Support NeoGAF

[KyoZz]

Overwatch 2 PvP will be shown with professional teams

In a short video, Aaron Keller, the successor to our good ol 'Jeff Kaplan at the helm of the Overwatch franchise at Blizzard, announces that a stream will take place next week.
An AMA will also be organized on Reddit on May 24th

 

[manzo]

The most useless sequel. Same as Left for Dead 2, could've been just an add-on to the first game.

 

[hyperbertha]

The most useless sequel. Same as Left for Dead 2, could've been just an add-on to the first game.

Its to generate publicity and recapture their lost status as the top MP game. An addon wouldn't turn anybody's head.

 

[LazyParrot]

Its to generate publicity and recapture their lost status as the top MP game. An addon wouldn't turn anybody's head.

More importantly, an addon can't be sold for the price of a full game.

 

[STARSBarry]

More importantly, an addon can't be sold for the price of a full game.

 

[rubenburgt]

Meh.

As long as they don't fix the current issues of ow1, which is the terrible balancing, do I have no fate that ow2 will be any better

 

[WakeTheWolf]

Nice more woke uninteresting characters

 

[Perfo]

Nice more woke uninteresting characters

What's with this seeing agendas everywhere? Life must be scary outside there, lock everything and don't go out!

 

[STARSBarry]

What's with this seeing agendas everywhere? Life must be scary outside there, lock everything and don't go out!

To be fair I always thought that Tracer should have a play of the game victory animation where she makes out with her red haired girlfriend and cops a feel....

No idea why they don't make it more obvioues ingame, the porn sites seemed to have to pick up up slack for Blizzard with this one.

 

[TheContact]

Imagine releasing a glorified expansion pack more than 5 years out and calling it a new game. Blizz is a j o k e

 

[betrayal]

Overwatch is the only game I play regularly, so I'm looking forward to OW2.

Of course, if you're used to the annual releases, you won't be able to do much with OW. That's just a shame, because it's one of the most detailed and polished games of the last years.

 

[WakeTheWolf]

What's with this seeing agendas everywhere? Life must be scary outside there, lock everything and don't go out!

If they actually put effort into the character design and not base them on stereotypes it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb but it does and you dont need to see agendas everywhere to notice it if your head is screwed on

 

[MiguelItUp]

The most useless sequel. Same as Left for Dead 2, could've been just an add-on to the first game.

Eh, personally I felt like L4D2 felt more like a full fledged sequel than whatever this will be... I mean, there was enough new content there. But with OW2, I really don't know what they plan on adding aside from some new characters, modes, and maps. I don't think each character will have new weapons. Maybe they'll have new supers they can swap? No idea.

The idea of OW2 being a thing in my mind just never really made much sense because of how the game is structured. Not to mention when they first talked about it, it sounded like it was going to be DLC that was going to change the game into the sequel? Lol. Just so bizarre to me.

 

[Perfo]

If they actually put effort into the character design and not base them on stereotypes it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb but it does and you dont need to see agendas everywhere to notice it if your head is screwed on

Wait, wait, wait. I'm getting confused. So now it's not about it being too woke but quite the opposite, failing at representation of minorities and such with horrible stereotypes! Now I get it...

... or should I ask: you couldn't have said from the start that the character design is horrible for you and be done with it? Because now it really looks like you tried to force an agenda of yours when there was no reason for!

 

[levyjl1988]

Yeah, I gave up on Overwatch because of the predatory loot boxes, the FOMO skins, and all the atrocious monetization schemes.
Fuck this game, fuck the sequel. It lost its charm.

Do Not Want. You want to hide your skins behind a time-limited event that you can never get again, well fuck you Blizzard Activision. I used to be a fan, but never again.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Yeah, I gave up on Overwatch because of the predatory loot boxes, the FOMO skins, and all the atrocious monetization schemes.
Fuck this game, fuck the sequel. It lost its charm.

Do Not Want. You want to hide your skins behind a time-limited event that you can never get again, well fuck you Blizzard Activision. I used to be a fan, but never again.

Don't judge a game based on useless cosmetics. Judge it based on the merits of it's gameplay mechanics and design.

 

[levyjl1988]

Don't judge a game based on useless cosmetics. Judge it based on the merits of it's gameplay mechanics and design.

Yeah, and I am judging it on the insidious design of monetization. Cosmetics believe it or not are part of the overall design. Look at the Sonic movie and how fans reacted to Sonic's appearance.
Overwatch felt more like a free-to-play game than a full $60 purchase.

 

[hyperbertha]

Don't judge a game based on useless cosmetics. Judge it based on the merits of it's gameplay mechanics and design.

corporate apologists like you are part of the problem.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

corporate apologists like you are part of the problem.

I don't apologize for excellently designed gameplay.

You can spend all your time looking at loot boxes. The rest of us will play the games.

 

[hyperbertha]

I don't apologize for excellently designed gameplay.

You can spend all your time looking at loot boxes. The rest of us will play the games

The games are trash tho?

 

[LazyParrot]

Don't judge a game based on useless cosmetics. Judge it based on the merits of it's gameplay mechanics and design.

That's funny, considering one is as shitty as the other in Overwatch.

 

[Fuz]

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

You both make pretty compelling arguments. I've thought about it and now I'm convinced... Overwatch has always been trash/shit.

 

[LazyParrot]

You both make pretty compelling arguments. I've thought about it and now I'm convinced... Overwatch has always been trash/shit.

You know, calling people out for making claims and then not backing them up with any arguments only really makes sense when you're not doing the same thing.

 

[WakeTheWolf]

Wait, wait, wait. I'm getting confused. So now it's not about it being too woke but quite the opposite, failing at representation of minorities and such with horrible stereotypes! Now I get it...

... or should I ask: you couldn't have said from the start that the character design is horrible for you and be done with it? Because now it really looks like you tried to force an agenda of yours when there was no reason for!

You're insane then if you took that from my comment

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

You know, calling people out for making claims and then not backing them up with any arguments only really makes sense when you're not doing the same thing.

How can anyone counter the "Overwatch is bad because of loot boxes" argument? That's the Kobayashi Maru of videogame points. You have defeated me good sir, now please do not embarrass me further. Leave me my dignity!

 

[93xfan]

Hoping for crossplay

 

[LazyParrot]

How can anyone counter the "Overwatch is bad because of loot boxes" argument? That's the Kobayashi Maru of videogame points. You have defeated me good sir, now please do not embarrass me further. Leave me my dignity!

This isn't about loot boxes.

You've stated Overwatch has "excellent" gameplay mechanics and design. You did not explain why.
Some people disagreed. They, too, did not explain why.

If you don't feel the need to explain the reasoning behind your opinions, how can you complain about others not doing it either?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

This isn't about loot boxes.

You've stated Overwatch has "excellent" gameplay mechanics and design. You did not explain why.
Some people disagreed. They, too, did not explain why.

If you don't feel the need to explain the reasoning behind your opinions, how can you complain about others not doing it either?

 

[trufflepigg]

this game was incredible (OW1) until the moment they nerfed Mercy
once that changed happened it was a constant cycle of destroying characters and what made the game fun patch by patch

last time i logged in maybe a year ago, you couldn't even switch characters any longer mid match? Like what the actual phuck is this dev doing? Bunch of amateurs i swear

 

[Ribi]

The most useless sequel. Same as Left for Dead 2, could've been just an add-on to the first game.

L4d2 was valves baby. L4d was turtle rocks. Different systems in melee and special infected. They play differently if you've ever played them now.

 

[Paltheos]

The new director for the game is as stiff as a board in that developer update lol. I miss you, Jeff.
I've had some apprehensions about this game since they decided to make elements of it like the gunfire more realistic (part of the appeal imo has been the cartoony feel but maybe/hopefully I'm wrong).
Am interested in though. I still put allot of time into the game.

this game was incredible (OW1) until the moment they nerfed Mercy
once that changed happened it was a constant cycle of destroying characters and what made the game fun patch by patch

last time i logged in maybe a year ago, you couldn't even switch characters any longer mid match? Like what the actual phuck is this dev doing? Bunch of amateurs i swear

What lol? This has never, ever been a thing. Not even close. You could always switch characters mid match.

Balance patches have generally been in a good direction since Blizzard stopped adding new content. The game's generally felt better each one. There's still stupid shit in the game but most of it's ironed out.

 

[betrayal]

this game was incredible (OW1) until the moment they nerfed Mercy
once that changed happened it was a constant cycle of destroying characters and what made the game fun patch by patch

last time i logged in maybe a year ago, you couldn't even switch characters any longer mid match? Like what the actual phuck is this dev doing? Bunch of amateurs i swear

This could not be further from the truth.

 

[trufflepigg]

The new director for the game is as stiff as a board in that developer update lol. I miss you, Jeff.
I've had some apprehensions about this game since they decided to make elements of it like the gunfire more realistic (part of the appeal imo has been the cartoony feel but maybe/hopefully I'm wrong).
Am interested in though. I still put allot of time into the game.



What lol? This has never, ever been a thing. Not even close. You could always switch characters mid match.

Balance patches have generally been in a good direction since Blizzard stopped adding new content. The game's generally felt better each one. There's still stupid shit in the game but most of it's ironed out.

sorry you're right, I forgot - you can only change characters within certain classes now, and the classes make no sense. Before you could swap to any character, and before that even duplicates which made strategies even more interesting

and to the guy above, yeah, they ruined Mercy, then they ruined Bastion, they nerfed like every single character to the ground. Blizzard has no idea wtf they are doing. You can say those changes were better for balance or whatever, but the player count plummeted because they made the game less fun with every "balance change"

 

[Dacon]

I don't apologize for excellently designed gameplay.

Overwatch's gameplay balance is absolutely terrible now.

Once upon a time it had well designed gameplay, then they started adding characters whose abilities completely upset and uprooted the gameplay flow and ruined all but the highest levels of play.

For example, a character like Baptiste is a much better dps than Soldier with effective healing and a get out of jail free card on a 20 second cooldown.

 

[Spukc]

nice more models for pornhub

 

[Fuz]

What killed OW, for me and some friends who used to play, is the introduction of ranked matches with those extra rewards.
OW's ranked system is terribly designed, extremely frustrating and way too much time consuming.
The game was funnier when there was only quick match.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Overwatch's gameplay balance is absolutely terrible now.

Once upon a time it had well designed gameplay, then they started adding characters whose abilities completely upset and uprooted the gameplay flow and ruined all but the highest levels of play.

For example, a character like Baptiste is a much better dps than Soldier with effective healing and a get out of jail free card on a 20 second cooldown.

According to this, the balance seems fine. People were complaining about balance back in 2016 when Overwatch was the bees knees. I remember maining Symetra back then and people were complaining all the time about that character.

Hero Statistics - Overbuff - Overwatch 2 Statistics

Find the best heroes in Overwatch 2 with player ranking and detailed balance statistics.

www.overbuff.com

I think people tire of the game, so they choose a reason why the game is now bad and stick to that.

 

[Dacon]

According to this, the balance seems fine. People were complaining about balance back in 2016 when Overwatch was the bees knees. I remember maining Symetra back then and people were complaining all the time about that character.

This means nothing to casual players. Hell, plenty of pro players on OWL teams say the balance is shit. No link can account for people's individual opinions of the game, nor can it be claimed there is some objective standard to point to that validates any one opinion. This is like posting metacritic scores to prove your fav game is the bestest ever.

I think people tire of the game, so they choose a reason why the game is now bad and stick to that.

I play Overwatch weekly and have since launch with my close friends, hell I'm in que right now. Balance is shit, there are certain characters that are way better than others. Some which outright break the game at high level play, and outright ruin all fun at the average level.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

The problem with overwatch for me is its a team game played by strangers. If you don't have a friend on your team, your influence over a match is too small and you can lose because of factors outside of your control.

Maybe I'd be interested in overwatch 2 if they made the teams smaller, so individual players have more influence.

I'm completely uninterested in their single player campaign

 

[Dacon]

I'm completely uninterested in their single player campaign

For me it's the opposite. Right now it's looking like Diablo with Overwatch characters and I'm down with that.

 

[CuNi]

I never understood why they introduced things like Archives and Uprising etc. where it's a very fun PvE game and yet never doubled down on that.
PvP slowly and gradually turned to shit and they just showed that they have no clue where to go with PvP when they reworked Torbjörn completely and Symmetra even twice. That just felt like no one took the time to think about what actually could be done to make those heroes better but instead they went with "let's just do X and hope it works out!". Hell there even is a playlist where you can play "Potential" changes that completely change heroes playstyle every month with 99% of those changes never making it to the main game.

They are just throwing "fixes" at the game and see what sticks.
This game will thrive if they double down on the PvE aspects of the game as PvP is already so devastated, they'd have to put in a lot of time to get the current character lineup even remotely balanced before they should even consider adding new heroes, but we all know that with OW2 we'll get plenty of new heroes that will throw off the balance of the game even more.

 

[Dacon]

I never understood why they introduced things like Archives and Uprising etc. where it's a very fun PvE game and yet never doubled down on that.
PvP slowly and gradually turned to shit and they just showed that they have no clue where to go with PvP when they reworked Torbjörn completely and Symmetra even twice. That just felt like no one took the time to think about what actually could be done to make those heroes better but instead they went with "let's just do X and hope it works out!". Hell there even is a playlist where you can play "Potential" changes that completely change heroes playstyle every month with 99% of those changes never making it to the main game.

They are just throwing "fixes" at the game and see what sticks.
This game will thrive if they double down on the PvE aspects of the game as PvP is already so devastated, they'd have to put in a lot of time to get the current character lineup even remotely balanced before they should even consider adding new heroes, but we all know that with OW2 we'll get plenty of new heroes that will throw off the balance of the game even more.

Bastion is still absolutely useless for the most part. He gets murked by all but the most clueless of teams.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

https://youtu.be/JNMHt946QCs

 

[Sybrix]

You can’t get away these days releasing a sequal that could pass for DLC...maybe 10 years ago...

Also 5v5?! Most wanted 8v8 lol and they take it down to 5v5....

Not sure how well this is going to do

 

[MiguelItUp]

Weird to go backward to 5v5, really. Honestly I couldn't even sit through majority of the stream. I watched a couple of minutes of gameplay and bounced. It almost looked no different than the previous game.

 

[Bridges]

I loved Overwatch 1, but it felt like it got worse and worse the more they tinkered with characters and abilities to "balance" them. I feel that they emphasized the eSports players over the casuals and it hurt the game as a whole.

 

[SidViscous]

I bet overwatch 2 only exists because of possible lootbox legislation, the original plan was for Overwatch to be like Counterstrike with continuous support funded by optional cosmetic transactions, lootboxes increase returns for cosmetics so when countries started putting that in doubt, someone came up with the great idea of putting all the content update behind a new RRP retail release.

 

[Sybrix]

I loved Overwatch 1, but it felt like it got worse and worse the more they tinkered with characters and abilities to "balance" them. I feel that they emphasized the eSports players over the casuals and it hurt the game as a whole.

This is what happened with Halo 5, focused the MP on esports and forgot the casual player and we all know how well Halo 5 did....

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Such a bizarre sequel. How on God's green earth is this patch being called a full fledged sequel with 3 years dev time?

This should have been released in 2019 and the OW team should be halfway through development of their next multiplayer IP.