I feel the status effect is … really strange? Note to take my ranting with a grain of salt. Im sure itll be ok gameplay wise but I like to look at player-learning and how things are designed to be apparent to the player.
This new cassidy grenade makes it harder for the player to understand what is happening to you, especially since you can change characters. At least with “Hacked”, it is a complete ability lockout regardless of what character you play.
I feel this new Cassidy grenade also explains the Moira/Reaper changes.
Why not just make Ramattras vortex also display “Hindered”, same with the Zarya Grav or Sigma Flux? At least then itll be more obvious as to whats "Happening’.
There are too many little “slow” effects in the game with different side effects. Now that they have to be defined by “Hindered”, its just messy. IDK.
Hindered seems to be specifically targeting movement abilities. Its kind of like a Root from mobas.
I think the slow kind of muddys things. In general, I feel like slows and knock back speak for themselves. So it makes sense that both grav and flux are “hindering” even though they move the enemy in different ways.
Ramattras vortex is a tricky one, but it doesn’t actually stop movement abilities. It just applies a heavy downward force.
If the problem is that its not clear what abilities get locked out, well hack has the same problem. They tried to lock players out of EVERYTHING that wasn’t a primary fire, but widow can still scope in? Also it cancels certain abilities like ball form but not others?
I think there will always be a lot of inconsistency in a game like overwatch. It’s good to try and make it as consistent as possible, but inconsistency shouldn’t prevent them from making good changes.
1 Like
It locks you out of using abilities. Scoping in on widow isn’t an ability, it’s a property of her gun (different than, for example, helix rocket, which is an ability).
Ball’s ball form is also a toggle, which is why it gets undone, unlike bastion’s turret form, which is cooldown based.
I agree it’s maybe not super intuitive, but it is in fact fairly consistent.
Call me crazy, but the distinction between widow scope or moira’s m1/m2 and an ability is more arbitrary than the difference between a movement and non-movememt ability.
With the exception of passives, abilities have an icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.
I’m sure you can sit there and categorize things in a million ways that can make sense, I’m just trying to explain why the things you listed are not the way they are, and that behavior is largely consistent.
Widow, Ana, and Ashe can all still scope. Moira can still use both M1 and M2. etc. These are all because they’re considered part of the player’s weapion, and not abilities.
Likewise, Soldier cannot use helix. Sombra cannot use hack. Bastion cannot use his sticky nade. These are because these are all abilities, and even have cooldowns associated with them.
Ball is pulled out of ball form because it disables the ability, which is a toggle. The same was true for OW1 with bastion, for example. And likewise, things like bastion’s new turret form, or Torb’s overload are cooldown based abilities that are disabled, but do not untoggle them.
As far as movement abilities, apparently it is quite arbitrary since based on what content creators have shown, many do not get disabled.
I still stand by my original statement. The difference between “part of a weapon” and “ability” seems more arbitrary than movement vs. non-movement.
This has to do with the implementation rather than the idea. But out of curiosity, which movement abilities are not being disabled?
Off the top of my head that I remember:
- Bap can still use his jump boots
- Ashe can still use coach gun
- Orisa can still use javelin spin (which gives her a move speed buff)
- Junkerqueen can still use shout
- Pharah can still use concussive blast
- Junkrat can still use his mine
- Torb can still use overload
I imagine for many of these the rationale is just that movement is more of a “secondary” trait of these abilities, so they had to pick and choose what made the most sense instead of just “anything that increases movement in any way”.
New players will struggle to figure it out without looking it up or asking others. It’s a messy implementation but mostly due to the word hindered, which is vague. “IMMOBILIZED” makes more sense and would allow the observant player to figure it out on their own.
It depends.
Orisa can still use her spear spin, it just doesn’t give her any movement advantages.
I’ve been playing a whole bunch of Darkest Dungeon 2 lately and there are effects in that game that need explaining, too. For example, when I unlocked the Flagellant, I found out that he has an ability that grants him Pain buffs upon getting hit. “What the hell does Pain do?”, I said to myself. Well, I opened up the in-game glossary and sure enough, there’s an entry for Pain and it tells me exactly what I needed to know: the Flagellant gets 10% health back at the end of his turn per Pain token. Okay, cool.
Overwatch could do with better information in the game itself. Do something with the F1 info screen, for example.
Now after a few days of play… I wish Ramattra’s Vortex, Zarya Grav, and Cassidy Nade all functioned the same way.
Make them consistent.
I think it’s confusing because of how lethal Cassidy is. With hack you hear Sombra setting up the ability, decloaking, and killing you with sustained fire. You have time to react.
With Cassidy you get slapped with the status effect immediately, and you die in a single headshot. If you don’t know exactly what to do by the time your brain registers what happened then you’re liable to be dead.
1 Like