Blizzard TF2

King of Posters
185

The $40 price point is heavy when considering the following context:

  1. TF2, which came out almost nine years ago as part of the Orange Box, retailed for $50 (I believe it was a bit less if you pre-ordered) and also came with HL2, HL2:Episode 1, HL2:Episode 2, and Portal.

  2. Said direct competitor is now free to play, as were Blizzard’s previous two MP-only offerings, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.

ArOne is correct, though - I can’t find anywhere where they actually came out and said ‘free to play’, I guess it was just a heavy assumption from the waiting community, given the above context. Rather than edit the original post, I’ll just leave it there to be wrong in all my glory!

And you’re right in that it’s not a lot in the same way that like… Battlefront is a lot. $60 for four maps at release and an additional $50 for the Season Pass. I dunno, maybe the era of Steam sales and free to play multiplayer has spoiled me. I just expect at least some sort of included single-player experience when I’m expected to pay near retail price.

Back to the game itself, I actually like how they didn’t make losing feel like a total drag. I was worried with the XP system that winning would be so heavily incentivized that people would just be salty nonstop on the losing team. Outside of a first win of the day bonus, though, winning only snags you something like 20% more XP. And if matchmaking shoves you into a ragequitter’s shoes mid-loss, you get a big old bonus to boot. Then at the end of the match, losing team players can snag Play of the Game (not that that means anything substantial) and players on the losing side are often up for voting as player of the game! They did a fair amount to ease the pain of a loss, although maybe it only feels this way through the lens of moba experience.

I also like that Ultimates aren’t a free win button, as the preview videos made them seem. Roadhog in particular makes for hilarious cancelling of poorly-used ults with his hook! Die die dHUUUUURK. It’s High NHUUUUUURK. Justice reigns frHUUUUURK.

186

TF2 is f2p, sure, but that’s also why it turned into a black market hat sim and introduced at least six million weapons you’re supposed to care about. in other words, f2p turned it into a piece of shit.

there is not a single f2p game I’ve ever played that I ended up being glad it was f2p. you bring up hearthstone and hots – both of those games have abysmal f2p models. they’re fucking awful. you drop $40 in hearthstone you will get nothing. straight up legit fucking nothing.

1 Like
187

But you can drop $0 in Hearthstone and you will get to play the game, which was sort of my point to begin with. Also, cosmetic items were introduced into TF2 a full two years before it went free to play (May 2009 for hats, versus June 2011 F2P update). They introduced trading said items almost a year before, in September 2010. It was in freefall well before it ever became F2P.

Starbreak, Warframe, Path of Exile, Tera Online, Mortal Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Dota 2, League, Realm of the Mad God. These are just the free games that I’ve had experience with (most of them since the start of the new year), off the top of my head, that I’m glad are free. Even in the case of LotRO, I bought it when it still costed money, and shockingly, F2P didn’t ruin it.

I had a whole thing written up about why I came to appreciate the model where I used to hate it, and examples of doing it right versus wrong, but instead I’d rather just apologize because I didn’t mean to devolve the entire conversation into the price tag - it was just what stuck in my craw most during the Overwatch hypecycle. It also served as a handy delivery system for a mildly interesting story (oh I might get that game, oh I’m not getting that game anymore, oh thanks Taco Bell).

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Personally, I’m a little tired of F2P games for their cruft and grind to get to the “fun part” so I’m OK with the 40 dollar entry fee. It also helps deter bored individuals getting in who’s sole purpose of playing is to grief.

As much as I love TF2 its getting long in the tooth and the seams are starting to become more visible. Doesn’t help Valve has been doing the bare minimum to support it. The last few content updates have just been community content with Valve’s stamp of approval. I’m read for something with some new and shiny so to speak. I’m also on board for the character selection in Overwatch because TF2 has become this guessing game on what loadout a player is running. You never know if that spy is running basic watch or dead ringer so you’re always second guessing if you killed them or not. In Overwatch character loadouts are locked so when you see them you know exactly what they are capable of. No guess work.

189

Just to be a jerk, it was more like 12 maps at release (the 4 planets thing DICE said messed with the dialogue around) and they gave a few more for free. But that’s still with a 50 buck season pass, so it’s kinda shifty either way. It’s really confusing that a Star Wars game from EA can’t get free extended support but both Garden Warden titles can.

Anyway, I bought Evolve, so my valuation of games is fucked anyway

190

Live mas, Flylighter. Live mas.

EDIT: This is true: my first thought upon watching some Overwatch footage was “oh boy Fly is going to get FURIOUS at this game.”

191

So the servers are up now. It’s the beta! Except that the cash shop is running at full capacity. I thought they said that was maybe coming at a later date while they were planning? You can only buy random lootboxes so far at least with the usually bulk orders offering the best “value”.

192

damn you don’t get to keep your shit from the beta. I want my pink mei :frowning:

193

I just played a game where we lost in 1:30 flat

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update: that’s the only game I’ve played, because every other game is permanently waiting for players

195

i’m surprised that the servers didn’t break during open beta since there surely had to be a lot more players playing then than those who were willing to shell out the cash for the game… right?

196

It’s a weird comparison to make, but I haven’t been enthralled by an online game this much since Blur. One of the best things the game is doing is giving you something to fight for at all times. I can’t play an offense class worth dick, but I can play support and defense feel like I’m contributing to the team push. It also carries over the “Vote” system from Blur, which displays the GoldenEye style awards some players pulled off during the game and lets everyone give props to people for pulling it off. It’s still “Play to win or go home” but it’s a game that’s thoughtful in rewarding people for team play and highlighting it while making players realize you can’t lone wolf to win. Though the POTG highlight is still too weighted to multi-kills and streaks over genuinely creative play or clutch comebacks in overtime.

Though the one thing OW does, which many, many games don’t do is make the game very easy to get into with tutorials and also informing you of issues your character has with a match up when you get killed while providing character specific tips to counter on the respawn. A game that teaches you how to play without intrusive hand holding is a wonderful thing compared to most online games that just kick you into the battle and expect you to get it immediately (Battlefield Hardline was particularly awful with this out of what I played recently. I remember vanilla TF2 having a learning curve like a cliff as well).

Overwatch is just wonderfully pleasant compared to the “I am more hardcore than thou” posturing, lately. And it does it without sacrificing depth. Which is a wonderful philosophy to have, really.

197

My Zarya game keeps growing. It’s so weird playing a tank that requires such active work on defense and supporting others, but man, once I get going with her, she is such a beast. Not so much on kills (though she can get those) as on backing the other team off really well.

POTG is a nice idea, but getting it to actually pick up on the play of the game is going to require a lot of tuning, so I expect it will just stay with streaks and such. What is funny is that people make fun of it when Bastion or Soldier 76 get it, but ignore that while the actual shooting doesn’t take much skill with them at various times, using them in the right time and place does. I got hassled over a 76 one last night, but I actually managed to pop out in an area and wipe the whole enemy team, so I dunno what y’all dudes want. Also, that wipe led to us getting the capture that won us the game so…?

198

I had a match where I was playing mercy the last person on my team desperately running to the cap point to keep the game alive and try keep it so everyone else could run in.I only barely got in with her boost to cause overtime. I then wiped two of the enemy team defending the point out with her blaster, it was enough to charge her ult to resurect the dead players. It instantly capped the point with the resurection to keep the game going. Player chat was freaking out because they thought the game was over and we got a second wind. We lost the game, but that was fucking incredible in how you can just swing a game and always keep it going if you push hard enough.

The POTG was a Hanzo who shot his ult into a wall and got a four player Multi kill. The salt was real.

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This is one area that Overwatch is totally a fightmans game for. The salt is of a very specific brand, and that is FGC Official Brand Salt.

But no, I get it. I’ve kept people alive as Zarya in some pretty tense ass spots, but no multikill, so no POTG, but whatever.

200

My hope is that the salt dies down a bit as people realize you get almost as much XP for losing as you do for winning! Although some games it’s like… dude, we’re on the defending team, do we really need 3 genjis.

This was my first time pulling down 5 golds in a match! My dear, dear Roadhog

201

I’ve only played around 2 hours and change of this game (PC version) so far, but Blizzard TF2 seems like a very successful experiment to me. It seems like it strikes a great balance between MOBA and FPS mechanics (still biased heavily towards FPS, which I prefer), with mostly-successful salt-deflection mechanics. (Though I haven’t played a game with voice chat on yet, so I can’t easily tell who might be raging at this game – not that I really wanna find out.)

Only hero I’ve played at length so far has been Reinhardt, who will almost certainly remain my favorite character in the game. I have no idea why it’s so exciting to play a character who spends most of the match holding rmouse, but I love this guy. I’ve only hit a handful of charges so far (and I haven’t attempted many), but they’re almost as satisfying as L4D2 Charger. (Almost. I miss the gratuitous chokeslamming.)

I like Rein because he seems to play very well with my fighting-game fundamentals – focus mostly on staying safe by blocking or avoiding LoS, and wait for opportunities to seize the initiative. Stall for time until you have buddies to help turn the tide, which is really easy unless you get 4v1’ed and/or double-flanked, in which case you probably made a huge mistake to begin with.

The next character I plan to try is Mercy so that I can work on my not-dying game without the aid of a gigantic energy shield. I like this game because “not dying” can be just as effective a playstyle as actually killing people, which I’m not that great at in any game with more than two planes of movement.

Loot boxes have been mostly decent so far; 2/4 had skin drops (green Widow and I forget who else…Lucio?). Still waiting on a Rein skin drop, though. Ideally I want red or white but will settle for pretty much any non-default color. (Though I like default Rein’s silver, that’s a good look for him.)

I don’t mind the stupid blind spots of POTG; I take it for what it is. And I try to upvote honestly based on who really played on point, up to and including opposing players. Seems like a sensible system overall even if POTG is kinda dumb.

EDIT: Just sw Father.Torque’s comparison of Overwatch char differentiation to Guilty Gear and I think that’s one of the reasons I like this game so much, lol. Also I would totally be down with Guilty Gear characters as heroes in this game. May throwing dolphins and beach balls everywhere, with the whale as her ult. Ky putting up Grinders and blasting away with Stun Edges. Zato sending Eddie out to buzzsaw people to death. Elphelt being…almost exactly the same, lol. Someone should put Blizzard in touch with Daisuke Ishiwatari.

In fact, now I want a “puppet” character in Overwatch. I’d like to see something more like a WoW pet, though – a minion that could both move and harass people out of LoS. That would be a pretty cool mechanic that isn’t already represented in this game, and I’m sure the concept is already on Blizzard’s mind for DLC heroes.

202

I still haven’t fucked with Roadhog much, but he is on my list as next tank if I tire of true homegirl Zarya. It’s just too much fun with her to just escort payloads and keep people backing the eff off.

203

Yeah, a good Zarya is sort of a nightmare to deal with, because she feels unkillable as well as whoever she’s shielding. You have to play way more passively against a Zarya, because it’s really easy to overcommit to something that would without her presence be a guaranteed kill.

204

Everyone here gotta post their Battle.net IDs here (make sure to include the little number too).
Also make sure to add it here (anyone can edit the OP post):
Steam, PSN, XBox, NN, etc. ids and egos.

Mine is YmerBizarre#2696