No More Bastion Please - How Overwatch's "Play of The Game" Works

[RJ 17]

Don't forget the times where it literally says "Fuck it, I don't know..."

Spoiler: Like this clip I found on youtube...

Warning: as they're gamers, there's some cussing in this video.

People complain that Torbjorn PotG's are just him whacking the crap out of his hammer...but at least in those his turret is actually getting kills. This Torbjorn literally did absolutely nothing. He apparently got PotG for spraying a wall.

 

[SirSullymore]

Eh, people get waaaay to salty over POTG, it doesn't really mean anything. I think it's cool but I wouldn't mind if it was removed so I can stop hearing all the complaining.

 

[Rednog]

Don't forget the times where it literally says "Fuck it, I don't know..."

Spoiler: Like this clip I found on youtube...

Warning: as they're gamers, there's some cussing in this video.

People complain that Torbjorn PotG's are just him whacking the crap out of his hammer...but at least in those his turret is actually getting kills. This Torbjorn literally did absolutely nothing. He apparently got PotG for spraying a wall.

I'm morbidly curious what goes through the computers brain when it chooses some of the really bizarre PotG.
I had one where I was Symmetra and I threw down my teleporter, nothing else happened, PotG. People sarcastically were like OMG PERFECT PLACEMENT 10/10!

OT: I kind of wished they went away with PotG and the end card voting. It's just a giant salt mine. You can be absolutely amazing but the enemy team who loses will just dump their votes to the single teammate that gets on the board while the winning team spreads its votes among their three. I rarely see it used to actually acknowledge that someone did an amazing job in the match.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I feel the PotG is usually "who hit Q at the right time"

Oddly enough I've been seeing a lot of non-ultimate PotG's lately. Notably multi-kills at the end of the game, during last minute pushes or something.

But I do feel that damage done and kills had during an ultimate activation should get a lower point value than regular damage and kills. An ultimate PotG should be a 'last resort' if nothing more exciting happens during a match because it's arguably the easiest to get.

I agree to an extent but I disagree if its like 5 or 6 kills from the ult because 2 or 3 kills from an ult isn't uncommon, but a whole team wipe is still some pretty nice play.

An opposing McCree got PotG in a game the other day managed to sneak around the back of our point whilst we were fighting off a big push onto it from the other direction. One grunted 'Its high noon' later and the entire team was gunned down. That was pretty nice (I was super jealous too, I don't have that achievement for getting 4 with Deadeye yet, though I had it in beta).

Also, to blow my own trumpet, back in beta I pulled off a 5 kill ultimate with Genji defending a point (would have been six but someone stole the last kill ). Made for actually quite an exciting replay with me bouncing through the enemy team hacking and slashing.


I can't quite get why people still complain about Bastion of the Game though. I see it way, WAY less than in Open Beta. In beta it was about 80% Bastion, 15% Hanzo ult and 4.9% Torbjorn afk turret kills. Now I see a lot more diversity.

 

[RJ 17]

OT: I kind of wished they went away with PotG and the end card voting. It's just a giant salt mine. You can be absolutely amazing but the enemy team who loses will just dump their votes to the single teammate that gets on the board while the winning team spreads its votes among their three. I rarely see it used to actually acknowledge that someone did an amazing job in the match.

PotG's can be pretty neat, they just need to come up with better algorithms to determine point values for such things so that you don't end up with Spray of the Game.

As for the End Card Voting: yeah, considering it's absolutely pointless they could do away with it. Most of the people I've played with aren't afraid of spreading the points around, though. I frequently pull votes from the other team...but then again I tend to play Mercy more often than not and people seem to have a soft spot for her when it comes to voting.

 

[Headsprouter]

.

I didn't intend to come across confrontationally.

Advice, genuine or not, can be seen as patronising or foolish depending on who it's given to. You might feel quite silly giving obvious or basic advice to a player you didn't know was pro, but while I'm not pro, I can still feel a little miffed being told a bunch of things I already know about a character I have most hours in.

I never said he always had to act a certain way. Anything can work if you're positioned right and if your opponents are right. There's so many variables though. I'd be pretty arrogant to not speak generally most of the time. I'll never say you just can't where human error is involved. Maybe I should have been clearer.

Flashbang, roll and fan the hammer make a huge difference between Zen and McCree in close combat.

I don't think either of us are going to gain anything continuing with this, so maybe we should stop.

 

[Deathfish15]

My best PotG was yesterday when I -as the Knight with the big hammer- directed a D.VA using my shield to soak the damage as she continued to fire her auto-cannons. Turned a corner just right and charged her straight off a cliff. Everyone in the match had a kick out of that scene and nearly all agreed that it was for sure PotG.

 

[aba1]

Its great they are fixing it and making it better but it honestly doesn't bother me that much. When it is a really stupid play of the game we all get a good laugh. When it is impressive we are all impressed. Either way we have a good time. It will be nice to see what comes from the adjustments though.

 

[aba1]

OT: I kind of wished they went away with PotG and the end card voting. It's just a giant salt mine. You can be absolutely amazing but the enemy team who loses will just dump their votes to the single teammate that gets on the board while the winning team spreads its votes among their three. I rarely see it used to actually acknowledge that someone did an amazing job in the match.

PotG's can be pretty neat, they just need to come up with better algorithms to determine point values for such things so that you don't end up with Spray of the Game.

As for the End Card Voting: yeah, considering it's absolutely pointless they could do away with it. Most of the people I've played with aren't afraid of spreading the points around, though. I frequently pull votes from the other team...but then again I tend to play Mercy more often than not and people seem to have a soft spot for her when it comes to voting.

I know I tend to give extra love to supports when it comes to voting because they never get play of the game. I feel like the extra votes give extra recognition and sorta even it out.

 

[JakobBloch]

It seems to me that it should be fairly easy to weight the numbers so a deployed Bastion has a lower chance of getting the PotG. Come to think of it It should not be that hard to make some less damage reliant changes to make a play into PotG. A suggestion:

Make defensive plays a thing by rewarding players that are able to hold down a point against superior odds like a Mei surviving long enough on the point for friends to arrive. Give a bonus bump if the point is actually held in the end even if it is the friendlies that do the killing. A good defensive play can often win matches and it should be rewarded.
Another option is great saves, either personal or for others. Especially if these then lead into a further "bonuses" to the PotG. A tracer being flung of the side of the level only to rewind and stick a bomb on someone would be a great play, even if it only takes down one enemy. Similarly a Lucio going up the inside of a well and coming out into a "drop the beat" would also look cool provided there are people to take advantage of it.

Another thing that could make it better is having "camera spots" in the maps. They will then be used to show PotGs where it may not be obvious what is giving the PotG. It could show of the placement of a well tugged in turret (also making it so the focus of the PotG can be moved to turrets) or a well placed ambush. This would also open up the possibility of dual-, trible- or even Team-PotGs, where the cameras can hold the whole action and not just the point of view of one of the participants.

PotG is a cool thing to have and most of the plays are genuinely good in some way. It just seems it could use some polish.

 

[RaikuFA]

Wait, there's instant kill attacks? As in "press a button and your opponents die with little to no effort or skill on your part"?

 

[Blitsie]

Pretty sure that you receive medals based on your standing on your team.

Perhaps you're right, but I'm remaining dubious. I probably participate in a good number of kills given the nature of Zenyatta anyway, and even early and mid game I have checked and seen no medal at all for kills, but a silver at least for healing with a Lucio or Mercy on the team.

Although I don't have any hard evidence and I've only just started to get into the habit of tabbing throughout the game to check how I'm doing. I'll continue keeping my eye out for patterns.

Its definitely got to be based on your standing on your team, I noticed in matches where I get a great headstart (like five to ten kills in the first few minutes) and proceed to get royally wrecked for a long period and not gain any kills, my medals started going down from gold to silver to bronze, which I think must mean it's because someone got more kills than me and so.

 

[jayzz911]

Pretty sure that you receive medals based on your standing on your team.

Perhaps you're right, but I'm remaining dubious. I probably participate in a good number of kills given the nature of Zenyatta anyway, and even early and mid game I have checked and seen no medal at all for kills, but a silver at least for healing with a Lucio or Mercy on the team.

Although I don't have any hard evidence and I've only just started to get into the habit of tabbing throughout the game to check how I'm doing. I'll continue keeping my eye out for patterns.

Its definitely got to be based on your standing on your team, I noticed in matches where I get a great headstart (like five to ten kills in the first few minutes) and proceed to get royally wrecked for a long period and not gain any kills, my medals started going down from gold to silver to bronze, which I think must mean it's because someone got more kills than me and so.

It is, me and my friends generally try to overtake each other for fun.Person with highest elims on the team gets gold, second place silver, third place bronze. This is true for everything except deaths where there are no medals.

 

[The Enquirer]

The Bastion thing is way overblown. Any player that has played more than 5 matches can very easily counter Bastion, he's almost never played by any player over lvl 5 because he's just not viable. If you're succesfull as bastion depends a lot more on the competence and teamwork of the enemy team.

He'll still get PotG on the losing team if he knows my entire team down once at the start, then does nothing but die the remainder of the match now that we know to look out specifically for a bastion. I think that's the issue a lot of people have.

 

[MHR]

Was watching my bro yesterday get play of the game as Lucio. He was doing nothing special, just standing on the point having everyone getting healed, and being ineffective with the pulse gun as usual, but right at the end of the play he managed to turn around and 1-hit fist someone dead. He got 10 upvotes.

 

[step1999]

Wait, there's instant kill attacks? As in "press a button and your opponents die with little to no effort or skill on your part"?

Most of the high damage ults have a delay of some kind to give the enemy time to react (like D.VA's mech, Tracer's pulse bomb and McCree's high noon), do damage over time intead of instant (like Reaper's spin thing, Hanzo's dragonstrike and Pharah's justice), or have short range (like Reaper's and Tracer's). Also there are a lot of abilites that counter high damage ults, like Zenyatta's ult which makes him invincible and heals everyone around him really quickly for 6 seconds, Mei's ice wall which blocks damage and sight lines, Mei's ice block which makes her invincible but immobile for 4 seconds (which teammates can hide behind), Mercy's resurrect (although admittedly that doesn't work if Mercy dies in the ult) and Lucio's drop the beat (which gives his teammates huge shields that wear off after about 10 seconds). (There are probably more examples I'm forgetting) Also, most of the ults slow or stop the ulting player's movement so it's easier to kill them before they kill your teammates, esp. if your team has long range characters like Widow and Hanzo who are usually far away from the rest of their team.

So using high-damage ult's effectively usually requires careful positioning and taking the enemy team by surprise, and even then they still have options sometimes depending on their team composition.

Last but not least in case you didn't know, ults need to be charged up by doing damage (they do also charge up over time, but VERY slowly). So depending on your hero and how well your doing, you can only use them once every 2-4 minutes or so.

 

[vallorn]

Well there's a bit more to how Play of the Game is calculated than damage but I'll let this guy explain because he seems to have a good grasp of it.

 

[GreyNicor]

For those talking about medals:
They are assigned whether you are first, second or third in a metric within a team.
If you get gold with 5 kills it means nobody in your team got 6 or more.
If you get no medal with 30 it means at least three people in your team had a minimum of 31.
Also: You cannot get a medal for scoring 0 in a metric, even if it would qualify otherwise (example: if everybody does 0 healing nobody gets a medal, but if everyone heals 1 everyone gets gold)

As for the POTG, I have had a couple ones where literally nothing happens (wasn't even tobjorn or anything), just someone walking around. Though mostly it is who presses q the best. I barely see any bastion POTG because he really isn't that good against a decent comp with decent coordination. Played a game today with some friends where our symmetra danced on a point with 5 enemies for half a minute letting the rest regroup and come, allowing us to hold the point, she even made it out alive. A couple games later our Mei was on the point for a couple of minutes contesting non stop without dieing. Those are game winning plays but are never featured in POTGs, would like to see them have a larger weight over sheer damage output.

 

[RaikuFA]

Wait, there's instant kill attacks? As in "press a button and your opponents die with little to no effort or skill on your part"?

Most of the high damage ults have a delay of some kind to give the enemy time to react (like D.VA's mech, Tracer's pulse bomb and McCree's high noon), do damage over time intead of instant (like Reaper's spin thing, Hanzo's dragonstrike and Pharah's justice), or have short range (like Reaper's and Tracer's). Also there are a lot of abilites that counter high damage ults, like Zenyatta's ult which makes him invincible and heals everyone around him really quickly for 6 seconds, Mei's ice wall which blocks damage and sight lines, Mei's ice block which makes her invincible but immobile for 4 seconds (which teammates can hide behind), Mercy's resurrect (although admittedly that doesn't work if Mercy dies in the ult) and Lucio's drop the beat (which gives his teammates huge shields that wear off after about 10 seconds). (There are probably more examples I'm forgetting) Also, most of the ults slow or stop the ulting player's movement so it's easier to kill them before they kill your teammates, esp. if your team has long range characters like Widow and Hanzo who are usually far away from the rest of their team.

So using high-damage ult's effectively usually requires careful positioning and taking the enemy team by surprise, and even then they still have options sometimes depending on their team composition.

Last but not least in case you didn't know, ults need to be charged up by doing damage (they do also charge up over time, but VERY slowly). So depending on your hero and how well your doing, you can only use them once every 2-4 minutes or so.

Thanks. I haven't played it at all so I didn't know.