Overwatch 2 is in Beta and apparently they’ve changed all sorts! - The Bear and Badger

stormyskiesahead

Oh fuck, they did it.

Overwatch 2...

stormyskiesahead

Ther strong co-op PvE content the leaks suggested are legit, as is the new core gameplay mode, and the progression system.

Looks like I'm gonna lose another few thousand hours to this universe. And srsly, that cinematic is so HYPE!!!

stormyskiesahead

Nothing will be locked off at launch, all heroes, maps, and modes from 1 will be available, and cosmetics carry over. Well, fuck. If you're gonna call an expansion a sequel then I s'pose that's the way to do it.

Kudos, Jeff and crew.

tigersgogrrr

I'll be back in and deep.

stormyskiesahead

From the gameplay I've seen this really does look more like an expansion than a true sequel. The PvP is still Overwatch PvP. We've got a refreshed UI, more options, a few more maps, heroes, and a new mode, but thankfully it's the same game. And quite brilliantly, OW1 is also getting all this content - a shared multiplayer environment - according to Jeff.

The co-op PvE stuff will be the only real difference between the two games then, with 2 getting a full set of story missions, plus "highly replayable" Hero Missions with a levelling system (Jeff used Diablo's Adventure Mode as a comparison). Can't wait to see more.

The leaks prior to the reveal had me a little worried, I gotta say. I genuinely couldn't see the need for a sequel, and hated the thought of OW changing too much. On the second point at least it looks like I needn't have worried, on the first, well I really don't know the limitations of the game. A tonne of new content on top of the multitude of additions the game has already had might have required this move, but more likely it's pure marketing.

Anyway, with OG content carrying over none of this really matters. Expansion, sequel, whatever. It's Overwatch but more. Brilliant.

stormyskiesahead

Here's a good run down of the PVE stuff available at Blizzcon, and what else they've announced so far.

Balanced independently of PvP with a load of new upgradable abilities, and seemingly substantial enough to make a PvE biased purchase a legit choice. Whodathunkit?

Dinostar77

If i had the freetime i would be into this for sure. Just gotta wait for the little one to grow up alittle. By the Overwatch 3 will be out.

stormyskiesahead

With the addition of a full campaign and those replayable PvE missions, this could be great for hour long blasts. I'm not expecting it to drop until next Christmas at the earliest though. And fingers crossed the base this lays down will be able to be built on for a long time to come.

tigersgogrrr

Dipping in for a few games recently.

This is such a fucking good game. I bloody love it. They really need to launch console crossplay with OW2 to bring queue times down a bit.

Nexx

Game of the generation for me, was peak addicted to it for a good 3+ years.

Can still remember games like this vividly - http://xboxclips.com/Tiger+Swiftly/c23b297d-4a31-4c37-b116-733456511875

And that one ridiculous game on King's Row...

stormyskiesahead

That's a great clip.

The game has changed so much and had massive ups and downs over the last four and a half years, but the core idea is still rock solid and I do think the game's pretty well balanced right now.

I've taken the odd month-long break here and there but I always come back, and I'm playing three or four times a week on both PC and PS4 atm. Purely casual these days though, I've been done with comp (in all MP games) for a while and with QP now having role queue and the trolls mostly sticking to arcade it's all good.

When OW2 was announced at last years Blizzcon I thought we'd be getting ready to jump into that game about now, but alas, 'twas not to be. Fingers crossed for an April/May '21 launch.

tigersgogrrr

So many amazing games. Certainly my GOTG too.

Kings Row had multiple incredible games on it. I assume you mean the one we won 13-12 or something absolutely insane, where both teams kept pushing it the whole way in overtime over and over? Absolutely incredible.

Stormy: Fingers crossed! Still a solid game but some reinvigorating would make the world of difference. Hopefully OW2 can bring a new crowd in.

stormyskiesahead

Behind the scenes of Overwatch 2 from Blizzcon. Lots of cool PvE stuff from 12 mins in, including details on a seemingly substantial campaign on huge purpose-built maps, and repeatable missions on repurposed existing MP maps (similar to the Archives events?). This really might be worth a purchase for the PvE content alone, as long as there's a decent and sustainable hook to the repeatable content.

Now the bad news. Not a single piece of info on the current game, and both it and the sequel were blanked during the opening presentation. The lack of support for Overwatch over the last couple of years ain't good for the long term health of the franchise as a whole, or the hyped and hugely expensive Overwatch League with its 20m buy-in's, and it's something the shrinking fan base have been very vocal about to seemingly deaf ears.

Blizz really do seem to have failed to move with the times since OW's launch. A game like this needs updates, and I'm not talking about new content every other week, but one or two heroes and core maps a year should be the absolute minimum the team aim for in order to keep the playerbase engaged and excited for the PvE expansion. Sorry, I mean Overwatch 2. I don't think that's too much of an ask, even with OW2 in development.

Shit, is this how Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft fans feel? It sucks.

stormyskiesahead

The next-gen patch for Xbox is go, with 4k 60Hz or 1440p 120Hz support for Series X. No news on a PS5 update yet.

SonicBoomBoy

Sounds good. Anyone here still play this? Just curious what the player count is

stormyskiesahead

I still play in a group on PS4 a few times a week, and far less frequently on PC. The playerbase seems relatively healthy atm but way down on what it was a couple of years ago, and there are a lot of grumblings about the lack of support the game has had over that time as Blizz gear up for Overwatch 2.

Last time I looked the estimated monthly player count across all platforms was around 6 million, with peak daily player counts of around 400,000.

It's Overwatch. It ain't going anywhere any time soon.

SonicBoomBoy

Nice, thanks

stormyskiesahead

Overwatch 2 PvP livestream starts at 8pm on YouTube and Twitch. The PvE stuff they've shown looks decent, fingers crossed this is as good.

stormyskiesahead

There's a fair bit to unpack from last night's livestream. The biggest thing first, OW2 will be 5v5 with only one tank per team with the role being made more brawly and aggressive, with main tanks doing more damage. My initial reaction to this was "What about off tanks?" but we've been assured the team is working on finding them a place (Diva will be getting a substantial Defence Matrix buff to make her viable as a shield alternative, as an example). I'm still unsure how I feel about this, but it'll mean no more double shields, so that's something.

Each role is also getting passive abilities/effects, with tanks taking less knockback and generating less ult charge from being damaged, damage heroes will get a movement speed buff, and supports will recover health over time. There are some very nice UI tweaks and additions as well, with Zen's orbs now showing who they're attached to being a favourite.

Crowd control is being reduced across the damage and support roles, with the intention that tanks are the only reliable source of CC. An example was the rework to Mei's primary fire which will do more damage but won't freeze enemies in place anymore, only slow them. This is great. CC in an FPS game just feels bad, and efforts to reduce it are fine by me. (Fingers crossed someone from Bungie was watching and taking notes.)

We also got to see some of the new maps and a couple of rounds of the new Push game mode. It all looks good, with the new maps featuring increased cover, verticality, and flanking routes. The art direction is top-notch, as ever. (We don't talk about Horizon Lunar Colony.)

So yeah some good stuff overall despite my concern for off tanks, and together with the huge PVE mode, I've no doubt the game's gonna be a monster. Would be nice if Blizz actually support it for more than a couple of years this time though.

Anyhoo, here's some gameplay from the new Rio payload map and the Rome push map.

drumbeg

So, a few years back I used to play this with Stormy and a few others. Just got back into some Quick Matches recently after fancying some multiplayer fun.

Bit of a learning curve, especially with all the characters to learn (and relearn). Still nothing else like it though.

stormyskiesahead

It's gotta be four years or so, damn. I've actually been taking a break of late to play Apex, but would be happy to jump in for some games.

drumbeg

Sure pal, if you see me on (usually late evening) I'd be up for a casual game.

Really interesting reading back over this thread and seeing how long cross-play and Overwatch 2 have been in the making. I played cross-play with a PC gamer mate the other night and it worked flawlessly. Perfect comms included.

The 2-2-2 thing is for the most part good. I play mostly tank/support anyway but I wouldn't mind the odd go with a damage class without having to spend tokens or wait around for 8 minutes.

Can't complain much though. Dropping in after all this time and it's obviously still a great game.

stormyskiesahead

2-2-2 and role queue caused a bit of a ruckus within the community when they were implemented. In the Overwatch team's long quest to retrofit a balanced and competitive game into the casual romp OW launched as, the player freedom we were originally sold on has continually paid the price. The flip side to that of course is that if they hadn't changed the game into something more competitive based on player demands, trends, and certain necessities, the game might not still be around.

I'm absolutely fine with most of the changes, the game needed to become something more than it was, but role-queue still has some personal issues for me as a flex player who plays with a group of flex players. One of the things I loved about OG OW was the ability for us to switch not just characters but roles mid-game or at certain strategic points based on our hero preferences and proficiencies.

Need a Diva / Winston dive comp for the first point on a hybrid map, no problem. Need a Rein led push for the next section, no problem. Dva switched to Ana and one of the healers switches to Rein because those players are the best at those roles. With RQ that all stopped, you start as a tank you gotta stay a tank. But what if you're an off tank player and don't like playing shield tanks? Tough.

There's always Quick Play Classic in the Arcade for when we wanna mix and match like that I suppose (and I appreciate they added that mode), but the quality of Arcade games can be... mixed.

But hey, the changes have let OW grow into a great competitive MP and kept the game relatively healthy despite a lack of support over the last couple of years, so s'all good.

stormyskiesahead

And hell, maybe one day if we're really lucky, the Overwatch competitive core will be as well designed as it is in Paladins.

Wouldn't that be a thing?

Edit: No regrets.

drumbeg

Actually, I've found that I have a ton of priority passes, so jumped into a few games as a DPS.

Agree, the lack of switching up the balance mid-game is an issue. I've found this to be frustrating when you have a player in a certain class not pulling their weight when rolling with randoms, but yeah, can live with it.

I'll have to check out the arcade modes too.

drumbeg

Going to try the experimental stuff this week. Just been reading up about some of the "balance" adjustments. Lucio's ult can now kill!

drumbeg

Overwatch 2 beta is open for registration.

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/beta/

Not played in a while, but think I will stick my name into the hat.

stormyskiesahead

So I got OW2 PvP closed beta access and played about 4 hours with a friend last night.

Super early impressions then: It's still very Overwatch feeling, obvs, but at the same time it continues the ongoing trend of moving ever further away from the freedom of the launch game. It feels faster, more DPS dependant, and far more restrictive in your choices of character than ever.

I'm really not feeling the move to 5v5 just yet, the removal of a tank changes the game dynamic so much that certain characters and roles now seem redundant. Reducing the amount of shields is fantastic, but that could also have been done with other character reworks similar to Orisa's (I'm looking hard at Sigma and Symmetra here.)

So far supports feel like they got fucked. It seemed like unless I was playing Lucio or Moira I really struggled to survive, as without an off-tank to peel I was gonna get skull fucked by the rampaging DPS. Tanks - I dunno. Some feel great, with Orisa being a legit raid boss needing an entire team of coordinated players to take down now (Sombra had massive value here), whereas Winston felt pointless. Ranged DPS rules, with Soldier 76 and Sojourn putting in crazy work.

The new Payload and Hybrid maps seemed fine on a first play, although they were visually very busy. I really didn't click with the new Push mode though. It felt slow, clunky, thematically awkward and visually ugly with its big bland robot pushing a big bland padded wall around. Not to mention that once one team has around 70% progress it feels all but impossible for the other team to recover thanks to the time required for the robot to make the walk back to the other wall.

The beta's a strange one. I do feel like the changes to Orisa and Doomfist were absolutely in the right direction (though still need a bit of tuning), but so many other characters also felt like they needed reworks to sit comfortably in this new 5v5 world (maps too for that matter) - reworks they don't seem to be getting. On a personal note I also really miss the team dynamic of having a main and off tank working together, and despite not liking the Paris or Horizon maps I'm really gonna miss playing 2CP on Anubis and Hanamura.

But hey, it's very early days and I've doubt a lot will change, both with the game and as the players adapt. I'm looking forward to playing more tonight in a 3-stack.

stormyskiesahead

Oh yeah, this definitely doesn't feel like a legit Overwatch 2. Just the missing Overwatch content and changes from the last few years dropped in one go.

Minnesänger

stormyskiesahead wrote:

I'm really not feeling the move to 5v5 just yet, the removal of a tank changes the game dynamic so much that certain characters and roles now seem redundant. Reducing the amount of shields is fantastic, but that could also have been done with other character reworks similar to Orisa's (I'm looking hard at Sigma and Symmetra here.)

So far supports feel like they got fucked. It seemed like unless I was playing Lucio or Moira I really struggled to survive, as without an off-tank to peel I was gonna get skull fucked by the rampaging DPS. Tanks - I dunno. Some feel great, with Orisa being a legit raid boss needing an entire team of coordinated players to take down now (Sombra had massive value here), whereas Winston felt pointless. Ranged DPS rules, with Soldier 76 and Sojourn putting in crazy work.

So, pretty much what everyone said was gonna happen but we were assured wasn’t gonna happen?

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