f13.net

"Fuck it, repackage it, multiplayer PVP FPS, HATS"

Also lol poor Bethesda; they're doing one of these stupid things too and no one gave a shit about it ALREADY. It's officially doomed.

So Blizzard has become the Apple of the gaming industry. It doesn't matter what they make, as long as the trailer and gameplay are shiny enough, it'll print money  :awesome_for_real:

LOL Tigole Bitties (aka Jeff Kaplan) is the Game Director.

LOL Tigole Bitties (aka Jeff Kaplan) is the Game Director.

/snip Metzen pics

1:19PM Hanamura, map set in Japan. Part of it is a suburban downtown, part of it is a temple ground. Homeland of the disgraced Hanzo. Metzen says it's a favorite of theirs.

This will be huge because Blizzard. At least to start. I have no idea if they make much on Hearthstone, but I assume this would be similar from a revenue standpoint.

Have they given up on Heroes of the Storm yet? Because that was some weak shit

TF2 got me with the hype back in the day. Then I played and proceeded to be the bottom guy on every server I was ever on, MAYBE getting 2 or 3 kills in an entire match by leeching off others. (Some of you played with me, you know this is true)

Now I'm older and have even slower reflexes. Fuckit, not for me.

This doesn't look bad but it does look very familiar. Especially the reliance on catchphrases, character that look and sound cool to 13-year-olds, and central-casting stereotypes / archetypes.

There are like a half-dozen games that look almost identical to this.

Very few of them have the notoriety or the marketing dollars of Blizzard.

The trailer looks really weird to me, and I don't fully understand why. Is that in house blizzard?

This will be huge because Blizzard. At least to start. I have no idea if they make much on Hearthstone, but I assume this would be similar from a revenue standpoint.

Yes, I don't see how it can not be not huge, as it's TF2 with more classes, new mechanics, new scenery, high production values and general "it's new!" hype.


I don't care for TF (and TF-like) games, so personally it holds no interests though.

Meh I'll play it.

I loved TF2 for a long time, and this seems to have a lot more tactical and interesting mechanics. 

Interestingly the matches will be limited to 6 vs 6 fights. Not sure how noob-friendly that is.

Interestingly the matches will be limited to 6 vs 6 fights. Not sure how noob-friendly that is.

Annnnnd I just lost all interest.

Annnnnd I just lost all interest.

If it's anything like most match-making systems these days, it won't be at first, but as the server starts to recognize one's noobness based on performance and stats, it'll pair you accordingly.
Vs. the AI will probably be the recommended path for true noobs at first.

Well, it's free. What risk is there? Worst case it becomes stale after a few hours.

It looks like a pixar movie.

Moreso than anyone but Valve, Blizzard's talent is making really well polished games. They may not be any good, but they'll still have that shine.

This is re-purposed leftovers from a failed project. How can it be anything but bad?

This is still kind of true, but this feels less true to me now.

Previously to me Blizzard polish meant graphical polish, performance polish, look and feel stuff (interface, sound, etc) as well as systems polish. I don't think that last one is the case any more. The systems are now often a weak point in games - to some degree this is true of Diablo, Starcraft and Heroes of the Storm.

They still know how to make the moment-to-moment action feel good and look nice but the weakness of these games is their core gameplay.

This is re-purposed leftovers from a failed project. How can it be anything but bad?

It's basically tf3, poaching a lot of ideas without trying to reinvent the wheel, and make the classes a bit more like moba classes.

The game comes out and (again hypothetically) manages the miracle work of class balance for such a thing. F13 begrudgingly drydocks its own cynicism train, admits it is actually pretty fun and a lot of them are playing it, and enjoy that it's a welcome addition to a stock of games that one can just sit down and give a spin in the odd hours.

The game comes out and (again hypothetically) manages the miracle work of class balance for such a thing.

manages the miracle work of class balance

miracle work of class balance

class balance

This is still kind of true, but this feels less true to me now.

Previously to me Blizzard polish meant graphical polish, performance polish, look and feel stuff (interface, sound, etc) as well as systems polish. I don't think that last one is the case any more. The systems are now often a weak point in games - to some degree this is true of Diablo, Starcraft and Heroes of the Storm.

They still know how to make the moment-to-moment action feel good and look nice but the weakness of these games is their core gameplay.

We don't know that it's free though.  They haven't announced a pricing structure at all.

This is probably not an insanely unrealistic outcome.  If there is something Blizzard is good at, it is improving on existing, established games. The problem for them is really that TF2 is already a good TF2, so I'm not really sure what a "TF3" improves on.

I point you to Heroes of the Storm. They are not as good at this as you think.

LOL @ Blizzard managing class balance in a PvP setting. They couldn't do it in WoW, when their A team was still around (and still can't). There's zero chance that these back benchers can handle it.

This is probably not an insanely unrealistic outcome.  If there is something Blizzard is good at, it is improving on existing, established games. The problem for them is really that TF2 is already a good TF2, so I'm not really sure what a "TF3" improves on.

Given that the games it seems to be competing with (League of Legends, Team Fortress 2, Super Monday Night Combat, etc.) all tend to be free, the only way I can see it with a price tag is if there's some kind of extensive single player storyline attached, and I haven't heard anything about that.  The only other successful model out there for FPS right now that I can think of is Planetside 2, and that seems to rely on features I haven't heard Overwatch mention.

Ho damn, I forgot about that. Battlecry or something. Whelp...

So her ass inflates when she puts her goggles on? A bit unnecessary.

So her ass inflates when she puts her goggles on? A bit unnecessary.

That's where we disagree. HOTS is incredibly boring to me.

Even for F13 this thread is depressingly negative.

I love Heroes of the Storm - it's far more interesting and fun than dota 2 / LoL, and I'm guessing I'm their target market.

Having gorged on Destiny, Garden Warfare and Wolfenstein this year I'm definitely going through a shooters phase, and Overwatch looks brilliant fun. TF2 is almost totally innaccessible to a new player it seems, and Overwatch looks like it will fill that niche very well.

So her ass inflates when she puts her goggles on? A bit unnecessary.

Even for F13 this thread is depressingly negative.

Also, people compare it to TF2. Sure as a class based FPS. But TF2 as a business? Is that even a thing? I mean, it came out in the same year as CoD4, the first Assassins Creed, the first Mass Effect. That's old. Kudos to anyone who can still be playing that seven years later, but I don't see the business of Overwatch in the context of TF2 any more than I see Far Cry 4 in the context of Crysis.

This is still kind of true, but this feels less true to me now.

Previously to me Blizzard polish meant graphical polish, performance polish, look and feel stuff (interface, sound, etc) as well as systems polish. I don't think that last one is the case any more. The systems are now often a weak point in games - to some degree this is true of Diablo, Starcraft and Heroes of the Storm.

They still know how to make the moment-to-moment action feel good and look nice but the weakness of these games is their core gameplay.

Not sure if I'm misinterpreting what you mean by this, but TF2 is pretty huge.  Currently it's the third most played game on Steam, (http://steamcharts.com/) behind Dota 2 and Counterstrike: GO (Civ 5 is still fifth, interestingly enough).  It's beating out CoD: Advanced Warfighter (on the PC, anyway).

LOL @ Blizzard managing class balance in a PvP setting. They couldn't do it in WoW, when their A team was still around (and still can't). There's zero chance that these back benchers can handle it.

I'll be the first to criticize blizzard for a ton of shit but as far as the mount fucking everest of balancing MMO classes goes I am having a hard time thinking of any studio which did it better overall.

Saying that they did MMO PvP class balancing better than anyone else, is not the same thing as saying they've done a good job at it.

LOL @ Blizzard managing class balance in a PvP setting. They couldn't do it in WoW, when their A team was still around (and still can't). There's zero chance that these back benchers can handle it.

Not sure if I'm misinterpreting what you mean by this, but TF2 is pretty huge.  Currently it's the third most played game on Steam, (http://steamcharts.com/) behind Dota 2 and Counterstrike: GO (Civ 5 is still fifth, interestingly enough).  It's beating out CoD: Advanced Warfighter (on the PC, anyway).

Your point being? If they've done MMO balance better than other companies, even if still shit, that suggests that they're better at balance than other companies.

The more I watch the cinematic the more I just want it to be an actual movie or series.  :why_so_serious:

I can't be objective with any perspective on him. He is high off his own kool-aid, and everyone drinks like the blood of Mannoroth because he's the boss they need to please.

I have difficulty accepting that there will be more going in to Blizzard games thinking Metzen is a genius because they don't know better.

I was like that, then I grew up. Metzen's unique quality that keeps him in his position are that all his friends are fellow executives, co-founders, and Art Leads. Which, I guess that's there right to keep their bud on.

Blizzard is a family company, in that once you go in, they'll make you think you're family, unless you betray the family, then you're shit-canned. But they try to take care of all their employees to the best of their ability. Most people leave of their own volition.

If (big if) Blizz could like, make shorts on par with the TF2 shorts Valve puts out, I would totally be on board.

even with the character hammering a turret into being? or the flying medic?

Really? Doesn't remind you of TF2? A level 3 engineer turret that shoots rockets doesn't remind you of TF2?

What the fuck DOES remind of you TF2?!?

Seems Blizzard has run into a snag with the US Patent & Trademark Office.  Someone else has filled a patent application WRT trademarking "Overwatch" in July 2014, several months before Blizzard did their big reveal at BlizzCon in Nov., for "goods and services related to game software and similar".  Both applications have been suspended as of now.  It'll be interesting to see if Blizzard can buy their way out of this, presumably giving the other company a truck full of money, or if they're forced to change the name.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=146785316&postcount=1

Well, the heroes team is called 'Overwatch' so yeah...kind of relevant.

Ellohime is casting gameplay of Overwatch on Twitch right now.  I really don't get the hype.  Then again, not a huge fan of spammy FPS games.

I'll try it out.  But MOBA and MOBA-likes (this is a FPS/MOBA hybrid, or am I wrong?) almost require as much time commitment as MMOs, unless you really like getting your ass kicked.  My reflexes/coordination at this age are probably barely passable for this kind of content.

The only moba element is that each character has three abilities and an ultimate. I don't think there is any character grind though.

On the stream the characters leveled from xp.  I'm not sure what that did, but it seemed to be a part of the game.

It's an FPS with a character grind and the ability to change your toon mid game.  It's very team objective oriented. 

Definitely 95% FPS and only a wee bit of MOBA

On the stream the characters leveled from xp.  I'm not sure what that did, but it seemed to be a part of the game.

I am willing to bet it will work exactly the same way as HotS as far as character unlock goes.  You will have X free hero slots on a weekly rotation, and then you play the game to unlock more heroes / skins / whatever.

I am willing to bet it will work exactly the same way as HotS as far as character unlock goes.  You will have X free hero slots on a weekly rotation, and then you play the game to unlock more heroes / skins / whatever.

and you'll still have to buy things later

As part of our interview with Game Director for Overwatch, Jeff Kaplan, we have confirmed that there are no additional heroes planned for release. 21 Heroes represents the entirety of the release roster for Overwatch. At this time, the development team does not have a finalized planned for releasing additional content and heroes.
"There will be no more heroes at launch. At launch its 21 heroes: what you see is what you get." Jeff said. "Whether in the future Overwatch has more heroes is sort of a TBD to us."
"A lot of this is... there's not like this master plan we know exactly what we want to try. Let's see the health of the game and where it's at. Let's see where the fans are at, and what they want."
"Are they feeling like, 'now that I have Genji, D.Va, and Mei, I feel overwhelmed and there's too many Heroes... or is it like 'Wow the game's really fun but like it's starting to feel stale, can you guys add something?' We're gonna gauge it from there."
"There's not going to be a heroes store at launch," Jeff reiterated.
Jeff confirmed that the Overwatch team is not going to be moving on after release, and plans to continue to support the game.
More information from our interview will be posted as we write up the full Q&A. Stay tuned to /r/Overwatch for more information as BlizzCon 2015 goes o

Pre-purchasing does not come with beta access right now, correct? 

I don't understand how any of you are functioning adults. Oh no a 40$ game that might be fun. Pass on that price tag!

What I care about is yet again Activision trying to find new and exciting ways to monetize after the box sale, while still including the box sale.

Pretty much everyone is doing this now.

Can I still be upset?

I'm fine with a box cost.  It's a far better option than having to grind all of the heroes.

I don't know why I'm buying this.  My FPS skills are complete garbage.   

Seriously though, as someone who feels no particular compulsion to buy cosmetic items, a box price is a welcome choice.

Wife got in the beta ...

Check your Bnet account or application. A lot of people got approved to play in this weekend's beta test.

I think paladins is a better game.

I think paladins is a better game.

Overwatch is absolutely like a boiled-down TF2. smaller teams, smaller maps, and skills/weapons are designed for each class to pidgeonhole you into a role so you don't get retards trying to do frontline combat as medics. You do what your hero is designed for or you fail, miserably.

Very slick interface, presentation as blizzard standards.

Feels really casual-ish though so far; I can't imagine them managing to turn this into an e-sport but who knows.

Not crazy about the "ultimates" personally, a lot of them just feel like "fuck you" buttons.  Junkrat's fucking tire thing, for example.  It feels like they're in there to give players who are getting the shit kicked out of them a chance to feel badass for a second, but it really fucks with the flow of the game for a lot of characters.  Waiting around for an ult to charge is really tiresome, and getting killed by an enemy ult always feels super cheap.

This game's gonna get stuck in a trap where pickup players and low skill players will just mash their heads against defense and fail and feel bad, whereas good players in coordinated teams will be able to slam right through defenses.

This game's gonna get stuck in a trap where pickup players and low skill players will just mash their heads against defense and fail and feel bad, whereas good players in coordinated teams will be able to slam right through defenses.

There's also heroes who basically gigantic traps for bad players like Bastion who seems really great until you come up against people who know how to play. Then there's heroes with really high skill ceilings that when reached will let people basically just pubstomp with relative impunity.

Reinhardt seemed absurdly good in The one game I played.

I think Overwatch is going to be to FPS what HOTS is to MOBAs.  It's a fun little game.  It's just not going to live up to Blizzard's expectations.

Got in the beta this weekend.  Good game.  Definitely not for old men.

This is good! I've been playing the stress test weekend and it's nice and polished. Paladins has a long way to go to catch up.

FRIENDLY REMINDER: As this is a stress test, please anticipate uneven game performance and server instability, and note that restarts and downtime may occur without warning. One of our goals for this test is to really push our hardware to the limit, and these side effects are all part of the process.

Is it just me or is Bastion way OP?

Bastion goes down pretty easy to demoman or um, quake rocket launcher woman. Yes, this is how I think about the characters.

Cynical me wonders how much of the "every nationality gets a character" is just to sell more copies globally.

Cynical me wonders how much of the "every nationality gets a character" is just to sell more copies globally.

D.Va and Genji seemed like pretty junky characters, too.  Maybe I just need to get good at them, but both of them seemed pretty behind the curve in terms of "damage they can deal versus how hard it is to kill them".

"Pressure came from all directions," Kaplan continued. "Not that anybody was outwardly putting pressure on us, but because you're used to doing well and succeeding...having a moment where you didn't do well was almost like an embnarassment. Here you have these great projects like StarCraft, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and then you're sitting on the smoking pile of a cancelled project.

"Nobody said a word, everyone was super supportive, but I think there was this inward embarrassment of like, 'No, we need to prove we're worthy of being at Blizzard too. We can make something that makes the company proud.' It was a trying period of time and there was a lot of pressure. The team is used to pressure, but never quite at that magnitude, and it helped to forge us in a lot of ways."

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-on-cancelled-titan-mmo-we-failed-horrific/1100-6439068/


Video in the link and more out of context quotes. I do believe Blizzard has lost it's touch in certain ways. For example their writers have tried emulating Hollywood style writing too much. In another way their game designers recycled game content from older better games (I'm not talking about assets [even though that also happened] but actually gameplay sequences). Activision wasn't EA levels bad partnership but they added nothing to make them grow as a company.

All that said I still hold Blizzard and their teams among the highest esteem. They are up there with Nintendo and Valve in putting out content that is higher quality than everyone else by a noticable margin (Diablo 3 launch debacle notwithstanding)

I do hope specifically their MMO team really considers hard about what justifies a subscription fee with modern gamers. It's much harder to convince them but I see fundamental reasons why a sub can still work.

I think the industry is moving away from the word "subscription," to more obscure names like paid DLC and season passes. It's all basically the same - whether you are paying monthly or quarterly or yearly. I think the main shift has been from paying to be able to participate in a game to paying for cosmetic content.

I only watched Part One so far but I like how they are all patting themselves on the back for turning Titan in the massive long-term success that is Overwatcrh. Oh wait Overwatch hasn't even launched yet.

DLC I would argue is the devolution of expansion packs from the 90s. Season passes are an attempt at making a subscription model but considering how short lived they are I see most of them as half assed cash grabs.

I don't see it, sub games for the most part simply no longer let you play if you didn't sub.  DLC and Season Pass stuff is extra, your game isn't getting taken away if you don't buy.  There is nothing like subs anymore, DLC are just expansions and season passes are pre orders.

Someone said Genji is a hard counter to Bastion.

Kinda meh in this. Feels like a more colorful TF2.

Bastion has a really low skill ceiling and gets positively wrecked by Tracer, Genji, and a few other heroes. He's not bad but there's way, way stronger heroes.

It seems to be intentionally designed that way- there's heroes that are exceedingly simple to use and straight forward (bastion, mercy, Reinhardt), then there's ones that require you to really pay attention to how to use all their abilities (Zarya, D'va, Lucio) to use them efficiently.

Like I'm not good with Zarya but when someone who can play her well works with a team that works WITH her she's insanely fucking powerful. I'm barely mediocre with Lucio and I can quite simply run circles around pubbies with him because of his wall-running, speed boost, and shockingly decent main weapon (the knockback is obscenely good for blasting people off ledges).

Without having looked at any of the background at all.... have they talked at all about WTF Titan was suppose to actually be?

...it would have taken place on a near-future version of Earth, in a science-fiction depiction of the world... and zones planned for the game ranged from the west coast of the United States to Europe, South America, and Australia, according to a source...

...One potential scenario, described to me by a person who saw the game, might have gone something like this: You're working for a corporation, helping run a shop, when you're called for a mission by your faction, so you run into an elevator, switch outfits superhero-style, and go off to fight enemies with a group of friends or allies....

...All of the people who described the game to me made a lot of Team Fortress comparisons both in terms of aesthetics and gameplay. Three people who saw the game have compared the aesthetics to Team Fortress 2, with one source describing it as a cross between StarCraft II's in-game cinematics and Pixar's The Incredibles....

Bastion has a really low skill ceiling and gets positively wrecked by Tracer, Genji, and a few other heroes. He's not bad but there's way, way stronger heroes.

It absolutely does NOT matter, it's a team game. But I still want to see it.

Oh, Play of the Game started out seeming cool, but is getting a little irritating.

If you want to know your KDA, I think that info is still in there, it's just not there on the tab screen because it's not useful information in-game.

The practice so far is that we are missing a lot of cool, and potentially valuable in a group that is trying to learn the game, info.

Incidentally, I think this choice won't fly should they every try and make it a serious e-sport. People, players and spectators, need metrics.

Yeah, that's kind of the same problem as the scoreboard to me.  It's hard to measure what's a "good" or "important" play objectively, or which individual player in the dogpile was the one who was most important, so singling out one specific moment from one specific player seems weird.  There's been a lot of plays where, as a tank or healer, I'm thinking I'm doing something important but in the replay it's just a shot of my ass as the guy who the game decides is carrying fires around me.  Though it does sometimes just flat out not work, I was playing a match yesterday and got a 5 x kill on the point as Winston (probably only got the last blow on two or three of them, though), and the play of the game was SERIOUSLY some Bastion sitting on a platform, transforming to turret mode, getting sniped instantly and dying without firing a shot, it was pretty funny. 

I tend to prefer using Pharah to take out Bastion, because I suck at Genji (and frankly, I prefer playing the female characters; that's the main reason Overwatch got my attention cause TF2's all-man cast doesn't really interest me) but I am confused as to how Tracer wrecks Bastion. 

I know this isn't the place for it, but do you seriously mean what you said there? You don't care about the gameplay, you care about the sexes of the characters in the game?

How do you feel about Mario Brothers?
Did you play Zelda, because the name of the game is the girl - but the character is a guy?
Did you wait until the kid down the street beat Metroid, and learned that the character is a girl, before you actually played? Did you wait for that one Nintendo Power to confirm it, for fear of TAINING YOUR GAMING EXPERIENCE?

Okay, that last question is snarky, but the rest is serious. Play games because of gameplay. Please.

I know this isn't the place for it, but do you seriously mean what you said there? You don't care about the gameplay, you care about the sexes of the characters in the game?

How do you feel about Mario Brothers?
Did you play Zelda, because the name of the game is the girl - but the character is a guy?
Did you wait until the kid down the street beat Metroid, and learned that the character is a girl, before you actually played? Did you wait for that one Nintendo Power to confirm it, for fear of TAINING YOUR GAMING EXPERIENCE?

Okay, that last question is snarky, but the rest is serious. Play games because of gameplay. Please.

Though snarky, you really aren't wrong.  :why_so_serious:

And then there's Starcraft, which is exactly the opposite. That being said, my feeling is that Overwatch has a fairly high skill ceiling with the highest skill ceiling heroes. It has heroes that are easier to play too. I mean, it's not Counter-Strike, but that's fine.

Skill-ceilings are fine, but Blizzard succeeds by making the skill floors a lot lower than other games in the same genres, and thus making casuals feel like they don't suck quite as hard until they really get owned hard.

SC2 is also Blizzards weakest game at this point.

By "skill floor" he meant something like, "skill barrier to entry", or "minimum required proficiency", and he really did mean lower.

At this point Blizzard has made hundreds of times more dollars pandering to the 'I suck' crowd than others have made stroking hardcore egos. It works and they should continue to go with it.

I think one of the things that's driven a lot of Blizzard's success is the realization that lowering the barrier to entry doesn't have to make a game shallow or low skill.  Games like Warcraft and Starcraft WERE the casual versions of the RTS genre back when the interface for much of the competition was an innavigable mess of hotkeys and submenus.

Plus, I'm not really sure about the usage of terms like "skill ceiling" in competitive games.  To me, that implies that there's a certain limit to how good you can get (like, it doesn't matter if you devote your life to it, you'll never be able to beat me at tic-tac-toe) but if there's a professional scene and the same five or ten teams keep floating around the top of it, it seems like 99.9% of the population isn't in any danger of hitting that ceiling any time soon.

Plus, I'm not really sure about the usage of terms like "skill ceiling" in competitive games.  To me, that implies that there's a certain limit to how good you can get (like, it doesn't matter if you devote your life to it, you'll never be able to beat me at tic-tac-toe) but if there's a professional scene and the same five or ten teams keep floating around the top of it, it seems like 99.9% of the population isn't in any danger of hitting that ceiling any time soon.

I tend to prefer using Pharah to take out Bastion, because I suck at Genji (and frankly, I prefer playing the female characters; that's the main reason Overwatch got my attention cause TF2's all-man cast doesn't really interest me) but I am confused as to how Tracer wrecks Bastion.  I've sneaked up behind him on Tracer, start firing into his weak spot...he spins around and obliterates my 150 hp before he's even down to half health.  Sometimes I can boost forward and try to turn around and shoot him from the other side as he spins, but it's by no means a sure thing.  Sure, a Bastion that isn't paying attention is easy to kill with Tracer, but if they notice and turn?  I don't see anything she can do except toss her stickybomb and flee (and using an ult to kill him seems a little excessive when he's going to be back before that ult is recharged, probably).  Am I missing something about how she should be taking him on?

The fight for the future is coming to your televisions and monitors at the end of May, but the folks at Coca-Cola® and Cinemark® Theaters are joining forces to bring Overwatch to the big screen as well!

For one night only, on May 22, selected theaters in the United States will dedicate their projectors to Blizzard’s new team-based shooter, broadcasting a collection of Overwatch cinematics, hero trailers, and animated shorts—including two new episodes, featuring the Shimada brothers, Hanzo and Genji, and the masked vigilante, Soldier: 76. As an added bonus, attendees will also get a behind-the-scenes look at the game's lore and storytelling efforts during a special developer panel hosted by Michele Morrow (not to mention some pretty sweet swag).

If you'd like to participate, you’ll want to act fast. In order to unlock a theater in your area, each location will need at least 100 reserved tickets by May 12. So, open that Battle.net Friends List, and start recruiting your fellow Overwatch agents today!*

I thought this didn't go live until Tuesday, but there's this big blue "Play" button on my launcher. Early access for pre-buying?

I thought this didn't go live until Tuesday, but there's this big blue "Play" button on my launcher. Early access for pre-buying?

Hm.. and now I get "Game server connection failed...retrying." It certainly SEEMS like a Blizzard launch.

i've actually thought that all of the shorts that have come out since the announcement movie have had really bad, predictable writing. this one is styled in the same mold, it is so telegraphed and generic that it feels markov chain-ish in parts

i've actually thought that all of the shorts that have come out since the announcement movie have had really bad, predictable writing. this one is styled in the same mold, it is so telegraphed and generic that it feels markov chain-ish in parts

That said, it may be kind of obvious but I do like the story of Hanzo and Genji. They’re two characters with a very interlinked past and that sort of thing is very interesting to explore. I also think his character has gone through so much growth from where he started as a ninja Yakuza in training and then an Overwatch agent and eventually becomes a cyborg. I think the idea of him coming to grips with his life changing so much is an interesting story.

Overwatch’s Michael Chu On Lore And Storytelling (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/05/23/overwatch-michael-chu-interview/).


Good stuff here  :why_so_serious:

So, yeah, TF2 again.

Did we need this? Like, to exist (as a game)?

Note, I'm not saying this is bad. I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around it. This particular Blizzard game already existed, it just said Valve on the box.

Note, I'm not saying this is bad. I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around it. This particular Blizzard game already existed, it just said Valve on the box.

Sure, but that didn't stop them from releasing Heroes of the Storm, either.  

It's TF2+Moba mechanics and trying to capitalize on the latter's popularity and later monetization strategy with new "heroes".

What MOBA mechanics?

Nija already pointed out that was horseshit. No need to point it out further.

Then again Dragon Quest Builders is the first decently-budgeted Minecraft-style game. Almost unfathomable that it took that long.

On Pornhub, the most popular video game-related porn search is Minecraft

No-one likes women with curves these days.

DISCLAIMER: It's my fault (I guess).

I just realized Overwatch costs 40, not 60. 60 is only for the Origins edition which is full of shit I don't give a single fuck about. But Blizzard hid the "regular" edition so well under walls and walls of advertising on their website that neither me nor any of my friends had the slightest idea that there was a 40$/€/£ edition anywhere.

What a masterpiece in misdirection and "marketing", fucking Blizzard.

a surprisingly large number of people must be playing this. i have seen more talk about this game across more communities since i've seen for anything in years.

butts

(and gorilla?)

A lot of people are playing this because it's not an exaggeration to say that this is the best shooter to come out in nearly a decade. Yeah it's fashionable to hate on Blizzard. Yeah, it's a TF2 clone. But it's really really good.

No, a lot of people are playing it because it's Blizzard and they've bought into the "Blizzard maeks god gaems" collective bullshit. It could be a garbage shooter and the masses would still play it because of the name.

We are back to the problem of Blizzard visual style. I really don't see how Overwatch is gorgeous at all. Pretty to look at, easy on the eyes, very well made? Sure. Gorgeous? Not even close. It's 2016. Games look waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than that.

We are back to the problem of Blizzard visual style. I really don't see how Overwatch is gorgeous at all. Pretty to look at, easy on the eyes, very well made? Sure. Gorgeous? Not even close. It's 2016. Games look waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than that.

No, a lot of people are playing it because it's Blizzard and they've bought into the "Blizzard maeks god gaems" collective bullshit. It could be a garbage shooter and the masses would still play it because of the name.

I'm enjoying this a fair amount but this comes off to me as the Hearthstone of team-based shooters. Like, if someone tells you they're a pro Overwatch player your response should be to laugh hysterically.

I encourage you to go back and read Nija's post from the previous page.

I'm not sure how anything he said plays against what I said. The fact is this was a failed project that they retooled, it's not at all innovative, and it plays like a game from 5 years ago. Whether or not you find that fun isn't really the point I'm making. The point is that on it's own merits without the Blizzard tag, this game would never draw the following it has. It's not being analyzed by the public on it's gaming merit.

Similar to Hearthstone.

The promise of continued support or at least a long-lived playerbase is a good motivator to buy a multiplayer game.

I paid money for titanfall, which is a damn good game IMO but holy fuck was it hobbled by being Origin only.

I'm not sure how anything he said plays against what I said. The fact is this was a failed project that they retooled, it's not at all innovative, and it plays like a game from 5 years ago. Whether or not you find that fun isn't really the point I'm making. The point is that on it's own merits without the Blizzard tag, this game would never draw the following it has. It's not being analyzed by the public on it's gaming merit.

Similar to Hearthstone.

The promise of continued support or at least a long-lived playerbase is a good motivator to buy a multiplayer game.

Blizzardness is the gaming equivalent of umami.

Blizzard games are basically all 6/10. But in the broken down list of stats it goes like this:
Graphics: 7.5 - always
Sound: 10
Gameplay: always passable
Innovation: 0
Blizzardness: 20
Complete  Systems: 5

Blizzardness is the gaming equivalent of umami.

Except for HOTS, which is missing the Blizzardness and thus just a pretty average game.

I don't know. I don't play just any Blizzard game and haven't ever been that way. I reluctantly played WoW. I skipped the first expansion, played the second for 3 weeks, and have never returned. I played D3 at release and quit until the expansion, and played that couch co-op on PS4.

This is my first Blizzard game in QUITE AWHILE and it's strictly a gameplay thing for me. I didn't play a single second during alpha, beta, any of that - until OPEN beta.

I really like to think I don't have blinders on for this one. Maybe I do. I'm not sure yet.

It's not bad. It's just not great

Graphics: 7.5 - always

I'd break this further into

Graphics: 6
T&A: 9

Except that comes off as bagging on the game because it's popular.  The game does have some similarities with TF2 but calling it "not at all innovative", in a genre which has been glutted with yearly sequels and rehashes for years now, comes off as reaching really hard to find something bad to say about the game.  If there's some amazing AAA dev who's consistently pushing out groundbreaking FPS then I'd love to hear about it, otherwise I suppose Blizzard will have to be content with being a complete trash company whose only consolation is that every other company in the world is somehow even worse.

It's not banking on the Blizzard name (if you can even do that anymore, it's not like copies of World of Warcraft: Legion are flying off the shelves), we all had the option to play the game before we bought it.  We all knew what the game was.  And honestly, this argument was old years ago when MMO devs were whining that nobody played their crappy cash grab bandwagon titles because we all just had some kind of Pavlovian response to the Blizzard logo, and not because their games were boring crap, no sirree.

Blizzard is very good at taking existing game ideas and polishing off the bad bits.

I've always thought of video game design as two things - adding good stuff and removing bad stuff. Blizzard is super good at removing bad stuff, like a game design rock tumbler. Anything that feels off or janky they fix. In douchey video game lingo, their games are low friction.

The problem I have with Blizzard games is that they often don't put in good stuff that's very interesting, and the genres they play in are genres that don't particularly appeal to me. I could go for a really polished 3D Action Adventure game, but a really polished team-based FPS just doesn't interest me.

That said, there's plenty of room for a company that takes existing game ideas and makes a best possible version of it without adding much.

Real Hanzo gameplay:
https://gfycat.com/UnimportantShinyBaldeagle

I looked into some of the game mechanics a bit more. It has some pretty shitty mechanics for resolving latency and the servers run at 20 ticks (in comparison, CSGO is 64 / 128 depending on if it's a tourney or not). Overwatch uses favour-the-shooter and some lazy hit calcs help "close the skill gap".

It's probably not relevant for most of you, but it will explain why you can get killed through walls or after blinking / dodging with tracer, genji, etc.

People are starting to figure out how to defend. Sure, defense it's probably meant to be easier, but turrets are slowly starting to make the gameplay stale after only a week. Granted, there are a lot of counters and counter-counters, but a mix of Bastion, Tornbjorn and Symmetra are already pretty much mandatory in a defense and are making defense rounds boring. At least on attack, even if you die over and over, you feel you have to come out with solutions to problems. And winning on offense feels like an achievement while winning on defense feels like you've just done your dull duty.

In short, the three turrets suck. Nerf please.

As someone who sucks at FPS, I don't notice or care.  So, Blizzardification +1.

Turrets in this game are very much like TF2 turrets in that a team that doesn't work together and isn't willing to switch to classes that are good against them can just throw themselves against a wall for 10 minutes until they lose. On the other hand, a coordinated team that is working together can plow through them almost trivially. 

Case in point, I was playing TF2 the week before Overwatch release. I decided to play some engineer and ended up racking up insane amounts of kills with some relatively basic turret placements because the other team refused to bring enough demomen or ubercharges to the table. I can imagine a new player in that game just thinking "engineers are bullshit" or something, but they are really dependent on the offense being kind of bad.

I play a lot of Pharah and turrets just aren't a huge problem, especially when you learn the common placement spots.

Huh, didn't realize they allowed that sort of stuff at reddit.  Guess they want that sweet sweet 4chan money.

Huh, didn't realize they allowed that sort of stuff at reddit.  Guess they want that sweet sweet 4chan money.

What The Actual Fuck! :ye_gods:

NSFW NSFW NSFW

https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch_Porn/

What The Actual Fuck! :ye_gods:

NSFW NSFW NSFW

lol.

And is it just me, or does the internet need to deploy a web-standard for video scrubbing an animated gif?

Paging RK47, Overwatch Porn off the starboard bow!

http://kotaku.com/inside-the-surprisingly-big-overwatch-porn-scene-1778229605 (yeah, do i need to stick a NTFW tag here?)

Oddly, Blizzard is starting to crack down on it now...

Why?  Are they suddenly surprised? There's shitloads of WOW porn out there too. No big shocker there was going to be tons of Overwatch porn with much more attractive and human characters that lend to porn cosplay more easily.

Symmetras turrets are very weak. They'll get the unaware attack or support character if there's a nest of 3 or more but that's why you let the tanks lead the charge.  A single shot from any of the dps is enough to take them out.  She's my favorite but I'm already losing the ability to play her after the first rush because better players know how to take my turrets out quickly. 

Tobjorn is the better all around turret but bastion has saved a few of my defenses because players panic at the high dps and tanks are largely shit. 😱

I'm decently familiar with internets, but I didn't realise that this existed. At least in this form of animated video and such. I thought it was pretty much all hand-drawn hentai/slashfiction kind of thing. And I hd no idea that shit like Overwatch porn was a thing.  :ye_gods: :uhrr:

Yeah, I use her [Symmetra] for offense too sometimes, and it works surprisingly well.

That's something I've been wondering about... Symmetra is easily my favorite character, but whenever it's an attack / payload / king of the hill map, I kinda get the feeling that playing her would hurt the team's chances. Not necessarily because Symmetra's bad at those maps (teleporter can swing games by itself), but rather because I just know that nobody is going to play support unless the NO SUPPORTS warning is in their face... and really, Symmetra's not much of a support, even Torbjorn's armor drops and S76's healing aoe do more than those tiny shields. So I suck it up and play Lucio instead.

Symmetra is great, I play heals/tank more than anything but if I see someone playing Symmetra I'll lock in Lucio or Mercy right away.  I think some of the double heal/support combos and the double tank healer combos are really strong and I wish people would pick them more often.  I've been picking Zayra more often when someone locks in a tank early.

Zen is the one I don't have a good feel for yet.  Maybe just because I haven't played him much but I never really recognize when would be a good team comp to play him.

This is fun to hop on for a bit every day which I imagine is the intent.

God speed to Blizzard if they're trying to make this an esport.

This is fun to hop on for a bit every day which I imagine is the intent.

God speed to Blizzard if they're trying to make this an esport.

They've been trying to replicate Starcraft's phenomenon for a while now. Not very successfully, but they've been trying.

Star2 sucked because it was designed by people who made warcraft 3, and not the original starcraft. So it really was a replication of warcraft in spaaaaace, imo. 

Starcraft 2 didn't really play much of anything like Warcraft 3.

I am starting to think Overwatch can really make it as an eSport. Maybe it'll just be the MASSIVE push (meaning: money) they will invest into it, or the goddamn hype, or the fact that the game looks like it has a good and tight design behind it fooling enough people because of all the counters and counter-counters and the ability to change team composition on the fly, the fact that eSports are growing across the board, and of course the ridiculous events and prices that I am sure will come soon, but I wouldn't be surprised if this one actually made it and ended up dominating mainstream things for the next five to ten years.

Ignoring obvious problems like, "McCree is using fan-shot 90% of the time and eating tanks when flash-bang is up, so we should probably fix that." .

Could that be becasue they are looking at metadata pulled from averages of multiple games rather than looking at actual in game replays?

Pretty sure that the post that mention D.Va buffs also mentions McCree nerfs.

I can't decide if I really enjoy this game because I'm procrastinating and playing with friends or if it's fun.  Is there a difference?

Rocket League has all kinds of unlocks as you play. The cool thing about DotA (and MOBAs in general) is that it condenses the entire ding-gratz joy of progression into a single hourish session.

It's not Overwatch problem though. It's ALL games' problem, save for very few exceptions. "Progression", "unlocks" and "achievements" are three of the most important keywords for all humans in the 21st Century, and very few things that do not have any of that, or do not toy around with any of that, manage to retain interest for longer than a couple of weeks. We live in an achievement unlock culture, where a lot of things don't seem to count unless they are photographed and shared.

Rocket league's collectables were fully unlockable after 10 hours of playing at release.  People didn't build up their 50+ hours of gameplay by stopping and only coming back when new collectibles came out.

We need to know our invested time is worth it. Sometimes all we need is for someone to tell us how awesome we are. Other times a little bar chart will do just fine.

I played about a bazillionty hours of Quake 3, Counter Strike and Team Fortress ~15 years ago without it ever even occurring to me that there should be some kind of cross-session progression.

Yeah. That's kind of the point right? I mean, if the argument is "you need this stuff for people to play games long term" then all those enormously popular games that didn't have any semblance of progression are evidence against that argument.

I really dislike it when games are constantly being tweaked. Let players find solutions except when things are really busted.

For me around level 25 the shiny is starting to wear off somewhat tbh. It's not 'vanilla TF2 fun' and the maps and playmodes are somewhat limited atm.

I think one of the things this games lacks right now is a real defining map. The maps are fine for the most part, but it doesn't have a map I really look forward to above the others or that I really hope comes up. Dustbowl and Dust (2) and Nuketown and so on get old when people play them 24/7, but I think having that kind of game-defining map does something good for a game overall. I expect new maps will come along over time, but I hope they really knock at least one out of the park instead of a bunch being just good.

Yeah. That's kind of the point right? I mean, if the argument is "you need this stuff for people to play games long term" then all those enormously popular games that didn't have any semblance of progression are evidence against that argument.

These games adopted these methods as a way to extend engagement for those who would otherwise up and quit after getting bored.

Their 'play of the game' system is a good start, if a little rough.  If they actually manage to perfect a system that can consistently identify the most exciting to watch perspectives and switch to them, they've sort of got an automatic producer cutting things together exactly right.  Maybe.  It'll take a lot of time and work to get it working right if that's what they're thinking, though, so I doubt it will actually happen in this game.  But someday a game will certainly manage that.

The problem is you're still seeing things from the first person perspective then. That would be like watching football by switching between helmet cams. It's a terrible experience. You need cameras that are above and around the action capturing it. First person might be interesting in instant replays and analysis to see what the player saw, but I think that overall you need to produce it much more like a sport.

Mechwarrior Online, a FPS by all means (albeit a slow one) that doesn't even allow 3rd person camera for competitive playing, does exactly that when streaming tournaments: the spectator tools allows to see the battlefield from a free-flying camera (or the cockpits) and the players/'mechs are highlighted with blue or red from any distance. It's a game with a very tiny playerbase, but the concept is there and they have realized it and they are using it for their eSport tournament that is being broadcasted right now. It's not that complicated and if one of the worst software house ever can do it, I am sure Blizzard can master it.

I'm certain that HiRes will include it in Paladins which is also trying to set itself up as an esport... and making a hash of the whole game IMO.

I totally get that. What I'm saying is that if you're getting bored you should quit and if you're being kept around by loot boxes and meaningless levels then what you're calling "extended engagement" I'm calling "being tricked into playing a game you don't actually like anymore."

I'm not familiar with DOTA2, but what you describe doesn't sound passive enough to appeal to a wide base of spectators. That sounds great for people looking to up their own game. That's fine as far as it goes. But it's not great for trying to get a huge array of spectators to pay for drinks at the bar while they watch.

Just an example of how they do it in MechWarrior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y3ZaPIMAJ4

Uhm, I just checked and looks like Overwatch has exactly that kind of spectator tool already. They are at least one step ahead of us on this.

Nope, I am pretty sure you are either wrong, or they patched it. I watched a tournament today and all players were outlined through walls in blue or red.

It's passive in the sense that these are the tools casters use to describe what's happening in the game.  Who really came out ahead in the last fight, who's doing well, who's missing all their shots, that kind of thing.  

...watching in client is more like going to a sporting event in person... [but] A loooot of people who are watching this stuff are watching from their computer, and it's kind of maddening to see it treated as a kind of junky television when it can do so much more.

I am sure those are real numbers and players.

And this is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UU8jqxAiHQ
Overwatch makes a lot of people feel they are suddenly good at FPS. 

:ye_gods:

The Hanzo hitboxes are hilarious.

I am sure those are real numbers and players.

And this is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UU8jqxAiHQ
Overwatch makes a lot of people feel they are suddenly good at FPS. 

:ye_gods:

Yeah, seriously.  I kind of wish they'd back off.  I love Dota as much as anyone, but turning EVERY game in to some competitive e-sport really shits up the community.

I guess at least it makes more sense for their more recent stuff than it did when they thought enough people would care about WoW Arena duels to force all the PvP systems in the game to revolve around them.

This really is a shooter for the older gentleman, the hitboxes are generous and there are lots of abilities you don't have to aim.

One thing I wish they did was an in-game breakdown of what every ability does. Nobody will figure it out on their own, it's all on the internet.

I know that. I mean more detailed information than what is given. Sure, I can go to a wiki but come on, why should I need to.

Training room is not the same thing as information written down. All I want to do is read.

It's naturally no biggie because there's more wikis you can shake a stick at. But it'd be nice to have some of that information, technical and lore, readable in the game, don't you think?   

What is there to read?  You press F1 and it tells you what each skill does.  Better yet, you go into the training room and you can actually test them and see how they work out in game.  I spent a good hour or so in the test range before playing against other people.  What more do you want?  A printed manual?  Blizzard didn't re-invent the wheel here.  It's a FPS with a few abilities thrown in.  Not that hard to figure out.

It'd be nice to know things like, y'know, actual damage numbers.

What is there to read?  You press F1 and it tells you what each skill does.  Better yet, you go into the training room and you can actually test them and see how they work out in game.  I spent a good hour or so in the test range before playing against other people.  What more do you want?  A printed manual?  Blizzard didn't re-invent the wheel here.  It's a FPS with a few abilities thrown in.  Not that hard to figure out.

I'm treating this game more as a MOBA, that is true. The game even has those little ability videos that LoL had when I played it a long time ago (which actually show the Symmetra barrier thing).

One of the world's best Widowmaker players said he was having to wait for 20+ minutes to get a game. As it turns out hundreds and hundreds of players had blocked him to avoid playing with him when Blizzard looked into it. Apparently people have been using the "avoid player" feature to block really insanely skilled players.

Their solution: Remove the feature to avoid players. lmao

Well, good matchmaking isn't supposed to put you up against someone with such a huge skill disparity but sadly, I don't know many matchmaking schemes that actually work like that.

Allow me to share some of my personal thoughts on matchmaking...

We’ve been following all of the discussion around matchmaking. When topics get discussed in the community (and often among game developers) we tend to talk about things in very black/white or right/wrong terms. But most important decisions you make as a game developer are difficult trade-off decisions with no perfect answer.

The goal of the matchmaking is to make it so that you as a player do not have to find 11 other people to play with. You can click a Play button, and the system finds other players for you. That’s the basics. The reality is, the matchmaker is extremely complex in what it is trying to do. It does way more than I am going to mention in this post so while I am going to offer some information here, I am leaving some things out (not all intentionally – it’s just a really complex system).

At a most basic level, the matchmaker is trying to put you with 11 other people. But it doesn’t just randomly select 11 people. It takes into account a number of factors (more than I am going to list and not necessarily prioritized).

The first factor is time. The matchmaker will try to find you match quickly and not force you to wait too long. A very common thing that happens is that a player will become dissatisfied with a match and say “I don’t care how long you make me wait. I’d rather wait 20 minutes and have a good match than get matchmade into a match like you just put me into.” What we’ve seen is that when the time crosses a certain threshold, players begin to complain about it taking too long to find a match. It sounds good… waiting for that perfect match. But when the reality of waiting too long comes down on most people, they end up vocalizing their discontent on the forums. Also, there is an unrealistic expectation that if a player waits longer for a match, the “better” the match will be. The concept of “better” when it comes to matchmaking is a really hard one to define.

If I were to summarize match results into 5 broad buckets it would be these:
My team won. We beat the other team by a long shot.
My team barely won.
My team barely lost.
My team lost. We lost by a long shot. It wasn’t even close
It was a broken match somehow. Maybe someone disconnected,
was screwing around or we played with fewer than 12 people.

(of course there are more cases than this – I am overly simplifying here)

Most players will say that they want a match to be either type 2 or type 3 as I described above. Those sound even. Barely win or barely lose. But I believe when psychology comes into play, most players actually expect type 1 or type 2 to be the result. Even an amazingly close type 3 match can turn into a highly negative experience for a lot of players. And if you keep “barely losing” it’s not a very fun night. Winning is fun and good. Losing is less fun than winning.

So waiting a really long time to lose by a long shot is obviously not good. But waiting a really long time to barely lose is also a negative experience. And if we assume that your chances of winning are 50%, that means that even waiting a really long time for a “better” match means that you’re going to wait a really long time to probably lose half the time… If your expectation was that you were going to wait a really long time for an awesome match where you either 1) Won by a long shot or 2) Barely won… but still won nonetheless, your expectations for what the system can or should do are in the wrong place. We do not generate bots to take losses so you can win more than 50% of the time. Those are real people losing on the other end of every loss you take.

A second factor we take into account is ping. We’re matchmaking people all over the world and we want to match people to the closest servers for the best play experience. In our second stress test, we had other things prioritized over ping-based matchmaking such as skill and time. For those of you who participated in that stress test, you’ll remember how terrible the game performance was on the first day as well as how “lit up” the forums were demanding that players be given an option of server choice. So now we prioritize ping for players. Some players live in challenging parts of the world when it comes to high speed data connections (I’m looking at you, Andes mountain range…) so it’s not perfect for everyone. But largely, most people get a really decent connection to our game servers. Matching players with wildly disparate pings also results in a higher frequency of undesirable side effects such as “getting shot behind walls”. Of course if you live in Houston, Texas and group with your buddy in Geneva, Switzerland, you’re now introducing uncertainty to our system that’s harder for us to deal with… but we allow it.

Which brings us to the next factor that we match on: grouping. The majority of our matches are comprised of either all solo players or solo players and players grouped with one other person. However, the system does try to match groups of equal sizes together first and foremost. As the time people wait grows, we expand the search to try to find others for them to play with. This means that occasionally we will match groups with players who are not grouped or in a group size that is smaller than their own. Like I mentioned, this is exceedingly rare but can happen. And that match is only made when players have crossed a waiting threshold that we deem too long. For most group matches a group of 6 is placed against another group of 6.

Groups are a big challenge in our matchmaking system. You can group with people of wildly varying skill and ping and we allow you to. It’s pretty unlikely that there is another group in the queue that exactly mirrors the unique circumstances that you have set up (pings, skills etc.). We want you to group. We feel that it’s the best way to play the game. So we try to avoid things that discourage grouping and we want to continually improve the social systems so that you’ll find it easier and easier to group with people you have chosen to play with. Playing with people you choose to play with is going to be more reliably fun than playing with people we choose for you. I once used the analogy of hanging out with people on a Saturday night. If you were to go out with five of your friends it would probably be a better time than if we tried to find 5 random people for you to go out with, no matter how smart we were in our selection process…

Anyway, this leads me to matchmaking rating. This rating is the most important thing that we try to match on. Basically this rating means “how good are you?” Commonly, you’ll hear this referred to as Matchmaking Rating or MMR. MMR is derived differently in different games. Overwatch borrows a lot of knowledge from other games but also does a lot of things unique to Overwatch. As each player plays games, their matchmaking rating goes up or down depending on if they win or lose. The system is extremely complicated and there is a lot more going on here than I am going to spell out. So please don’t take this as the comprehensive guide to how MMR is calculated in Overwatch. There is definitely a lot more going on under the hood.

In Overwatch, whether your MMR goes up or down is contingent on winning or losing. But there are a number of factors that determine how much that rating goes up or down. For example, what map you’re playing on and whether you were attacking or defending is factored in. We know the win rates on attack/defend on all of the maps and we normalize accordingly. Not all wins and losses are equal. We also look at your individual performance on each of the heroes you played during the match. Everyone has better and worse heroes and we have tons of data showing us what performance levels should be like on those heroes. We also look at your opponents and whether or not their matchmaking rating is higher or lower than yours. These are just a few of the things that are considered when determining how your skill should go up or down. At no point in MMR calculations do we look at your win/loss ratio and win/loss ratio is never used to determine who to match you with or against. We are not trying to drive your win/loss percentage toward a certain number (although the fact that so many people are at 50% win rates makes us extremely happy). All the system does when it comes to matching on skill is attempt to match you with people of a similar number.

The system is of course deeper than this. There are penalties and handicaps added for things like not playing for a while or playing in groups of varying sizes. We also do special things for brand new players to (hopefully) keep them away from the general population. Players will often mistakenly look at player level and accuse the matchmaker of making unfair matches. One thing that I have mentioned before is that we were evaluating your skill during closed beta, open beta and the second stress test weekend. If you played in any of these (over 10 million players did), we had already determined a skill rating for you (most likely). This means that it’s not uncommon to see a level 1 matchmade against much higher level players. In most of these cases, the Level 1 is a skilled player who played during the phases I mentioned but did not immediately play at launch.

There are many factors that are beyond our control that add noise to the matchmaking system.

Leavers are extremely disruptive
Players vary wildly in their skill with different heroes. We have no clue which of the 21 heroes you are going to play during a match
Groups form with wild variance in skill levels and ping. Contrary to popular belief there is not a “perfect match” for your unique snowflake group
Sometimes your little brother plays on your account
Sometimes the cat walks in front of the screen
Sometimes your wireless mouse runs out of batteries. (Why do you use a wireless mouse btw?)
Sometimes a highly skilled player buys a new copy of OW to “start fresh” on a new account
Sometimes you have internet problems
Sometimes you play drunk or tired… or both
That first game of the night…
…that last game of the night
“Life”
So this brings me to some thoughts I’ve been having about Overwatch. While this whole post has been mostly my personal thoughts – this next part is “especially” my thoughts and not reflective of the team or the company’s POV.

For better or for worse, we focused the design of the game on winning or losing as a team. OW is not a game where you ignore the map objectives and then look at your K/D ratio to determine how good you are. We want you to focus on winning or losing and as a result you do focus on winning or losing. We tried to make it so that losing isn’t the end of the world, but to a lot of people they expect to win far much more than they lose. I sometimes wonder if we were able to clone you 11 times and then put you in a match with and against yourself, would you be happy with the outcome? Even if you lost? Out of the 5 types of matches I described above, it is my belief that you would still experience types 1-4. Are those “stomps” still not acceptable? Because they will happen…

And I believe OW is strange game in that regard. I spend a lot of time studying the matches that I am in because I am very focused on matchmaking. I’ve been in so many Control Point maps where my team got destroyed on the first point, the enemy team got destroyed on the second point and then we play the third point to a 99%/99% overtime. If you judged any of those single points on their own merits you could say you have two stomps (one in your favor, one against you) and one close match. Same players...no change in matchmaking. Or take a match that I was just in on Route 66, for example. My team was on attack and could barely push out past the train cars. Two members of our team swapped heroes and we proceeded to march the payload all the way to the end of the map practically uncontested. The match went from a stomp in one direction to a stomp in the other direction.

So while it is possible for a mismatch to result in a stomp, not every stomp is a mismatch. If every time a team dominates another team it is viewed as “the matchmaker is broken”, the problem we have is with perception and expectations. Look across all pro sports. Even matches happen every night. Stomps happen every night. It’s a reality of any competitive game. Does that make being on the receiving end sting any less – probably not.

We are constantly improving the matchmaker. We learn more each day. We have one of our best engineers and best designers full time dedicated to the system. Many of those “silent” patches that go out during the week are adjustments to the system. For example, we recently realized that “Avoid this player” was wreaking havoc on matchmaking. One of the best Widowmaker players in the world complained to us about long queue times. We looked into it and found that hundreds of other players had avoided him (he’s a nice guy – they avoided him because they did not want to play against him, not because of misbehavior). The end result was that it took him an extremely long time to find a match. The worst part was, by the time he finally got a match, he had been waiting so long that the system had “opened up” to lower skill players. Now one of the best Widowmaker players was facing off against players at a lower skill level. As a result, we’ve disabled the Avoid system (the UI will go away in an upcoming patch). The system was designed with the best intent. But the results were pretty disastrous.

We will always be working on our matchmaking system. We’re listening to feedback, we’re playing the game a ton ourselves and we’re looking at hard data to inform our decisions. This post wasn’t my way of saying everything is fine. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts as someone who has been evaluating the system itself very closely as well as monitoring the feedback. I want to put it out there that there is a lot of room for improvement but also suggest that there are forces in play that cause some fair matches to sway lopsided due to forces out of our control. The game is as much (if not more) art than it is science. We’ll keep working to make it better!

99% of the players in this game play her BADLY.  She is a ball and chain on the team. 

if there's a field where you have to put why you are avoiding someone i would fill it literally every time with just "WIDOWMAKER" until i ran out of characters

One of the world's best Widowmaker players said he was having to wait for 20+ minutes to get a game. As it turns out hundreds and hundreds of players had blocked him to avoid playing with him when Blizzard looked into it. Apparently people have been using the "avoid player" feature to block really insanely skilled players.

Their solution: Remove the feature to avoid players. lmao

If nobody is going to be on the objective you may as well be an ult battery for the other team and put your team out of their own misery.

Truth. Nothing worse than a team that just stands around sniping. On Defense it's the worst - no one will ever stand near the escort to stop it from moving. So one guy (Tracer, usually) just moves it along, dodging their bullets for 60 seconds.

It's really, really, really just that the rating you have sucks. Before mine fell Hanzo was never a problem. Now that I'm below 45% win and rapidly approaching 40% I see stupid shit like standing around waitng for Hanzo in the same spot. Or trying to snipe Hanzo with soldier 76. Or trying to gun him down with bastion.  Just pure wtf stuff.

http://masteroverwatch.com/profile/pc/us/Merusk-1698

I really wish I could aim for shit. I'm like the only person on the objectives 90% of the time and it gets frustrating down here in the sewer.

I want as little toxic interaction as possible, so I'll likely stay in Quick Play.

like watching teenagers make out for the first time: no no you are doing it all wrong, here let me show you ..

Did my 10 last night, Viin got to see what it's like down at my level for the last 2. I think it was physically painful for him.

When people have something to lose, they turn into bigger assholes.