Datto's Thoughts on the Overwatch 2 Beta

Overwatch 2 beta has launched. I will now talk about it for just under 13 minutes.

Epic Games Store Creator Code: HelloDatto

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[Anchor-Supreme]

I imagine they made an Overwatch 2 to draw the attention of more people. If they had just done the balance changes and changed the player count to 5v5 through updates it wouldn’t garner the same attention as basically claiming it’s a “new game”.

[aeveryhawk]

I really liked vanilla overwatch, but I think one of my biggest complaints as the game went on was the amount of crowd control and the ubiquity of shields as the game went on. It was super frustrating to get flashbanged by mcree, then black hole'd by zarya, then tossed around by doomfist, then booped by lucio, then slept by ana, etc etc etc. For reference, my favourite playstyle adapted into using Junkrat for mine jumps and direct hitting with the grenade launcher, Pharah for rocket jumping and flying away from all the Crowd Control, and Mercy for being able to fly away from people trying to CC me. No other characters really felt fun anymore because I didn't feel like I had enough counterplay vs all the CC with other characters.

Matches that felt "Good" and "Fair" were few and far between. It illicits the same bad reaction that people get when they get frozen by stasis in Beyond Light. Waaaay too much agency is being taken away from the player. For me, Overwatch with updates was way more "JuSt AdApT" than Beyond Light stasis ever was.

[NoVACorpsGaming]

Push spawns ARE NOT static, each team has two spans that activate depending on the progress of the robot

[Kossestu]

The most significant change they made besides 5v5 is the fact that they got rid of a lot of cc in the game, for exemple: sombra silences for only 1 sec, mccree doesn't have a flash, mei doesn't freeze, brigitte doesn't have a stun etc...
It's really refreshing to be able to actually move a lot in game, the bad thing about this is that flanking is really good because they can't be controled as much as before. The supports got the short hand of the stick overall, they are easy targets.
Overall i think the game is going in the good direction pvp wise, I absolutely loved playing it again, but I know i won't touch healer because they are not fun at all.

[Nagonif]

I was talking to some ppl in a ranked game the other day and we were discussing the changes to the game and I came to this conclusion.

TLDR: the change to 1 tank with the old map design has made long range and hitscan hero's much stronger and IMO taken away from the teamplay that made overwatch so unique and great

overwatch is a mixture of a MOBA and an FPS and it feels like they are leaning into the FPS side of the game. it is much more of a brawl (not like the brawl meta) in that it feels like its about individuals within the team winning gunfights and less like a team fight where abilities and counter pick and counter play are less of a focus.

I think the prime example of this is the shield changes. right now in OW2 there are only 2 shields (not counting Winston bubble as it has a lifetime and is not health dependant primarily) in the game these shields are the only thing (and I guess Mei's ice wall) that create cover. these shields are essentially the games way of stopping overwatch from being like any other shooter because hitscan characters have a much higher value ceiling than melee or projectile hero's since they can be effective consistently at any range and still be safe at the back.

the reason this happens is because unlike a traditional MOBA you cant use hard CC's like taunts. this means u have to either be a large enough threat to focus, or physically block a gunfight hero from shooting your team which is allot of what (main) tanks were doing. because main tanks had this insanely strong ability to deny hitscans free reign they had other drawbacks, mainly low mobility, low range or low survivability) . to compensate for this off tanks were used to support the main tanks and enable them to engage the enemy better.

the change to a single tank meant that blizzard needed to make each tank more independently functional by giving the more range mobility survivability or lethality . and example of this is rein having 2 fire strikes or Orisa having both a ranged spear and being tougher in fortify. this however has had an effect of making people more vulnerable to ranged attacks, primarily against hitscans, as they have to be around natural cover (in which case they cant shoot back) or it becomes a gunfight to see who kills who first.

this change IMO largely makes the game much less team oriented or ability oriented and much more aim skill focused as apart from a dive composition it is much harder to close the gap and give non hitscan hero's a fighting chance, and this problem only gets worse the higher you go in the skill ranks. i dread having to play a match of OW2 against a good widow player.

another factor that makes this problem is that the maps are largely designed around the assumption of the 2 tank line-up and this can be clearly seen in the difference in the new maps and map changes vs the original maps. there is generally more open straight LOS with not much natural cover. if you compare the winding map of new York with lots of objects for natural cover to a map like kings row or Junker town or Havana, we can see how one is clearly meant to take away hero's like widows ability to dominate a lane as there is more cover to hide behind going up them.
In a similar vein as you mentioned the newer maps have a great deal more flanking routes and alternate paths to again give another avenue of approach for players to do without a shield in front of them. from my experience the last couple of days the newer maps play considerably better than the older ones with the change to 5v5

personally I do not like the changes and how they feel. i was bothered as soon as the change to 5v5 was announced as I very much like the teamplay of 2 tanks and how they work together and peeled for each other, despite this i understand why they went with this change. with exception of goats to my knowledge every meta and team comp is defined by and structured around the tank line-up. heck even goats used the concept of more tanks and making them harder to kill

sincerely some guy on the internet who cares way to much about the game design.

also for the uninformed Overwatch 2 is actually the PVE expansion. they just decided to lump in the massive balance changes with the same release window under the same name for both publicity as well as to mark a very stark change in the PVP.

[MrSchwifty]

As someone who's actively played ow since the beta, the reason it feels like normal matches are death matches and why a lot of people go off on their own is cuz it's the beta. This happened during the ow1 beta as well, people are trying out new changes and new abilities plus new maps. There still needs to be a lot of improvements(since it is still the beta) but I do think pvp might be in a really good place once the game comes out cuz blizzard usually does a good job of balancing heros, except brig(all my homies hate brig)

[kh.]

Oddly enough datto is the one who got me into overwatch

[saxboss]

Staggering is too strong of a strategy at mid to lower levels. The walk back from spawn is awful and you can just get camped by a tracer sitting at spawn

[awesomeguy]

I like the looks of it so far but the 5v5 is something I’m on the fence about. Yes it can speed up some fights by taking out the only tank but at the same time it might not be as enjoyable to play the only tank comp wise. Like if you tank insist on playing doomfist and isn’t the best DF player it’s not gonna be the most fun time.
I think people will naturally gravitate towards rein, zarya, and orisa at the start

[jeremygeorge]

Love the timthetatman match going on in the background. Just watched fruits vid on it earlier and the context is hilarious

[olamng]

OW2 is just Overwatch arcade custom game at the moment. Sure add some char and audio changes but the soul of the game hasn't changed, neither has the engine.

[TheIncinerator]

Hey, so just for some clarity, the reason for the sequel is because they're making real PvE content. They decided to decouple the PvP and PvE aspects of the game, so people can experience the changes sooner, as one side of the game is not complete yet.

[blookey]

I feel overwatch 2 has ups and downs depending on what player you are. Games becomes more fun for damage and maybe tanks but for supports it become more painful to play. I want to withhold judgement of the game till overwatch league but i feel the team play and coordination is significantly lessened and it is more deathmatch.

[ontos]

I hope Overwatch 2 gets it back to the popularity the game used to have i miss being excited for the game

[lainsechoes]

"why did they make an overwatch 2 then"

money. that's why. because money.

[drizztdourden]

Most of the PvP changes/beta release were geared towards being released quickly in order to get the Overwatch League back up and running

[fennecfox]

So the Soldier recoil change has been around for a while and isn't an OW2 thing, and shields were nerfed quite a bit before OW2. Sombra also deals more damage to enemies hacked and she can see them through walls when they're hacked, and Mei slows enemies now as opposed to freezing them. In general they got rid of a ton of the cc abilities so stunning is a lot less often.

[leptir]

the base movement speed buff for all characters might be the reason for all that flanking

[xxnijaanarchyxx]

Zarya is really strong rn at high level, Winston is also good with dive heroes but only really at gm level. You should join one of the GM custom games with comp settings its a lot of fun

[seanslaysean]

I didn’t mind tanks nor shields, but I think the better idea would have been adding shield-pierce rounds or buffs, decrease shield recharge, or make shield a commodity to be recharged by other heroes

(Yes I’m a tank main lol, but coordinating with the off-tank as Reinhardt was some of the most satisfying wins)