I like 5v5 more than 6v6. However, every member is much more important now and that makes it harder. I also like the reduction in stuns and removing barriers (although they gave Doomfist one). Just like the beta for OW1, there are definite balance issues.
A problem, just like OW1, is that people watch streamers say something is OP and everyone chooses that meta. Nobody really wants to come up with interesting comps or strats, just a winning formula. It makes the game boring. Blizzard enables it by pushing streamers and competitive forward.
A dozen nubs shuffling around at the entrance to a tunnel, all getting stunned by an incoming grenade, and then half the team mowed down by a M249 is definitely a design flaw in the game and not Newbs Getting Pwned.
It's a fucking shame that games just get smaller and smaller. Planetside 2 proved that fps games could have hundreds and hundreds of players in the fight but it's development was a shitshow, it received bad support, and most multiplayer games have gone with smaller and smaller teams over time.
The most fun I ever have with any online multiplayer game is when it's brand new or still in beta and everyone just plays the way they want. As soon as a meta is established it gets repetitive and boring.
A problem, just like OW1, is that people watch streamers say something is OP and everyone chooses that meta. Nobody really wants to come up with interesting comps or strats, just a winning formula. It makes the game boring.
That has been my major problem with modern online gaming. Dataminers will find an “optimal” way, or some E-Sports player does some crazy dope high-level shit, or a popular influencer says XYZ, and ultimately has a big impact on the “meta”. I have hated that players have just become meta-slaves, and anyone who plays outside the current that meta is punished for it. It really reduces how player expression can exist. It is no longer “I like to play this game this way” it is now “Play it this way or don't play at all”. It's infinitely worse in games with gear or "builds", it really zaps the fun out of discovering new ways to play.
not played in years but it's so funny that they've cut the player count by one. forcing every hardcore playgroup + esports team to eliminate their weakest player
It fucking sucks. I think one of the things that has contributed to the decline of my clan over the years is how many games have completely arbitrary player caps. Like no, fuck you bungie, i have more than two friends and I don't give a shit about your precious game balance, let me play with my friends!
I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate "metas" in all games so fucking much. It's the single worst part of online gaming. Stop talking about the meta. Stop thinking about the meta. Stop worrying about the meta. Stop researching the meta. Just think for yourself and play the game!!
(Just ranting generally, not talking to you specifically)
but there's a difference between the "meta" being a description of the way people play the game and reifying the meta as an almost tangible "thing". I mean like how IQ gets reified. IQ isn't a "thing". People don't have an "IQ". People may get a score on an IQ test, but we don't have "IQ" the way we have ears, or dreams, or emotions, or even intelligence. And so "the meta" becomes an artificial construct in the same way, I think. And an unhealthy way.
You could say that basketball has a "meta" or chess has a "meta", but people don't typically talk about it that way, and the cultures around those activities are a lot better for it.
lmao back in like season 3 I used to do Leona jungle and you have no idea how much some people hated it.
And this was the heyday of support junglers, when Alistar was maybe the best jungler in the game!
I only play that guy who's like FOR DEMACIA! and spins around and I only jungle and pick random fights and I still win a lot. It rules.
Facts.
I used to love having to switch comps on the fly because it was a living game. Once they locked it to 2-2-2 I started losing interest. And all to combat Pirate Shipping, which was fun AF and there was more than one way of doing it.
Oh man I totally forgot it wasn't 2-2-2 in the start. You could get your team to do all sorts of wacky stuff in quick play
at the start, there weren't even limits on how many people could play a given hero at once. I don't care what anyone says--that was better.
yeah, haha. and it's not like the other team couldn't just counterpick.
I feel like it actually added more intrigue to the game because you'd see shenanigans like that, or desperation moves like the whole team coordinating under pressure to all switch to a particular hero for one last push. There were some things that were broken... like trying to keep a team of 6 Tracers off the point. But those could and would have been fixed over time. I think they went to a limited format much more for immersion and simplicity at the end of the day that actual gameplay quality or balance.
It turns out there is a Custom Game section. I just played a game where you spawn with a random hero each life and now I'm going to try 6V6 QUAD TANK!
yes and no. getting 4 other randoms coordinated and on board with your plan is typically impossible.
On the rare occasions I play games where I can actually get friends in a lobby with me (happened a bit with Pokémon unite), then yeah, we can theorycraft our own shit, and it often goes very well.
Every game company I grew up loving has become a hollow shell of its former self. Even Red Dead Redemption 2 is soured knowing how shit R* treat their employees, it's still a masterpiece and something for those workers to be proud of but it sucks that they all became such ghouls.
Can't believe a Blizzard sequel would under-perform the original.
Can't believe the Activision acquisition hasn't improved Blizzard content.
Can't believe its Deja Vu all over again.
Gonna out myself a bit here but I easily have 800 hours in OW and I fuckin hate how they did this beta access shit requiring you to idle in a twitch stream for 4 hours. I'm already salty about how they did that cause I found out too late.
Anyways everything I've seen so far for ow2 is extremely underwhelming. Some good map changes and hero changes but idk maybe I just expected more after they basically killed their old game for the last almost two years now. The matchmaking pool got so bad within the last year especially since everyone got burnt out on no content and updates and just waiting for ow2. Don't have a strong feeling ow2 will be as successful unless there is a lot they haven't shown
My thoughts are similar. They could have still decided this relatively small update was worthy of a sequel, but idk why they announced it so early
Also if you signed up before the beta went live they emailed some invites out, so there was an alternative to the Twitch thing
Oh okay that's nice about the beta sign up.
But yeah ow2 seems more like an expansion pack than a full on new game. Here is to hoping there is more stuff to be added. Ow is like the only game my close discord friends actually all play as we use to be a Team Fortesss 2 players so ow kinda fits well with us. It was nice to have a kinda for sure thing every weekend with them getting lit and playing with them. But everyone got bored of ow after they put it on life support
I think part of the reason it's so late is covid. It really ended up being some of the worst timing they could have had.
Did they learn their lesson from 1 or are they going to continue to push competitive bullshit that draws in fascist losers at the cost of literally the rest of the playerbase?
Unironically esports have made a lot of games really fucking unfun to play.
Competitive sport always runs the risk of promoting fascist beliefs. Ranking people based on how physically fit they are is always a hop skip and a jump from eugenics. That's why I only play sports where the teams are randomized and no one keeps score.
push competitive bullshit
Not that you can't do stuff with competitive, but the focus on it is really strange in light of Blizzard knowing from their other games how small the actual player base for it is. In StarCraft 2 something like 80% of the players never touched multiplayer, and of those that did the overwhelming majority preferred the coop and arcade modes, leaving only about 5% of the game's players doing ranked queue.
No I think if anything it's going to become a much more difficult and competitive game
I haven't played retail WoW in a long time but from what I can gather they still tool content for the 1% of top tier raiders and arena junkies.
What I don't understand is why it took them so long. It looks like a mid-sized patch of OW1, where is all the new stuff? Even Valve works faster (on dota specifically, sorry tf2 fans)
Someone said it elsewhere in this thread, could be the pandemic + Blizzard imploding
The new stuff (PvE) got delayed further which is why they shipped the multiplayer now. It's not ideal though
it took them 4 years to give reinhardt TWO fireballs! that's a fourth of a fireball they added to the game. per year!
It's fun so far, but I just played half an hour with Lucio
Overwatch 1 is literally the only online shooter I've liked played multiplayer so if this is more of that, that's fine
Lol if I wanted more ovawatch I'd just scatter some butterfly eggs on my timepiece
