Overwatch won't allow them that kind of time to deal with problems.

 

[Denamic]

I like playing Flak Cannon Pudge.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I hope they get on things like aimbotting extremely quickly and hard though. Even in the open beta you're seeing players (generally Hanzo) where in the killcam they track your head through a wall, shoot you, then instantly snap to another player's head, and repeat.

What do you think the appeal of this is? Like, at that point you're not even playing the game. Why bother at all?

OT: I downloaded the beta last night but haven't gotten a chance to try it. I've been itching for a good fps lately so I'm anxious to give it a shot. Well, this and the Doom singleplayer.

You're always going to have people who care more about winning than playing, you're not going to have a game that has any form of competition and not have that show up to some degree or another. Hell, you can't have a discussion about a game without someone being more interested in winning the discussion than anything else. It's not even really an inherently bad thing, lots of people use the desire to win as motivation for self improvement, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But it's one of those things that Blizzard needs to be extremely proactive about if they want the game to last for very long. With most of the other Blizzard games, they generally watched cheaters for a while to get a good grasp of how the cheat worked before doing a mass ban wave, but I think Overwatch won't allow them that kind of time to deal with problems.

Well yes, of course the desire to win/be successful isn't inherently a bad thing. I just don't understand the mentality of someone who would rather cheat in a video game than just play the damn thing. How much satisfaction is there to be found in paying for a game just to cheat through it and not actually experience it. Different strokes I suppose.

 

[Zhukov]

Then we have D.VA for example who's a tank with short range blasts.... only they seem to be hitting people from across the map, but if you take that away the character is useless again.

I don't know which DVa you've been playing. I second Major_Chaos. Her primary fire does precisely fuck all at range. She might be able to tickle someone to death if they stood still for an afternoon.

Maybe you're talking about her sidearm when she's out of her mech? That does respectable damage at all ranges, as far as I can tell. But the projectiles are too slow for it to be called a long range weapon.

What? D.Va can get hitmarkers at range but at anything beyond wet cough distance you're looking at low single digit damage, functionally useless for anything other than making people reflexively take cover. And beyond her weapon D.Va has massive utility, shoving foes out of position with her dash, covering advancing teams with her shield, and her ult has enormous clutch play potential on both offense and defense.

I've actually found her scatter guns to be pretty weak even at point blank. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it seems to take me a while to burn down 200-250hp targets.

I find her ult is more of an area denial tool than an actual attack, what with the wind-up and the UI indicator. Unless you combine it with a Zarya ult, then it's a team wiper, although that goes for several other heroes as well. Her defense thingy is great at swallowing enemy ults. Beyond that I don't find her terrible useful.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I find her ult is more of an area denial tool than an actual attack, what with the wind-up and the UI indicator. Unless you combine it with a Zarya ult, then it's a team wiper, although that goes for several other heroes as well. Her defense thingy is great at swallowing enemy ults. Beyond that I don't find her terrible useful.

I love D.Va, but she's a mobility/flanking hero who seems to excel at harassment and distraction, and not so much a "tank". She's very good at getting to places she needs to be quickly, and then making a nuisance of herself. She's also very good at skirting around choke points and back-dooring objectives.

Like all of the heroes, she's situationally useful. Every tool for a different task. I haven't put a ton of hours in, but it's rapidly become apparent how important hero switching is as the game context changes.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I find her ult is more of an area denial tool than an actual attack, what with the wind-up and the UI indicator.

You can use her boost ability, and then activate her ult. The Mech will continue boosting without being piloted, so you can try this out to ease the obvious windup and surprise the other team. It's tricky, but worth it. I've seen some people lob her mech over buildings and drop between teams on the other side.

OT: My favorite thing about Overwatch, besides the polish and competent design, is how new and fresh it is. It definitely scratches that TF2 itch, that TF2 hasn't been able to scratch in years - Mostly due to me having spent thousands of hours on that game already. I've been ready for something new and refreshing for awhile, and I think Overwatch has an incredibly solid foundation with a lot to work with.

Also, Junkrat Hero best Hero.

 

[Silence]

I tried it and I like it, but I don't feel it's worth the price for me. I rarely play Teamshooters, so this would lie around most of the time.

 

[Phasmal]

I'm having fun with it, but we've not pre-ordered. Can't really afford it, the price is a bit more of an issue as we'll be buying two copies. It's a bit of a bugger to be in a relationship where you both want a new game but can't really afford two copies.

Still, I'm really enjoying the beta. I like Lucio, and Pharah. I've only gotten 'Play of the Game' like once, boyfriend mostly gets it in the games we're in. But the dude does have like 1000 hours played on TF2 so I don't know what I expected.

Looking through the skins is nice, there's lots of cute ones and I hope they add more.

 

[Fappy]

I'm having fun with it, but we've not pre-ordered. Can't really afford it, the price is a bit more of an issue as we'll be buying two copies. It's a bit of a bugger to be in a relationship where you both want a new game but can't really afford two copies.

Still, I'm really enjoying the beta. I like Lucio, and Pharah. I've only gotten 'Play of the Game' like once, boyfriend mostly gets it in the games we're in. But the dude does have like 1000 hours played on TF2 so I don't know what I expected.

Looking through the skins is nice, there's lots of cute ones and I hope they add more.

Blizz will probably put it on sale by the holidays if you're willing to wait that long.

On the skin front, I am really hoping I get one of the Valkyrie skins for Mercy. They look awesome:

Spoiler

 

[Phasmal]

Blizz will probably put it on sale by the holidays if you're willing to wait that long.

On the skin front, I am really hoping I get one of the Valkyrie skins for Mercy. They look awesome:

Spoiler

We probably can't wait that long, but you just reminded me it's my birthday in two weeks, so hopefully I'll get some cash to buy it with or someone lovely will buy it for me. I can't believe I forgot my birthday.

Speaking of Mercy skins-

Spoiler: I have a mighty need

Anything purple and I'm sold. I'm happy that all the dudes generally have pink or purple skins to them too.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

We probably can't wait that long, but you just reminded me it's my birthday in two weeks, so hopefully I'll get some cash to buy it with or someone lovely will buy it for me. I can't believe I forgot my birthday.

Spoiler: Look at this message in two weeks

As to the price, I wouldn't hold my breath on it coming down particularly fast. It might be a new IP, but Blizzard's brand power is peerless in this market.

 

[laggyteabag]

Its fun enough with friends, but I really cant see myself playing it much, alone.

The biggest issue that I have is that I have yet to find a character that really works with me. Each one has a couple of great abilities, and then has something that is just shit to go along with it. And example being that I find myself playing a lot of Lucio, but whilst I find his heal/speed boost and his ultimate to be very useful, his knockback is useless, and his autoattacks are too slow and are burst fire.

Another issue is that I am finding the PC controls to be a little awkward, especially if you need to strafe and activate an ability at the same time; a problem that I have had with both Battleborn and Paragon. Also, the game is in desperate need of per-character keybinds.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

It feels like a beta, certain things need to be fixed, Roadhog's chain needs a better hitbox, Hanzo's arrows have an equally large hitbox. Most of the attack/defense maps have really nasty chokepoints that don't allow more mobile heroes to move past and harass forcing them to go in head on. If you're fighting Mei you can either outrange her or die, if you can't outrange her then you can't fight her because you will be frozen before she is dead.

A lot of heroes are straight up hard counters to other heroes as well, like Genji will straight up annihilate a deployed bastion almost before they stop firing. Or Roadhog will shotgun then quick-melee to death any of the faster characters he can get his chain on. Its not really the kind of balancing that I like.