Overwatch

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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
A good Zarya is sooo annoying to play against.

It depends a lot on the team too. Zarya's health is so low that you really need to kill your enemies before they're able to take you out, and that's really only possible at high energy levels (about 60%+). However, you can only gain 50% energy each time you use your shield, so having a team that you can work with and shield to easily reach 100% is a big deal.

How would I take out Zarya? Reaper is probably your best bet, but you'll need good communication. You want to force Zarya to use her shield before Reaper goes in for the kill, and you don't want the Zarya to be aware that Reaper is coming, so someone else will have to force the shield. Some good shots from Soldier:76 can usually do that pretty well. In fact, he could probably kill her too, but you better make sure it isn't 1v1, or she'll just come after you.

Jeff Kaplan just posted a long breakdown of the matchmaking/MMR systems:

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20745504371#post-3

I think the most interesting note in there is that the Avoid This Player option will be going away. I thought the story was interesting to as it shows a fundamental misunderstanding with players about the avoid system and matchmaking in general as they used the avoid feature to make sure they didn't play against someone that they thought was too good. Although, maybe they used it because they thought the guy was using an aimbot, and they wanted to avoid a cheater? Hell, I've had people tell me that I'm using an aimbot with 35-45% accuracy on Soldier:76.

I actually wonder if that Widowmaker was Greggo from C9. I saw he was streaming the other day, but on a completely different account, which seemed weird at first. I never inquired as to why, but I know he likes to play Widowmaker and people in the match were even yelling "botting!" and "reported!"
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Man, Zarya is probably one of the most fun characters to play with a decent team. You get to defend your teammates with the projected shield, and take tons of damage on while melting the enemies. I had a game tonight like that where I usually was able to keep a Lucio alive who was being way too aggressive. Ended up with 21 eliminations and 1 death with a 20 kill streak.
I've been trying to use her too. Her lock on gun is pretty dangerous against less mobile enemies. It's really easy to kill with it. I'm still getting the hang of where to place her sentries in every map.

That's what I love about this game, so many different characters you can play and get good with and every single one plays vastly different.
 

Worthington

Golden Member
Apr 29, 2005
1,433
17
81
It depends a lot on the team too. Zarya's health is so low that you really need to kill your enemies before they're able to take you out, and that's really only possible at high energy levels (about 60%+). However, you can only gain 50% energy each time you use your shield, so having a team that you can work with and shield to easily reach 100% is a big deal.

How would I take out Zarya? Reaper is probably your best bet, but you'll need good communication. You want to force Zarya to use her shield before Reaper goes in for the kill, and you don't want the Zarya to be aware that Reaper is coming, so someone else will have to force the shield. Some good shots from Soldier:76 can usually do that pretty well. In fact, he could probably kill her too, but you better make sure it isn't 1v1, or she'll just come after you.



I think the most interesting note in there is that the Avoid This Player option will be going away. I thought the story was interesting to as it shows a fundamental misunderstanding with players about the avoid system and matchmaking in general as they used the avoid feature to make sure they didn't play against someone that they thought was too good. Although, maybe they used it because they thought the guy was using an aimbot, and they wanted to avoid a cheater? Hell, I've had people tell me that I'm using an aimbot with 35-45% accuracy on Soldier:76.

I actually wonder if that Widowmaker was Greggo from C9. I saw he was streaming the other day, but on a completely different account, which seemed weird at first. I never inquired as to why, but I know he likes to play Widowmaker and people in the match were even yelling "botting!" and "reported!"

I get how to counter her, and it's not really her shield that's frustrating (to me at least). I can plan around her. It's a good Zarya's ability to shield a teammate that drives me nuts. Nothing like setting yourself up, baiting out someone on the other team only to have a clutch shield dropped on them.

Not saying it's over-powered or anything of that nature. Just frustrating. lol
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I get how to counter her, and it's not really her shield that's frustrating (to me at least). I can plan around her. It's a good Zarya's ability to shield a teammate that drives me nuts. Nothing like setting yourself up, baiting out someone on the other team only to have a clutch shield dropped on them.

Not saying it's over-powered or anything of that nature. Just frustrating. lol

I know exactly what you mean. It's a lot like when you're about to kill Mei and ice block! "Sorry... sorry... sorry... sorry!"
 

s44

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2006
9,427
16
81
I've been trying to use her too. Her lock on gun is pretty dangerous against less mobile enemies. It's really easy to kill with it. I'm still getting the hang of where to place her sentries in every map.
Uh, that's Symmetra. Zarya is the awesome tank/DPS hybrid.
 

fastamdman

Golden Member
Nov 18, 2011
1,335
70
91
Yes it is 6v6 only. They do have weekly brawls though that are random, for example everyone can only be soldier 76, or brothers aka genji and hanzo. It's pretty fun.

So is it 6v6 only? I was hoping to see at least 8 or 9 per team.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Uh, that's Symmetra. Zarya is the awesome tank/DPS hybrid.
Gahh damn I got them mixed up. Now that I ranked up to the next level, I'm at 35, seeing more and more Zarya. I almost never saw her in the first starting levels.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
There aren't too many things in the game that annoy me, but people being irritable know-it-alls is one of them... especially if they get pushy and hostile in chat. (Not voice, because they're too scrubby to actually use voice chat.) We were doing Lijiang Tower, and started on Night Market (original Phase 1), which is the one stage that I like to play Genji on. Since it was just round 1, I wasn't all that worried if my performance wasn't super good.

We ended up running into some six Tracer cheese. I had these two teammates that were absolutely insistent upon everyone switching to Winston or McCree. I looked at my stats, and I was all gold (eliminations, objective eliminations and damage), so... I didn't really see much of a reason -- especially in round 1. Well, it's safe to say that those two teammates didn't take that very well. They started giving me shit the entire time as I continued to lead in kills. Of course, I was fighting on or right beside the point, and I only ran into problems when it was 2-4 Tracers vs. just me. To be frank, the real problem is that we weren't fighting together, but of course, they would rather just blame it on me.

We go to round two on the Control Center map, and I was about to switch when they started talking more shit. Now, I'm usually all about being a team player, but honestly, I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of swapping. So, I stayed on Genji and our enemies switched to Soldier:76. I never lost my gold medals, but none of that stopped my team's inability to actually kill anything. So, we lost.

Let's be real here.... Should I have changed? Yeah, probably, but once they started acting up, I had no desire to deal with them. You don't mess with a man's Genji time! :twisted: Another thing is that just telling someone to switch to a hero isn't always a good idea. I mean... McCree isn't bad against Tracer, but landing a flash bang on a fast-moving Tracer and landing a Fan the Hammer can be a daunting task if you're trying to follow Tracer's movements.
 
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Worthington

Golden Member
Apr 29, 2005
1,433
17
81
I played 6 of my 10 placement games last night. I enjoyed them. Each time most of the team used voice chat and there was little to no rage, even on the 1 round we lost.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
After 9 games, Competitive feels just like Quick Play with added hostility. Not very enjoyable.

It's kind of interesting how different the experience can be for some. I don't run into a lot of hostility in the game, but others do. I think I usually see one or two games a night where someone will complain about everyone else sucking or badmouth someone, but there's usually one or two games with some pretty awesome people. I had one game (on Nepal) the other day where this guy raged on voice chat (I was the only other one in there) about how he had disconnected and we sucked too much to keep things up when he (our true savior) wasn't there. "Dude, that makes it 5v6, and you were playing attack Bastion anyway..." o_O

I've also been watching some of the pro streamers, and it seems like a few of them have swapped to playing smurf accounts. From what they said, they want to play less serious competitive with friends on the smurf accounts and serious competitive on their main accounts. Well, they had to level to 25 to unlock competitive, so they were playing Quick Play. Sweet mother of god, you should've seen the enemy's rage in chat after Surefour cut down the enemy team on Genji repeatedly. D:
 

Midwayman

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2000
5,723
325
126
I have two big issues with competitive play.

1) If you have someone DC on your team or just leave you are getting a loss no matter what. If you play it out you'll lose 99%. If you leave when they say 'no penalty' you'll still have a loss on your record. Suck big time, especially on placement matches where you MMR is a ton more mobile. That one forced loss will probably take many wins to get back where I should be.

2) The sudden death system really sucks. Coinflip for who wins pretty much.

However the number of people on mics was a ton better in my ranked games. As were the number of people willing to cooperate. Think the rules need a little explaination as how the timers were working and number of rounds to win KoTH were different than quick play.
 

s44

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2006
9,427
16
81
Bastion on KotH isn't bad, especially on that actual hill map of Nepal. It lets you snowball first cap (or first on point if the other team doesn't have a Lucio) and changes the back-and-forth dynamic a bit. Wouldn't always pick it and you probably can't for more than a round, but it's not a "you're screwing us" pick.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Bastion on KotH isn't bad, especially on that actual hill map of Nepal. It lets you snowball first cap (or first on point if the other team doesn't have a Lucio) and changes the back-and-forth dynamic a bit. Wouldn't always pick it and you probably can't for more than a round, but it's not a "you're screwing us" pick.

Almost anything can work as long as its complemented well by the rest of the team. But the thing is... this team didn't really work together, which was the main reason why we lost (not because our lord and savior disconnected :p), and something like Bastion isn't as effective if it doesn't have time to setup. Sure, you can fight in recon mode quite effectively (I've done it), but if you're just going to do that, you might as well play Soldier:76. :p It's kind of like people that play Torbjorn and keep trying to put a turret down for it to be destroyed almost immediately... yet they never say, "Hmm... maybe I should swap!"
 

WiseUp216

Platinum Member
Mar 12, 2012
2,251
51
101
www.heatware.com
It's kind of interesting how different the experience can be for some. I don't run into a lot of hostility in the game, but others do. I think I usually see one or two games a night where someone will complain about everyone else sucking or badmouth someone, but there's usually one or two games with some pretty awesome people.

Just to clarify - I've found my ~50 hours of Quick Play matches to be a very positive experience. The community as a whole is not bad at all.

That is why I was kind of shocked to see so many idiots in Competitive last night.

I'll give it another shot this weekend.
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,190
185
106
Is the server tick rate for Competitive higher than Quick Play? I've heard (from friends online) that it's supposedly the case. Has it been officially confirmed by Blizzard?
 

BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,563
9
81
Picked this up a couple weeks ago. My daughter got into the beta several months ago and loved it (her first FPS, I was kinda surprised) so I bought it for her birthday and picked it up for myself so we could play together. Only level 15 or so but enjoying it so far.

I'm BoberFett#1279 if anybody wants to add me.