Overwatch

I played quite a bit of this game over the weekend during a beta stress test.

Overall, I rate it very highly and it was an enjoyable return to FPS games. I didn't play BF4 and BF3 was way too buggy to enjoy at all. Also, I don't like the constant map packs that come out for those games that become just a big EA money sink.

The good:
- There are a variety of different characters and roles that each character falls under (support, tanks, defenders, etc). Each character is totally unique in both weapons and abilities. This makes for interesting team dynamics and the need to work as a team to succeed.
- Each role is actually fun to play, including the support roles.
- Most character abilities show a lot of creativity in game design for a FPS game, which makes this game a lot different than other FPS games in that you don't simply depend on the weapon to decide how you play the game. Each character plays totally different and has a different play style. Some characters run up walls, teleport, or have other interesting movement abilities. Others have shields or missile deflection... etc. This also changes how you need to play AGAINST certain characters. Some you do not want to get close to, others you do... etc.
- There is a "play of the game" highlight at the end of each match that shows a short first person clip, usually of a bunch of kills together. Some of these can be pretty funny, and sometime you will see yourself in them and how stupid you were.
- Each character has an "ultimate" ability, much like characters on League of Legends or other such games if you are familiar with them. This is both good and bad. The good is when you use it correctly for your character, you can really mess a team up and change the flow of a match, which is rewarding.

The bad:
- There are some imbalances that make certain characters relatively more powerful than others, depending on skill. Some characters can basically 1 shot most others except for tanks, but aiming to do this is difficult given the speed of the game. Being on the other side of this and dying so easily can be pretty frustrating. Also, there is a character called Tracer that teleports... while she is very difficult to play (I suck at her), if you are up against someone that is very good with her it can be really infuriating.
- The bad part about ultimate abilities is being on the receiving end of them... sometimes you are just going to die no matter what you do because they used an ultimate ability or the opposing team used several at the same time. This is another part of the game where you sometimes just die no matter what.
- Right now in this beta test there was only 1 play mode, which involves 1 team attacking (either capturing several locations, or escorting a moving vehicle to an end point) and the other defending. I am guessing more play modes and map objectives will be added in the future though.
- Aiming with "sniper" type players is very difficult in this game for some reason. I think the speed of the game has some to do with this, because it is very fast paced and characters have movement or defensive abilities that can block or counter shots.

Anyways, I definitely recommend trying this game out when it is release... I think most of you will enjoy it.

Nice, so annoyed I haven't gotten a beta invite..

It's always the players that play a lot. Luke is on Diablo and HS more then either of us. I have never got into a Blizzard beta.

Nice review I am sure I will love the game.

http://kotaku.com/blizzard-channels-...ort-1766223534

Played the stress test this weekend with Joe and Eric. I gotta say I was ready for a let down but it was super fun. I love that there are so many (12?) classes to choose from. It has a TF2 feel to it (alot of the stuff is stolen directly from TF2 - payload mode - route 66 map looks like dustbowl) which I miss. I would like to turn off the kill cam after you die - I much prefer the BF4 still photo of where the player that killed you is located.

I actually think the balance is pretty good BUT new players don't know the classes yet and what counters what. I tried Bastion (robot that can convert to a turret) and went 34-3 on three maps due to noobs not knowing how to kill it. Later I was on another team with higher level players and got wrecked attempting to play him.

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I like it a lot. I really like that the healers are not all squishy and can actually participate beyond just healing their team. Bastion is def a lot of fun, and I played the Solider 76 and Pharrah a few times and like them.. Some high learning curves with some of the classes.

I sucked at the soldier but had fun with the sniper(widowmaker) and demo guy(junkyard). You only get one mine/remote det bomb and it won't one shot most classes but still fun to trigger when someone runs near it.

I didn't get around to demo guy, and I figure I might like the dwarf/engineer guy, but didn't want to spend time figuring out the picking up scrap metal thing needed to build/upgrade(?) turrets?

I think you will dig solider once you play more. He gets to run, not exciting, but he can get around the maps way faster, sometimes very helpfull. The healing beacon is great, and he's essentially got 2 auto-kill abilities.. The helix missiles hit hard enough to 1-shot some classes.. and the tactical visor gives you auto-aim for a short time, which can be quite devastating when used right...

I played Mei (the freeze weapons and ice walls) and D'Va a little too, both interesting classes.. D'Va might be the easiest Heavy/tank I tried..

Good summary of classes with breakdown of abilities.. http://www.pcgamesn.com/overwatch/be...tch-characters

Yeah I think the concussion mine is not meant to be a killing blow, but used to either displace enemies, or for you to use to get to hard to reach areas...

Given there are some cliffs and such to fall off of, it would be good to figure out choke points near areas where you could set that and knock your enemies off of a drop-off... I had rheinhart use his charge on me when my back was to a cliff and he carried me over the edge..

So did you pre-order? If so we get early access starting tues.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jomama

So did you pre-order? If so we get early access starting tues.

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Looks like the "early Beta" start tonight. For me at 6pm All access beta Wednesday same times.

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Played a bit more last night after you left Joe. I am liking it but do think it's almost to fast paced. I don't mean the game in general although the rounds are short - but the between games etc. I can't even get up for a minutes to get a drink or use the bathroom and it auto kicks to the login screen.

I definitely need to figure out how to counter each class. That one game the ninja and scout kept ripping through us. I assume traps or turrets can counter that. And I hate that chain throwing guy. Seems like it's an insta-kill if he gets you with the chain. There must be a counter.

Played more Torbjorn lately than Bastion. Its nice to be able to move but still have the turret level kills if you can keep it repaired.. And his little molten rivet shotgun (alt-fire) is pretty brutal at close range. Armor packs are a great team boost too, esp on defense (when I typically play him).

I was surprised to see I have most time on Pharah. Fun to play once you start to master the flying and learning to maximize how long you can stay afloat with the jump-jet. I try to be disruptive to good Defensive pushes by staying back and getting to a nice high spot to reign down the special power up, and use the concussive blow back when the defense is all clustered around a escort cart or capture point.

I got a late start as I was out of town when the game was released. I think most players have figured out Bastion now and it's kinda worthless to play (I am not getting 32-2 games with him). I like Pharah too and the damn "rains from above" is annoying if you are in the open when that goes off. I have been sticking to Sniper and Demo most of the time so far. I played Torborn in the beta a bit and really liked it but don't think I 100% figured out how to play him.

They gotta work on some balance issues on certain maps. Seems like the attack or defend team always wins on certain maps.

I've just noticed that teamwork is truly important, and you are never going to get that last push (Def or Attack) if everyone streams out of the spawn point one at a time against even a moderately organized opponent.. Prob the same as TF2 but it seems to really affect this game..... And people dropping and class distribution changes can really mess things up. If my team starts hitting a choke point or something and cant proceed, I always check to see what the current team makeup is and try to pick something thats most helpfull.. I helped win 2 different escort maps (attack side) this weekend with a last minute push.. One time coming in as Rheinhard to provide cover and smash my way in, and another coming in as the buddah-healer guy and throwing out a bunch of heals and then getting the special powerup AOE heal to make the final push with the payload.

Getting the hang of Rheinhard too, he's fun and pretty devastating if you can catch someone with his charge and pin them into a wall... And his ranged fire ability seems to hit pretty hard (as does him main attack)...

Torbjorn is straightforward, his main weapon (rivet gun) is a single shot main/shotgun alt fire. You need to arc the single shot to hit anything at range, but it does decent dmg.

The big thing is his powerup, you want his turret at lvl 2, powerup gives it lvl 3. And then his health and dmg are boosted, and repair rate increases.. If his turret is taking hvy dmg during this time it seems best to stay close and repair, but I will also range out and protect the turret from being flanked when powerup is active, as he can take hvy dmg and kill anyone close range with alt/fire. Its nice to find a ranged spot to cover your team with your turret, and then go collect all the scrap packs that get left behind after the opponents die and hand out ammo packs.. I love that there are numerous platforms and nooks and such that you can actually access and set up a turret in to provide cover for your team, and you are not stuck using the same few locations to try to stop an advancing escort..

Been having some lag issues the last couple weeks. I don't have a ton of time to play but lately I have been trouble shooting my issues. Actually, got on for a bit last night and didn't have issues but usually it's random movement lag (key strokes/mouse movements are from several seconds before). I looked into it and changed display setting way down although my vcard plays at 100+ fps no help. There is also a theory that Asus routers are an issue..... It's frustrating.

I turned on the stats that show fps ping etc and have noticed that when I get my "lag" it correlates with high ping (500 ms-700 ms) and usually lasts for 20-30 seconds. Then the ping returns to my usual 25 ms. I guess it's network related. I might swap out my router for a night and see if that fixes it (if so it's an Asus problem).

I have played the last few nights with no lag! So maybe it's fixed. Driver updates and a game update might have fixed it.

I think I am going to focus on learning Torbjorn and perfecting D.va...

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I have only played her a bit but after I watched a video on how to play her I am hooked. Basically, rocket right on top of other players - Blast away and trade damage - rocket away. My first match I think I was 20 kills and like 2 deaths. It's great for killing those fast and sneaky classes.

http://plays.tv/video/57a0045f7fd603e6a2/d-va

My streak. This play tv application that automatically runs in the background saved this.

Placement matches finished..... 2-8 with a rating of 39. Terrible matches. I mostly played Dva and Mercy. Had time for 1 competitive match and we absolutely crushed the other team. I played Dva and got play of the game and went 20-2. Moved up to almost 41 rating.

Yeah i've hovered around the 38-40 since placing..

Logged on last night to see Season 1 is over and S2 won't start until September with 10 more matches needed.... yuck. It does look like they changed the ranking system quite a bit for S2. Similar to Hearthstone you will be rewarded off the highest rank you achieve during the season.

So I decided to try another class - this time Soldier 76 for my first "Offensive" hero. Got pretty good with him especially when I had a healer. Love the sprint and healing aura deal.

Getting kinda tired of free play. Played last night against a group of 3 junk rats while on attack. Was pretty much impossible. At first I didn't like the 1 class per team restriction in competitive play but I do now. They should limit to no more than 2 of a class in public free play.

Yeah that doesn't sound like fun. Yeah that would probably be a good tweak, 2 seems fair. I was in a game the other day where the other team was all D'Va, Tor and Bastion. I think we pushed thru it but they set up a few cross-fire choke points that were devastating.. I'm a little amazed how many people will change classes mid-match to something thats already being played, not a coordinated stack, so it tends to further the losing of the team. You finish the game like... oh, well we had three tanks and 2 healers at the end, no wonder we lost, nobody is doing dmg... The only thing I didn't like about the competitive play was all the bossy pants taking it far to seriously.. Like, I'm not gonna play a class I have no familiarity with no matter how much you think I suck at Pharrah.. Sometimes you lose.

I see that all the time too. Quick play is rarely coordinated and people switch to dumb classes all the time. I seem to be getting grouped with higher level players now and they do attempt to win by playing the correct class. Last night I came up against teams with 3 Genjis and that's pretty annoying. So I usually just pick a new class I haven't played and try to learn it. Last night was Reaper. I am pretty good with him 3:1 after 5 games. Kinda suits my run in style of play. The teleport is crazy good for killing turrets and Bastion and the shadow move deal is great for getting out of trouble. I also tried Zarya and got destroyed......

Current Favorite Classes:
Offense - Solider 76
Tank - Dva
Defense - Junkrat
Support - Mercy

Yeah, i cant count the number of Reapers who have gotten away from me with that shadow move, which seems more powerful than Mei's ice block that people seem to think is OP. I still haven't gotten into Mercy or the guy on skates, but I've seen some strong Mercy/Pharah combo's just destroy a team flying around in the air.

Mercy is fun but she's is 90% healer and once the other team decides to focus on you it's painful to play. If your team actively protects you and you can just sit back and heal you will get tons of "thanks" at the end of the game.

Yeah how often do you actually use her dmg buff as opposed to her heal, seems almost a throw away ability. I suppose if you get in the right position it could really helps dominate tho.

If everyone is at full health I always have the damage buff up on the highest DPS player. I guess one of the new changes is you will be able to turn on WOW style health gauge for the players on your team (on the side of the screen). That is my biggest frustration with Mercy is you can't tell how low out of LOS teammates are. It does show "critical" but I like to make sure everyone it topped off.

Been playing Winston a little bit here and there (and trying out Mercy a bit). He's kinda fun imo, I love flanking or getting around behind an enemy and then doing what he does best, jump on top of their group and cause some distracting chaos so your team can advance. He's a little squishy, but so long as you get away when your shield drops, I tend to get a few good leap attacks in before they manage to kill me. His ultimate is pretty fun to just knock the shit out of everyone and cause a bunch of havoc for the enemy team.

I think I went 4-6 in my placement matches, I ended up with about 200+ points which gave me a mid 2000 ranking (0/6000 I think). But I won all my matches since then I think, like 6-7, so I climbed up to around 2900/3000 zone I think (around 300 pts now).

Have had a really good run on Pharah. My accuracy was routinely 40-50% (35% avg overall) with 40-60 direct hits per round.

Did two matches last night. First a draw and second a humiliating loss.... Mostly playing Solider 76 and Dva but I had to resort to spamming with Junkrat on one defense map to get positive K:D. I like Solider because you can get decent healing with him and I usually get a Silver or Bronze healing metal with him. I will be on tonight after Zach is in bed (8-9 cst) to hopefully finish my placement matches.

Michelle is out of town this weekend so maybe more Overwatch or I will start on leveling my Druid in the new WOW.

I have 3 more matches to go. Currently 1 win 4 losses 2 draws. poop

I did get a 15 kill streak with Reaper. That was fun. Teleport in behind and kill the healer then everyone else.

I like the new map, very Pharah friendly.. That choke point across the bridge at the end is so fun, I LOVE using the knock back to get environmental kills...

Finished with a loss and win. 1800 score lol

I cant believe you got 2 draws on placement matches... I think I've had all of 2 draws out of all the rounds I've ever played since launch.

Yeah 0-0 games when neither team can capture the first point.

Played a a normal competitive game after getting ranked and yeah it's going to be tough climbing out of the 1800 level. Everyone is terrible and there is no teamwork. I got 2/3 golds as solider and everyone refused to play a tank. Hope I am wrong.

That stretch with you was my longest losing streak since ranking. Avg about 3-1 win/loss. I wonder if getting over 2000 will help. I got as high as 2300 (not the high 2K's that I thought) but am now around 2250.

Yeah I am on a huge losing streak 1/3 win/loss. I am 7/20 for the season. Not sure what is going on. I do see with Dva I am positive but all other heroes I have more losses then wins. My K:D is decent in competitive but nothing like in quick play. I think maybe I should master a healer or other support role.

http://masteroverwatch.com/profile/s...53cec648f653bb