Overwatch - Trailers

http://kotaku.com/overwatch-has-a-story-but-no-single-player-1657036638

No single player.

Noooooo!

It figures. Maybe they'll make a movie with their CG team as a side project though.

Team Fortress anyone? I'm sorry but this game gives off to many TF feels for me to be comfortable (someone seems to still be pissy over getting DOTA taken from them). I like how the game looks but I honestly didn't get too excited about it because they scrapped Titan and threw some of the assets into this game.  We'll have to see how it goes but I doubt I'll be playing it.

I'm sure I'll play it at some point but without a single player it'll be on my back burner of games to play. I'll get around to it when I get burned out on whatever other fps I'm playing at the time.

Edit..

Lol I just realized I said that about TF2 also and I never did get around to turning that game on for a second time.

The more I watch gameplay the more I can only speculate what I want to play.

I never really liked sniping outside of Battlefield games, but Widowmaker's hybrid gameplay makes me want to play her a lot. Shes the only character that can ADS for sniping, but has a nasty assault rifle ability at close range.

McCree looks like he wields The Last Word from Destiny which always had brutal hip fire damage. His ultimate looks nasty when you run into groups. He seems like my go to character.... but Widowmaker looks so damn cool I'm gonna try her first.

Roadhog looks pretty cool. Hes the only tank I'm interested in. His hook skill looks devastating... but it seems to have a little learning curve. The ease of it on youtube it deceiving in IMHO. He can also self heal which is huge for a tank. It looks like a fun character to get into.

Hanzo plays like the Sparrow from Blops 3. the learning curve seems satisfying for this character. Your shots will drop based on range.

Genji looks fun as hell, and the deflection ability just looks like it will be a blast to master to troll people's ultimates back at them.

Tracer's mobility looks really good, but her lack of damage is the character's cost. I want to like her, but I will see how she plays out when the game releases.

Reaper looks fun, but his slow rate of fire is concerning against players that use Tracer and D.Va out of her mecha. His ultimate is absolutely devastating if you catch a bunched group off guard.

Junkrat seems to be starter character with a lot of AoE spam and trap skills. His Ulimate looks very devastating, but I have yet to see how it makes him vulnerable when controlling it. Surely it does.

Mei just looks OP in genereal with her freeze skills.

Solider 76 looks like the most classic style of FPS gameplay.

Most the support characters look meh... even though they are necessary, their offensive capabilities are boring.

Junkrat looks like a character I'd enjoy playing. That explosive wheel reminds me too much of my favorite little EOD bot from battlefield and the traps and explosives he uses looks like they'd be alot of fun.

Got a $50 ps card for my b-day so I went ahead and preorder it. Looking forward to early beta access.

Nice. Its 2 or 3 days of early access right? Just enough time to get really good and own everyone that first weekend.

For a game that has no solo campaign they sure put a lot of effort into the world and story. That Widowmaker short was amazing, but I found some more clips that are equally cool plus another short that was before the Widowmaker one... there are going to be a few more apparently before the game comes out.

HOLY SHIT THIS GAME IS FUN!!!!!

Now that is out of the way here are some random thoughts after 3-4 hours of playing

What I liked:

-NETCODE!!! Wow this game runs wonderfully. No lag and outstanding hit detection. It felt good popping off 6 consecutive sniper kills with Widowmaker.

-Balance!! Nothing seemed overpowered. I never got constantly wrecked by the same thing over and over again. You cannot 1v1 CQC a tank with a squishy, it doesn't matter how much DPS you have. You'll lose 99.9999% of the time because the other player would just have to be so incompetent to die. On the same token, you're not going to out shoot Widowmaker/Hanzo with a tank or an defensive character. Every character has strong points and draw backs. Example: Widowmaker is super deadly, but her sniper shots charge up to 100% power with a 1-1.5 second delay between shots. So if you spam it, your consecutive shots wont do as much damage at all.

-Support roles get just as much credit/xp/kudos as offensive players. Support characters are game changers. Most of then can attack, but some cannot. Mercy is one of these characters. All she can do is heal and buff. Her ultimate is a revive. When buffing an character's damage, you receive kill credit for every kill they get. A good Mercy player can make characters like Junkrat and Tolbjorn as deadly as Widowmaker and Hanzo. At the end of the round, if Mercy performed well, she'll get kudos for healing amount among the stats for most kills/damage output. I thought this was really great.

-Maps! Maps are everything to me in a FPS. Great map design can overcome a wealth of other issues a FPS may have. The maps on this game are solid... and what makes this game dynamic is that some maps just don't work for some characters. If you play Widowmaker on a closed in map, you're not going to be very successful just as you'd be fairly useless as Bastion on an open map where you're left vulnerable in turret mode.

-Press left on the D-Pad for character information... this is simply amazing. If you never played a hero and aren't sure what their abilities are, you can hold left on the D-pad and it will tell you what each ability does... its simple yet effective.

-No autoregen health... git gud. Support characters are so important. The map has health pickups, but they aren't reliable enough because they dont always heal you 100%. And some players have started boobie trapping the rooms wit their hero's passive abilities.

What Needs Work:

Nothing is really wrong with the game, its more the players. I hope this beta chases off all the COD idiots. This game focuses quite a bit on team synergy. When you have 3 Reapers on your team, you know you're gonna lose. When everyone on your team selects a character, there will be a tool tip alert on the side of the screen that will point out your team's flaws. Things like "Low damage, too many snipers, No support heroes, no offensive heroes, no tanks" etc will display. This means it would be best for people to change up their characters. For the most part this happened. I played many different characters, and they were all enjoyable. Widowmaker, McCree, Soldier 76, and Torbjorn are my go to, but I'll swap it up if the team needs something different. Sometimes you'd have an ass pick the same character as you, even though you picked it first well in advance before they decided... then you sit there and watch them not change characters even if the thing says you need something else. I'm probably going to stop swapping just so people like this don't buy the game or refund their preorder. Its one thing to pick the same character nearly at the same time, but its another to wait a few seconds like you are seeing what everyone else is picking and then pick whatever you want. You can swap heroes in match almost at any time, but I dont trust these people to make the right decision. When you can't push the objective, and no one will step up and swap to Reinhardt because everyone enjoyed getting mowed down by Bastion, you know half the team is going to leave after the match.

Escort heavily favors defenders. In this mode you move along a transport vehicle and get it to its destination. The enemy team can push it back and reverse your progress if you don't actively stay near the transport. Each of these matches had a similar theme. Attackers would get the transport to the end and lose because defenders pushed the transport off the finish pad before time ran out. The defender spawn is right at the pad while your spawn is way back. If the transport is even a bit off the pad, you lose despite having it 99% of the way there. They should really have it work to where you capture the point once the transport is at the end of its route instead of forcing a team to keep it there against impossible odds.

Characters I played-

-Widowmaker: I can't stop mentioning her, shes just a blast to play. Its such a balanced character that does everything right. You're sniper shots are ultra deadly when you pace them out to where all your shots count as 100% damage. headshots are instakills for the most part. Body shots will kill squishies in 2 hits, and tanks in 5+ hits. She has a hook claw that can get you to higher elevation with ease, but it also serves as a nice gap closer or escape. If someone gets too close for comfort and you have no escape, your rifle is an auto rifle as well as a sniper, it does decent enough damage at close range, but Widow is very squishy and unless its Tracer, or someone low on health, its best to run. Her ultimate comes back pretty quick and allows your whole team to see the enemies through walls.

-Soldier 76: Good all around character. Probably the best to start out with and get your feet wet. He's offensive, but has a support AoE heal giving you the best of both worlds. He is also the only character that can sprint. His handy rifle has a missile for its secondary fire. His ultimate is almost like an aimbot for a short period of time. His medium damage and long range makes him versatile, and with a buff from Mercy he's just downright deadly.

-Mercy: shes important, but TBH it was boring playing as her for me. Its not my style. I was buffing someone playing Junkrat the whole match just racking up kills.

-Torbjorn: This guy is a riot to play. He drops a turret that is pretty deadly. I got an 18 kill streak one game from strategic placement. His little hand cannon does decent damage, and it alt fire is basically a shotgun spread. I don't really understand his ultimate outside of you're a bit faster. Torbjorn picks up bolts from dead enemies and can turn them into extra armor for your teammates. Like Soldier 76 hes a hybrid support/offense, but instead of healing, you're buffing the amount of damage teammates can take.

-D.VA: Oh this character is really nice. Probably my favorite tank. She can really put a hurt on even the tankiest characters. She has a nice boost gap closer that can be paired with her self destruct ultimate. Shes unique because once your mecha gets destroyed you jump out and have a second chance. You're very squish and only have a weak pistol with no abilities, but your ulimate charges up pretty fast and allows you get call in another mecha in place of self destruct.

-Reinhardt: This character is so important, and kudo's to the unsung heroes that play him. He has a hammer for an attack that has shit for range, and honestly it doesnt do enough damage IMO. His secondary attacks are a clumsy shoulder charge that will stun or even kill someone, and a slow projectile that flings from your hammer. His "secondary fire" is what makes him shine. He creates a massive barrier that lets you shoot through it but enemies can't shoot you through it. Reinheardt can make or break a team on capture modes. There was on match that went 3 rounds and we were losing 0-99% cap, we came back because someone swapped to Reinhardt and did a great job of keeping us alive. The barrier has no cooldown unless its broken by the enemy team. So you're free to deploy and turn off at any time.

-Hanzo: I suck so bad with him, but hes such a cool character XD. His deflecting shot is so wicked. You really have to time your shots with his guy. You can hold the fire button til the arrow reaches the top reticle for maximum range. His ultimate is probably the best in the game, and it can go through walls. Widowmaker popping her ultimate before you unleash that bad boy is a dream team ultimate combo.

McCree: This dude is a beast, You can fire your revolver one shot at a time or fan the hammer for a less stable and accurate barrage. It will kill any non tank if all your shots connect. There is no cool down on the hammer fan, you just have to watch the ammo count. You can fan the hammer with all 6 shots or just 2 rounds left. His flashbang provides great CC, and his ultimate is killer in open locations. Its basically ripped straight out of Red Dead Redemption... except it auto targets since you can really slow down time.

Day 2 report.

It took a bit to find some matches today. I bet the COD crowd already went back to black ops. Better team synergy today as well. The big difference about this game is that offense can't push. You can't push without defensive characters or support characters. An all DPS team will lose every single time. There is no TDM in this game. I found myself using Reinhardt a lot more when my team struggled and it changed the momentum of the match completely. That barrier does wonders for pushing forward. We dominated an escort match with my leading the way and someone playing Mercy keeping my HP topped off. Squishies tried to flank me and I hammered them down immediately. I shoulder charged the opposing Reinhardt when he had his barrier up, sacrificing myself, but advancing my team. Once I broke their line, they couldn't afford to allow me to swing my hammer wildly, they had to focus me down leaving them vulnerable to my team who where behind my barrier. This game is not about KD, and they don't even display how many times you died publicly, you only see it in your personal recap. One offensive player would be hard pressed to carry a team, I don't think its possible, but someone like Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Wintston, or Mercy could.

At the end of each match, when kudos are displayed people can vote to give props to a game well played. I got my first most "epic" I guess its called, when you get the most votes. I got it for my Reinhardt escort. What is cool about this is that it generally nominates people from both teams unless it was lopsided. Same goes for "Play of the Game" if the losing team had a better epic play, it will show it rather than someone on a winning team that did nothing spectacular. 

I played some Zenyatta today and he's going to be another favorite support character with strong offensive capabilities. Hes squishy as can be, but he buffs and debuffs. You can heal teammates, and apply vulnerability to enemies. You can only do this to one character at a time each way. The debuff lasts as long as the character is alive or possibly is healed by Mercy. His ultimate makes him invincible for a good 7-10 seconds while he heals everyone around him. This can be clutch trying to lock a point down.

Playing Torbjorn more today I liked him even more. I haven't been utilizing his abilities to their fullest. He's def on of the best characters for defending. Once you place down your turret, you can pull out a hammer pressing the right D-pad button and hammer away at your turret upgrading it to level 2. If you using your ultimate and do this, it makes a super turret. 

I haven't played as Mei yet, but damn shes annoying. Good Mei players are going to be tough to deal with. Her freeze gun can lock you down in place and stun you giving her a free headshot insta kill. She excels on capture point mode, and her ultimate is a stationary device that will freeze everyone's feet to the ground in a large radius. I found myself going for her first as Widowmaker, she can def neutralize your Reinhardt if she can flank him. Its just great how everything has a counter. There wont really be a meta team build outside of MLG.

Your reviews on these characters are great. I'll definitely try out the beta this weekend. I still wish this game had a campaign. I was reading this review earlier and it makes some good points about the longevity of the game:

https://www.vg247.com/2016/04/21/overwatch-beta-review/

Quote

Whether or not Blizzard intended this, Overwatch is a game with a very high skill ceiling. It’s a shooter that is not particularly easy to pick up and play, and will require hours upon hours of play before you even begin to appreciate its meta game. This is the antithesis of what today’s popular shooters are built on.

...

I recognised this feeling of being crushed all too well, the feeling of not knowing what to even do. I also realised that this is where Overwatch is eventually going to end up six or eight weeks after launch, when the majority of new players drop it for something more straightforward, or the next big shooter.

Something like Call of Duty and Battlefield doesn’t suffer from the same problem as often, just because of how easy it is to get into them. This guarantees continued sales for many months after launch, which in turn means there’s a sustained influx of new players joining the ranks.

I just can’t see Overwatch pulling that off. Two months after launch, it could turn into this inscrutable thing that you’ll keep wondering if people are still playing.

If you don’t believe me, show the current version of Team Fortress 2 to someone who’s never played it before. Nine times of ten, they won’t come back past the first week.

The matchmaking could make or break this game. With how GW2 pvp is a mix of classes in a 5 vs 5 matches with objectives it was extremely fun for me at first. Then the matchmaking got so bad I swapped to unranked only and the match making was so bad there that every match was still lopsided with ppl of no skill or knowledge of the game mechanics were getting thrown into matches with ppl that have been playing for years. I stopped playing pvp all together because of it. Overwatch has a very similar style in terms of L2P. As long as the matchmaking is good, it'll thrive, but if I get matches like GW2 ranked I'll probably lose interest since I won't have the time to learn all the different mechanics of the different classes to stay competitive with the hard core players.

When I said it took longer, I meant like 30-45 seconds longer. The match maker actually has a timer, and an ETA to finding a match. I'm sure they put this data to good use. I had to wait a full minute like one time. This is actually pretty impressive since only preorders can play right now, and TBH not a lot of console players really know much about this game. The ad campaign just started like 2 weeks ago. Once in a server tho, matches transition immediately. The map loading is the only wait between them. If you need to AFK, you'll have to leave the game or you'll just get booted by the AFK timer if you take too long to get back. If not enough people are in the server you can goof around and spar for fun like in GW2 prematch until the map finds enough players. I really like this because I hate waiting a full minute between matches like on COD (I have no idea why they got rid of their express modes with a shorter wait time). When people leave they get replaced pretty fast, its just the actual finding a server that takes the longest, 30-50 seconds maybe? It will probably improve later on the 5th when everyone tries it.... but it will also stress test the servers.

GW2's issue is programming and the player base. I'd say over 85% are casuals that have no interest in PVP. That's how the game was marketed. Plus their MMR that is hellbent on making sure you lose 50% of the time is just absurd and creates the most issues with their format. Its one thing to loosely base it on that, but to go to the extreme to make sure you're on the worst team possible at points to make sure your W/L ratio stays where they want it takes the fun out of PvP. This is why you cant stay with the same team of randoms and just load into the next map after a new round of voting. They boot you out of the instance to find you a new set of players to play on both sides. This is their biggest flaw. If they'd leave it up to the players to leave the match and then queue everyone on the instance until someone else joins, it would work a lot better. But they are too concerned with their strict MMR W/L ratio to ever let that happen.

Oh and praise the six Overwatch doesn't have map voting. It was cool when MW2 first introduced this, but now days people want to play the same damn map over and over and over again and avoid maps they suck on. There are always maps I like more than others, but I much rather play the maps I don't like than play the one I do like 3-4 times straight. MW2 had a better system even then, You could only vote to skip 1 time and where stuck with the next map that was randomly selected. Now days its a choice between maps letting a organize team override a solo q group every time on map play.

Meh, I honestly don't know what to think of this. I just got done with a few matches (where I was regulated to the healing role since apparently no one wanted to do it tonight). While the gameplay is fun something just isn't clicking for me (like I said I honestly don't know what to think about it). I'll be on it quite a bit this weekend when I'm not drowning in DA: Inquisition so I'll post a more comprehensive post detailing my full thoughts on this game (if you guys want to play let me know, due to not currently having a job I have a lot of free time on my hands as I'm currently waiting to hear back from my potential employer (something is delaying my start date so yeah)).

However, since I had the displeasure of being forced to play a healer, I fell in love with Mercy. I learned quite quickly that she or any other healer in the game are pretty much the driving force behind winning matches (a fact I learned in my last match in which we didn't have a healer, we barely won but I feel we could of wiped the floor with the other team had I or someone else been a healer). A tank is worthless without a healer and, as DX said, you get credit for kills if you're healing your team. I feel I did an excellent job keeping my team alive when I wasn't the number 1 target for the other team (almost got two Epics for my healing).

I also love Genji. He's a little off putting due to his weapon of choice (shurikens) but after you get the hang of how they shoot and work he's a great damage role to play. Plus his ultimate is killer if you get in a group of distracted enemies (I took three enemies out the first time I used it). My only gripe is, being a ninja and all, he should have a sprint or a built in increase to his run speed. He's too slow at getting to the objective and can't run away for shit when you need too. Given more time with him I could probably overlook this but I only got a match and a half with him since I manned up and played a healer my first three matches.

Fun factor definitely increases when your team works together to win. My first night I won the first 2 matches and lost like 10-15 straight against teams that were working together. Unless someone else steps up to the plate, I stick with Reinhardt on attack and Torbjorn on defense more the most part. I racked up 23 eliminations with my turret last night. I think he is a vastly underrated character because he wasn't featured a lot in close beta reddit clips. You may not get play of the game, but Torbjorn's area denial is super strong. Next time you're regulated to Healer, try Zenyatta. He doesnt have the healing power of Mercy, but he can heal, and you can waste tanks with that orb of discord. I also wiped the floor with someone playing Widowmaker. Zenyatta has crazy accurate and charging up his L2 will instakill any 200HP foe. In the right hands hes devastating. I played against someone 2 nights ago that was damn good with him and he was laying waste to me. Some dude on reddit was bashing him only to be met with people saying "You've never encountered a good Zenyatta player have you?" Mercy is def the strongest healer, and because of such you have a big target on your back because there is nothing you can do for yourself against attackers. every time I see that stream of light coming off someone, I go for her first myself. I think they should replace that laughable dash skill she has with an armor buff or a shield to protect her self a bit. Or she should be able to fly like Phara. Soldier 76's healing is underrated as well. If your team pays attention its really good since he says "Come here and heal up" when you place it.

The two things I love about this game that stresses me out about other shooters is that, 1, you can shoot through your teammates... I rage so hard when my shots get blocked and I die along with the idiot that blocked my bullet barrage trying to get the kill, and 2, you spawn in a safezone. No spawn raping. The safe zone has 3 exits too so its pretty hard to exploit it as defenders. I should be on a lot tomorrow since I'm off. My sinuses have been killing me so I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like to. I've been going to be early the last 2 nights. I think I'm almost over it though.

Meh, I now know why I'm not liking this game. It focuses to much on the raid dynamic of an MMO it's frustrating. Don't get me wrong I love that there is now a shooter out there that focuses on making you work as a team (lets face it, as much as Battlefield pushes the squad thing very few people work as a team) but it's purpose is defeated when everyone and their mom wants to play Genji, Tracer, Widowmaker, Roadhog, Hanzo, or any other damage character in the game. I won one match out of 9 this morning due to idiotic people not wanting to man up and heal or tank. I tried Reinhardt today and he is quite the beast but I learned quickly that without a dedicated healer you're fucked (thank you jackasses that decided we needed two Widowmaker's, a Tracer, a Reaper, and a McCree on our team). I also tried Torbjorn out and I have to admit that guy is a freaking beast if you play him right (I got play of the match when my turret went ham and killed 5 people when I hit my Ult).

I hit my stride with Mercy today and figured out exactly how to play her effectively (netting my first Epic) after someone else decided to play Rein after I picked him. While I agree she needs some sort of shield or armor buff to keep her alive as long as you stick behind the group and team with one person you'll survive (I followed a Pharah on that match I got an epic on and we went complete ham. Switching between heal and damage buff really went a long way for us). My whole major gripe of the day is I didn't get a chance to try any other characters besides the two I mentioned above. I get really frustrated when I get regulated to playing Mercy (as much as I love her) or the tank due to people not wanting to work as a team.

I would try Zenyatta but I feel he's not for me. I can't even juggle dps with heals on Mercy so I honestly don't think I could handle healing, damaging, and debuffing as Zenyatta (though I might try him out later this weekend, I got my ass handed to me by him today so I know he's a powerful character in the right hands).

As fun as I find this game it's bringing out my COD rage from my MW2 days due to lack of teamwork. I prefer Battleborn over this and I will be buying it as soon as I get a job and the money to do so. I'll continue playing the beta until it's over but honestly this game isn't for me. Battleborn has more to offer me then Overwatch does and I get the same gameplay either way (though Overwatch does do a better job with the multiplayer aspect, then again the whole concept was designed and balanced around it) plus I get a single player aspect and 26 completely disturbed and hilarious characters.

I've been too busy with work the last 2 days to even get this beta downloaded yet. x_x I'll set it to download tonight or tomorrow morning. I don't know what time I'll be getting on yet tomorrow or saturday. Sucks about the employment issue Strider, I hope that new employer works out good for you. DX is having sinus issues. I bet you sound horrible on psn chat. As for me, I might need a minor surgery in the near future (i'll find out more about that in a couple weeks). Depending on how that goes I might not have the cash to buy any games anytime soon. x_x I'm still going to buy a new graphics card tho since I'll finally be able to play a bunch of games on my steam account on high settings.

Hmm.. Raid dynamic. Thats got me a bit concerned. I'm used to all DPS teams for dungeons, but raids have always put me off because of the class specific roles involved. But I might like overwatch more because of it since each round is on a much smaller scale than a 2 hour long raid attempt.

I sound like a gw2 glint right now.

I say raid dynamic because it's the closest to what the game plays like (at least on escort mode, capture is a whole different story). Honestly only the attacking team (for escort) needs a tank by what I've seen. Defensive teams are okay as long as they have a healer (I just got off of another hour of playing and god my ass handed to me over and over again by 5 dps/1 healer (or I guess more like 4 dps/1 support/1 healer) defensive teams when I was on attack) or some sort of character that can heal (I've seen 2 Soldier 76's keep an entire defensive team up, that's how good his heal is). Sadly though it totally means nothing if you have no teamwork which is why I'm frustrated with this game as most people would rather run off and do their own thing (my last match tonight was a different story, I played Reinhardt and people actually stuck to me and I had a dedicated healer. We still lost before we could start escorting the car but we came extremely close to starting the escort due to my teams ability to stick to the massive guy carrying a massive hammer and the angel chick keeping him alive). Getting kills is not how you win matches, playing the objective is (fuck as Reinhardt I don't go for kills unless it's against another Reinhardt or their is no chance of me dieing since I know I need to keep my team safe). As DX pointed out though it's extremely fun and satisfying when you do get that team that works together though, nothing more satisfying then taking a capture point and winning by a small percentage because you're team wiped the floor by working together. I hope, for all of you who bought it, that these jackasses won't be playing past the beta otherwise they're going to ruin this game. Sadly this is only a problem the community can fix so like I said I hope these bastards get weeded out when they realize this isn't a COD based game.

The whole unemployment thing wouldn't be so bad if there were jobs in this damn town (and for not having a job since the end of March, it's funny how fast money goes when you're unemployed for over a month). First place I applied to interviewed me but decided I wasn't exactly  right for the job and this is the only place out of the other 3 jobs I applied to that showed interest, the only hang up is this problem that popped up (which may take up to two weeks to get rectified). Let me tell you, I was bitching at my old  job that I needed a vacation and now I don't think I'll be taking any time off for a year if this problem gets fixed. There's only so much you can do to keep yourself occupied before you get extremely bored (hence why I'm playing through DA: Inquisition to get it done, might as well capitalize on my newfound free time. Maybe if I beat it quickly enough I can start up MGSV).

Reinhardt is the idiot slayer. I have to grin when some goon playing Tracer gets close to my shield. I let go of L2 and end her with one hammer swing most of the time. Tanks are def for attacking teams. It depends on the mode if defenders need a healer. Escort they definitely don't since the spawn is so imbalanced at the end, you literally spawn right there at the pad so you can push the car off of it a little and win when time expires. I know its not called Escort, or maybe it is and one is called Payload... the mode where the whole round is about escorting the car is my least favorite. I like the one where you cap or defend the point and then escort because once the car hits the pad, you win or lose immediately. Either mode Reinhardt is king, Not only does he provide the whole team with protection, but the other team will generally group up in front of you and you can CC the shit out of them with his ultimate. If you're on tomorrow I'll Reinhardt it out for you so you can try some other characters.   You're MMR pure unluckly. I get about 50/50 good teams bad teams.

Defense is all about area denial. Mei, Torbjorn, Junkrat, Bastion, and Phara are must haves. I ran into a team that ran two Bastions and were just boss as keeping us out of the last point cap. The map just suited it well because it has superior line of sight for them to cover all points of entrance in turret mode.

As Strider and I notice last night, they really need to be more clear on what game mode we're playing. All you get on the character select screen is "Attack" or "Defend". Unless we're completely missing it, it would be nice to know if its Escort, Assault, Control, or Hybrid. But looking it up just now I guess they expect you to remember it by map seeing as these modes only take place on certain maps.

Having two people work together can really change the tide of battle... but as we found out it will only go so far. There were some rounds I would Reinhardt and Strider would keep me healed but no one would group up behind me even after I hit the group up emote a few times. Surprisingly it seems the PC crowd is having a bigger problem with mutli-widowmakers. I really haven't seen it on PS4 where Reaper seems to be the favorite, but it doesn't matter as long as the rest of the team chemistry is solid. Some people just generally don't know what to do. We had a Zenyatta player that wasn't healing or discording and a Reinhardt that barely ever put up his shield. More people have been willing to play healer though thankfully. There was one beast of a Mercy we went up against, but to be fair, the Volskaya Industries map heavily favors defenders on the last cap point.

I'm perfectly content with this game though, I think it will provide me with a lot of entertainment. It will keep me busy until October... and after that BF1 trailer, thats all I'm really looking for.

I have to say that since getting access to the beta last night is the most fun I've had playing it. Having a friend or two to team up with totally makes this game worth playing (as long as those randoms you get stuck with understand teamwork). The two of us definitely made a huge difference on those matches we won due to our teamwork (I gotta say I'm damn good at playing as Mercy when I got a great tank and team behind me). I also agree, they need to label the maps with what mode you're playing. Considering the beta has only been accessible for most players for 2 days it's ridiculous to expect us to remember what maps correspond with certain game modes. Makes it really hard to decide you're team make up or just to know what character you should play to begin with. I honestly don't know what that Reinhardt was thinking last night, going for kills over protecting his team. I think he only ended up with 3 or 4 kills which totally was not worth it when you consider how badly we got our asses handed to us. I won't even get started on that Zenyatta and that Mercy was a pain in the ass.

I've noticed that we have a multi-Tracer problem on PS4 besides the multi-Reaper. We really didn't run into it last night but while I was playing on Thursday almost every team I was on had at least 2 Tracers. While she's a great hero in the right hands most people don't even know how to effectively play her. Multi-Widowmakers is extremely rare on PS4, most of the time you'll see a Hanzo/Widowmaker team since both are extremely good snipers.

After last night I might pick this up just for the rare occasion we get the chance to play together. This is definitely one of those games that requires friends to play with (at least for me). As I said it's a fun game but it brings out my COD rage when I play alone or on a team of idiots.

That industrial map really needs a second look on point B. The bottleneck is too strong. Only squishies can flank, and you won't get far with 2 bastions and 2 torbjorns defending. Symmetra who is barely used could port everyone in with her ultimate, but she's not very good tbh. You can't expect genji and pharah to clear out bastions for your tanks to get in. Hell I was keeping it on lock down with Torb myself. I can't say I've ever won on attack for that map.

EDIT: I won on this map tonight for the first time. We had double Reinhardts and a Mercy. I was able to break the line and sacrifice myself to shoulder charge their bastion letting my team finish off the cap. Felt great to finally win on that map.

I got to play this for about an hour today. The tutorial and practice area felt great. Gave me a good idea of how the game works. I got in about 40 mins of games (could have been more if not for my having to afk at the title screen to take my puppy outside repeatedly. And another time when jumped at my face, licked my glasses and got me killed. lol.) I had some mixed experiences with this game. I'd have probably had a better time if I'd have stuck with 2 or 3 specific characters but I kept swapping around constantly to try a good mix of their abilities. Half my matches were good and somewhat balanced. I was obviously in the level 1-5 bracket of MMR with everyone else about as fluent with their abilities as I was. I really liked Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Junkrat, Roadhog and Mei. I'd have to learn the maps to remember when to play which one of these characters tho as I kept picking some of these guys in a couple matches back to back, doing good... and then sucking. lol.

That Gibraltar map sucked. Right before the match started we saw the other team come right up to our spawn location and basically spawn rape us for 3/4 of the match. wtf. And theres a couple exits we could take, but my team kept going thru the same door. But at the other exit there was a widowmaker picking everyone else off from a good height advantage. We lost that round, then when the next one started up I noticed we swapped sides. So our team went to the same area, saw their spawn area and the cart, got ready to start wrecking them.. got 5 kills in and their entire team quit within the first minute of the round, which then popped me to the 'searching for game' screen because there wasn't enough players to continue the match. ehh. Mei was fun, but that ice wall needs to be changed to allow friendlys to pass thru it. We can already shoot thru it so I don't see the point in keeping friendlys from walking right thru it too. I say this because I got into 2 matches in a row with Mei trolls. They were on my team, didn't want to actually play. Just wanted to keep ice walling the spawn exits once they saw a team mate about to walk out. Trolling like that isn't so bad, since you can go to another exit. But when were down a team mate because they're basically afking at the spawn the entire match throwing up an ice wall, we don't stand a chance in winning. A report / block player would be nice to have. I thought maybe that was a fluke random troll like a couple of the other rounds I got in that had 4 reapers on my team, but the next round I got 2 Mei trolls, each going to a different spawn exit.

The matches I did enjoy were quite fun and I got one play of the game with Torbjorn. lmao. The video clip was of me spawning and running back to the fight while my turrent killed 3 guys. I did get a great double kill with Junkrat's wheel bomb that felt great. The game plays great and feels polished, man I wish they'd have made a campaign. I like the variety of unlocks that can be acquired, but Overwatch would have benefited greatly with some Battlefield style assignments instead of having everything be RNG boxes.