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[Overwatch] Overwatch 2 is Live!

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    KupiKupi Registered User regular
    It's much much harder to balance multiple possible tanks on a team. Tank synergies have shaped the vast majority of the meta comps throughout the life of the game.

    I think I've written this one up in this thread before, but hey, I'll repeat myself. One idea I had to maybe help address this was an even more granular role-lock, dividing the cast into six roles, one each per team, rather than having three roles and picking an arbitrary two each. The roles would be:

    Tank: The "anchor tank" archetype, defined in particular by producing a barrier. If they're a huge character who generates one of those hexagonal barriers, they're a Tank.
    Reinhardt, Orisa, Sigma, Winston

    Bruiser: The other half of "tank", being characters who are lethal at close range and may have high health and defensive skills, but don't necessarily guard their allies as well as a true barrier would. Some characters from the old Damage category could qualify here.
    D.Va, Roadhog, Wrecking Ball, Zarya, Doomfist(?), Mei(?), Reaper(?)

    Damage: Characters whose weapon and skills are designed to make enemies dead, or help them find more enemies to make them dead. The mobility aspect could also be said to help them quickly move onto the capture point, but let's be honest: the kind of person who queues for this role measures their self-worth in terms of their K:D. :lol:
    Ashe, Echo, Genji, Hanzo, Cole, Soldier 76, Tracer, Widowmaker, Doomfist(?), Reaper(?)

    Disruption: A somewhat ambiguous category from the leftovers of Damage, "disruption" can be thought of as characters who make the enemy uncomfortable in some way by taking away options, whether that's about safely clustering up with teammates or stepping confidently into particular zones of the map. (An argument could be made that the "sniper" archetype ought to be part of this category as well, if Reaper and Doomfist wind up classed as Damage rather than Bruisers.)
    Bastion, Junkrat, Pharah, Sombra, Symmetra, Torbjorn, Mei(?)

    Healer: A Healer is any of the old Support characters whose main function was to refill HP. A good rule of thumb here is that if the character had healing bound to the primary or secondary fire of their weapon, they qualify as a Healer.
    Mercy, Ana, Baptiste, Moira

    Support: Support characters are the old Support characters who were more useful for their ancillary utilities than their healing powers, but the ability to heal teammates is still a core part of the role.
    Lucio, Zenyatta, Brigitte

    ---

    The main reason for this proposal is that there are certain character power types that stack well with each other. Back when there was no character limit, all-Winstons (or something like it) was a powerful strategy because one Winston leap is a tolerable 50 damage burst, but five Winston leaps together is enough damage to kill most characters outright, followed by 300 DPS in a cone while they're all covered in 3000 HP worth of barrier. Likewise, in a more recent example, we went through an Orisa-Sigma tank meta because Sigma could easily patch the holes in Orisa's barrier coverage, making it hard to get anything through the barrier. By micro-sorting character roles like this, the idea is to keep any of the really major meta-breakers (an excess of barrier coverage, more spike damage than can be mitigated, too much healing to hurt through) from existing on the same team.

    My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
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    PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    Kupi wrote: »
    It's much much harder to balance multiple possible tanks on a team. Tank synergies have shaped the vast majority of the meta comps throughout the life of the game.

    I think I've written this one up in this thread before, but hey, I'll repeat myself. One idea I had to maybe help address this was an even more granular role-lock, dividing the cast into six roles, one each per team, rather than having three roles and picking an arbitrary two each. The roles would be:

    Tank: The "anchor tank" archetype, defined in particular by producing a barrier. If they're a huge character who generates one of those hexagonal barriers, they're a Tank.
    Reinhardt, Orisa, Sigma, Winston

    Bruiser: The other half of "tank", being characters who are lethal at close range and may have high health and defensive skills, but don't necessarily guard their allies as well as a true barrier would. Some characters from the old Damage category could qualify here.
    D.Va, Roadhog, Wrecking Ball, Zarya, Doomfist(?), Mei(?), Reaper(?)

    Damage: Characters whose weapon and skills are designed to make enemies dead, or help them find more enemies to make them dead. The mobility aspect could also be said to help them quickly move onto the capture point, but let's be honest: the kind of person who queues for this role measures their self-worth in terms of their K:D. :lol:
    Ashe, Echo, Genji, Hanzo, Cole, Soldier 76, Tracer, Widowmaker, Doomfist(?), Reaper(?)

    Disruption: A somewhat ambiguous category from the leftovers of Damage, "disruption" can be thought of as characters who make the enemy uncomfortable in some way by taking away options, whether that's about safely clustering up with teammates or stepping confidently into particular zones of the map. (An argument could be made that the "sniper" archetype ought to be part of this category as well, if Reaper and Doomfist wind up classed as Damage rather than Bruisers.)
    Bastion, Junkrat, Pharah, Sombra, Symmetra, Torbjorn, Mei(?)

    Healer: A Healer is any of the old Support characters whose main function was to refill HP. A good rule of thumb here is that if the character had healing bound to the primary or secondary fire of their weapon, they qualify as a Healer.
    Mercy, Ana, Baptiste, Moira

    Support: Support characters are the old Support characters who were more useful for their ancillary utilities than their healing powers, but the ability to heal teammates is still a core part of the role.
    Lucio, Zenyatta, Brigitte

    ---

    The main reason for this proposal is that there are certain character power types that stack well with each other. Back when there was no character limit, all-Winstons (or something like it) was a powerful strategy because one Winston leap is a tolerable 50 damage burst, but five Winston leaps together is enough damage to kill most characters outright, followed by 300 DPS in a cone while they're all covered in 3000 HP worth of barrier. Likewise, in a more recent example, we went through an Orisa-Sigma tank meta because Sigma could easily patch the holes in Orisa's barrier coverage, making it hard to get anything through the barrier. By micro-sorting character roles like this, the idea is to keep any of the really major meta-breakers (an excess of barrier coverage, more spike damage than can be mitigated, too much healing to hurt through) from existing on the same team.

    i love the idea, i just don't see how it meshes well with queues.

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    BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    Delete all the tanks and you immediately get a better game.

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
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    DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    While I'm open to the idea of one tank. Nothing about what we've seen from the early pro play actually looked fun for the one tank player.

    Like it's pretty much what I thought it was they need to fix the queue times cause everyone wants to play DPS and barely anyone wants to play tank(cause it isn't fun) but tanks are also hard to balance in a fun way because of how powerful their synergies are.

    Sadly all I saw from the demo was a worst of both worlds where tanks still don't look fun and seem even more punishing to play.

    And before anyone starts I know it's still early but it doesn't inspire confidence that this is what they came up with after all this time.

    Dragkonias on
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    ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    .
    Pailryder wrote: »
    Kupi wrote: »
    It's much much harder to balance multiple possible tanks on a team. Tank synergies have shaped the vast majority of the meta comps throughout the life of the game.

    I think I've written this one up in this thread before, but hey, I'll repeat myself. One idea I had to maybe help address this was an even more granular role-lock, dividing the cast into six roles, one each per team, rather than having three roles and picking an arbitrary two each. The roles would be:

    Tank: The "anchor tank" archetype, defined in particular by producing a barrier. If they're a huge character who generates one of those hexagonal barriers, they're a Tank.
    Reinhardt, Orisa, Sigma, Winston

    Bruiser: The other half of "tank", being characters who are lethal at close range and may have high health and defensive skills, but don't necessarily guard their allies as well as a true barrier would. Some characters from the old Damage category could qualify here.
    D.Va, Roadhog, Wrecking Ball, Zarya, Doomfist(?), Mei(?), Reaper(?)

    Damage: Characters whose weapon and skills are designed to make enemies dead, or help them find more enemies to make them dead. The mobility aspect could also be said to help them quickly move onto the capture point, but let's be honest: the kind of person who queues for this role measures their self-worth in terms of their K:D. :lol:
    Ashe, Echo, Genji, Hanzo, Cole, Soldier 76, Tracer, Widowmaker, Doomfist(?), Reaper(?)

    Disruption: A somewhat ambiguous category from the leftovers of Damage, "disruption" can be thought of as characters who make the enemy uncomfortable in some way by taking away options, whether that's about safely clustering up with teammates or stepping confidently into particular zones of the map. (An argument could be made that the "sniper" archetype ought to be part of this category as well, if Reaper and Doomfist wind up classed as Damage rather than Bruisers.)
    Bastion, Junkrat, Pharah, Sombra, Symmetra, Torbjorn, Mei(?)

    Healer: A Healer is any of the old Support characters whose main function was to refill HP. A good rule of thumb here is that if the character had healing bound to the primary or secondary fire of their weapon, they qualify as a Healer.
    Mercy, Ana, Baptiste, Moira

    Support: Support characters are the old Support characters who were more useful for their ancillary utilities than their healing powers, but the ability to heal teammates is still a core part of the role.
    Lucio, Zenyatta, Brigitte

    ---

    The main reason for this proposal is that there are certain character power types that stack well with each other. Back when there was no character limit, all-Winstons (or something like it) was a powerful strategy because one Winston leap is a tolerable 50 damage burst, but five Winston leaps together is enough damage to kill most characters outright, followed by 300 DPS in a cone while they're all covered in 3000 HP worth of barrier. Likewise, in a more recent example, we went through an Orisa-Sigma tank meta because Sigma could easily patch the holes in Orisa's barrier coverage, making it hard to get anything through the barrier. By micro-sorting character roles like this, the idea is to keep any of the really major meta-breakers (an excess of barrier coverage, more spike damage than can be mitigated, too much healing to hurt through) from existing on the same team.

    i love the idea, i just don't see how it meshes well with queues.

    It's more or less the Paladins model, though that has four roles.

    Tanks (split into point and off tanks based on whether they're more focused on mobility or raw defense).

    Damage (direct or blaster, basically single target vs area denial, think Widow or 76 on one side vs Junk/Pharah on the other).

    Flanks (far more mobility focused than above, with either extreme mobility or capable of extreme damage spikes from close up, but not both).

    Support (least division here, but there's definitely a subclass less focused on direct healing and more on CC/damage/other kinds of mitigation)

    But it also doesn't use role queue. People have to hash it out themselves like OW used to. But playing tank, even solo tank, isn't pure misery since their designated role isn't to eat shit and instantly die to any DPS. Who could have known.

    ztrEPtD.gif
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    Houk the NamebringerHouk the Namebringer Nipples The EchidnaRegistered User regular
    Pailryder wrote: »
    Kupi wrote: »
    It's much much harder to balance multiple possible tanks on a team. Tank synergies have shaped the vast majority of the meta comps throughout the life of the game.

    I think I've written this one up in this thread before, but hey, I'll repeat myself. One idea I had to maybe help address this was an even more granular role-lock, dividing the cast into six roles, one each per team, rather than having three roles and picking an arbitrary two each. The roles would be:

    Tank: The "anchor tank" archetype, defined in particular by producing a barrier. If they're a huge character who generates one of those hexagonal barriers, they're a Tank.
    Reinhardt, Orisa, Sigma, Winston

    Bruiser: The other half of "tank", being characters who are lethal at close range and may have high health and defensive skills, but don't necessarily guard their allies as well as a true barrier would. Some characters from the old Damage category could qualify here.
    D.Va, Roadhog, Wrecking Ball, Zarya, Doomfist(?), Mei(?), Reaper(?)

    Damage: Characters whose weapon and skills are designed to make enemies dead, or help them find more enemies to make them dead. The mobility aspect could also be said to help them quickly move onto the capture point, but let's be honest: the kind of person who queues for this role measures their self-worth in terms of their K:D. :lol:
    Ashe, Echo, Genji, Hanzo, Cole, Soldier 76, Tracer, Widowmaker, Doomfist(?), Reaper(?)

    Disruption: A somewhat ambiguous category from the leftovers of Damage, "disruption" can be thought of as characters who make the enemy uncomfortable in some way by taking away options, whether that's about safely clustering up with teammates or stepping confidently into particular zones of the map. (An argument could be made that the "sniper" archetype ought to be part of this category as well, if Reaper and Doomfist wind up classed as Damage rather than Bruisers.)
    Bastion, Junkrat, Pharah, Sombra, Symmetra, Torbjorn, Mei(?)

    Healer: A Healer is any of the old Support characters whose main function was to refill HP. A good rule of thumb here is that if the character had healing bound to the primary or secondary fire of their weapon, they qualify as a Healer.
    Mercy, Ana, Baptiste, Moira

    Support: Support characters are the old Support characters who were more useful for their ancillary utilities than their healing powers, but the ability to heal teammates is still a core part of the role.
    Lucio, Zenyatta, Brigitte

    ---

    The main reason for this proposal is that there are certain character power types that stack well with each other. Back when there was no character limit, all-Winstons (or something like it) was a powerful strategy because one Winston leap is a tolerable 50 damage burst, but five Winston leaps together is enough damage to kill most characters outright, followed by 300 DPS in a cone while they're all covered in 3000 HP worth of barrier. Likewise, in a more recent example, we went through an Orisa-Sigma tank meta because Sigma could easily patch the holes in Orisa's barrier coverage, making it hard to get anything through the barrier. By micro-sorting character roles like this, the idea is to keep any of the really major meta-breakers (an excess of barrier coverage, more spike damage than can be mitigated, too much healing to hurt through) from existing on the same team.

    i love the idea, i just don't see how it meshes well with queues.

    Yeah unfortunately further sub-dividing each role would just absolutely decimate queue times, even if the change somehow substantially increased overall player count. Besides that, while I think hero limits and role locks were absolutely the right call for the game, I'm not sure removing the ability to play double off-tank, double flex support, double hitscan, etc. would be great for the health of the game (although obviously it would be good for league play since players would be able to specialize better).

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    EspantaPajaroEspantaPajaro Registered User regular
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    PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh

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    BRIAN BLESSEDBRIAN BLESSED Maybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHH Registered User regular
    lmao turns out the well wasn't poisoned, it never had water and was always just full of poison in the first place

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    DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    I am not surprised Kotick always gave off douchebag creep energy.

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    ChanceChance Registered User regular
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    surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    there was a meeting between various ow content creators and the ow dev team and they came away nda'ed but all very positive

    we shall see how it turns out

    obF2Wuw.png
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    McMoogleMcMoogle Registered User regular
    Some of those skins are alright.

    steam_sig.png
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    ZekZek Registered User regular
    there was a meeting between various ow content creators and the ow dev team and they came away nda'ed but all very positive

    we shall see how it turns out

    Yeah Reddit is telling me that various influencers are super pleased with whatever they've been told about what is coming next year.



    Next year means not Overwatch 2. My bet is that they're rethinking the whole sequel philosophy and PvP changes are going to roll into the base game sooner rather than later. Maybe going back to 6v6 since I think the community was pretty lukewarm on that.

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    Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    God help me I started playing this again (after not touching since season 10). Did my ranked last minute for last season and bit today on the reset. Apparently I'm a better Lucio than Rein because I got Plat as healer and Gold as Tank. Finding a damage game seems impossible somehow.

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    McMoogleMcMoogle Registered User regular
    What's the the current season number?

    steam_sig.png
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    ZekZek Registered User regular
    edited January 2022
    There's a new patch BTW:
    MOIRA
    Fade
    Can now jump much higher while using this ability

    REINHARDT
    Earthshatter
    Now deals an additional 200 damage within 1.75m of the impact area

    HANZO
    Storm Arrows
    Arrows ricochet once upon impact

    CASSIDY
    Combat Roll
    Can now roll while in the air

    TORBJÖRN
    Rivet Gun - ALT Fire
    Ammo cost decreased from 3 to 2

    WRECKING BALL
    Grappling Claw
    Now has a maximum grapple time of 6 seconds

    Moira's fade jump is wacky, she has serious verticality now.

    Zek on
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    Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    McMoogle wrote: »
    What's the the current season number?

    32

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    PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    and they rolled the patch back because hanzos arrows were going through shields rofl

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    BloodySlothBloodySloth Registered User regular
    Does Moira need verticality? I guess for escapes. I feel like she normally needs to be on the same plane with as many teammates as possible.

    I hate to see my boy continue to receive nerfs, but the WB change is probably healthy.

    I FUCKING GUESS

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    ZekZek Registered User regular
    Does Moira need verticality? I guess for escapes. I feel like she normally needs to be on the same plane with as many teammates as possible.

    I hate to see my boy continue to receive nerfs, but the WB change is probably healthy.

    I FUCKING GUESS

    It basically just makes her better at everything Fade already does - escape, mobility, and securing kills.

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    TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    edited January 2022
    Moira, whatever. Richard Hammond's is fine only because he's still broken AF on console (just like Torb and Sym are but they'll never fix it even though they kill Switch players left and right with the OP turrets).

    Hamzo's buff when they release it is stupid to where it feels like trolling, and this is the third or fourth time they've tried adding the air Creeroll but it just makes him too strong in his current state. I hate Doomfist too but it's clear this is who it's made to counter (plus Ball). Rein doesn't need a buff until you fix earthshatter in general.

    TexiKen on
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    ZekZek Registered User regular
    edited January 2022
    If you haven't seen it already, MS is buying Activision-Blizzard: https://news.microsoft.com/2022/01/18/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard-to-bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/

    In other news, there's going to be a new creator experimental card soon.



    It's not coming today, though this stream is supposed to happen shortly: https://www.twitch.tv/jake_ow

    Zek on
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    TalithTalith 変態という名の紳士 Miami, FLRegistered User regular
    Wonder if we'll get a Master Chief skin for Soldier or other heroes.

    7244qyoka3pp.gif
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    BRIAN BLESSEDBRIAN BLESSED Maybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHH Registered User regular
    More specifically to come out from all this news, turns out ol' fuckface Kotick may have had a more direct hands-on impact in Overwatch's development woes than people thought

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    ZekZek Registered User regular
    edited January 2022
    It's a confusing story because up until now the narrative had always been that leadership wanted to push things into a sequel to sell more copies and Jeff pushed to patch stuff into OW1. Besides, not knowing what these projects were, I personally support the idea of delaying OW2 to work more on OW1.

    Zek on
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    DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    Man...OW has had such a strange development cycle even by AAA standards.

    Here's hoping to them actually landing on their feet with OW2.

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    Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    Tbh I thought OW2 was just a story mode and the game was the same for MP but I didn't realize they pivoted to a 5v5 version (maybe? Sounds like they may have backed off that). But they promised any balance updates would come to the old version, not sure on characters but you were supposed to be able to play on new maps with friends even if you only had the original game.

    It's been very confusing to the say the least but some behind doors stuff has been shown to content creators that they seemed to like, so who knows

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    ZekZek Registered User regular
    OW2's release plan is deeply confusing - you buy OW2 for the engine improvements and PvE content, and all the PvP additions are added for free to the base game. But you still have to wait for OW2 to come out before any of that goes live. I would not be surprised if they've rethought this approach somehow because it's a silly compromise between two largely incompatible business models.

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    BionicPenguinBionicPenguin Registered User regular
    And the next season of OWL is supposed to be on an OW2 beta. It would be pretty shitty if they did that, but didn't give the public a chance to play it.

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    DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    I just want to see if they've made any significant changes. That first beta was looking rough for tanks

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    sanstodosanstodo Registered User regular
    Dragkonias wrote: »
    I just want to see if they've made any significant changes. That first beta was looking rough for tanks

    I just hope more roles have agency, tanks particularly. Plus, they need to find better ways to provide feedback to players on their performance.

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    surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited January 2022
    until they remove the tank role there shall be no peace amongst the stars im sorry

    rein should be a melee dps who rides a rocket surfboard this is canon

    surrealitycheck on
    obF2Wuw.png
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    Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    until they remove the tank role there shall be no peace amongst the stars im sorry

    rein should be a melee dps who rides a rocket surfboard this is canon

    I agree with this post very hard

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    sanstodosanstodo Registered User regular
    until they remove the tank role there shall be no peace amongst the stars im sorry

    rein should be a melee dps who rides a rocket surfboard this is canon

    I agree with this post very hard

    I still support rein dual wielding hammers.

    Also, I have started playing tracer/sombra almost exclusively and damn it’s fun. Bullied a bastion as sombra. He swapped to soldier. Bullied the soldier as tracer. He swapped back to bastion. Bullied him again and he went full tilt. Started running around looking for me, shooting randomly to spy check even while the fight was going on. His mercy really should have abandoned him to support the rest of his team, but they might have been duoing.

    I would have felt bad except…..bastion. Good times :)

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    ZekZek Registered User regular
    edited February 2022
    For anyone who hasn't been paying attention, there's a creator experimental card going on right now. The biggest change was a major shift of tank power away from damage towards defense, with a 50% blanket damage nerf, but they've now adjusted that to only 25% among other changes.

    https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/patch-notes/experimental/

    Also rumors have been flying for some weeks that major announcements are imminent. Most is speculative at best but Mike Ybarra did announce that something was coming for Overwatch in the "coming weeks" 3 weeks ago. Supposedly there was a 500mb pre-patch just now too. We'll see.

    Zek on
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    PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    i haven't played with the latest tweaks on experimental but a zarya + almost anyone = winning...there's only a couple of dps that can really burn down a tank, bastion and junk seem to be the go tos. even cassidy doesn't burn like he would in normal.

    of all the things they did, minor damage machine gun sigma is by far the most fun i've had playing a tank in a while.

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    ZekZek Registered User regular
    The Bastion changes are silly fun, instead of a turret form he has a larger clip and can self-heal while firing. So he's basically just an ezmode Soldier walking around holding left and right click nonstop.

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    H3KnucklesH3Knuckles But we decide which is right and which is an illusion.Registered User regular
    edited February 2022
    Tbh I thought OW2 was just a story mode and the game was the same for MP but I didn't realize they pivoted to a 5v5 version (maybe? Sounds like they may have backed off that). But they promised any balance updates would come to the old version, not sure on characters but you were supposed to be able to play on new maps with friends even if you only had the original game.

    It's been very confusing to the say the least but some behind doors stuff has been shown to content creators that they seemed to like, so who knows

    Oh wait, so does that mean all the characters who are getting a big rework for OW2 will be changed in OW1 as well? I'm not sure how I feel about that.

    H3Knuckles on
    If you're curious about my icon; it's an update of the early Lego Castle theme's "Black Falcons" faction.
    camo_sig2-400.png
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