Overwatch open beta - What are your impressions?

[Zhukov]

Having had some more Overwatch gameplay experience, I have a few more thoughts to add.

I agree that Reinhardt is the best at straight up damage soaking. I mean, it's his job. I imagine you'd always want one on an offensive team if you were playing seriously.


However, I disagree on Roadhog, Zarya and DVa. They're not hard tanks, they're more like brawlers. You'd want one of them in addition to a hard tank, not instead of.

Roadhog is great defensively for his ability to snatch key enemies out place and one-shot them. (If you're throwing your hook at a Reinhardt shield then you're doing it very, very wrong.) His hook has a low cooldown and counters many enemy ults, including Mcree, Reaper and Pharah. It will also pull a Bastion out of turret mode. Also he can deal shotgun damage out to medium range with his alt fire. Plus, while he can't tank in a sustained manner like Reinhardt he can soak up bursts of damage then pop around a corner, use his massive heal and be back on the firing line way faster than a Reinhardt shield can regenerate or even a Mercy can heal. His ult, which has a low cooldwon, can clear a point single handed or blunt an enemy push.

I usually rack up kills like crazy as Roadhog, "on fire" for most of the round. Frequently top of the team in raw damage as well.

Zarya is really good at dipping in and out of combat thanks to her regenerating shield ("blue health") and her forcefield. With correctly managed exposure she can stay in the fight unsupported for a stupidly long time. She can protect allies from damage bursts (for example a Pharah or Mcree while they're ulting, or an ally who has been hooked by an enemy Roadhog). Her ult can combine with many other heroes ults for easy team wipes. Plus she does some scary damage if she gets decently charged up.

DVa I'm not so hot on. However she does make life hell for enemy snipers. Her ult is great area denial and her defense thingy swallows up enemy ults if timed correctly. She's also a hard counter to Winston since his size means he takes a lot of damage from scatter guns and her armour (yellow health) means she laughs at his gradual damage.

Zenyatta is a supplemental support, not a main healer. Similar to above, you want him around in addition to a main healer, not instead of one. His basic attacks in conjunction with his debuff allow him to do very respectable damage from range. Said debuff makes life very miserable for enemy tanks. Granted, I'm not entirely sold on his ult.

I sorta agree with what you said on Symmetra. She has to be very opportunitic with her primary weapon. However it is worth noting that she actually counters Reinhardt. Her secondary fire goes through shields. She can charge up that sucker and either put serious hurt on the slow-moving shield bearer or force him to drop the shield in order to dodge her sluggish projectiles.

Honestly, Winston is the only character I struggle to see a use for. His shield dome used to have twice as much health, now it gets burned down in a couple of seconds. His damage is poor and short ranged. His ult is great disruption but I don't know what you'd want him for the rest of the time. Then again, I may well merely be bad at playing him.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

However, I disagree on Roadhog, Zarya and DVa. They're not hard tanks, they're more like brawlers. You'd want one of them in addition to a hard tank, not instead of.

The problem is, no one gets this concept. Every time I say that our team needs a tank, they always, ALWAYS switch to Roadhog...and it pisses me off to no end when what we really need is a Winston or Reinhardt.

No champion should be auto-include in every team comp. We really do need more options than just Reinhardt if we need someone to soak damage for teammates.

Maybe they'll un-nerf Winston's bubble; it already has a 12 second cooldown.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Honestly, Winston is the only character I struggle to see a use for. His shield dome used to have twice as much health, now it gets burned down in a couple of seconds. His damage is poor and short ranged. His ult is great disruption but I don't know what you'd want him for the rest of the time. Then again, I may well merely be bad at playing him.

Winston is a Tank Disruptor, like you said. The best use of Winston I've seen is usually in conjunction with Rein. 3 or 4 people are trying to bring down the shield, Winston jumps in and smashes up those people who were so busy thinking about Rein, the rest of us swoop in and shoot up the leftovers.

If you don't kill everyone, you at least have everyone so severely damaged that they usually break ranks to look for healing.

 

[sXeth]

Have you pre-ordered?

Do you find the price reasonable?

(At what pricepoint would you consider buying the game?)

After some more play, I was considering it.

Then it turns out they want double-price for the PS4 (and XB1) at a nice 80 bucks instead of the 40 version on PC. (Since my buddies are on PS4 that I'd be playing with, and the game is terrible with randoms picking four Reapers etc). The apparent (non)logic of this being that its the Origins edition. Which is 95% just bonuses for Blizzards other PC games. Which makes it even dumber.

 

[CellShaded]

Tried it over the weekend. Had a bunch of fun, like playing as basically all of the characters (though Mercy and Roadhog are my personal favourites). Again, it's fun enough, but I am not willing to spend 40? on what is essentially a PvP only experience. Maybe if it ever goes on sale. Or enough of my friends decided to get it. Otherwise, not gonna buy it.

 

[Beliyal]

Symmetra has tons of utility, but she has difficulty using it with her severely limited offensive capabilities. She basically has to set up a network of sentry turrets and hope that someone wanders into it. If she wants to do any kind of damage, she has to put herself in harm's way, and that's not how a support champion should work. If Symmetra can't heal outside of her tiny little shield, she needs to be able to charge her ultimate faster than she does.

Personally, Symmetra ended up being my favorite to play with and I found her much more durable than many others I've tried. Of course, there's a lot of personal preference and play style to consider, but I ended up piling 10 killstreaks without dying. I learned where exactly to place sentry turrets and kept getting messages during the entire match about people stumbling into them and dying. I easily got 10-15 kills per match, which is pretty high for a support character that relies on turrets, a slow ranged attack and a primary attack that only works in close range. I also found it easy to drain tanks of their health, killing Reinhardts, Bastions and Roadhogs with ease, as well as Reapers and Genjis, if they tried to kill me in close range (especially in close quarters). Symmetra's teleport also became an essential thing for me, so essential that I felt horribly slow when there was no Symmetra in my team. When playing her, I always ended up on the top 4 players screen, usually with 60%+ shield up time or 75%+ teleport up time (and people appreciated it, because I often got lots of upvotes for it).

I don't know, I didn't find her to be missing anything, or in need of being upgraded in any way. I guess I'd like if she had more shields for example. Not sure about the healing power, I don't think it's really necessary. I thought about perhaps giving her the possibility to keep more than 6 turrets up at the same time, but honestly, those turrets are pretty OP. Any point that has walls and angles nearby was a literal deathtrap, because I'd put up 6 turrets and whoever crossed into the point was drained of health in 3 seconds. Symmetra was so much fun for me to play.

Overall, I liked the game a lot. Didn't test all of the heroes, but from those I did, I enjoyed it immensely. Really fun and exciting game that interested me only marginally before the beta. This open beta was a really good move because I got hooked and decided to preorder. I can see myself enjoying it for months to come.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

I watched plenty enough of it on Twitch to know its a great game but I didn't expect to actually like playing it cos I would be so bad at it that it just wouldn't be fun. Turns out it was fun, at least for that open beta. I don't know how the matchmaking system works but it seems to be just based on level, so it would be only a matter of time until, say I got the level 50 from playing a lot I would still be matched against better players who got to 50 faster by playing better. The teamwork was really bad... or none existent with teams of noobs so even playing 'just click without aiming' heroes like Mercy I would die fast cos people were dying and running at the objective one at a time instead of waiting for all the team to die and go in together.

I might get it on console where the general skill level is much lower... if I ever actually get a console.

Also, Fuck Genji.

 

[Charli]

I can't get enough of this game. I'm already sad that I can't play it til May 24th. Mei is the best character in the game. Fight me.

Freezing the entire enemy team and then headshotting them with icicles will never get boring.


Iceblocking D.Va's explosion or Junkrat's tyre is insanely satisfying. I made an enemy of a junkrat one match and I swear he made it his MISSION to destroy me. Icewalled him til I'm sure he was frothing at the mouth. (I iceblocked right in the path of 4 of my teammates and pretty much gibbed him out of a play of the game)

Damn, I didn't expect the response to be this overwhelmingly positive. I am turned off by the $40 price tag, but given the reviews it might be worth looking into.

I hear that there aren't a lot of people playing support. I love support, it's a strong contender for my favorite role. Are people not playing support because the support classes aren't fun, or just because people generally don't like playing support?

No they're all fantastic. Lucio is the easiest to get started with, but a good Mercy or Zenyatta will get you major props. And on narrow maps Symmetra can devastate an enemy team single handedly with her miniturrets and teleporter.

All the overwatch heroes play marvellously I just can't help being in lesbians with Mei, she's everything I dreamed she would be.

 

[Liljumpman]

I'll get this out of the way first. Just like with most Blizzard games, the balancing is absolutely atrocious. Some classes are far and away stronger than others and it's not even close.

But, it is really fucking fun, and I went into it thinking I'd hate it.

Can't see myself playing for very long after release, because of how many hours I put into closed and open beta, but if you're looking for a new TF2 guys, this is it.

Three price points. Regular 40 bucks, Skintastic 60 bucks, Collectors a bit more.

I think that's fine, no extra levels or extra maps or any bullshit like that, just a few skins which a lot of people probably couldn't care less about. 40 Dollars for essentially a newer Team Fortress is a bit steep in my opinion but holy fuck the game is fun so I'm going to get it anyway.

The frustrating part is that nobody wants to play healer, so you can either choose to suck it up princess and pick Skaterboy (easily the most overpowered support), or just pick Soldier but honestly against half the scrubs in open beta having a healer wasn't even necessary since you can just destroy them with positioning.

I'll review the classes I've played, implying anyone's going to read it.

Tracer: Pretty much unstoppable in 1v1 situations. Mcree is her natural enemy and should be avoided unless you get the jump on him or it's a doubleteam. Genji is easy if you bait out his counter.
DIEDIEDIE: Ridiculous damage. Lack of range isn't a problem since no map is super open with lots of close range
Soldier: Vastly underrated. Average damage at every range is actually a very powerful weapon you can use to exploit, since most other characters have very specific ranges.
D.VA: Terrible as a tank, disgustingly overpowered as an Assassin. Severely needs a nerf.
Reinhardt: Overpowered for escort the convoy.
Bastion is an unfun piece of shit that runs rampart through bad teams but can't do anything against good ones, so he's in the awkward territory of a pubstomping Rikimaru. Can be used to kill tanks amazingly fast, but again you'll probably be picked off before you get a chance against top players.
Widowmaker: Sniper.
Hanzo: Midrange sniper and high damage.
Genji: Unkillable on PC, and fun as fuck.
Torbjorn: Garbage and requires ultimate to be effective. Once enemies know where a turret is, unless you're playing against horrible players, it's pretty much dead. Turret damage or health needs a buff. His standard weapon though is actually pretty strong.
Winston: Decent
Junkrat: Hilarious, but decent.
Roadhog: Decent+
Zarya: Amazing offtank with insane damage.
Mercy: Good for pubstomping with a bastion reinhardt combo.
Rollerbladebro: Overpowered, by far the best support and it isn't even close.
Lightomancerturretgirl: Useless as main support, good off-support but there are better choices. Basically a meme character that can work but needs more to close the gap.
Mcree: best Duelist in the game since he has flashbang and insant reload with dodgeroll. Easily combos most characters in the game. Desperately needs his team to understand how to help him with positionblocking though, since his lack of mobility combined with his skillset makes him absolutely fucked if he gets zerged.
Ballhealer: He's awesome until the other team has a widowmaker or hanzo. Their ability to one shot him severely impacts him, which is a shame because he'd rival rollerderby if he had a bit more endurance. His damage is bullshit and his healing is quite good. High Risk High Reward support. I can see him being great. If the other team doesn't have a sniper then use him for the lels.
JUSTICE RAINS FROM ABOVE: She is a very, very hard counter to most characters in this game. Hopefully your years of Quake and TF2 have paid off if you want to use her effectively.
Mei: Funnily enough she might be the best tank killer in the game, yes even better than bastion. Purely because she can freeze them so your DPS can take them out. Wall is devastating if used correctly, and devastating if used incorrectly. Strongly requires communication. Iceblock is great. No real negatives, she's a very balanced and annoying character.


So if you bothered to read that you'd say "but all the characters are good, you said they were imbalanced!" and that is blizzards biggest problem with most games. Characters are so overpowered that the characters that are only good fall by the wayside and become effectively useless. The most glaring examples are that there is no reason to use any of the support characters other than Lucio. Bastion is too horribly countered by too many characters to be used effectively as anything other than a gimmick pubstomper. Many ultimates remove skill entirely by being uncounterable or unavoidable. Hanzo get his ultimate way too often, and even though it's not as effective against good players, it makes him one of the best defenders in the game with his ability to zoneout offense repeatedly and reliably. Widowmakers ultimate needs a nerf or honestly to be changed entirely, since a good Widowmaker on a team that knows how to defend an area and block off assassin routes is too unstoppable without adding a teamwide wallhack.

TLDR: Fun as fuck, a lot of balance issues, too many clear choices for characters. After sinking a disgusting amount of time into closed and open beta and racking up far more than is healthy of a playtime I'm still interested enough to buy it

 

[Summerstorm]

So, after i played the game "A LOT" in this open beta: I would conclude that, yes, it is fun (Even with loads of things i don't like) but it just is too expensive. I would really like to buy it for... say 25 ?.

Things i don't like: No information about what your team (and the foes) are doing. I can't see who is pulling their weight, who is a prime target. Do the damage dealers do damage or just reaping kills? No info other than at the end about myself and snippets about the four the game deems worthy for a commendation. (Still no idea what that actually does... does it nothing?) I mean, i can't even see WHO did commend me, just how many... That whole lack of info stinks of "Nobody is a loser, you are all the best"-Syndrome

Second: I think i am getting old. But the game is sometimes just too fast for me. Some character could have 1 HP and it would be (effectively) the same. Weapon damage is mostly HUGE

Characters:
I REALLY need more banter, voice-lines, automatic responses etc. in game. (If you do a "personality"-based class-system: have them TALK)

Somehow i was best with characters i didn't like (the designs and personalities)
D.VA is pretty awesome (Even if i just fight and shoot thing to get my ultra up.) But overall it is hard to not kill about 3 dudes for every death.
Pharah is pretty much Quake 3 - very easy to play. Very deadly
McCree i had HUGE problems with, but after you learn: Just use the damn stunbomb, it is pretty much (IF near enough to stun and stunbomb = "loaded" THEN Enemy = "dead")
I can't play the snipers, just cannot hit anyone.

Lucio is fucking overpowered. He heals himself so fast that he can pretty much tank D.VA in close quarter combat (Never played him, but he was one of my most feared foes) and supporting speed/healing is MASSIVE for a team-rush.

Mei is simmilar... efficiently brutal when played right. You wouldn't think it, but DAMN is she dishing out... (If you miss or don't kill her superquick in close quarters you are already dead.)

Zenyatta is fun... but like with the snipers i can't hit anything.

Bastion and Torbj?rn are terribly boring

Soldier whatever... is so generic, i see him as an insult to boring fps-characters and shooters in general. (Why do people even play him?... well he IS GOOD with killing, it seems) I mean really. he can shoot, shoot explosions and as an ultra: You don't need to aim anymore... let me just shoot thing as if you are aimbotting.

Overall there seems to be some characters which are problematic. And i am already bored of some options. (Needs different weapons and effect.) It is mostly about pouring damage on. (Other than that only Mei seems to be a bit different. (Changes the playingfield) All others are: Healing, shooting, stunning, poison, area-damage, buffs armor/shield.

EDIT:
P.S.:
Oh and also: Game is a damn Rule34 factory. The women... Carefully designed to have loads of fetishes in that game. Really, like they were going down a checklist. (I am pretty sure there was such a checklist somewhere in the blizzard-offices, someone had to be responsible to ensure maximum exposure from independent R34-artists) Possible the same guy who makes Street-Fighter Characters for Capcom, hehe

 

[STARSBarry]

I had the collectors edition preordered and have cancelled it after the beta, I find the main issue with the shooter is that it lacks dedicated servers. Why this is so important for a game for me I want to point out is very simple, when you have primarily a dedicated server system you get communities sprung up around certain ideals, you have your channers, you have your 18+ only, you have your no swearing, people can set there own rules and players can pick and choose what set fits them best. With this new breed of quick play game you instead only have access to what I will call the META community, you know what one of these is if you have been playing MOBA's you will also know that it is incredibly toxic because everyone, no matter there skill level, cultural beliefs or stance on anything are thrown all into the same pot and are now forced to deal with each other. In real life if you find a co-worker an insufferable human being you dont go and invite them down for coffee when breaks on you avoid them like the plague, as long as you do your job they do there's you have no problem, you cant do that with a META community they are there and you have to deal with it.

I also find the complexity of the game incredibly simple and got bored before the end of the 3rd day, I blame playing older shooters such as Tribes 2 and Team Fortress Classic, what Overwatch brings to the table for a "team" based shooter is incredibly lacking in the team requirement area, I honestly was looking forward to it, but it just felt incredibly generic and slow to me.

Im sure itl be a big hit, after all I despise MOBA's and there the most popular thing ever so perhaps im just too old to "get it" il stick to Natural Selection 2 and Red Orchestra 2. Alas Overwatch it was short and bittersweet

 

[Summerstorm]

I had the collectors edition preordered and have cancelled it after the beta, I find the main issue with the shooter is that it lacks dedicated servers. Why this is so important for a game for me I want to point out is very simple, when you have primarily a dedicated server system you get communities sprung up around certain ideals, you have your channers, you have your 18+ only, you have your no swearing, people can set there own rules and players can pick and choose what set fits them best. With this new breed of quick play game you instead only have access to what I will call the META community, you know what one of these is if you have been playing MOBA's you will also know that it is incredibly toxic because everyone, no matter there skill level, cultural beliefs or stance on anything are thrown all into the same pot and are now forced to deal with each other. In real life if you find a co-worker an insufferable human being you dont go and invite them down for coffee when breaks on you avoid them like the plague, as long as you do your job they do there's you have no problem, you cant do that with a META community they are there and you have to deal with it.

I also find the complexity of the game incredibly simple and got bored before the end of the 3rd day, I blame playing older shooters such as Tribes 2 and Team Fortress Classic, what Overwatch brings to the table for a "team" based shooter is incredibly lacking in the team requirement area, I honestly was looking forward to it, but it just felt incredibly generic and slow to me.

Im sure itl be a big hit, after all I despise MOBA's and there the most popular thing ever so perhaps im just too old to "get it" il stick to Natural Selection 2 and Red Orchestra 2. Alas Overwatch it was short and bittersweet

Ah yes. i forgot that...

Yeah first i did have problems of getting pulled into a game where there were connection- and latency-issues. Dedicated servers REALLY help with that. Also of course there are the "Only DE_Dust2 - all the time" - affectionados who want to play something in particular. (I REALLY REALLY played LOADS of ARENA-mode in TF2, when it came out).

Having some MODS for server-statistics etc. also is pretty fun. This System just isn't transparent and changeable enough. (Either play as you are told or pray you got 11 other dudes at hand for a private game)

 

[The White Hunter]

It was alright, it felt good and played well and looked nice and ran smooth and so on.

It also felt reasonably balanced (a few weird things here and there).

However it did already have plenty of cheaters... and honestly it feels just like TF2, and that really isn't my jam in shooters so I think I'll pass. Not that I think it's bad or anything, it's pretty solid, but it's not for me.

 

[Phasmal]

Well I'm looking forward to the release now, I'm definately gonna get it when it comes out, even if it can be a bit frustrating (apparently the tradition of not looking after your healer has carried over faithfully from TF2).

But mostly I wanted to post in here to say, I looked up Tracer's voice actor and she is English. Now I have so many questions. Did they tell her to do a terrible cockney accent? Why is it so bad? I know that's what a lot of Americans think cockneys sound like but jeeeeeeeeeeeeeez...