Should the game capitalize on the diversity of the playerbase?

General Discussion
1

So, after watching a little bit of a video from rag tagg

This is the video i got it from

DEAR BLIZZARD - OVERWATCH SUCKS - YouTube

He said something that made me think:

Overwatch attracted a lot of different types of players, RTS, players who havent even played FPS before

And i realized, Hey, Thats right, Im not even an FPS player and i got attracted by the game due to the diversity of the characters,

now this is where it gets alittle bit less factical and more personal, i mostly try to talk facts but i want to throw this out there,

But lately, the game has been changing to a little bit more…i dont know…boring? straight forwards?

heroes like sym and torb, who mostly offered a whole different skillset, less based up on just “clicking heads” and a little bit more on the strategy side, like Oh where do i place my turret, oh do i use shield gen or TP, should i use the buff on my turret and capitalize on its power or despite it beeing down its worth using for myself and kill them,

it was rather fun, honestly, especially when my strenght is more on the strategy side rather than the mechanical side

but the reworks made them more reliant on their guns and made the turret placement rather irrelevant, sinec its not really that important now

but here comes my question, Should the game get more heroes that are less mechanically based and more catered towards heroes that are from different games?

So, to give out an example, This is a RTS-Based hero i came up with

Sure, the idea is rather utopic and it probably wouldnt really work or be hard to balance, but here goes nothing:

Athena, RTS Hero (warning, LONG)

ATHENA

Stats

Role: Support (Any, she is capable of beeing anything due to how she works, but ill put her in the support category)

Health: 50

Shelds: 200

Armor: 0

Overview

Athena in-game appears as a laptop on a desk, Upon the match starting, the athena player will choose a spot to spawn, and will deploy there, From this point onwards, the athena player cannot switch locations until death, if so where to happen, normal respawn time would occur and the player would be able to pick a different place to spawn,

Game Mechanics, PlayStyle

Upon spawning, athena will have a menu at her disposal, in which she´ll have a list of units where she can drag and drop units, the only can only be dropped at a 5m radius arround athena herself except in certain cases, this will be expanded upon in the units list, Upon then, Athena will be able to click on the units and order them arround as so, This will be expanded in Unit control section,

Athena is in the support role, But she can fill any roll she wished, depending on the units she chooses to deploy, Therefore this role is only for the matter of clasification,

Athena will have a constant eagle eye view of the battlefield, which she can move arround the camera using the directional controls, She also posses an F ability called “Relocate”

RELOCATE

Relocate is an ability Bound to the Interact button, on a 30 second cooldown

As the name states, Like I stated in the general mechanics, Athena once she spawns she gets a prompt to select where to deploy, from her aerial view, This relocate ability will do the same, But its usable once Athena has already been deployed, She may deploy somewhere else. She has a 10s duration until she is forcibly placed wherever she currently has her cursor over, similarly to doomfists meteor strike

Eagle eye view

Athena despite having a eagle eye view cannot see all the map, She may only see

The capture point (if captured in favor of her team)

10m arround her teammates

10m arround herself

10m arround the scanners

The payload and 5m arround it (only if its beeing pushed by teammates)

The rest of the area will not be visible and will be darkened

She may move the camera with WASD, Mousewheel to zoom in and out

Athena has a drop down menu of units she can deploy, the unit cap works on a resource system that is a maximum of 14, each unit takes up a x amount of resources and once their full, no more units can be added until one is removed and enough resources are avaible,

Assault Unit:

The assault units have 150 hp, They posses a hitscan rifle with 20 ammo that shoots 5 shots per second, each shot doing 8 damage, with a reload time of 1.5 seconds, They cost 2 resources each, They possess normal player speed

Heavy Assault Unit

The heavy assault units have 250 HP, they posses a hitscan minigun with a total of 150 ammo with a slightly faster firerate than Orisas, each projectile fired by it does 6 damage (almost half of orisa) and have a reload time of 2 secondsThey cost 4 resources each

Barrier

Athena can deploy barriers anywhere on the map (as long as its visible), she is not limited to the 5m range of her other units in this case, Each barrier as 500 hp and costs 3 resources, This barriers cannot be repaired whoever, they are slightly smaller than reinharts barrier, barriers cannot be moved nor ordered arround, they may only be destroyed

Scanner

Athena can deploy scanners anywhere on the map (even if not visible), she is not limited to the 5m range of her other units in this case, Each scanner has 30 hp, They reveal enemies to teammates nearby in a range of 10m 360° degrees of the scanner itself also gives visibility to athena in tthe same range they cost 1 resource each, Scanners cannot be moved nor ordered arround they may only be destroyed

Turret

Turrets are hitscan units similar to torbjorn turret itself, This turrets are located on small wheeled platforms, and are unable to fire as it moves, In fact, they must be deployed before firing, they have a range of 10m and deal arround 50dps and have 100 hp each, they cost 3 resources each

Artilerry Unit

Artilerry units are turrets located on small platforms that can only fire in their Deployed state, They have 100 hp each, they posses a single, front mounted cannon in front aimed slightly upwards, This turrets have a range of 50m and fire a single explosive projectile every 2 seconds at enemies , the explosive projectile has a small splash radious of 3m of the impact zone, Direct hit damage beeing 120, The Projectiles are fired upwards by the cannon arcing downards and to land directly on top of the enemies, They cost 4 resources each, Artilerry cannons cannot target an enemy at close ran

Heal Pod

Healing pods are Small pods in a base with wheels that can be moved arround, the heal pod heals 12Hps in a 5m radious arround it only in its deployed state, They have 75 health

Note 2: If athena where to be killed, all her units will be despawned

Note 3: Turrets, artilerry units and heal pods have a specific order for them only that orders them to enter in deployed state

Unit Control

Upon clicking on units, a set of commands are displayed which the player can select and utilize

Move : The unit will move to the spot that was clicked at, if possible, if not the unit will Not move, Repetedly clicking on multiple spots can make a set of waypoints for the unit to go through, unit will not shoot

Defend: The unit will stay at the marked spot and attack any enemy that enters their range, upon the enemy leaving their range they will not chase after

Attack : The unit will target the selected enemy and fire at them, if they get out of their range they will chase after until the target is dead, Turrets will enter their undeployed state and follow after the target until they have range and then they will deploy and fire

Heal: Units will enter a inactive state, Healing themselves at a rate of 5hp per second, The unit cannot fire while in this state and will not attempt to unless ordered, upon attacking the effect is canceled

Fire: The unit will fire at the selected location even if a target is present in it or not, Especially useful for units like artilerry units, Units can only fire in their intended range, if a spot outside of their range is selected, they will move towards the spot until they are in range to fire

Destroy: Unit will be destroyed

Follow: Unit will follow the selected target and fire at anything in range

Note: Units will not fire automatically, they will only perform this behavior in the “defend” mode, and in this case they will target the first enemy they see, and not let go until the target is dead, out of their range, or the unit is destroyed, this is to further encourage the managment and manual control of the units, while letting the player set the units in auto pilot mode as they take care of another matter

Note 2: All units will spawn next to athena (unless specifically stated that they may be placed anywhere ) and must be moved to their desired spot

Note 3: All of her units have a internal cooldown of 3s each from their placement, so athena may not spam similar units

SHORTCUTS

Any good RTS player knows shortcuts are especially important (NOTE: THEY DONT WORK ON CONSOLE, sorry console players, your joysticks are too small)

Therefore:

0: Select all units

1: Select all assault units

2: Select all Heavy assault units

3: Select all Turrets

4: Select all artilerry units

5: Select all Healing pods

Note: Pressing more than 1 of this buttons at a time will select both groups of units

CTRL + A: Select attack order

CTRL + D: Select Defend order

CTRL + F: Select fire order

CTRL + H: Select Heal Order

CTRL + D: Select Destroy

CTRL + M: Select Move Order

CTRL + F: Selct follow order

Hero interactions

Sombra: Any hacked units will be disabled, If hacked athena herself, she will lose control of her units and they will resume the last task they were ordered

If stunned/frozen, she may lose control of her units, and they may resume the last order given

Athena may not be knocked,

Recon Arrow and Infra sight will reveal the area they act in for athena,

Ultimate

Upon pressing Q, athena will get a new unit, placeable anywhere (as long as she had view) on the map, (this unit is the one we saw and speculate that is athena in the pic)

Upon placing it, Athena will take control of the unit herself for 15s,

The units primary fire is a beam with a range of 12m, that does 80 Dps, coming from their left palm

The units secondary fire is the same as the primary but from her right palm, both beams can be fired from a continious 5s until they overheat, and need to cool down

Her E is a large Chest beam that does 120Dps and can be fired for 4s until it overheats

The android has 200 hp and 400 shields,

If the duration ends, the android is destroyed or athena is destroyed the ult will end

note: all of athenas units during her ult will perform the last order they had been sent to do, until ordered otherwise, athena loses control of her unis and cannot further order them as she ults, therefore its up to her to tell her units what to do on the pre ult phase

or another example: a hero catered towards clicking game players:

Button Masher

Button masher hero (DPS/SUPPORT HYBRID)

200 Hp (100 shields 100 HP)

Primary fire: Pulsing reactor,

Every time you click the mouse you gun will emit a pulse in a 45 degree angle (5m range) in front of you that would do 20 damage, Infinite ammo, it does low damage but the thing is, The faster you click, The more pulses you shoot, So essentially this character gets better the faster you can click the mouse (this goes through barriers)

Passive: Clicking assist:

Every time you kill someone your character automatically emits a single healing pulse and damage pulse every 0.5 seconds,

The more people you kill the more clicking assists you get (resets on death)

Secondary fire: Heal pulse

You emit a pulse arround you healing everyone nearby in a range of 6 meters, every pulse heals 15 hp, Just as the primary fire, The faster you click the more healing you can do (note: Balanced this number arround my Avg clicking speed per second, that beeing 6,50, equating at arround 97,5 healing per second, my max was almost 10, equating to 150 healing per second if your clicking with all your might

Ability 1: Kinetic Energy Shield

The hero will generate a shield that starts at 100 hp, The ability has a cast time of 4 seconds in which you have to repetedly click in order to bring up the shields health, each click increases the shield total hp by 20, (620 total shield hp at my average clicking speed of 6.5) After the 4 seconds of cast time, the shield is fully done (and it goes on cooldown for 10 seconds) and it appears all arround the clicking hero, it goes all arround its front and sides, leaving exposed the back,

Ultimate: Unnamed

The character would slowly raise in the air for 1 second (cast time) once this is done it will stay in and the effect will activate for 10 seconds, putting their pulsing reactor at full power, Similar to the primary fire, every time you click it would emit 360 degree pulses in an area of 8 meters arround where this character is floating, every time you click you deal 30 damage to your enemies and heal your team members by 40 hp and heal yourself by the same value, ultimate lasts for 10 seconds, hero takes 50% reduced damage during ultimate

those are just some examples

What do you guys think?

2

I’m not sure what you’re getting at. If anything, all turrets should be removed from the game, not add more. For one, they’re never used at higher level play and secondly, there’s a lot of lower level players that stunt their skill development because they end up depending on turrets to do everything for them. If they climb up the ranks much, they often become a burden on their team because of their relatively low mechanical skill, game sense, and general inflexibility.

2 Likes
3

i never said “add more turrets” in any part of the thread…im just saying the game needs more diverse heroes that are less all “click on heads” and have different skillsets required to do their thing

and honestly im just fed up with this “skill” trash (because i cant really say another word because COC) people assume that any hero that isnt widowmaker doesnt need skill, and its just getting to a point where it gets tiring

if you palyed someone like torb and you relied soley on the turret you were a bad player and need to learn th play the game, what, now having heroes who people need to learn to play correctly is a bad thing now? seriously?

The turret was a part of the hero, but no good torb player relied on it completly, they used it, they didnt rely on it as their sole DPS

also overwatch is no normal FPS, even now,

4

If they want their esport to continue, they shouldn’t. If they don’t care about esports, then they should go all out. Bring more heroes like Brigitte so the game dies faster, or more like Ana and Ashe to keep it alive, they’ll do what brings them more money, and brig has been nerfed into oblivion for a reason.

You can’t focus a game to please both serious players and casual players.

5

You can still have high skill heroes without making them pure mechanically based, just so you know

6

But there’s a big difference between making one or two in years, and focusing on them to bring more diversity.

7

that is kind of another matter entirely, The heros released per year should be bigger

8

I agree we should get more heroes, but what i was saying is that if we get 8 characters in 2 years, 2 of those AT MOST should be characters with barely any mechanical skill required to be effective, and obviously they shouldn’t even think of creating them with the intention of making them meta, or we will get Brig 2.0.

9

Whhy are you so adamant on brig brig brig as a bad example?

There are characters currently that require no mechanical skill or very little and are good in PRO play, Like, Winston or Rein

10

im just saying the game needs more diverse heroes that are less all “click on heads” and have different skillsets required to do their thing

I think that’s already accomplished for the most part. That’s not to say that there can’t be more interesting things, but I wouldn’t use sym or torb as anything to aspire to. Whatever heroes they do add should require good mechanics or good game sense to play proficiently–which I think is where they messed up on Brig and to a lesser extent, DF (mostly pre-nerf) among others.

people assume that any hero that isnt widowmaker doesnt need skill, and its just getting to a point where it gets tiring

I honestly think that view is well within the minority. Most heroes in the game require skill to have an impact.

if you palyed someone like torb and you relied soley on the turret you were a bad player and need to learn th play the game

Boy, you would be amazed and how boilerplate that is in low gold and below… The problem is, the turrets are unironically better than a lot of players at those levels and they never actually have to learn game mechanics because of it. Then if that doesn’t work, they pull out the bastion cheese.

11

why are you quoting everything i said and what doe that have to do with anything?

nvm the quotes messed up

i mean, your telling me players cant shoot a stationary object?

that is more of a player problem than anything, People in those lower ranks as well cant land a shot on a jumping genji, and we arent nerfing him because of that

12

Noooo. I think entirely the opposite of this one.

Symm 3.0 made sentry placement utilized in a huge variety of ways that I’ve still been tinkering with. When I had 6, I use to do a risky and time consuming game of placing them for vision… sucks I’m limited to 3, but end of a hallway on a celing, done, let’s get 2 other areas. Flanker keeps showing up? Keep one behind me as vision and plant the other 2 when the flanker shows up, they’re either dead or go away. I’d say the strategy side of Symm has gotten better with the sentry changes.

Torb 2.0. I do miss lvl1 turret. I put a ton of time into it to learn how to place it to cover flanks or clean up, but it was for the best. I’m still bad at tossing the turret onto higher ground (it’s either short or overshoot, no middle ground, I swear), but I’ve gotten way more value from the new turret than the old. Again, I miss everything I learned to do as Torb, but I get it. I see the better direction I can go with the current.

Would I like to see more builders? Absolutely. Do I think the two of them lost the feeling of what they could do, honestly, no. I think they deny space and provide information better than before.

13

that is more of a player problem than anything, People in those lower ranks as well cant land a shot on a jumping genji, and we arent nerfing him because of that

I think you’re missing my point about it. The torb/sym players at that elo are arguably worse in both mechanics and game sense, but they’re able to climb up from bronze to, say, gold where they become mostly deadweight for the reasons I mentioned before. They’re not climbing because they got any more skilled, they’re climbing because a literal bot is playing the game for them. That’s a problem both for them because they don’t develop their skills and for their unfortunate future teammates. Beyond that, they’re not used in higher elos—you could delete them both and there’s a good chance that barely anyone in higher elos would even notice. My point point wasn’t about ‘nerfing’ them, but ideally reworking them to exclude turrets as part of their kit and replacing them with something else.

14

But as you admitted, if they are worse than mechanics and gamesense, they still wouldnt climb up even if the turret was carrying you, because they would just get destroyed once its out

15

That doesn’t follow. What turrets do are out of the turret owner’s control and it’s the turrets themselves carrying the player and being better than low ELO opponents. So they’ll climb, but only to the point that players start becoming better than the turrets.

16

Would you be able to name at least one hero in Overwatch that is high skill yet not mechanically demanding? Only one rule: Name Winston and you auto-fail.

True to the rumor: No brain, no aim. Must be Winston Main.

17

Reinhart

Wheres my trophy?

Or if you want to get a bit more controversial

  • Mercy
  • Moira
  • Briggite
  • Lucio
  • Junkrat (he´s mostly predicting or just knowing where to spam, if he wasnt UP he would be played)
  • Reaper (if he wasnt UP)
  • Doomfist (not really that mechanically demanding)
18

Nah, Rein was a good enough answer. Although demanding a trophy when one wasn’t being given out is kinda boosting the self-entitlement…

I mean I’d treat you to a pizza if I could but a trophy? Nah man.

19

it was a joke mate :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Warthog is not amused. :neutral_face: