[LiQuid]

According to 2 dudes at GAF Blizzard sent out some beta emails this morning, but that's not corroborated on reddit that I can see. Might be worth checking emails again.

Til anybody else gets in I guess I'm the only person playing still. Go me.

[Mr_eX]

Still no invite for me.

[LiQuid]

You're useless.

[CrossXhunteR]

No email for me.

[LiQuid]

It feels like I'm always losing but somehow I'm 8-3. I really like playing the tanky heroes like the ersatz Pudge or the big mama Russian chick that shields herself and teammates and makes a big fucking vortex that sucks enemies into it so she can AOE nuke the hell out of them.

This game's actually pretty rad. A lot of fun to just jump into quick and do a match or two. I'm not entirely sure adding friends to your queue would even improve the experience much. I guess in theory you could coordinate some hero synergies a little better, but given the Geekbox's track record with Dota that's not likely.

I dunno, I can't really explain why I don't find TF2 fun AT ALL but I like this. I think it's just the variety of heroes you can play that all fill TF2's roles in different ways. Like you could play the chick that's literally just the TF2 Medic. She has almost no offense aside from a tiny, shitty sidearm pistol, but she heals so good and her ultimate revives. Or you can play the fucking crazy ass Disco Brazilian kid that looks like he's out of a ca. 90s Sega game who blasts shitty music that buffs team run speed or heals, and he's got more useful weapons too that do actual damage or pulses to push enemies away.

I was told that buying into the game basically means the final monetization structure will be Dota-esque (or actually original TF2 before it went free) where all hero and map releases will be free, it'll just be cosmetic shit on the cash shop. That makes me feel a lot better about dropping $40 on the game to just own it forever.

[dakazu]

Is this just TF2 with MOBA abilities or more a FPS MOBA like Super Monday Night Combat?

[LiQuid]

TF2. It's basically got the same game modes as TF2 too. Push a cart thru a level, capture points, etc. But the heroes all play like a mix between standard FPS characters (there's just a regular ass, assault rifle soldier man), most of the TF2 classes (there's a hero that plays like every TF2 class except for Spy that I can tell) and MOBA/Dota heroes. The dude I like playing the most so far is basically pudge. He's got a hook and a shotgun.

Aside from hero abilities, there's no MOBA elements, like MNC. No creeps, no tower defense type stuff. You can change your hero mid-match, which is very un-MOBA like. A part of me really wishes it played more like a MOBA. I think it would be more fun if you locked in heroes in a team v. team game without asymmetrical objectives. I hope they haven't ruled out a mode like that for the future. But on the other hand, it's actually just a lot of fun to jump into a match and have it be over within 10 minutes. MOBAs take too much god damned commitment. So this has the brevity and satisfaction of just playing a regular-ass, competitive FPS, but the variety of being able to play a bunch of different types of characters. Team comp still matters a lot. If you don't have a balanced of all the different types and use your abilities (specifically your ultimates) well, you can get fucked pretty good.

[LiQuid]

You guys should see Ryan Scott's profile in this game. It's like 6 hours total play time, 5 hours 50 minutes of which are on Mercy (basically TF2's medic in this game). Why even be playing Overwatch instead of TF2 in that case?! I don't get it. He has tried like 3 other heroes for one match each. I don't know how anybody can live like that, honestly.

[Mr_eX]

He doesn't like shooters

[LiQuid]

I know. I honestly don't understand how he even likes Overwatch. He has literally done nothing but watch other people play the game for 6 hours. I thought I was a waste of a beta invite. I think he might be even more so.

[LiQuid]

I tried a match as Junkrat and he's so fucking good. He's basically Techies. He drops a mine he can detonate and a claw trap that people can trigger when they walk over it that stuns them. His ultimate is probably one of the most fun in the game. He puts bombs on a tire and then you basically remote control the tire into the enemy team and suicide bomb it on them.

[CrossXhunteR]

Ryan Scott likes Overwatch because the box says Blizzard on it.

[LiQuid]

Is he even a Blizzard fangay? I know Higgins is, but Scott seems kind of ambivalent to Blizzard IP aside from WoW.

[LiQuid]

I tried the little girl in the mech suit. I don't really get her. She's tanky and can fly around a bit to get to high ground, but her only attack/ability is an infinite ammo railgun with a huge spread and shit damage. She seems impossible to kill shit with. Her ultimate is also kind of garbage too. She ejects from her mech when she gets low HP and then runs around on foot being useless with a shitty pistol and her ult just spawns her a new mech... Could also do that by just dying and running back to the fight and it'd be quicker. She also has a self-destruct thing she can do with her mech before it blows up that damages enemies nearby it, but it takes like 3-5 seconds to activate making it super easy to run away from... and then she doesn't have a mech until she dies or ults. I dunno I'm sure I'm player her badly I guess.

One of the supports I tried I also didn't "get" his weapon is balls. He throws balls at people. And his main supporty abilities are special balls he can give to 1 friendly hero that heals them and 1 enemy that increases the amount of damage they take. I couldn't kill shit with his balls because they move so slow. His heal seems super shitty and the increase damage is kind of whatever. I'm sure it's useful but it's not a very flashy abilitiy and it's hard to really tell if it's being put to good use in the chaos that is a typical fight.

My favorite support is the embarrassing Jet Set Radio black guy that roller blades around and has one of the worst voices I've ever heard in a video game character. He's basically a bard. Just being able to gradually heal everybody around is rad and he's got a way more interesting kit than the other healers I've tried.

[LiQuid]

Holy fuck Tracer is fun. She's like weaver and can rewind to where she was a few seconds prior with all her HP back. Her other ability is she gets 3 charges of blink, so she mobile too. Her dual pistols are kiiinda shitty but they fire and reload fast so you gotta dance around a lot while reloading and dumping on niggas. It's really satisfying to take people out with her cause they get so confused trying to shoot at her zipping all over like a dipshit!

[Mr_eX]

Do you think Overwatch would make a good game night game?

[LiQuid]

I mean, it's basically TF2, so as much as that was I'm sure. I dunno how much the owning our own server factored into the novelty of TF2 as game night with the cross-team voice chat and admin caboose. There's also the whole not being free thing, which is probably a big barrier for a lot of people.

[meDotJS]

To be fair TF2 wasn't free when the gamenights began.

[LiQuid]

Was it $40? At any rate, TF2 was one of those games that pretty much everybody already had even before it went free. Also game night started in a time before this community became threadbare, and it pulled in a lot of people that don't even associate with the few dozen of us regular enough to hang out in the Discord.

[LiQuid]

I was more than a little flummoxed when they announced this game wasn't going with a F2P, League of Legends business model but after spending time with it I fully understand and agree with them doing it this way. This is not the type of game where you should ever feel like you're ok to just play the same hero every single game. I'm sure people will (I feel like Ryan Scott is playing this game WRONG and doing his team a huge disservice by being so non-flexible that he plays Mercy every game *coughhiswinlossrecordreflectsthiscough*) but I don't think it's a good way to play this game or should be encouraged. This game is more like Dota than League in the fact that the heroes possess such wildly different and powerful kits that team comp should be thoughtfully considered depending on the map, which side of the objective you're on, etc. Having a large portion of the heroes unavailable to free players would put them at such a disadvantage strategically, even if they would otherwise choose to not utilize that strategy and just play 6 Torbjorns or whatever.

[CrossXhunteR]

They have not said if there will be future heroes yet. So people have no idea if they would charge for them, League style.

[LiQuid]

I was told that they have said any new heroes will be free, but I don't follow Overwatch news so I can't confirm.

[CrossXhunteR]

I believe they said that was true for maps, but they are dancing around if there will be any new characters. Of course the game is ripe for them, ala MOBAs, but so far they are only talking about the heroes the game ships with.

[LiQuid]

It's not a MOBA tho and doesn't play like one at all. They are balancing this game like TF2, like a class-based shooter, which it is. Adding a new hero to this game and not making it available to everyone potentially adds a severe imbalance to it. It's not like League where the champs are all interchangeable within roles. Team comps in this game can be drastically hindered without having access to certain heroes on certain maps. Imagine if Dota started charging for heroes.

[CrossXhunteR]

I never said that I think they are going to charge for heroes in the future. You seem to be under the impression that the ever plan to do more heroes. I only relate it to MOBAs in the fact that it has room for more heroes. The availability of said theoretical new characters means nothing, since as of right now there are no plans for more characters.

[LiQuid]

I'm not under that impression at all. I was only ever talking about the initial assumption of F2P and charging for heroes vs. the reality of $40 for all current heroes. If they had done it the way we all assumed they would this game would be fucking busted.

[CrossXhunteR]

Or they could have gone the third road and done what Valve does with Dota 2. All heroes free and sustain off of user made cosmetics.

[CrossXhunteR]

Listening to Ryan justifying himself maining Mercy is funny juxtaposed against Liquid's mindset. Ryan only wants to play the supports, as he finds that the most fun. Liquid seems to change it up and realizes team comps are fluid so you have a better chance of winning.

[LiQuid]

My complaint wasn't Ryan only playing supports. It was that he only plays the support that plays nearly identically to Medic in TF2. So he has spent a dozen hours playing the game but he has basically been playing only TF2. I creeped his profile again and saw that he did touch on some of the other supports briefly, but I'd still go so far as to say he hasn't truly experienced much of what Overwatch has to offer.

Everything he said about Torb and Bastion was 100% true tho. They dominate defense in pub games due to the nature of the game's choke points and pubs' unwillingness to cater their hero composition to counter it. BUT even when that effort is made and someone switches to Widow or Pharah to counter them, those heroes still just greatly diminish everyone in the game's capacity to have fun. There are definitely tweaks that need to me made to the way they work.

[Master Higgins]

Still no key