"Every player equally equipped"

General Discussion
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Continuing the discussion from Unauthorized Third-party Software:

What about 144hz monitors, low latency fibre optic networking, positional sound auditory hardware?

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they aren’t 3rd party apps. Visor ban was needed, Pursuit wasn’t. Anyone who says different is misinformed

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Is an Asus 144hz monitor considered a first party application/tool then? Is it manufactured by Blizzard and comes with the game or everyone’s computer? If not then aren’t we actually on a non-level playing field to start?

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it’s not an application

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Application or not, Blizzard says that the “foundation of good competition is every player equally equipped”. If one person has 60hz and another has 144hz, are they equally equipped?

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No, those people who make those things send fat licensing fees to Blizzard. Visor doesn’t.

Also I don’t think 144 monitors help much if at all really.

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I have a 60hz monitor and i get significant tearing. Many people have told me 144hz makes a world of difference. 144->240 has diminishing returns, but 60 -> 144 is like another world

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I tried to explain this on another post but they didn’t understand so I’ll try again.

There is what I’ll call an “accepted level” for these things.
In this case regarding the quality of a PC, the “accepted level” would be a good PC that runs smoothly. Exceed the accepted level (Which isn’t possible in this case) and you are cheating. Go below the accepted level and you are just disadvantaged. For this, there isn’t much Blizzard can do for you.

Regarding third-party programs like Visor etc., the accepted level would be just playing the game normally. Exceeding that would be installing programs like Visor, hacks etc. Going below the accepted level would be putting a handicap on yourself as you play, say if you wore a blindfold.

Hopefully this makes sense.

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Bingo charrrrrrrrrrrrrr20

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ButBlizzard haven’t said anything about an “accepted level”. Sure, there’s minimum requirements and recommended specs for a PC to run Overwatch optimally, but Blizzard have actually stated they want everyone “equally equipped”. Their statement and philosophy here couldn’t be clearer, but is it in line with reality?

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They don’t need to. It’s just logical based on how games are designed.
If they designed the game for only ‘meh’ PCs, then yes, people who used better PCs would be exceeding the “accepted level” (cheating) and I imagine banned. But that’s not the case.

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Are you even using a 144hz screen with 144 fps?
The difference between 60 and 144 is substantial.

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Thats what I was thinking.

People making those kind of statements usually never experienced the difference between 60hz and 144hz.

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60hz is a slideshow.
I actually can’t stand it anymore.

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Aren’t the servers only updating 61 FPS? So anything above that is pretty much useless anyway, other than being easier on the eyes.

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I swap constantly between 60 and 144 because at work I got 60 and at home I got 144. I feel the difference every day and I would never want to go back to gaming with 60hz.

If I got a decent PC, I want to experience the smoothness and framerates it puts out and you just can’t do that with 60hz screen.

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Even the difference between 60 and 120 is massive.

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I’m not sure I understand this part. What exactly is the accepted level from a numbers point of view? You say a PC that “runs smoothly”, but smooth is subjective. You have people in this thread agreeing that after 144hz they couldn’t go back to 60hz - because to them, after experiencing 144hz, 60hz no longer felt smooth. On the other hand, some would say that 30hz is smooth enough, as used on many console title. So what exactly is the agreed definition of smooth? What qualifies as “a good PC”? And why isn’t it possible to exceed this accepted level (thereby cheating)?

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In the other thread, I said a “perfect” PC instead of a smooth one but they misunderstood which is why I now said smooth to try and avoid unnecessary confusion.
Ideally, you’d want the best specs there are, and that’s allowed because it’s the accepted level.

Not gonna lie, it’s a bit hard to describe. Basically, the “accepted level” for this scenario is the top end of PCs because that’s the level that this game (And most games) are designed to be played at. Anything less than that level would put you at a disadvantage (Which the developers can’t help besides optimising to the best of their abilities) and anything more (Which isn’t possible here; you can’t exceed the limits for the best PC if that makes sense) would be cheating.

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Is it though? If we’re talking a theoretical beast of a PC specced to the absolute maximum available right now, that would be something like (just a guess, I haven’t been keeping up with the cutting edge of technology), for example an 8K or 16K res screen, HDR, etc. Was Overwatch actually designed to be played at 8K? I know you can bump the resolution up, but the textures themselves might not have been designed for resolutions. I’d imagine a competitive game like Overwatch was actually designed for the broader range of consumer systems? I’m still not understanding this theoretical accepted level.

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