overwatch definitely seems MOBA-like in the sense that there’s generally a single path or “lane” that the offense tries to push through and most of the success or failure of either team is the ability to create or prevent a space within that path, even more so than other team based FPSes
and so all of the abilities on each character is about establishing some sort of dominance within a subset of that space, which is to me vaguely defined as “that area between the offensive frontline and the defensive frontline” – a kill on a character isn’t so much “pushing the frontline” as it is reducing the ability of that team to navigate that vague space, which results in a change in the dynamic between the two teams and THEN the frontline moves based on that
I guess what makes overwatch unique is that I’ve never really played a team FPS in which that space around the objective is both small and well defined! the act of “defining” a space is (to me) the ability of a player to exert some sort of dominance within that space through having a better weapon or having better map knowledge. in TF2 that exists, but it’s usually in a larger area, and in other team games it’s either defined as “the whole damn map” or not defined at all. the level designs of overwatch make it so that the hotspots usually take place in corridors or large (but small compared to other games) rooms, so all the action can be neatly quarantined to one area, which makes the interactions between heroes WITHIN that area much more important
also it’s simple math. The game is objective based. You want to harass/ keep the opponents off the objective as long as possible no matter what. The best way is killing them. There’s a death counter then they have to trudge their ass back to the line, or wait to group up.
So killing them is the best option most of the time.
The dichotomy of “playing the objective” and “playing for kills” is universally recognized and valid in most competitive shooters. By playing the objective in most competitive shooters, you are forgoing kills, and vice versa.
In CoD, playing for kills as opposed to (or in very careful conjunction with) the objective can earn you scorestreaks, which can turn the match around. In Battlefield, you reduce the enemy tickets and apply a more specific map control than “the frontline” or “the next chokepoint”. In Siege, people actually die when you kill them.
Overwatch basically rewards the more attritional, throw-yourself-at-the-point objective play and contesting points in the interests of overall time advantage, not survivability. There’s no real sting or satisfaction either way besides a few seconds of clearer space.
The problem is that target space never changes, so you are likely to get tired of these maps very quickly.
And it would be really interesting if this also had three lanes, with your choice of three points to attack, and an Outrun-style branching course for the payload.
That “few seconds of clearer space” is like 20 seconds minimum. And it wins/loses games. Mercy revive and Symettra teleport are both extremely powerful because they reduce that time (and subsequently make their lives even more important).
Have you been playing on console or PC? Maybe the balance feels different without mouse control.
I was more trying to comment on the idea of a “lane” as opposed to the number of them there are, in that there IS one
there’s that dynamic of pushing and pulling in the lane like there is during the laning phase of a moba in overwatch that I haven’t really seen in other FPSes. in this case though it’s more like an ARAM-ish thing but without the AR
Yikes, so this game is basically a refined version of Shadowrun 2007? Have to give Blizzard props for wanting to re-envision that game because it was criminally underrated and way ahead of its time clearly.
it’s important to note that newcomer’s experiences with the game are contending with the open beta audience. the game’s playerbase will shift rapidly once the pay barrier filters out people just dabbling and skill-based matchmaking becomes a bigger factor, not to mention the fact that the game is being played very differently by the console and pc playerbases
I have to say the more I play the it comes together.
Going onto the official forums one can find ____ that X character is OP! And what needs to be done to balance them. Meaning everyone is getting butchered by some character and I think that’s telling that something is working well.
I hope all the hype for this game doesn’t die with the beta because it’s great.
The only patch I want to see now is a longer idle time before it kicks players. When I have to pee or grab a drink I usually have to wait to regroup and that’s so annoying.