Overwatch open beta - What are your impressions?

[Rebel_Raven]

I preordered. Am trying to win via taco bell, too. Cast Iron stomach ftw.

The roster is fucking stellar. They have women in every role or close enough, and not all of them are goddamn terrible at their jobs. I'm pretty thrilled.

Gameplay wise, the fights are a bit short, and it can get frustrating a little, but thank goodness for profitable bot play. I wish it was more Moba like though, or more like battleborn concerning enemies. I wish battleborn's roster was as diverse as Overwatch's.

I'm having fun in general. I can play most any character, but I'm enjoying D.Va the most. Unlimited ammo, no reloads, mech, "zero suit", and isn't flimsy as hell.

 

[meiam]

As someone who like support character, they just need more of them. Mercy is fun, but get boring after awhile, feel like she need 1 more ability or something. Lucio, I find really annoying and is probably only good when played with a regular group so you can coordinate when switching between speed and heal. Symmetry is only good for part of the match where you have long run back, otherwise her shield is pitifully weak and her turret are essentially just ward, her weapon is just too slow to kill or travel. And zen dude might as well be assault, his heal is pathetically weak and his only real use is shotgun blast to enemy face, the debuff is nice but hard to justify in exchange for losing a much better damage dealer. So those are the main reason why I've been mostly playing tanks dude instead, that and people just pissing me off by running away from me when I'm trying to heal them or ducking out of combat when I'm keeping them alive just fine.

 

[RJ 17]

Roadhog is probably my best character but I feel a bit bad when my hook follows someone around a corner.

Eh, don't feel too bad about having a homing hook. At least you can still miss with it. My best character is Soldier 76 what with his built-in aimbot and all. Yeah, I'm not proud of it, but between his assault rifle, rockets, and self heal, he fits my playstyle the best. It's just a happy coincidence that his ulti gives me auto-aim and the ability to wipe an entire team if used at the right moment.

OT: Count me in with those wishing there were more game modes. That said, one of the things I do like is the standard TDM mini-match while you're waiting for other players. Still though, only having King of the Hill or Push The Cart for game modes could get pretty old pretty fast. That said, I've only played for about two hours so far...and those two hours have indeed been quite a lot of fun.

To everyone saying that we need more people playing supports, I'd play one but I'm certain I'd suck as one. :3

I'll give it a shot tomorrow, though.

My overall verdict: considering picking it shortly after launch, long enough to read some official reviews.

 

[The Madman]

Oh jeez, I just played a game where everyone on both teams spontaneously decided to all pick and play one character. All D.VA vs all Mercy had me in tears and everyone on both sides playing Torb was utter insanity. Also turns out there really can be too many Mei, especially when half of both teams drop their ults at the same time and so the battlefield turns into a match of whoever can last the longest without freezing to death. Frozen Mei-cicles as far as the eye can see, broken up only by the waves of ever growing and shattering ice walls. Glorious.

Those ridiculous matches were just what I needed. I wouldn't want that to be every match, but I'll be damned if it wasn't the most ridiculous fun I've had in an online shooter in... hell, years even. That just cemented Overwatch as a buy for me.

 

[Objectable]

I sure am glad that Tracer is a lesbian, and in a loving relationship with Zarya.

 

[Hawki]

I'm no doubt going to be cast among the peasantry for this, but is anyone playing it on Xbox One or PS4? My PC can't run the game, but while I'm usually happy to play FPS games on console, Overwatch's pace of gameplay, plus the PC version would allow easy integration with my b.net launcher, makes me wish I could have it (in case you're wondering, it's because I have the 32 bit version of Windows 7 - very reluctant to upgrade just for games at this point in time, since I haven't had Windows 7 all that long).

So, does the controller work well enough? Or should I submit to the "PC master race" this time round?

I sure am glad that Tracer is a lesbian, and in a loving relationship with Zarya.

Well, better that then Widowmaker. 0_0

 

[barbzilla]

I'm no doubt going to be cast among the peasantry for this, but is anyone playing it on Xbox One or PS4? My PC can't run the game, but while I'm usually happy to play FPS games on console, Overwatch's pace of gameplay, plus the PC version would allow easy integration with my b.net launcher, makes me wish I could have it (in case you're wondering, it's because I have the 32 bit version of Windows 7 - very reluctant to upgrade just for games at this point in time, since I haven't had Windows 7 all that long).

So, does the controller work well enough? Or should I submit to the "PC master race" this time round?

I sure am glad that Tracer is a lesbian, and in a loving relationship with Zarya.

Well, better that then Widowmaker. 0_0

I play on both PC and Xbox One, feel free to PM me if you are looking for someone to group up with or something.

 

[Zhukov]

I find her ult is more of an area denial tool than an actual attack, what with the wind-up and the UI indicator.

You can use her boost ability, and then activate her ult. The Mech will continue boosting without being piloted, so you can try this out to ease the obvious windup and surprise the other team. It's tricky, but worth it. I've seen some people lob her mech over buildings and drop between teams on the other side.

Ya, I know.

Even so, it's awfully easy to avoid.

I haven't died to a single DVa ult. Except once when playing as DVa I got stuck behind an enemy Mei in ice-block form and died to my own ult.

Oh, and there was the time I was playing Roadhog and hooked in an enemy DVa just as she ulted. Turns out the self-destructing mech is a valid hook target because I ended dragging it into my whole team and getting most of them killed. Not my finest moment.

Roadhog is probably my best character but I feel a bit bad when my hook follows someone around a corner.

Eh, don't feel too bad about having a homing hook. At least you can still miss with it. My best character is Soldier 76 what with his built-in aimbot and all. Yeah, I'm not proud of it, but between his assault rifle, rockets, and self heal, he fits my playstyle the best. It's just a happy coincidence that his ulti gives me auto-aim and the ability to wipe an entire team if used at the right moment.

Nah, I don't mind 76's ult.

It has a clear warning sound and isn't an instant kill. So I have time to get around a corner or behind a friendly Mei/Rheinhart.

 

[sXeth]

First Impressions - Its fun, but it seems like it needs work.

Potentially, the likely high end players and or pros in the closed beta have helped iron everything out *for pro level play*. Properly co-ordinated synergistic teams with voice-coms and all, it might all gel well together.

Drop in play with randoms is uhm... a bit of a spammy mess, to my current experience. Characters that thrive on chaos (Bastion, Junkrat, Pharan) just go insane as capture zone clusters give them huge targets for their bombs/turret shredding. Its not especially uncommon for whichever team wins the first hullabaloo to all go into group gank mode outside the spawn of the other team, which is again, a tough breakout to do without a co-ordinated team (and quick to die, as the people who can break out are squishy types throwing themselves out into a 1v6)

Team balance is a bit of a miss too. It probably wouldn't hurt if it took Evolves system of having you pre-pick your role preference and assigning people out (There's still multiple characters inside a role). Too many matches with no supports (on either side even), and double-triple-squad tanks or snipers (or Reaper).

Speaking of Reaper, the attack heroes seem to be a tad over-squishy for the mobile ranging role. Not Reaper himself, who has a teleport ability that lets him go sniper, and a potent defensive/movement ability. But Genji and Mcree especially seem to lack in defensive options to really hold their own in a gunfight. Both rely on abilities that give them a tiny window of defense, not really enough to make an escape. Genjis isn't even functionaly against various heroes that don't use bullets. Compared to Tracer just warping out (and potentially healing completely), Reaper becoming invulnerable and flying off at boosted speed, or even 6's not-spectacular but basically effective sprint and self-healing, they feel like they're hung out to dry when the bullets start flying.

 

[Glongpre]

Speaking of Reaper, the attack heroes seem to be a tad over-squishy for the mobile ranging role. Not Reaper himself, who has a teleport ability that lets him go sniper, and a potent defensive/movement ability. But Genji and Mcree especially seem to lack in defensive options to really hold their own in a gunfight. Both rely on abilities that give them a tiny window of defense, not really enough to make an escape. Genjis isn't even functionaly against various heroes that don't use bullets. Compared to Tracer just warping out (and potentially healing completely), Reaper becoming invulnerable and flying off at boosted speed, or even 6's not-spectacular but basically effective sprint and self-healing, they feel like they're hung out to dry when the bullets start flying.

Genji has so much mobility though, he is annoying as hell, on par with tracer. Also his deflect skill will deflect every projectile, missiles, junkrats bombs...

Mccree though, he has no mobility and that is because he is a burst machine. You can stun and get 12 shots on someone in a couple seconds. Having more mobility would be OP, besides he is suppose to flank or catch roamers.

 

[crimsonspear4D]

I LOVE this game, this could get me to like MOBA games if the characters were as fun and diverse, but the problems are as pervasive as they are prevalent. I feel like Hanzo and Roadhog are kind of OP or at least have exploitable glitches that make OP, though to be fair I don't play as them so I can't really say for sure. D.Va and Pharah need to be retooled badly, D.Va's plasma cannons feeling like they do as much damage as wet sneeze and Pharah's rocket launcher seems to do more damage to herself than others. WTF?

If you find someone who keeps playing as Bastion, 76, or Rheinhardt its probably me. I'm just an attack hound, always was and will be. I like to play as Widowmaker, Mein, or Reaper sometimes but I'm not tactical in the least, so they'd seem like a waste to me.

So, does the controller work well enough? Or should I submit to the "PC master race" this time round?

As a lowly console peasant, I'd say the controller support is really good than say DC Universe or any other game of its ilk. It plays like any other first person game, so its not obtrusive at all.

I sure am glad that Tracer is a lesbian, and in a loving relationship with Zarya.

Hahahaha... wait, really or was that jokes? Because if that's true then that's pretty awesome, and if not, well thanks a lot dude now I have a headcannon ship.

 

[Ryan Minns]

I've been loving it and my favourite was Tracer for awhile until I started having an issue with her. I do love offensive turreting with the dwarf and actually like how he isn't absolute bullshit like the TF2 Engineer as he has more counters. I really tried to use Zarya but could never use her well enough. I have found it to be quite fun setting up a level 1 turret in the middle of the road, running to the far end of said road and shooting people in the back while they line up a shot to my turret.

 

[sXeth]

Speaking of Reaper, the attack heroes seem to be a tad over-squishy for the mobile ranging role. Not Reaper himself, who has a teleport ability that lets him go sniper, and a potent defensive/movement ability. But Genji and Mcree especially seem to lack in defensive options to really hold their own in a gunfight. Both rely on abilities that give them a tiny window of defense, not really enough to make an escape. Genjis isn't even functionaly against various heroes that don't use bullets. Compared to Tracer just warping out (and potentially healing completely), Reaper becoming invulnerable and flying off at boosted speed, or even 6's not-spectacular but basically effective sprint and self-healing, they feel like they're hung out to dry when the bullets start flying.

Genji has so much mobility though, he is annoying as hell, on par with tracer. Also his deflect skill will deflect every projectile, missiles, junkrats bombs...

Mccree though, he has no mobility and that is because he is a burst machine. You can stun and get 12 shots on someone in a couple seconds. Having more mobility would be OP, besides he is suppose to flank or catch roamers.

Genji has a short dash on a cooldown. Without that, I've chased him down with Reinhardt, unless he has a wall to run up handy (fortunately perhaps, I'm still in lower matchmaking tiers, and no one seems to know the maps well enough for that sort of thing to be commonplace). Even as his deflect goes, I just shoot deliberately at the wall next to him to make him use it, then unload after he's defenseless.

I don't know how you compare him to Tracer. Who can teleport basically instantly across half the map, or backwards while healing.


Mcree has the problem of having a job, but being outperformed at it. As a sniper he's outranged by Widowmaker, and outdefensed by anyone with a mobility or heal. As a burst guy, Roadhog has the same trick, with tank hp and healing. Even Lucio can achieve the effect by push gunning a guy while super-speeding around him to avoid the hit and dumping his clip in him (which empties at the same speed, and will also kill with even basic accuracy).

I mean, its the attack class in general that kind of suffers. They gave the Tanks (for the most part) high damage abilities to force people to focus on them, rather then being ignored in favor of squishy targets and useless at their role. Then throwing in some of the Defense guys having huge damage potential (Widowmaker, and Junkrat (since you can throw and detonate his mine as an instakill grenade). Toss in objective based gameplay, and you're mostly team-fighting around a small area. Tanks are soaking damage, defense are shooting back, and support is healing. Attack is theoretically operating outside the pocket, which leaves them without tanks or defense or support healing/shields. Without the ability to get back in the pocket, or self-sustain, they're basically fodder for trades, at best.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

my friends dragged me into it finally, I was a fan of tf2 so I'm not sure why I was reluctant to try it...

loving the differences between it and tf2 for sure, but for now I'm seeming to stick to tf2 classes until I learn abilities and stuff better.

Junkrat is my fucking hero, I'm absolutely annihilating with him, but I really don't care for his design/voice.

Mercy I've done well with a few times with friends, but when I'm with randoms who are fucking awful at protecting me/keeping me alive, then I switch classes usually.

bastion feels a bit OP...map design tends to favor the shit out of him unlike the heavy from tf2, so he's guaranteed to have a positive KD if he just camps certain corners.

Have tried some other heroes, but either didn't like them or just didn't do well with them, so I've stuck to junkrat/mercy for the most part.

 

[WindKnight]

I'm having fun with it, but we've not pre-ordered. Can't really afford it, the price is a bit more of an issue as we'll be buying two copies. It's a bit of a bugger to be in a relationship where you both want a new game but can't really afford two copies.

Still, I'm really enjoying the beta. I like Lucio, and Pharah. I've only gotten 'Play of the Game' like once, boyfriend mostly gets it in the games we're in. But the dude does have like 1000 hours played on TF2 so I don't know what I expected.

Looking through the skins is nice, there's lots of cute ones and I hope they add more.

Blizz will probably put it on sale by the holidays if you're willing to wait that long.

On the skin front, I am really hoping I get one of the Valkyrie skins for Mercy. They look awesome:

Spoiler

I'm kinda finding I'm more into the common skins for the characters I like, because none of the 'special' ones are green (sighs)

Enjoying it so far, gravitated to Mercy and D.Va, though occasional you'll see me as rarrah and mei.

Price will probably not make it a day one purchase for me.

 

[BytByte]

I want to kiss this game so hard. I adore almost every signle character (just make everyone say hello :3) and the colors and locales are vibrant and fabulous.

I'm especially digging all the support charcters. Zenyatta is my best friend and even Symmetry is so interesting and unique.

I also like how most counters are relatively intuitive and effective. Bastion and Reinhardt and even Tracer can he combatted.

I also find it interesting how all my friends and I say that different characters need some nerfs. Personally I can dominate with Reaper almost effortlessly and think Mei needs to chill. Meanwhile my roommate will not stop bitching about Bastion while the other hates Roadhog. I guess that means balance.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I've played it most of this weekend, and the last beta and I've enjoyed my time with it so far.

My only real complaint is the matchmaking system, which hopefully might be fixed during the full release. The game will currently pair level 1-5 players with 20 and above, which is a problem (obviously). But that might be a population thing, so release will alleviate that.

The game also randomizes teams between matches, which is great for balancing. But it doesn't randomize grouped up players, so any pre-made player groups stay pre-made. If you find yourself up against a premade team, you might as well just quit out and rejoin a different session as there's really no winning in that situation.

Can't really go by levels. The only thing level will tell you is how long the person has been playing during this particular beta phase. Everyone got their levels wiped since the last stress test, so people with 100's of hours of closed beta experience logging in for the first time today will be "level one". To say nothing of some guy with tens of thousands of TF2 experience logging in and also being "level one". By the same token, some guy could drift to level 20 just farting around trying all the heroes and still have only the faintest grasp of the nuances of the game.

The matchmaker doesn't really match you based on "level" anyway, which would punish bad players for simply playing the game. Things are very erratic right now since there's such a small body of evidence for the matchmaker to draw on, but if you see a level 5 guy playing against a level 100 guy, it's because the matchmaker thinks they're approximately skilled based on stuff like accuracy, K/D/A, time on objective, etc, etc.

 

[Michael Dunkerton]

Mercy is a blast to play and way better than healing in almost any other game I've played. The UI makes it easy to keep track of the entire team's health. That combined with the fact that your healing gun's secondary function buffs damage instead of ubering makes me feel like I'm supporting the whole team instead of tethering myself to the nearest Heavy. Mercy's movement is amazingly fun and I'm sad I only got to play a couple hours and won't have any more time before the beta ends.

All that said, I find it really hard to justify the price. I know it's silly, but even in lobby games I need to have some sense of progression or I won't come back. ME3 multiplayer is constantly changing for me because I'm unlocking new stuff. Don't get me wrong, I think Overwatch *needs* to have all characters unlocked from the start, and I'm glad there's no unlockable weapons that change the way classes play like in TF2. But without any sense of progression I would probably play for a few nice long sessions and then not bother coming back/

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Having not really played a shooter in years prior to trying the OB with my friends, pretty freaking good. I'm not sure I could convince myself to buy any kind of shooter at full price these days, but I'd jump on just a little less than the current price. Most characters feel pretty good as well.

I never thought I could see myself really wanting to play a support or tank, but there's plenty of options that are different enough and I found my fit in each classification pretty quickly. Lucio is so much fun, and I can stomach playing as Reinhardt. Of course, the offensive characters are more fun for me personally, but not significantly so.

I don't feel like many balance changes are even needed as is, save some helpful pushes on a few characters that just don't seem quite as good as the rest of the cast (easy example for me is Zenyatta; still pretty good in the hands of a skilled player, but not really as useful as a lot of other characters).

 

[The Wykydtron]

It's kind of fun I guess. Probably not worth the asking price to me and I would not be at all surprised if it goes F2P later down the line. Pity the hero I was most wanting to play is kind of lacklustre (D.va) aside from the surprise ult into the entire enemy team every now and again. She could do with either straight buffs to her numbers or a longer range secondary fire gun. Like she's a disrupter tank who can fly into the backlines to be an annoyance but like... just pick Winston? He does that but twice as well?

The character are ok and they have some character. One character with not much nuance, if you can describe a character in two or three words you're probably doing it wrong. The Edgelord. Call of Duty Man. The Chick with a "British" Accent. Mecha Pilot. You get the idea.

Turns out the only offensive hero I can play is Edgy McEdgelord himself because his damage is crazy and the slowish fire rate on his shotguns help with aiming every shot and not doing with I do with Tracer emptying 30 shots into a wall because her fire rate is like 1 second before reload. Also Widowmaker + Reaper is amazing because you can get into a sneaky spot easily knowing exactly where the blindspots are in the other team, and you're playing Reaper so the ability to get into their backline makes you so much more effective. Who thought that ult was balanced?

With both Engie and Bastion in the game, I find the game slightly tipped in the favour of defending teams, even the famous strat in TF2 pub games, "Multiple Engies on Last" are beaten in terms of their point defence. Like my entire team picked 6 Bastions on defence once just on a whim and outright murdered everyone. It was a massacre because we were all set up at different points and at least one guy is gonna get in the Bastion play of the game position where he shoots everyone in the back from a sneaky setup point.

Bastion just looks like he was designed to tilt teams on attack to the other side of the planet. Yes he has his counters but he gets one good opportunity off, your team is done. Also why does Junkrat have Martyrdom? Absolutely everyone hated that shit in the old CoD games yet you bring it back anyway?

I guess I don't like how much swapping characters is key. Coming from someone who plays nothing but Yasuo in League (seriously it's Yasuo or I dodge), I would rather just play one or two characters I like forever.