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[Overwatch] Overwatch 2 is Live!

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  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    I'm wondering what my diversity stats look like...

    I probably have max race but I'm a cis heterosexual male and that's probably tanked my gender stat.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    The whole thing is so gross and icky. Why do some races score higher than others? What metric are they using to quantify race or culture? Why are they assigning numeric values to these things at all?

  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    Because they didn't have anyone in there to say..."You know maybe we shouldn't"

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    Dragkonias wrote: »
    Because they didn't have anyone in there to say..."You know maybe we shouldn't"

    I am going to guess that the people that were actually using it were not using it in the way described, and ever executive that thought it was fine was a cis-het white person.

  • AxenAxen My avatar is Excalibur. Yes, the sword.Registered User regular
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    The whole thing is so gross and icky. Why do some races score higher than others? What metric are they using to quantify race or culture? Why are they assigning numeric values to these things at all?

    I mean, it is Blizzard "Gross" and "Icky" go hand and hand. The fact that people still give them money breaks my heart in to a million fucking pieces and just adds more evidence to my theory that no matter how fucking vile something is most people just don't care.

    A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    TBF I've always felt "diversity and inclusion" was a cash grab for a lot of these companies.

    But even I wasn't cynical enough to come up with a diversity score chart.

  • BRIAN BLESSEDBRIAN BLESSED Maybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHH Registered User regular
    The context being buried by the lede of most articles is that this tool is just an algorithm that some dudes from the Candy Crush team came up with a few months ago to try and quantify their diversity push into a bunch of neat little cubbyholes, which they then foisted on the rest of Activision Blizzard. It just so happens that this retroactively makes all of the diversity from Activision-Blizzard creatives look even worse by giving people the impression that this is how all their teams actually diversify the characters in their videogames, even though there are probably entire teams of artists and writers who seriously, genuinely believe in their creations and mostly perform their character design professionally and organically without having to feed it through a stupid pie chart machine.

    It's so fucking hilariously tone-deaf that their PR would somehow publish this as a point of pride, it actively detracts from all the work they've done by playing into people's impressions of corporate diversity. As others online have mentioned this probably comes from someone who came up with this stupid thing and actually believed they were actually making a difference for the creative direction of the company, but every bit of minutiae and subtext around this tool is so rotten to the core and they could have easily achieved so much more by like.... just hiring and showcasing more culturally diverse hires in their workforce.

    Alternatively,

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Um blizzard using a tool to design diverse characters is hilariously dark

    https://www.activisionblizzard.com/newsroom/2022/05/king-diversity-space-tool

    This is peak "corporate-hired diversity expert counseling and advisement". Or maybe the technical reverse of that, depending on how automated it is.

    I'm not sure; I'm biracial and thus, exempt from most United States diversity tracking practices. But either way, it's a hilariously bad look.

  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited May 2022
    here we go:

    I think I'm more amused by the fact that they had to go back and remove all photos of the tool's output because of knee-jerk responses about it and add a 300+ word clarification as to the purpose and intent of the tool, and mention it wasn't used in any active games... than I am that there was a tool written to assist in quantify diversity in character design.

    Not linking the articles because they were kinda silly, but also yeah. This is why you don't really expose metric tools to the general public like this.

    Screencaps taken from one of the pages that did an article on it:
    ieczeuwclbnp.png

    6sngtdg6c4td.png

    But if you don't understand the tool and how it works maybe ask?

    Expanding on this further, you cannot properly address an issue without tools to quantify it. This is a core concept and requirement of any quality improvement endeavor. The baselines are established by some DE&I (diversity equity and inclusion experts) team, not just random white guys. I think the article would have been far better suited for an data science and analytics audience than just shot out there as a press release though.

    edit: too add to it, it's not sufficient to simply hire more minority X because there's no monoliths and biases exist within too. Science + people is the proper approach.

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    im jsut sad because i know i would get 0 for culture

    not even winning on the stupid diversity bot

    obF2Wuw.png
  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    The fact that they put it out to the general public meant that they thought it would be a slam dunk in their favor.

    Instead, it blew up spectacularly in their faces.

    I understand the sentiment of wanting to create a diverse and unique cast, and not just a game full of white dudes. I understand their intent. But even still, it's super gross to have a chart where the further you move away from hetero able-bodied middle-class young white dude, the more points you score. It could easily lead to a situation where, if a character doesn't meant a specific diversity score, they'll start piling on extra attributes just to measure up to some sort of internal criteria. "Yeah, say, Bob, we like what you've done with this character design, but he's not _______ enough so we're gonna make him old, gay, and slightly autistic so that he scores more points." And that is awful. I feel dirty for even typing that sentence. But that's exactly what this could (and probably will) lead to.

  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited May 2022
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    The fact that they put it out to the general public meant that they thought it would be a slam dunk in their favor.

    Instead, it blew up spectacularly in their faces.

    I understand the sentiment of wanting to create a diverse and unique cast, and not just a game full of white dudes. I understand their intent. But even still, it's super gross to have a chart where the further you move away from hetero able-bodied middle-class young white dude, the more points you score. It could easily lead to a situation where, if a character doesn't meant a specific diversity score, they'll start piling on extra attributes just to measure up to some sort of internal criteria. "Yeah, say, Bob, we like what you've done with this character design, but he's not _______ enough so we're gonna make him old, gay, and slightly autistic so that he scores more points." And that is awful. I feel dirty for even typing that sentence. But that's exactly what this could (and probably will) lead to.

    Yeah, it did. But the tool itself, when used in conjunction with people, would be of value.

    Without this type of thing there are characters that have been written that do pretty much "check boxes", as it were. And a single character that checks off all boxes in such a fashion is a thing that this would help avoid. I'm not going to go into examples of that because it's very subjective and overall a not a good discussion. But, when broken down into data, such a character is an outlier, and at its worse could be a caricature of the things it is supposed to represent though.

    The introduction and development of such tools is good though, because with no metrics people are essentially left to their own devices and we've seen how well that's gone so far. :P

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    K29ZAwJ.png

    VnJScPW.jpg

  • BRIAN BLESSEDBRIAN BLESSED Maybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHH Registered User regular
    edited May 2022
    ed: Here's a word from a horse's mouth

    Also, still waiting on the answer as to what the difference is between Egyptian 5 and Egyptian 8 on the Culture scale

    BRIAN BLESSED on
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited May 2022
    ancient vs modern

    are u building pyramids or not

    u get more ancient egypt representation in games, therefore its only a 5, but modern egypt less common, so an 8

    u see now ur unsure this sounds terribly credible doesnt it

    surrealitycheck on
    obF2Wuw.png
  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    edited May 2022
    Yeah the silly thing to me is how is "culture" quantified exactly?

    And something tells me if they were to go into the nuts and bolts of that things would end up just coming off even worse.

    In general I think having a "tool" to combat stereotypes that more than likely reinforces said stereotypes isn't as progressive as you think.

    Dragkonias on
  • EspantaPajaroEspantaPajaro Registered User regular
    So far my favorite memes to come out of this , are the ones that use the American psycho business card template . I know it’s immature but I can’t stop giggling.

  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    Dragkonias wrote: »
    Yeah the silly thing to me is how is "culture" quantified exactly?

    And something tells me if they were to go into the nuts and bolts of that things would end up just coming off even worse.

    In general I think having a "tool" to combat stereotypes that more than likely reinforces said stereotypes isn't as progressive as you think.

    culture is 7 it says there quite clearly i see no problem

    bet ur culture score is like 2 lmao pls do not be upset...

    obF2Wuw.png
  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    Excuse me I own a monocle so it at least has to be a 6.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    I’ve played Civilization. To get a high culture score you need libraries, TV broadcast towers, and you definitely want to build the Globe Theater.

  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited May 2022
    Dragkonias wrote: »
    Yeah the silly thing to me is how is "culture" quantified exactly?

    And something tells me if they were to go into the nuts and bolts of that things would end up just coming off even worse.

    In general I think having a "tool" to combat stereotypes that more than likely reinforces said stereotypes isn't as progressive as you think.

    Without tools to generate tangible data, you can only rely on opinion. Equality is not the same as equity, and that's all you can really get from quotas... qualitative detail is a must. The purpose of diversity analytics is to provide those tools. If diversity measuring metrics can help in the real world workplace, they can help with diversity, equity and inclusion in games too; in this case they're probably measuring commonality via abstraction. For the purpose of the tool, Paul Allen's diversity score would likely be 0s across the board. Nevermind that there's no indication that a "10" on the scale is necessarily a good thing because caricaturization isn't good either.

    This is an entire field of research and study that this thing is adjacent to and I still think it's silly to just dismiss it because of some poor PR attempt, but eh. memes.

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • Houk the NamebringerHouk the Namebringer Nipples The EchidnaRegistered User regular
    edited May 2022
    I mean it's their job to justify its existence and use. Considering the source, they have earned absolutely zero good will or faith and until they do the work to make this look like more than a woefully misguided PR stunt there really is no reason for us not to dismiss it (not necessarily as a concept, but this specific implementation and use). I don't have any disagreement with your stance on how something like this could be valuable and positive in theory, but there are a lot of human realities at play here that don't make that a foregone conclusion. The same people who make bad decisions without data to back it up are equally capable of using data to continue making bad decisions, and then consider themselves justified for doing so.

    Most of the people I see on Twitter making fun of this (and whose opinions I trust) generally agree with your take, but also recognize that Blizzard has so many problems right now that them (or at least one of their owners/partners) being the ones to roll this out this way just feels darkly ironic, hence the memes and jokes.

    Houk the Namebringer on
  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    Eh. Dismissive of it because for all this data they still didn't seem to have anyone around who could have told them how this would have been received. I guess they should add a common sense category while they're at it.

    At the end of the day I don't really care that much and I'm not trying to get into how I feel about most company's "diversity and inclusion" efforts (as I already have enough evidence to reinforce my cynicism).

    So I'll just get back to talking about shooting games.

  • ZekZek Registered User regular
    There are so many people in the world who don't care and aren't trying that it's hard for me to get upset about someone who is trying but in the wrong way. Much of the criticism is justified and hopefully makes the people in charge more self aware in the future, but I don't see this as a massive scandal or anything.

  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    i think all support should move 5% faster than tanks and dps in this new ow2 game

  • ZekZek Registered User regular
    edited May 2022
    The beta is over and the new event has started. Hope you still like 6v6! Next OW2 info drop on 6/16:



    A bit longer than I was expecting, and they didn't say the beta would start that day. This feels like a marketing strategy to create more big Twitch days. I would much rather they had skipped this event in favor of keeping the beta up.

    Zek on
  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    lots of recolored skins that are not terrible.

  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    Damn are they still not patching the regular game? Hog is busted, acknowledge it, just fixing him will give us normies who don't get the beta a chance to breathe until at the earliest late September.

  • ZekZek Registered User regular
    They don't think Hog is busted or they would have patched it by now.

  • Houk the NamebringerHouk the Namebringer Nipples The EchidnaRegistered User regular
    edited May 2022
    Yeah Hog isn't busted, he's just good against teams that aren't paying attention, but he can 100% be played around. And if they toned him down everyone would just go back to constant double shield, which is 1000x worse.

    And honestly at this point, I doubt they will be patching the regular game, or at least they won't be patching anything in that wouldn't also go into OW2. Overall it's in as good a state as it has been in a long time, and balancing for both OW1 and OW2 (since they have to balance for OWL and beta) is honestly kind of a waste of resources if there isn't anything actually broken in the game.

    Houk the Namebringer on
  • KasynKasyn I'm not saying I don't like our chances. She called me the master.Registered User regular
    edited May 2022
    Dang, OW1 feels bad to return to. Game plays at a complete crawl compared to 2. Nonstop barriers are lame as shit, and you're so much more frequently in spots where literally nothing you can do matters. You spend enormous amounts of time dumping damage into a shield, or dumping heals into a tank. Unbelievable difference.

    Kasyn on
  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    i'm feeling the opposite. ow2 beta was just too fast for me. I didn't enjoy dying, running back to contest, dying, running back to contest. I know it's more exciting for some people but it definitely did not feel great when i was playing most of the support (shout out to surreality because playing zen is super fun). Giving all dps more movement speed passives just seems weird. and the passive regen for support doesn't make sense when the fights are so fast paced and hectic/frenetic.

    Sojourn was fun, orisa was fun, didn't try out the other tanks but doom looked interesting. I'm sure that in competitive or more cooperative scenarios things will be great but for quick play i think it's just going to suck for support without some changes in direction (just get rid of support?).

  • KasynKasyn I'm not saying I don't like our chances. She called me the master.Registered User regular
    Pailryder wrote: »
    i'm feeling the opposite. ow2 beta was just too fast for me. I didn't enjoy dying, running back to contest, dying, running back to contest. I know it's more exciting for some people but it definitely did not feel great when i was playing most of the support (shout out to surreality because playing zen is super fun). Giving all dps more movement speed passives just seems weird. and the passive regen for support doesn't make sense when the fights are so fast paced and hectic/frenetic.

    Sojourn was fun, orisa was fun, didn't try out the other tanks but doom looked interesting. I'm sure that in competitive or more cooperative scenarios things will be great but for quick play i think it's just going to suck for support without some changes in direction (just get rid of support?).

    I'm a support main and while I do think they need some touchups to modernize their kits for the new style, I didn't find it particularly unfun or oppressive. Yeah the DPS movespeed is gratuitous, yeah the support passive isn't terribly relevant when a flanker is up your ass, but the change in individual impact made me feel a lot better about each game. The freedom you have as, say, Ana when you're not facing down two barriers always is quite liberating - going back to her in 1 felt awful. I felt like I was using more of the whole character in 2 on supports whereas in 1 you're spending a lot of your bandwidth just healing the shit out of your tanks.

    Basically, for me it felt like the way the game opened up for many characters, including supports, more than made up for the fact that one implication of that is that you're more vulnerable than ever. I liked it a lot, it felt like a real game again for me.

  • Houk the NamebringerHouk the Namebringer Nipples The EchidnaRegistered User regular
    I think a big part of it is just that the support playstyle that worked in OW1 simply doesn't work in OW2. Support players (myself included) are going to have to majorly adjust their playstyle and unlearn a lot of bad habits, and it's going to be a pretty painful transition for a lot of folks. But if Blizz can figure out how to give all the supports good tools and options to not feel so out of their depth without overpowering them, it's just a matter of time before playing support feels natural again.

    And yeah, playing/watching OW1 now just feels like a complete slog. I still wish they could have found a way to make OW2 feel the way it does while still keeping 6v6, but if I have to pick one or the other I definitely pick the new feel.

  • Monkey Ball WarriorMonkey Ball Warrior A collection of mediocre hats Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited May 2022
    I'm uninterested in ow2, definitely not buying it. I really feel like ow1 was nearly perfect the day it came out and every time they've touched it since it has gotten worse. Role queue being when it entirely jumped the shark of bad game design. 5v5 is just an astonishingly stupid idea. I wanted 12v12 because this was always Team Fortess 3 to me, and instead they went the opposite way? Fine.

    I'll keep playing ow1 until the servers go down because basically at this point Mei is like muscle memory, but it's a balance between enjoying the sneak-Pyro Mei game play VS the tedious frustration of queues and leavers and tanks that can't find the objective with both hands and a map. One day that balance will tip too far and I'll uninstall the entire blizzard launcher.

    But not quite yet...

    Monkey Ball Warrior on
    "I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
  • BloodySlothBloodySloth Registered User regular
    Unfortunately I believe the plan is still for all of OW2's changes to be applied to OW1 as a free update.

    I've had mixed feelings about it from the beginning. It's one of those things that I'm sure is meant to seem supportive of the game and its fans, but, like... sometimes I don't want to play Street Fighter 5! Sometimes I want to play Street Fighter II! If StarCraft 2 deleted Brood War, the world would be a worse place.

  • OmnomnomPancakeOmnomnomPancake Registered User regular
    Unfortunately I believe the plan is still for all of OW2's changes to be applied to OW1 as a free update.

    I've had mixed feelings about it from the beginning. It's one of those things that I'm sure is meant to seem supportive of the game and its fans, but, like... sometimes I don't want to play Street Fighter 5! Sometimes I want to play Street Fighter II! If StarCraft 2 deleted Brood War, the world would be a worse place.

    With games as a live service, the idea of delineation between separate entities and their sequels no longer exists. In fact anyone buying a boxed copy of Overwatch at the mall once Overwatch 2 hits are literally being sold a different bill of goods than advertised on the box.

    I'm sitting here grumpy because the Orisa I love to play, with her random assortment of abilities, no longer exists in Overwatch 2. She is a different character in every single way. Oh, she's still a big robot horse with a big gun, but it stops there. But similarly, I bet there's some people out there who loved previous iterations of Tjorb or Symm, or maybe didn't mind a time when Pharah couldn't perpetually fly, so who am I to get too uppity about it?

    I think it's how drastic the upcoming changes are (not only to Orisa, but how many characters lost a lot of themselves with the CC removal, or DPS speed buffs, to say nothing about losing the two tank co-op love-fest I absolutely adore), how they're happening all at once, and how I don't have an opportunity to opt out if I want to keep playing Overwatch in any form. I could just not play Overwatch 2, but I can't go join some community hosted Overwatch 1 servers, because Blizzard will sue them to oblivion.

    The answer is always $$$$, and that Blizzard wants to keep pushing their E-Sports league, and keep attention wholly concentrated on the BIG NEW. But we had 3 years of anemic updates to the game we love, and told that that very soon the current game will no longer exist, sorry about that!

    People can rightfully complain about the addition of role-queue, and how the era of 2016-2018 Overwatch no longer exists because of it, but they still get to play a role-unlocked Ranked and QP playlists that actively exist in the game.

    2018-2022 Overwatch is being shanked and shoved into a ditch, and it's sad to see. The 5v5 game is very different from what we have now, and forcing it upon fans of the current game really fucking sucks.

  • OmnomnomPancakeOmnomnomPancake Registered User regular
    edited May 2022
    But look at what's happened to TF2. Valve, the studio beloved by gamers of every stripe, refuses to acknowledge that one of the greatest shooters of all time is entirely unplayable due to rampant bot usage. What used to be the pride of that company, fifteen years on, is left to wither and rot.

    So like it's an industry issue, from big publicly traded behemoths turned evil like Blizzard, to smaller, private and still beloved companies like Valve.

    Just a big shrug emoji all around, I guess?

    OmnomnomPancake on
  • ZekZek Registered User regular
    I think they should retain a 6v6 mode, they've done this all the previous times they introduced a major paradigm shift like hero limits and role queue. Nerf tank HP back to OW1 levels in this mode, no need to balance it too precisely. If splitting the player base is a concern then they can merge this with open queue.

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