In the last year I managed to start playing other PvP games and I kinda expanded my awareness on my tastes on videogames and on how to judge games like Ovewatch.
With my terrible English (sorry readers), I will try to dissect why I think Overwatch is good but not great.
The necessary premise is understanding WHAT Overwatch is: by any standard and metric, Overwatch is a very FAST and CHAOTIC first person shooter.
Be assured that I am not suggesting that Overwatch is “messy”, but I am otherwise stating that it is very, very “adrenalinic”.
That rush of adrenaline is what makes you come back for more: the game is full of action and engagements come fast one after the other. There is no endless walking the entire map or lingering like “other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA”.
The catch though is that then you cant humanely control everything at once and sometimes you will be outplayed before you can react, especially if you are average. “Other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” takes lots of time to set up the engagement and when it happens it can take either short time if you put yourself in a favorable position or drag a lot if you are not in a favorable position. To some this slow paced, methodic approach might sound awful, while others just cant take the frenziness of OW chaos: as many things in life, it comes to personal preferences.
Another important difference to point out is that Overwatch puts lots of power in the hand of one player to swing the outcome of a match, while “other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” puts you in a lobby of 20 people with a limited toolbox for pwning the entirety of the opposing team. We can say “the scale” of battles in “other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” is big while the scope of the fights narrows down to the single limited entities controlled by players. Overwatch is the opposite: narrow scale with all the players in control of the entirety of the action.
Now after these musthave premises I can focus on my likings and dislikings towards Overwatch.
Let’s start with the bad, shall we?
-
Ultimate give you too much power on the outcome of engagements. While “other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” puts a a stress on the limits of the player, especially in terms of firepower, forcing him to avoid open combat with lots of opponents, OW put a tool in your hand that is made for seeking opportunities to strike multiple opponents at once.
“other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” has no “once-in-a-while-button-to-delete-opponents-or-make-your-allies-op”, but gives you a set of weapons and tools for your self protection and then its all up to good cover, manuevering and positioning. Ults in OW are also not extremely dependable tools to overcome oppoments in critical fights, but they also come very often and if micromaneged well can single handedly secure the snowballing of plenty of consecutive team fights. “other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” constantly asks you to be weary of your position and the moment you are catched off guard you are once again vulnerable, with no tools to change that disadvantage artificially. -
While Multistrike or multikill in “other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” happens only sometimes when your positioning favors the characteristics of your entity, Overwatch asks you to abuse positioning and the strenghts of the character all the time, since there is aomost no dead space between single fights.
-
Playing the objective in OW is always tied with winning a fight against the entire enemy team. This is opposed to “other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA”, where you can capture a point without getting in the bulk of combat. This is objectively bad for those players whose nature is to focus on the objective, because their team having competence in the team fights is the prerequisite to even step on the objective.
-
Most of Overwatch abilities are focused on the classic GOTCHA moment: you lure opponents to do something and then you smash their hopes with a click of a button. All abilities are based on this chaotic principle of subverting the rules of engagement: Zarya bubble, DVA matrix and Genji deflect for example all delete burst of damage in a fraction of a second. Bubble and deflect even turn that into an advantage for the target of the damage, completely turning the table upside down: the prey becomes the hunter. This happens suddenly and abruptly and there is no other way to avoid it but waiting for the opponent to waste its GOTCHA button. This applies to so many abilities:
-Wanna heal? NO GOTCHA here is a biotic nade.
-Wanna hide in a corner? NO GOTCHA this Orisa orb is gonna pull you out of cover straight into damage
-Wanna catch this guy out of position? NO GOTCHA he has a shift button to jump away.
Now I am not saying this is bad for everyone, some actually enjoy this type of gameplay. When I started playing “other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” I understood I liked a more even ground of battling and a more fair, predictable course of the engagement. I am a kind of guy that doesnt like dancing and hates weird complex social behaviorial schemes, so its obvious that in a game I like to take my time and I like clear cut rules. -
Ping matters a lot. In OW stuff happens in a fraction of a second so you cant have a bad connection. “Other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” offers a slower pace and hence doesnt put any stress on having the best IP.
-
Competitive is often the only thing to do in Overwatch to achieve something. “Other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” instead has daily tasks, special challenges, sesonal pass and all sorts of ways to keep casuals entertained but also to put them in positions to try different stuff and learn more about the game. Competitive is handled with a “Weekly Tournament” system that is playable only after putting up a team and ends in the matter of 48h. There is a leaderboard of all teams and the top ones receive ingame rewards.
The SR ladder instead gives you hardly anything but a mixed bag of glory and frustration, ups and downs on a number with scarce intrinsic meaning or value. If you will it is competitiveness at its rough core, some people damn love it. I dont like it personally and I guess many people whining how bad climbing is are not aware of this simple fact they hate this rough, cold and frantic competitiveness as well. -
All heroes work galaxies apart in term of mechanics and control feels. “Other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” gives you one type of entity
-
“Other-game-I-cant-name-due-to-this-forum’s-EULA” has no matchmaking, allowing you to be clubbed hard and learn then club hard yourself and have fun. Overwatch insteaf puts artificial fairness in front of actual challenge and reward for improving at the game for the sake of catering to the casuals.
I mean I have no frigging interest in grinding and I have been able to uphold a respectable plat ranking for 10 seasons straight without actually trying or improving a bit. Thats nonsense. If the game didnt pamper me with matchmaking I would be silver in no time…
Now let’s go to the positives…
*presses unexpected OHK button
There aint no positive GOTCHA ahahahah
