Overwatch

[Merusk]

The tempation is there to play more than one or two games a night. It must be resisted, because you WILL burn out quickly.

I'm only level 37, Falc is over 100. No surprise you're burnt.

[Falconeer]

Level 166 now. Oddly, I am not burnt yet. But many of my friends already are. We consume stuff quicker and quicker these days, and this game doesn't have that much content. Sure, MOBAs are usually one map and all, but 22 characters are not all that much content when you are nearing the 200 hours /played mark. So, it could hit me tomorrow for all I know.

[Malakili]

I'm also not really burnt out. I still really enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay for the most part. In that respect I think it's still the best shooter in quite a while. The problems I have are more to do with the design around ultimates and, increasingly, the community.  I don't think content is too big an issue, although I think a couple more maps in the rotation would be nice (especially the control point maps, which I like the most).

If I'm really in the mood for a shooter, this is probably the one that I will play in spite of the fact that I seem to end every play session frustrated. But that's more a function of how far the genre has fallen than anything.

[Samprimary]

Playing in competitive level 60, ana's awesome, but she cannot — cannot — be the main healer. She must be paired with a mercy or lucio.

It's between her and a newly resurgent zenyatta in a contest for best off-heal support.

Symmetra eats bags of dicks daily and is rarely used other than defense on objective point A capture ONLY. once the first point goes down, she is shuffled back into the storage closet (the one zenyatta was sitting in until this patch) to gather dust.

[Merusk]

A good assessment of Symm in general, but only at that level and map type.  Her portal is useless on capture nodes at B at all levels, I agree, but there's enough ignorant and bad players down in the slums that setting-up Turrets on the escort car works on both attack and defense pretty often.

So, bad players are bad players.

Not coincidentally, nobody down here can fucking aim for shit. So all of the powerful offense characters like 76, Tracer and McCree get picked less because you have to be accurate. Doesn't matter how powerful a punch you have if you're always hitting air. Rate of fire and splash matter more, so Reaper and Pharah get picked most commonly with Junkrat ALWAYS getting picked, regardless of Map Type or team position.

To me - this is where the game fails. You're going to be forced to provide a midlife somewhere for the rules set. Excellent players will be buffed too much while bad players will be aided not at all. Adjustments for tiers of players make more sense, similar to how playing T-ball, to underhand pitch, to High School to AAA ball has rules changes because of the skill ceilings of the individuals at each tier.  However  it's not going to happen.

[Malakili]

Or you can be like me and be so inconsistent that no rule set could properly hit it right all the time anyway. I have a lot of experience playing competitive shooters, but I'm so out of practice now that I've lost all consistency. Last night I was playing Tracer like death shot out of a cannon, warping around the map and picking people off. Then the very next map I couldn't stay alive with her for 5 seconds.

Which ruleset do I get?

[Falconeer]

Last night I was playing Tracer like death shot out of a cannon, warping around the map and picking people off. Then the very next map I couldn't stay alive with her for 5 seconds.

Which ruleset do I get?

Mmm that's my personal experience too. And the level of the random opponents play a huge role in that swing too, of course, but it's impossible to measure the actual quality of your absolutely unknown and always changing enemy players (unlike, say, in professional sports where you know from a variety of sources the skill level of the Pittsburgh Penguins or this year's Maple Leafs, or everyone of their players) and what am I left with is the strong feeling that I am inconsistent as hell, or not skilled enough to be consistent.

[Merusk]

The o e for your average level bracket as indicated by rank. As I implied earlier. But that kind of balance is too labor intensive so instead we'll get useless heroes at certain tiers as we're seeing.

[Falconeer]

Ana buffed a bit with yesterday's patch. 20% higher rate of fire, and 10 bullets in the clip, up from 8. Also, waking up from her sleep dart after being hit takes 0.5 second now instead of being instant.

[calapine]

Drive-By-Posting

You can perma sleep with ANA and force people to get kicked for afk .... no joke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxIPPFX4Z28

[Merusk]

I feel like Bastion was pretty heavily nerfed. I've been playing tanks lately (and seeing wins because of it.) and Reinhardt actually has a greater than 50% chance of killing him now.  I can take a lot of hits to the shield, get within Charge range and not die on the charge.

Conversely, my teams have been losing defense pretty often because Bastion requires teammates to focus Reinhardt as you'll be the only guy shooting that fucking Phara floating everywhere because Solider 76 apparently has been nerfed so he can't look up. (Only when on my team, tho.)

TankLyfe, yo.

[Falconeer]

Nerf to Bastion are good for the long term health of the game. Also, what nerf? I think Bastion only got his Ultimate charge time nerfed (by 10%, which is nothing). Am I forgetting anything? Damage, rate of fire, ammo, reload time and self heal are unchanged. They buffed characters that can hurt it, sure, like McCree, Diva and Ana, but they weakened one of its natural counters (Widowmaker) and I really don't remember them nerfing Bastion at all.

[Merusk]

Hmm.. odd. Must just be bad Bastions then. I used to get chewed to ribbons, but I can charge and not die now then take the bastard out with one good swing, maybe two.

[EWSpider]

derp

[EWSpider]

All heroes that can self heal like Bastion had the recharge on their Ultimate increased because they made a global change to allow self-healing to charge your Ultimate.  So Bastion had his Ultimate recharge nerfed, but it's really a wash if you heal yourself at all.  So technically there has been no Bastion nerf.

[KallDrexx]

Did Road hog's gun get slowed down at some point?  I haven't played in a good week or two but jesus that did not feel right.

[Falconeer]

No, Roadhog hasn't been touched.

[Samprimary]

at a certain level of organized gameplay bastion is rarely more than a surprise check on overextending and a real quick test on if your team can be organized or not.

beyond that he just gets slaughtered by any group of people who are getting into team level 55 competitive or up. i mean slaughtered.

at tournament level of play, it's even worse for him, as the current favored team comp is not at all in favor of defense heroes, and is loaded with hero comps that murder bastions with ease.

[Evildrider]

Speaking of Roadhog:

[Merusk]

at a certain level of organized gameplay bastion is rarely more than a surprise check on overextending and a real quick test on if your team can be organized or not.

beyond that he just gets slaughtered by any group of people who are getting into team level 55 competitive or up. i mean slaughtered.

at tournament level of play, it's even worse for him, as the current favored team comp is not at all in favor of defense heroes, and is loaded with hero comps that murder bastions with ease.

I'll let you know when tournament play or level 55+ matters one bit to me. ;) 

[Falconeer]

For real. The problem with Torbjorn and Bastion is that they slaughter at:

a) low skill level matches
b) casual groups of randoms who can't be organized due to their nature.

Turrets get the Molten Core bullshit too often and too easily. And don't get me started on turrets on moving platforms.
Bastion gets a dedicated Reinhardt to shield them and it butchers everything until the shiled goes down but HELLO BASTION HAS ITS ULTIMATE READY.

We all agree that they aren't OP characters, in fact they are full of flaws. No one ever picks them at a decent level of play.
They just ruin so many casual low level matches and I find them anti-fun.

[Merusk]

I've found that even if I'm the sole tank/ support char *I* have to be the guy switching to a sniper to take out Tjborn's turret. Even saying in chat "Get Hanzo/ Widow/ Ana and snipe the turret it will be dead quick" the idiots still run inside of turret range to shoot it.  WTF.

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find Reinhardt can survive Bastion long enough to charge and not die. (Unless I get surrounded)

I've also found that yelling, "you can shoot from behind the shield <character>" *IS* having an effect. Won a game earlier this week with 20k damage blocked because I told my team this and they - shockingly - listened to me. I was stunned, but more stunned that people apparently don't know this fact.

[Samprimary]

I'll let you know when tournament play or level 55+ matters one bit to me. ;) 

i'm the first person to admit that high level play is the most irrelevant to discussing why bastion sucks shit. the real reason why he sucks shit is because he makes the game unfun for the vast majority of pug players, especially at lower skill levels. you can't buff him at all because making him even remotely useful for organized play means severely amping up his murderous funsucking powers on the low to medium end

he's just a fun vampire and a character design that should have never been implemented. compare this to other heroes like symmetra, who is presently the worst hero in the game by far but isn't essentially unfixable in the same way.

[KallDrexx]

Blizzard released (releasing? haven't logged in yet) the Summer games, which includes some ok olympic themed lootbox goodies and a Lucio only rocket league gametype!

[Samprimary]

followed immediately by a blizzard-wide ddos

[KallDrexx]

Yeah it's released and Luciobol is fucking terrible.

[Ginaz]

followed immediately by a blizzard-wide ddos

Probably because Blizzard just did a big ban wave in Overwatch for people using cheats and the script kiddies are getting their revenge.

http://massivelyop.com/2016/08/01/overwatch-banwave-crashes-into-cheaters/

[Venkman]

Eh, I'm ok with price. I think I paid that much to get the pre-Alpha invite to EQ Landmark. I enjoyed the shit out that for however look it took before they fucked up the experience. And previously I consistently spent that on hoping this MMO would finally be "the one".

Also, totally agree time-spent and person-hours worked is not corrolary to price point.

But perceived value is. If they think it's a AAA quality experience with that level of playability, well, that's what they're selling. And they're launching before $60 becomes an issue for a procedurally generated indie game up against the juggernauts drives the price down.

I'll be camping when this launches, so by the time I return, I'll know from the day oner's if it's worth it

[Kail]

Blizzard released (releasing? haven't logged in yet) the Summer games, which includes some ok olympic themed lootbox goodies and a Lucio only rocket league gametype!

Fuck this game's loot system right in it's dribbling, puckered sphincter.  "Hey, were you tired of getting sprays and voice lines and boring crap like that instead of that one skin you wanted?  Well, we decided to make an entire holiday event based around that concept.  Have fun grinding fifty million fucking levels in three weeks in the hopes that you'll get that one skin before it's gone!  Also, no cheating by buying the items with credits, or even a defined amount of real money for that matter, you HAVE to do this stupid gambling shit to get anything!"

[KallDrexx]

Eh, I'm ok with price. I think I paid that much to get the pre-Alpha invite to EQ Landmark. I enjoyed the shit out that for however look it took before they fucked up the experience. And previously I consistently spent that on hoping this MMO would finally be "the one".

Also, totally agree time-spent and person-hours worked is not corrolary to price point.

But perceived value is. If they think it's a AAA quality experience with that level of playability, well, that's what they're selling. And they're launching before $60 becomes an issue for a procedurally generated indie game up against the juggernauts drives the price down.

I'll be camping when this launches, so by the time I return, I'll know from the day oner's if it's worth it

I'm assuming you meant to put this in the NMS thread?

[Falconeer]

Blizzard released (releasing? haven't logged in yet) the Summer games, which includes some ok olympic themed lootbox goodies and a Lucio only rocket league gametype!

Fuck this game's loot system right in it's dribbling, puckered sphincter.  "Hey, were you tired of getting sprays and voice lines and boring crap like that instead of that one skin you wanted?  Well, we decided to make an entire holiday event based around that concept.  Have fun grinding fifty million fucking levels in three weeks in the hopes that you'll get that one skin before it's gone!  Also, no cheating by buying the items with credits, or even a defined amount of real money for that matter, you HAVE to do this stupid gambling shit to get anything!"

You can't buy boxes with credits, right? Only real money. Right?

[Merusk]

Right. Credits only do unlocks not boxes. So if the skins are box only it's grind or pay up.

[Falconeer]

Mh, the thing is paying up does not even guarantee you of anything anyway, which is probably an added reason why so many kids seems to hate this update. The notion that they can't get EVERY PIECE OF NEW LOOT eats them alive.
Personally, I find those obsessed with "collecting everything or bust!" to the point they rage on forums incredibly obnoxious people. If one finds a way to grind in Overwatch instead of playing simply because they are enjoying the game, gods help them.

[KallDrexx]

It's funny reading people complain because they paid $60 in loot boxes and didn't get any of the items they want. 

[Kail]

Personally, I find those obsessed with "collecting everything or bust!" to the point they rage on forums incredibly obnoxious people. If one finds a way to grind in Overwatch instead of playing simply because they are enjoying the game, gods help them.

Except it also fucks over the people who only want one or two pieces because they also have to grind.  Assuming an equal drop chance, for you to have a ~75% chance of getting the one thing you want, you'll have to level up about 140 times in 20 days.  Anyone who is interested in something from this set is in for a serious grind, the only people who aren't likely to be negatively impacted are the ones who don't care about any of it, which seems like that might be kind of an indicator that the update is sort of lame.

And complaining about people grinding for rewards specifically added to make people grind for them seems overly defensive.  That's the whole point of the system.  If you want people to play for the love of the game, then don't dangle carrots in front of them the whole time.