#1 - Overwatchers: “In a nutshell”
• Patrick • Garrett
Intro
- We are not FPS experts! Just a couple of guys who are excited about the game
- We were at BlizzCon for the announcement and played a few games each
- How we came to doing this show
- Huge props to the Overwatch subreddit. Tons of great info and content - including a podcast by frogpants fan Matt Burns! (Overwatch Radio))
What is Overwatch?
- Team-based first person shooter with some third-person elements.
- The comparisons to existing games (ex: TF2).
- Thoughts on Blizzard doing an FPS.
- First new universe from Blizzard in 16 years.
- Last was StarCraft in 1998
- Strong emphasis on map-specific objectives to achieve victory.
- No deathmatch mode
- Really reminds me of how Heroes of the Storm handles Battlegrounds.
- Heavy emphasis on lots of distinct heroes, and the feeling of being heroic.
- Very well done cinematic that infers a lot of world-building.
- Overwatch was a special task force. Saved the world from crisis. Now disbanded/mercenaries... yada yada.
- What are our thoughts? Blizzard was fairly relaxed on world details, or how we would get the story of Overwatch.
- No campaign to speak of.
- The asides are making it fun (there’s always fun in Blizzard games):
- Subtle murloc references
- Video game arcade
What makes Overwatch different?
- Objective based
- Hero based (tons of them)
- Simple controls (3 or so abilities per character)
- No customization (is that a good thing?!)
- Ultimately, what matters is the Blizzard touch:
- Take an existing genre that might be niche and make it accessible
- Remove the tedium and bring the fun out for everyone to enjoy
- Easy to learn, difficult to master. The second part is super important
Gameplay
- Team based, objective based: no deathmatch
- Strategy is more important than individual kill count (which isn’t counted)
- There is a score, which reflects contribution
- 6v6 is the “right size”: can contribute but won’t screw up completely
- No sprint, no reload
- No focus on “lethality”, existence of “support” classes… for noobs?
Outro
@Overwatchcast
Mailoverwatchers@gmail.com
@NotPatick
@GarrettArt
Battlegrounds
Level design:
- No large expanse, closed spaces to street-sized spaces. Think university building (with halls) rather than football field
- Reasonable amounts of verticality: make the traversal talents shine
- Always more than one way to or out of somewhere
Two Battleground modes at this time:
- The beginning of the match is a Point Capture (attack/defend). Once the point is capture by the defending team the payload is spawned. Once the payload is spawned it’s an escort game.
- Jeff Kaplan referred to King’s Row as a hybrid map.
Hero Notes
All 12 of the following heroes were playable on the floor of BlizzCon 2014.
Hero Overview: http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/
Offense
- All about teleporting. Exceptionally short range on her pistols so she’s designed to close the gap quickly and escape.
- Blink
- 10 meter teleport in whichever direction you’re currently moving.
- Making traversal fun and unique seems to be a theme throughout this game.
- Rewinds Tracer to 3 seconds before. Location, health, etc.
- Cause all games need a hood-wearing badass.
Defense
- More traditional sniper archetype. More twitch-based than the other heroes.
- According to Metzen’s quick summary of her backstory, she’s pretty much Kerrigan (in addition to looking very much like Kerrigan). “She was a very nice girl at one point, and transformed into one the of the world’s deadliest assassins.”
- Her Widow’s Kiss gun functions as a medium-range full-auto rifle with a simple left-click or as a scoped long-range sniper rifle if you hold down the right mouse button.
- Her Grappling Hook (shift ability) is another very fun traversal ability. Allows Widowmaker to get to the best vantage points.
- Her proximity Venom Mines apply a DoT to the target.
- Ultimate Infra-Sight is a sniper’s dream. Allows enemies to be seen through walls.
- Builder hero. Makes and upgrades a powerful Turret.
- TF2 comparisons are pretty dead on with this hero.
- Must collect scrap from fallen enemies to repair and upgrade his Turret.
- Basically a playable turret.
Tank
- His Tesla Cannon fires a short-range lighting barrage.
- Winston’s shift/movement ability is a Jump Pack. Functions more or less as one would assume but it deals damage and staggers opponent’s where he lands.
- His ultimate Primal Rage is the real highlight for Winston. He becomes very hard to kill and can only damage opponents with melee attacks or his Jump Pack (which receives a shorter cooldown during Rage).
- Very unique in a FPS. Massive melee/tank hero. AKA shit brickhouse.
- Uses a very large and effective Shield that allies can shoot through but opponents cannot. It will be destroyed if it absorbs too much damage. And he can’t attack while channeling the shield.
- No gun, swings a massive Rocket Hammer in a wide arc/frontal cone.
- His Charge ability is not an instant kill according to PlayOverwatch.com but it certainly seemed like one on the con floor.
- Charge doesn’t require a target so it can be used just as a movement ability. Though you have to wait 10 seconds between charges.
- His ultimate Fire Strike is the only projectile Reinhardt has. It’s a little hard to land but pierces opponents and does significant damage.
Support
- Another very unique hero. Her Photon Projector gun fires a steady beam that homes in on it’s target.
- Seems to be the hard counter to Reinhardt as her gun can also fire a charged energy ball that destroys Reinhardt’s shield.
- She has small Sentry Turrets that can be warped in onto pretty much any surface (ground, walls, roof). They also shoot a constant beam. While being hit by a turret’s beam the target hero has their movement speed slowed.
- Her ultimate, the Teleporter, seems to have a massive impact on the game when used correctly.
- The most traditional healer archetype in Overwatch.