Overwatch

I played Overwatch when it first came out for a while and tried the competitive seasons 1, 2, and 3. I discovered I am horrible at it. Our company has a few developers that play Overwatch together at lunch so I kept with it for a while but the sameness of the matches eventually got to me and I took an extended break.

I came back to the game recently and am enjoying it again. The new-to-me characters of Wrecking Ball and Brigitte were something to try out and the new character Ashe (and B.O.B.!) are my new favourites. The latest maps of Riallto and Busan are quite nice as well.

B.O.B.! Do something!

Overwatch is unique in that as soon as you buy the game you have access to the same characters as everyone else, but not only that they are all at the same capability. There are no levels that increase power or abilities that are unlocked. Someone starting today has access to all the powers and abilities and damage of all the characters that someone 5 years in has. That is so refreshing.

The real limiting factor between players is experience and raw skill, something I've argued that EVE Online should consider doing.

They still have levels and loot boxes that are earned as you level up (and other things) but they contain only cosmetic items like skins, emotes, voice lines, sprays, etc.

My current favourite characters are Ashe, Roadhog, and Moira.

My Problem With the Alliance Tournament

I was back from my vacation in the Canadian Wilderness last night and ran a very enjoyable fleet in EVE, followed by a quick game of Overwatch before bed. I bring that up because I've been thinking about the two games a lot recently.

I picked up a single Overwatch podcast to listen to, Overchat, and I enjoy it even though it spends a lot of time talking about the E-sports scene and the teams that compete. Meanwhile in EVE podcasts there have been discussions about the upcoming alliance tournament and the teams and rule sets and etc... and I couldn't care less.

"What's wrong with me?" I asked. My casual play in both games means I will never participate at the level of either the Alliance tournament in EVE or Overwatch tournaments, yet discussions of the former bores me to tears while the latter I can enjoy.

After some pondering I hit upon the answer.

In the Overwatch if someone describes a high level competitive match to me I know what they are talking about because although I play the same game at a lower casual level it has overall the same basic mechanics and strategies for the most part. I can never be that good but I can appreciate what they are doing that is so good.

In EVE, the Alliance tournament is divorced from the gameplay we experience on a daily basis. In almost 10 years of playing I've never encountered a perfectly balanced 10 v 10 battle with matching ship points and restrictions and bans and an equal start with opponents that don't try to flee. The Alliance tournament setup is not EVE, its an arena game using EVE mechanics. Since I don't have personal experience with that gameplay, I have trouble following its descriptions in podcasts and visualizing it and thus caring about it. On the other hand, someone describing an normal engagement is far more enjoyable because I've been in plenty of small and medium and large scale combat.

Since the tournament use CCP only tools and environments, players can only approximate the tournaments themselves and then only with large amounts of effort. Because of this, I'll probably never get to dip my toe in and a facet of EVE gameplay is lost to me and others like me.

I've argued for CCP developing some sort of arena gameplay for EVE in the past and I still think its true, but I understand this is my problem with interest in the Alliance Tournament and CCP has decided to not pursue that avenue.

Game Review - Overwatch

My lunchtime gaming group at work was getting tired of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare around the same time that Overwatch by Blizzard was released and we decided to buy it and give it a go.

At first I was put off by the unrealistic "cartoony" visual style but quickly overcame that due to the enjoyable mechanics and rock/paper/scissors dynamic at play in the matches. The maps are gorgeous albeit a little simplistic and the game runs very smooth and fluid.

While everything runs smooth, the number of game modes is limited (4 although one is a combination of 2 others) and the number of maps are limited at 12, and to make matters worse, each map is only used for one game mode each (so three maps per game mode). However, alleviating this lack of diversity is the fact that 3 of the modes have an attacking side and a defending side which play very differently, and the fact that the large roster of characters have a wide range of playstyles.

The main concept behind Overwatch is that of character abilities and which characters counter them, and how a team of 6 characters can synergize their skills better than the other side can. In the most simple terms, this means a team that picks and plays characters that compliment each other while countering what the other team has, and in more complex terms this means communicating via pre-canned messages and voice communications to coordinate attacks and counter-attacks.

There are four types of characters: Attack which excel at dealing damage while very mobile, Defense which excel at more static defenses and damage dealing, Tanks which are made to absorb/block damage from hitting the rest of the team, and Support which primaryly means healing damage but also includes providing different kinds of boosts. The ideal team has characters from all the types in various combinations and that is where the lack of diversity of maps/missions is made up. You can try all the different characters in all the different game modes with different team make ups and have extremely different experiences, thus increasing the playability. Even if you choose to "main" with one or two characters, i.e. exclusively use a small set of characters in all missions and maps, there is still a lot of variety in what the rest of the team uses and what your opponents are using against you. Yes, some themes in character combinations become noticeable like the Reinhart tank with Mercy support on attack or the Torbjorne/Bastion defense pairing, but the balance is done well enough that other combinations are not rare for the same types of roles. And so far when a character is over-performing or is not being selected at all, Blizzard has not been afraid to balance abilities and stats in order to restore order.

Overall I find myself really enjoying the game. I'm not the best FPS player but the match maker has been pretty good about putting together matches from players in queue that are reasonably equal. I look forward to the future new characters and maps and modes that they have planned.

Overall: Recommend