Overwatch

[Eraser]

There's just a very rich lore behind the game. That's mostly because Overwatch started out as Project Titan, an MMORPG that was set to be the next World of Warcraft. The project was scrapped but a lot of the artwork made for that game served as a basis for Overwatch. So a lot of lore was already written for Project Titan and they're now using that as backstory to Overwatch.

Blizzard regularly releases all sorts of lore related media, like comics, videos and little snippets like what they're doing now with the Numbani airport attack news. The Numbani stuff is Blizzard's way to slowly tease the upcoming hero (or heroes) that will be playable in the game. They're doing it so that each bit of information acts like a puzzle piece that people can use to piece the whole thing together. There are already various theories about who or what the next heroes will be. Like MKJ said, the attention to detail in there is remarkable but makes it pretty interesting to follow.

[MKJ]

Also, every character is just a joy to look at and watch in action - art direction wise.

To wit: if you don't fall in love with Mercy immediately then you are scientifically gay, no matter how many children you have.

[MKJ]

What's this 1.2gb update, just for a new interface?

[Don Carlos]

What everyone else said

[Eraser]

What's this 1.2gb update, just for a new interface?

It's everything that was available on the PTR so far. The new custom game mode, CTF mode (including a bunch of additional CTF maps), server browser, hero balance changes (including hook 2.0 and the bastion changes), the Numbani changes and probably more things I forgot.

It actually went live 2 hours or so ago. Overwatch just suddenly crapped out and wouldn't connect to any game anymore. Had to quit to allow it to apply the patch. Very smooth, Blizzard

[Doombrain]

1.7 on Xbox. When we playing bros?

[Eraser]

Oh yeah, EU region season 4 starts in a little over an hour from now

[Transient]

[lvlshot]

Come on Blizzard, clearly the cereal should be called Luci-Oh's.

Twice the Oh's for the twice the taste!

Oh's.

[Transient]

To wit: if you don't fall in love with Mercy immediately then you are scientifically gay, no matter how many children you have.

125 hours and counting playing that gorgeous German goddess.

[Doombrain]

Yeah she's one I tend to play when there's no healers. Which is most games.

[Transient]

She needs an E ability. Right now, she's a bit underpowered next to the other healers.

[Don Carlos]

People already bitching that Bastion is way OP now

I've not tried him yet but I'll give him a blast later. Gotta start season 4 placement tonight...hoping for Gold if I get to place with good team mates

[MKJ]

She needs an E ability. Right now, she's a bit underpowered next to the other healers.

Hurray for new buff then

While performing a resurrection, Mercy now becomes temporarily invulnerable along with the allies being revived.

[Don Carlos]

[Κracus]

OMG the new bastion is so fucking good. When the game released I used him a little bit and liked him but found him to be too easy to kill but with this patch he's fucking amazing and a beast.

[Eraser]

Yeah Bastion feels a tad overpowered (haven't played with him yet, though), but maybe that's just because people are still treating him like the Bastion of old. People need to rearrange their priorities now though. Before, Bastion was kind of a sitting duck when in Sentry mode. He was easy to take care of back then by pretty much any hero. Right now, Bastion can switch in and out of Sentry mode so quickly that he's much more mobile. Add to that his ability to heal while on the move and he's quite a menace.

However, in the matches I've done so far (including 5 placement matches) I've come to the conclusion that Bastion must be extremely frustrating to play if the other team counters him right. He instantly becomes target #1 and really isn't able to just sit around going unnoticed for any stretches of time. Even as Zenyatta, I was able to deal with him multiple times by putting the Orb of Discord on him, dive into cover, then fully charge alt-fire and get out of cover at the right time and blast all of it in his face. That gets rid of Bastion. Easy. It's also incredibly fun when using Zenyatta's ult to park yourself in front of Bastion so you soak up all of his bullets

Having said all this though, for some reason there always seems to be a person who is just intent on playing Bastion because "welcome to the Bastion meta", which is actually literally what someone came up as an excuse when picking Bastion in a payload attack scenario while we only had a single healer along with Soldier 76, Pharah and Junkrat.

Also, in two of the placement matches, I've had different people on the opposing team ask everyone (in match channel chat) to report the player playing Bastion on their team. In both matches I haven't seen the Bastion player say anything (could've been on their team chat) but the opposing team was constantly whining about how he should pick another character (on match chat). I'm getting the feeling people are asking for bans for people who blindly pick Bastion. Seems a little excessive to me.

[Κracus]

fuck that, if people want to play bastion reporting them is absolutely stupid. People can play what they want and if they get first dibs on him so be it. I have tons of unlocks for Bastion because I used to play him, I only stopped because he was sorely underpowered previously and just wastn' viable.

He's completely viable now in attack and defense and he's an absolute monster to deal with. Any team bitching about him on their team probably has a teammate that just sucks and it won't matter if it's bastion or some other character he's playing he's still gonna suck.

I've never played bastion with his normal gun so much as I do now and I on average heal about 2000 points more than I ever did previously which is an amazing jump. His ability to go turret mode quickly makes him able to dodge DVA's nuke now which was near impossible before.

It's definitely possible to counter him with roadhog, genji isn't a death sentence anymore. He might be my new favorite character right now. I'd been playing as Sombra lately but she requires so much advance planning that it's becoming a chore to play her.

Kinda wish they'd buff Tracers guns though. I'd like playing as her more often but her need to get right in their face becomes tedious against a good team.

[Doombrain]

People already bitching that Bastion is way OP now

I've not tried him yet but I'll give him a blast later. Gotta start season 4 placement tonight...hoping for Gold if I get to place with good team mates

My fav, fam

[Transient]

http://compete.kotaku.com/to-maintain-h ... 1792862312

Yesterday’s Overwatch patch will force players with high competitive skill ratings to play at least seven games a week or see their ranking decline. It’s a smart move to combat foul play, and in the comings weeks, top Overwatch players should see fewer “smurf” accounts and more fair skill rankings.

[Eraser]

Yeah, top 500 rewards are also only awarded to those who are in the top 500 at the end of the season rather than anyone that has ever hit top 500 during the season. Should force top 500 players to remain competitive till the end of season.

Not that this affects me in any way

[Eraser]

Jeff Kaplan posted this about Bastion on the Blizzard forums. I wholeheartedly agree with him. The Bastion is OP outrage is blown out of proportion.

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback here, everyone. We know Bastion is a big focus for everyone right now. I've been playing online games since they existed and now working on them for almost 15 years. One of the things I've learned about online communities is that change -- any change -- can cause a lot of anxiety. Back when I was working on World of Warcraft, I used to say that if we mailed 500 gold to every player, the community would find some way to be upset about it... because change is bad.

With that said, we'll make some changes to Bastion and put them up on the PTR this morning. We'd love to hear your feedback about those changes when they go up. I don't have details right now because we're still making the changes!

I think it is interesting to reflect upon the idea of what the meta is, what the meta is perceived to be and what the meta should be. When I read some feedback about what the meta should be, I get the sense that for some people that means every hero in Overwatch is picked at the exact same rate (so everyone has a 4-5% pick rate). I'm not sure this is entirely realistic, nor do I think the game is necessarily better if this is the case. It might be and I would love to be wrong about that. One of the reasons that we try to keep all 4 of our game modes viable (I know the community thinks of it as 3 game modes or maybe 3.5) is because different maps and different game modes allow the meta to be more fluid. The more the community pushes us to eliminate maps or modes, the more the hero meta will stagnate. I totally agree that when the meta is too defined (i.e. people only play XYZ heroes) the game is less fun. So we need to watch for trends and adjust as needed.

One interesting thing is the actual meta vs. the perceived meta. The perceived meta is largely driven off of the professional scene and what gets played in tournaments. After those tournaments, really cool reports are written analyzing the pro scene. Those reports go out of their way to say that they are solely reflective of the pro scene and not necessarily representative of the playerbase at large. Yet people cite the pro pick choices as gospel. One thing that I found interesting was that there was a perception based on those reports and in the community that Mercy is never played. Yet according to our stats back during the "3 tank meta" when "Lucio and Ana were the only viable healers", Mercy was the 5th most played hero OVERALL -- and yes, I am talking about in Competitive Play, not Quick Play.

So often, the perception of what the meta is does not match what the actual meta is.

Balance changes can be very difficult to make when emotions run so high in the community. There is outrage if a hero does not get played a lot (like with Bastion or Symmetra). We make changes to make those heroes more viable which means they will get played more. The result is, people need to adjust to playing against Symmetra and Bastion more... and they are more powerful. We cannot just magically make Bastion get picked more so the stats look pretty and not make changes to make him more viable at the same time.

I want to share my personal opinion on Bastion (which is dangerous because I know I am a spokesperson for the game). I play every night. I'm playing both Quick Play and Competitive (I played 2 games of CTF to get my loot box). Over the past few nights I've played with, as and against Bastion. My perception is that he is a little too powerful right now. In particular, in one match I was playing Bastion and the enemy Tracer was trying to hunt me down. The Tracer player was clearly a better player than I am -- a very skilled individual. I relied heavily on my self-heal and the Tracer could not finish me off. But I was able to kill Tracer in recon mode almost through attrition. This part felt wrong to me. But a lot of the feedback I read feels wildly blown out of proportion. Bastion isn't the "I Win button" and he can be focused and countered. When a team is coordinated, he is far scarier than when a team is just playing a pick-up/deathmatch style of play -- and I've witnessed both over the past few nights. I think complaints and praise of Bastion are both valid. I don't think he's perfect yet. But I do think there is a high amount of hyperbole around this particular situation.

In any event, will put some changes up and we're eager to hear your thoughts.

[Don Carlos]

Overwatch’s new and 24th hero is the tank Orisa, who fights with a “fusion driver,” or a projectile machine gun. In a developer update video, Overwatch game developer Jeff Kaplan says her weapon has more range than nearly any other tank hero. She’s currently on the PTR.

http://kotaku.com/overwatch-s-new-hero- ... 1792901585

[youtube]Lvm0of3iDUU[/youtube]

[MKJ]

I like tanks

[Don Carlos]

Overwatch’s new and 24th hero is the tank Orisa, who fights with a “fusion driver,” or a projectile machine gun. In a developer update video, Overwatch game developer Jeff Kaplan says her weapon has more range than nearly any other tank hero. She’s currently on the PTR.

http://kotaku.com/overwatch-s-new-hero- ... 1792901585

[youtube]Lvm0of3iDUU[/youtube]

Just coz this shit needs to be seen on the new page, innit

[Doombrain]

Bout the whole bastion thing, I've noticed I can go some games without dying. That's not right.