Rats Off To Ya
Banned
Your premise was based on your 50 friends on Battle.net.
Overwatch wins Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2016
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Your premise was based on your 50 friends on Battle.net.
RichiRamjag
Member
Terribly overhyped, awful game imo.
funkystudent
Member
Memes and butts and butt memes win
I'm saying that, objectively, game design wise, it's incredibly shallow and casual, which is why you still see the same heroes in each map, because people worked out the best strategies within a week of release.
This in turn leads to people failing to log back into the game because there's nothing left to figure out, it's just a perpetual treadmill of filling bars and unlocking skins.
You posted total registered numbers of players as a rebuttal that my anecdotal experience can't possibly be indicative of a larger phenomenon. Yet, this GOTY, built from the ground up for e-sports and streaming, with the strength of being the 'new big thing' with 20 million sales!!1... performs worse on streaming sites than CSGO. What's happening here?
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
Oh, so you don't know what you're talking about? You should have just said that from the beginning.
EDIT: Also I'm digging the moving goalposts on the subject of player population. I feel like you're making a different point with every post.
JimJamJones
Member
Doom is the better game, but I have put well over 100 hours into Overwatch so far this year. I love it and it deserves GOTY
though Doom deserves it more.
? Its a team based fps. Not a fighting game. It doesn't have to be deep to be engaging and competitive. The community is huge and people love playing it, does that piss you off for some reason?
Why?
It isn't a straight up shooter, so what? It has some character classes that are inviting to those with mediocre aiming skills. I don't see how casting a wider net is a negative against it.
It has a well balanced cast of characters like we would hope any traditional shooter would feature a well balanced arsenal of guns and load outs. What BF, CoD, and CS do with weapon selections Overwatch covers with a character pick. But beyond that the selection gives new traversal mechanics, helps to battle the more powerful damage choices with variable hit boxes, etc.
Further, they didn't shy away from the stark reality that competitive multi really shines in 6v6. Everything else is too much, everything less allows for solo carrying too much. They acknowledged something any serious shooter player has pretty much known since the early days of Counter-Strike, locked it in as the default, and so have the best opportunity to produce a mass appeal eSports shooter.
Lastly, the engine is even good. The default Source engine was CRAP for shooters with horrible hit box detection and has required many devs to bolt on their own improved system as one example of a failed multiplayer shooter engine. Blizzard nailed theirs the first time out. Aiming feels responsive, getting hit is tangible, and all the weapons come across as unique. Hell, it's even balanced based on what weapons do hitscan v. projectiles.
Blizzard didn't miss a trick and within the game's first year have already added compelling new characters, held some cool seasonal events, and fostered both competitive seasons and an actual eSports tourney.
Don't blame Blizzard for rolling into the genre and eating everybody's lunch. Blame the genre itself for getting stale until OW breathed new life into it.
As a developer (coincidentally also working with high scale and live ops), the fact that the halloween event stressed the game login servers harder than the actual launch is actually a great indicator (I at least saw no reference a technical issue) that the active playerbase is growing. I don't want to get into too many technical details, but usually you don't downscale the potential capacity, and instead reinforce your bottlenecks after the initial data you get from launch, as well as the Summer Event player burst.
Not so say your subjective opinion about the design (which is no way objective at all) is frankly quite ridiculous given the player behaviour we have seen.
somecrazymember
Banned
didn't see the whole thing, was The Witness mentioned at least? 
Xamtheking
Member
Nodidn't see the whole thing, was The Witness mentioned at least?
I was actually the one that posted that, and more so in a response to "it must be the cosplayers/fan art" as a reason for the game remaining relevant.
You sure hate Blizzard, huh?
The first time I played the beta I was like wtf is this? Played about 15 minutes and didn't go back to it. When the great reviews hit I thought maybe I was missing something so I went out and bought it. Have put over 100 hours into it and it's my GOTY. So yeah, give it another shot.
Newtype-001
Member
The metas changed with each and every patch. But this is pretty much only for the highestnlevel of play where you will see comps which maximise the best ways to win with the current patch. Outside of that you still see every character in matches fairly regularly.
This is what the meta like in the most recent patch
This is the patch before that
And this is the meta report before that.
This is how wildly things change.
Just reducing everything down makes everything sound weak and pretty much you grasping at straws while moving goal posts.
Gai Murakumo
Member
Though you can make some arguments, I think Overwatch deserved to be Game of the Year in my opinion based on how fun it is always to jump back in and do quick games now and then. The only game this year that could do that also for me is Titanfall 2.
SlickShoes
Member
Do you know the history of CSGO? It took years for people to even start playing it never mind streaming it and have people watch it.
CSGO is THE FPS, the fact that overwatch is even close is impressive, but we don't have exact player numbers so it must be failing......
If overwatch is ever £8 then it will probably have a swell in it's play base too.
Battlefield 1 and Siege are not even the best in their respective series so how on earth does this comment make any sense what so ever?
Overwatch is something that's genuinely new (although heavily inspired by early TF2 design, has memorable and likable characters while still managing to be fun, engaging and interesting to actually play.
Psychoward
Banned
Outside of Winston being heavily slanted towards KOTH maps, most heroes are good or bad (depending on the hero) on pretty much any map. Maybe you should have played it past the first week before levying criticisms at it and pretending they're still relevant today.
StudsMcKewl
Member
Overwatch hit that Q and got Play of the Year!
semiconscious
Member
yep. same here, & i enjoyed several games this year more than i enjoyed uc4...
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
My experience was somewhat similar, though as a fan of both Blizzard and TF2 I was well and truly hyped. Played an hour or so when the open beta started and said, "it's fun, but I'll wait until launch." A couple nights later I hopped back on on a lark and that's when it clicked. Played practically non-stop for the rest of the beta and, save for a bit of a summer hiatus, haven't stopped playing it since.
Hell, most KOTH maps have the point covered in some capacity so Winston can't even jump into the point or escape easily once in it, giving him real vulnerability there. Plus the best counters to Winston are also strong KOTH plays (especially reaper).
For me personally, I'm generally not into online multiplayer anymore after several years in the early 2000's as a relatively high end CS player. I bought Overwatch about two months ago as part of a B2G1 sale at Target along with Civilization VI and Paper Mario. My wife loves Paper Mario so that was for her. Strategy games are my favorite genre. Civ is my all time favorite strategy game series. If we're talking 4x strats Endless Legend is my second favorite strategy game IP. So Civ VI including elements that I loved from Endless Legend and basically releasing with all the same systems only improved from Civ V after they fixed it with the two expansions was basically my dream game.
And I love it, don't get me wrong. But I play Overwatch more. When your game is so good that it gets non-fans of the genre to stop playing their favorite series in their favorite genre to play your game you've done something really goddamn well.
TimeEffect
Member
Who votes for these games? Is it some kind of panel? Who are they?
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
Gaming journalists from many different outlets. The list is probably out there somewhere, I remember seeing it in previous years.
The things you are writing are false. Stop embarrassing yourself. Overwatch won a more or less meaningless award, get over it.
Raylan Targaryen
Member
Objectively means factual. The word you were looking for is subjectively.
SmartWaffles
Member
This thread perfectly illustrates how Blizzard is distant from "the gaming industry" by looking at how clueless people are about what Blizzard truly is.
Unfriendly TimeTraveler
Member
Why is it people are saying either overwatch or uncharted was the two that deserve it the most?
This is truly the darkest timeline. Especially when it is a game that has microtransactions. I mean the game plays great (balance is another matter entirely) and the character or good with the lack of actual story and just lines being said.
But with all of its faults it's a great game and a notable but again not really a game that should be running for game of the year.
This is truly the darkest timeline. Especially when it is a game that has microtransactions. I mean the game plays great (balance is another matter entirely) and the character or good with the lack of actual story and just lines being said.
But with all of its faults it's a great game and a notable but again not really a game that should be running for game of the year.
lukeskymac
Member
Pleasantly surprised that it overcame the bias towards games with single player. It certainly is the best game of the year so far.
If it plays great and people really like it, why shouldn't it be in the running? What's the true and proper GOTY criteria?
The meta has been completely changed with Sombra and the new update. There is no best strategy anymore or heroes that you need 100%.
Also Overwatch is always in the top ten on twitch - what's your problem? You compare a 40$ entry game with free games or almost free (CS:GO) games. Counterstrike was the multiplayer shooter back then and to this day in it's core it still is and you said so yourself. If I want to play a a normal shooter I play CS:GO too, but if I want to play something with more pepp I play Overwatch.
I seriously love all that salt in this thread. "Barebones" is my new favourite word. 23 heroes, endless cosmetics for everyone, over 13 maps, Arcade Mode with 1v1 and 3v3 and extra modes, updates almost every third week etc. get out with that shit. Uncharted was barebones for me. Short story without much to do and a multiplayer that was fun for a few hours but useless compared to UC2.
People are allowed to not like Overwatch, but I think for many it's because they don't have friends to play with in teams and that CAN be frustrating (even though solo queue hell doesn't exist) or people are just frustrated that they can get up and think the systems blocks them from improving even though they are just bad at the game and don't want to admit that they don't belong at the top.
I am just glad Uncharted 4 didn't get GOTY. Bought the game 5 days before release and was disappointed as fuck with my friends with whom I played through every Uncharted together.
Interfectum
Member
It's taken the gaming world by storm, plays great, looks great, is fun as hell and will be around for years. But it shouldn't be in the running for GOTY... lol
Some of you are silly.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
It looks decent but it's not Pixar level, not by a long shot.
Steve Youngblood
Member
I'm not sure if I understand this question. Mind you, I don't play Hearthstone, but I always gathered that it was an extremely successful commercial product for Blizzard. And since it uses a F2P model, its success requires an active playerbase.
TimeEffect
Member
Are they actually good gamers? Not trying to bring down Overwatch, but from my experience, journalists absolutely suck at MP games.
It's not too surprising to see OW win because it's incredibly well designed to be casual, so it's a total breeze and joy for near anyone to play.
I've seen people play COD, BF, Titanfall, and nearly every journalist who plays it is god awful trash and dont know what they are doing. It's the nature of MP games where you dont have time to play at your own pace.
Overwatch is different in that there are very easy characters to play, everybody is rewarded with their special buildup, and maps/modes are straightforward. Sure, there is skill and strategy that develops from that, but the pick up and play experience is completely unlike any other MP game
Again, not trying to say that's a knock on the game, but that's what makes it so fun and easy to pick as GOTY. More people can simply enjoy it without putting in more effort needed in other MP Games.
Personally, I wanted Witness to win. I think there is more to say about that game's design, but at least it got a nomination.
Say what you want about it but there's no denying OW knew how to stand out from the crowd and be a breath of fresh air in a genre that's constantly criticised for being stale. Not to mention Blizzard making a game in a genre they had no prior experience with and knocking it out the park first time. Those factors need to be praised regardless.
Mr Fahrenheit
Member
*someone who hasn't played the game since the week of release
KZXcellent
Member
The outlets who cast their ballots for the Game Awards can be found here: http://thegameawards.com/rules-and-voting/
Includes mainstream outlets like Gamespot, IGN, GiantBomb and EDGE. That said they also have gaming personality organizations like RoosterTeeth, KindaFunny and Funhaus so it's a mixed bag of professional media and entertainment.
Having a game which has such a good experience even for "bad gamers" but still with a high skill ceiling allowing for a nice sense of progression for people trying to get better. Isn't that excellent gamedesign?
Interfectum
Member
The burden of proof is on you. You're "50 b.net friends" isn't anything worth talking about. There are zero indicators that Overwatch's playerbase is in rapid decline and, if anything, it's as strong as ever.
It's quite obvious that you want OW to fail but that's simply not happening. It's best to just move on, tbh.
I wouldn't go this far, but when compared to past MP-focused games that should've been nominated? I don't think this would be in the running at all.
In terms of design, I think Dota/CS would deserve it above this, as would Quake, and countless other games. Even Shadowrun from 06/07 has better gameplay and mechanics.
Nice to see people acknowledge MP games from time to time though.