Blizzard Raises the Tick Rate of Overwatch on PC

[Vrach]

I'll cede the point to you two. You've not only made some tacit points, but you're correct when you say that my experience with this sort of thing is outdated, for lack of a better term. I don't really mind the lack of private servers with Overwatch either, though I am growing very tired of seeing the same few maps, with no option to actually select where I'd like to play. And since Blizzard themselves never trumpeted server maintenance cost as a reason for keeping the tick rate so low, I can't even claim that they actively crippled the refresh rate in an effort to save money while keeping absolute control on how the game is played.

I guess my only real complaint at this point is the way that Blizzard has tried to defend the decision to keep the game at a ridiculously low tick rate by claiming that it didn't actually diminish the experience. It reminds me of a time not too long ago when they did the same thing about Diablo 3's RMAH, stating repeatedly that it was an integral and necessary feature. It wasn't until it became clear that nobody was buying it that they it turned out they were blowing smoke the whole time and it wasn't actually integral to the game in any way whatsoever. It's the clear lack of respect for the consumer that bothers me the most.

My personal guess is that they wanted to keep the launch smooth over having a much higher tickrate until they could see what amount of players the game would settle at. Again, this is one of those remarkably popular titles that a lot of people are going to pick up on day 1, but the numbers a few months later, while still surely strong, are definitely not day 1 numbers. Thus, rather than either setting up way too many servers (not really cost efficient) or having too few and having a shaky launch, they've probably opted to get some overhead and then use/upgrade it later to better the tickrate.

At least that's the logic that would make sense to me. Again, with Overwatch's much higher time to kill than other games, it's not as much of an issue and the game is still very playable as it is. The "doesn't diminish the experience" thing is somewhat true (ain't as bad as other games) and somewhat a company just not attacking their own product (no one's really gonna say "yeah, this sucks, but deal with it"). They did, as far as I know, promise the tickrate increase a while ago, back in beta, so it's not as if they're unaware of the issue, it's just that this response probably markets better. I understand it insulting your intelligence, I'm not a fan of that crap either, but you gotta consider from their side that admitting the problem flat out would just give the people ammo to go "here, it sucks, even Blizz admits it!" and with the company the size of Blizzard, there's always a good amount of those people.

 

[The_State]

My personal guess is that they wanted to keep the launch smooth over having a much higher tickrate until they could see what amount of players the game would settle at. Again, this is one of those remarkably popular titles that a lot of people are going to pick up on day 1, but the numbers a few months later, while still surely strong, are definitely not day 1 numbers. Thus, rather than either setting up way too many servers (not really cost efficient) or having too few and having a shaky launch, they've probably opted to get some overhead and then use/upgrade it later to better the tickrate.

At least that's the logic that would make sense to me. Again, with Overwatch's much higher time to kill than other games, it's not as much of an issue and the game is still very playable as it is. The "doesn't diminish the experience" thing is somewhat true (ain't as bad as other games) and somewhat a company just not attacking their own product (no one's really gonna say "yeah, this sucks, but deal with it"). They did, as far as I know, promise the tickrate increase a while ago, back in beta, so it's not as if they're unaware of the issue, it's just that this response probably markets better. I understand it insulting your intelligence, I'm not a fan of that crap either, but you gotta consider from their side that admitting the problem flat out would just give the people ammo to go "here, it sucks, even Blizz admits it!" and with the company the size of Blizzard, there's always a good amount of those people.

Here's a video of the devs trying to convince their audience that a tick rate of 20/sec is fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTH2ZPgYujQ&ab_channel=PlayOverwatch

They use cute examples and make the whole thing palatable to a layman audience. But the fact is that they were wrong, and the knew it. They knew full well that if you're reacting to what the server is predicting instead of what is actually there, you're going to run into problems with feedback. But rather than admit that their system was sub-optimal, they tried to convince people that it was fine, and nothing was wrong with the current netcode. It's condescending and patronizing, and regardless of why they chose the netcode they did (your explanation makes a lot of sense) they should have been up front with their consumers about it. Yes, there would have been backlash, but it still would have been the most respectable and forthright way to handle an already volatile user base.