Major Update Speculation V31: Gamechanging Edition - Games

[QUOTE=JPRAS;50223847]I bought it early 2008 for 29.95$ (+taxes) on Steam back then[/QUOTE] Wouldn't that be due to price conversions since you don't live in the U.S.?

[QUOTE=Doctor Hunt;50223864]Wouldn't that be due to price conversions since you don't live in the U.S.?[/QUOTE] I paid in U.S. dollars back then, still have the printed receipt hehe

I bought the physical copy, maybe that's why

[QUOTE=Razi The Red;50223327]I honestly haven't paid the slightest bit of attention- seems fair enough. 21 characters sounds like a balancing nightmare though. Genuinely: good luck with that.[/QUOTE] I honestly think it would be easier to balance 21 characters than 9 characters with a bunch of unlocks each- With TF2, the weapon can be okay on its own, but be broken in combination with another or what have you. If you have more characters with a static toolkit, I feel it would be a bit easier to balance (though I've heard Bastion's fucking busted right now).

[QUOTE=FiveEyes;50223514]Yeah but neither does TF2 for the most part. Thanks valve! sv_pure no longer makes me want to make mod content for your game, because about 90% of people won't be able to use them, good job! EDIT: I don't see how what I'm saying is dumb, they've literally removed mod support from all their servers to combat "cheating" instead of actually fixing the issues that can be easily fixed. My point is that they removed something that made TF2 a lot of fun, something that is almost a given in any source game, and that's the ability to mod it. Why do you think the emporium was created, its not really mod focused anymore because of the workshop but also because why bother anymore? Is how I phased it dumb? Yeah I can see that, but my point still stands.[/QUOTE] Community servers still exist you know. VSH, Deathrun, Slender Fortress, Stop that Tank, Prophunt, Dodgeball and Zombie Fortress are all completely different mods that still get played by lots of people. And that's what people mostly refer to when talking about mod support, not just a bunch of skins and sounds you add to your own game. That's one department where I can see Overwatch failing. It doesn't have the community support that TF2 does.

Also, when it comes to class roles, Overwatch is borrowing ideas from MOBAs in terms of having a few very clear and dedicated categories of classes (tank/disruptor, healer, damage dealer) that all of the 20+ classes fall into. Haven't played it, but from what I've seen, any remotely serious/competent team setup pretty much requires you to fill all 3 types of roles with a couple of classes. This seems like it has the benefit of Blizzard only having to balance a class's efficiency [I]within[/I] their own category, i.e. compared to the other classes meant for the same role. I'm only somewhat interested in OW, generally dislike MOBAs, and I know how aggravated some of you will be just because I mention both in the same argument, but I think that's at least one really good concept/class balancing idea that I like from that genre. Making a few class categories mandatory (either by number restrictions or by making gameplay such that it pretty much demands certain support/heal roles to be filled in order to be successful) and then making sure as many classes as possible are as competitive as they can be within that role/category is a good idea. As much as I love the game still, TF2, especially once you play it seriously or with a lower player count, has kinda failed in that regard. A few generalists are so flexible, always-viable and stack so well that they're pretty much standard options in a comp/lower player count setting. Spamming certain classes can totally dominate/lock down chokepoints in pubs with no class limits (mass Soldiers, Demos, Heavies or Engineers on defense). Some of the support/pick classes are either weak/gimmicky as hell when facing coordinated and skilled opposition (Spy, Pyro), or they're oddly designed in terms of their effective range and can either be godlike when skilled or a serious liability when played by 5 newbies/kids (= Sniper). Medic's in this weird sport where it's an absolutely mandatory class if you want to win and everything revolves around him - there's no support class alternative that could replace him. TF2's fun, diverse, offers loads of unique ways to play the game and have fun with all the classes and loadout combos, also seems to be faster, have more mechanical depth/DM skill potential and has less moba-like stun/disable mechanics and overly-flashy special effects covering half the screen than Overwatch, but I do feel like it's failed at making sure that all class roles are actually really needed when playing seriously/competitively, that stacking certain classes doesn't totally break fun/maps, and that a few of the classes aren't just straight-up better in 90% of situations than others.

Well, in less than a week, we'll all get our fingers on Overwatch, its hard to properly judge something by just looking. Either way, a major update should be coming along soon. Probably. The general "no big updates" time is about to be passed.

Veering strongly into off-topicality here, but I was in the recent weekend beta for Overwatch. The only character that actually felt bullshit was, typically, the sniper-analogue, Widowmaker. The weekend regardless sold me on the game, but I was already interested in it by the sheer fact you wouldn't have to unlock classes. And for all you could say "oh but they could do it like Dota 2 or TF2 where they're all unlocked to begin with!" if it was F2P I can guarantee you it'd require grinding to unlock. Heroes of the Storm, their MOBA-like requires grinding. This is one large reason another "TF2 killer", Dirty Bomb, completely disinterests me. On top of this, when they announced the release date for Overwatch, they confirmed that both maps and future heroes/classes would be free. And, to be completely honest, buying a game from Blizzard is akin to buying a game from Valve - you know they're going to support it for a good while.

[QUOTE=Doom64hunter;50224249] That's one department where I can see Overwatch failing. It doesn't have the community support that TF2 does.[/QUOTE] League, Smite, Hearthstone, DOTA, any console game, they all survive just fine without "community support". TF2 and other Valve games are special cases because Valve isn't the best at keeping the games up to date themselves, but they're very open to the community and their games are very simple to make mods for.

[QUOTE=Snowshoe;50220202]Fixing it is one thing. Getting them to take sv_pure off of Valve servers is another. Ideally I would like to see sv_pure turned off in public Valve servers while private ones such as Competitive (maybe even Mann Up?) have it on. Who knows if they will ever do this.[/QUOTE] Petition time ?

Been a while since we had this "Overwatch is killing TF2! No, it isn't! >:(" talk in this thread. :v:

It's ridiculous to compare overwatch with TF2. TF2 has released in 2007 and it's the only thing that can blow your argument off : The market was different back then. Gaming was very different back then. And, seriously, more VARIETY in overwatch? What? You try to tell me that those 21 character is enough to say your games is varied? With their ugly recolors skin? And you wanna try to make me believe those 21 character will be all used commonly? I'm sure we will see mostly Tracer - Reaper - Winston - and Widow, everything else will be rare. Maybe McCree too but nothing else. Why? Because the marketing is high. I don't remember tf2 having such marketing. Twitch wasn't here in 2007. Youtube was just 2 year old. The only ways you could still promote your games was with image and magazine, once again. And is comparing today's tf2 okay with overwatch? Overwatch is just aimed at today's gamers community : casual/league player. They force-integrated every country in the game. With all . the . cliché. The game have no direction whatsoever. And anyway, it's not like tf2 will be killed any sooner ; It is still third in the top played steam games as of now. And i wouldn't be sad that tf2 is killed. It won't. There will still be a little dedicated server here and here to play with friend when the games will be empty (in 2020 maybe?) There will still be a little community to play on. And c'mon, most games have this "Yeah, we're gonna support it for YEAAAR :)" tag but still die slowly, the update only makes the community comes back for a little month then it gets back at how it was before.

[QUOTE=ApertureXS200;50225250] Also, overwatch is cringey as fuck, just looking at D.VA makes me salty. They force-integrated every country in the game. With all . the . cliché. [/QUOTE] I see no playable Mexicans, Nigerians, New Zealanders, or any of the other 50+ countries being represented. Also, looking at D.VA making you "salty" makes no sense, unless you have a serious problem with a self-destruct ultimate ability.

[QUOTE=Skunky;50225151]Been a while since we had this "Overwatch is killing TF2! No, it isn't! >:(" talk in this thread. :v:[/QUOTE] Well, with the Open Beta soon expect more than little overwatch talk here. Not saying I dislike that, I enjoy it. The main thing I am interested in if the tf team will give a crap about overwatch, and we'll soon see the answer to that.

[QUOTE=ApertureXS200;50225250]Also, overwatch is cringey as fuck, just looking at D.VA makes me salty. They force-integrated every country in the game. With all . the . cliché.[/QUOTE] Most of the classes in TF2 are just shallow national stereotypes, at their core. It's to make them more distinct from each other.

[QUOTE=Magypsy;50225454]Most of the classes in TF2 are just shallow national stereotypes, at their core. It's to make them more distinct from each other.[/QUOTE] You gotta remember that TF2 was released with barely any lore behind it. It was just two big companies fighting over rural areas of New Mexico. Now look at it. It's got fleshed out lore which is ever-expanding(even though at a very sluggish pace) and each class now has more personality than the previously established national stereotypes. Overwatch might be more flashy, cool, maybe even a better game, but its lore will never amount to what valve managed to cook up over the years for TF2.

I played Overwatch and it's better than TF2 in many ways, but of course, all my beloved memories will be from TF2. Blizzard is also known for decent balancing and shitting out updates. Janky at first, yes, but they try their best to perfect it. Easily better than anything Valve's been doing recently for sure.

Overwatch could be a nice comparation to TF2, both games trying to fresh out a unique experience in 2016 and 2007 respectively. The context they came from will be an interesting topic to explore for sure. But now, I would say OW is not interested in TF2, I'll say they try to bring the MOBA playerbase first (the most popular genre today I think) and then flesh out everything with updates and such, maybe they could use the errors of TF2 history to avoid certain things. If they add hats then it's a full war to TF2 and everything it represents.

[QUOTE=FalconHBFS;50225660]Overwatch could be a nice comparation to TF2, both games trying to fresh out a unique experience in 2016 and 2007 respectively. The context they came from will be an interesting topic to explore for sure. But now, I would say OW is not interested in TF2, I'll say they try to bring the MOBA playerbase first (the most popular genre today I think) and then flesh out everything with updates and such, maybe they could use the errors of TF2 history to avoid certain things. If they add hats then it's a full war to TF2 and everything it represents.[/QUOTE] Blizzard literally can't do promotional stuff outside their own games because of contracts with Activision. They can [I]reference[/I] things, but not go full out. Which is a good thing in this case, no shitty looking hats that break "muh artstyle".

Can't we just stay calm and wain until Owerwatch grows bigger? Isn't this game pretty fresh in terms of availibility to see if this game attracts people?

[QUOTE=Fancy Godgineer;50225607]You gotta remember that TF2 was released with barely any lore behind it. It was just two big companies fighting over rural areas of New Mexico. Now look at it. It's got fleshed out lore which is ever-expanding(even though at a very sluggish pace) and each class now has more personality than the previously established national stereotypes. Overwatch might be more flashy, cool, maybe even a better game, but its lore will never amount to what valve managed to cook up over the years for TF2.[/QUOTE] I know, I was mostly using it as an example to prove that one complaint of his was unfounded.

... Wait a second, since they removed the strings of the Spy vs Engie update, that means that the Revolver animations that the Engineer got a long time ago means no longer a six shooter for him, or am I panicking too early?

Overwatch isn't going to kill TF2. Blizzard is one of the worst companies when it comes to developer-community relationships. TF2 is at least slient, things just come out of nowhere, but Blizzard? God, its a wonder why they even bother. Shit like WoW, Starcraft 2, and others, all were handled so poorly. One of my favorite examples for showing how god awful Blizzard is, is with Starcraft 2. A beta was made for Legacy of the Void, Starcraft 2's third expansion. During the beta, Blizzard asked the community to improve on the game's economy. The economy was how a player would gather resources to build units and such, minerals and gas. Now of course, the community was thrilled to do this. They could radically change the game from it's very core, allowing for a much better game. So, people do just that, they made all kinds of edits to the economy. The edits people made would be put up on the Arcade, a custom game workshop of sorts. The community got to test out all of these changes, and see how they would effect the game. The community was able to make game-changing edits, and the community was able to beta test them out. It was amazing to see how thrilled the community was to make the game they played even better. The changes fixed some glaring issues that Starcraft 2 had, something Blizzard never fixed for the 5 years the game had been out. It was all up to Blizzard now to see which economy edit they liked, and whether they would put it ingame. Except they didn't. Not a single community edit was good enough for Blizzard to implement. Do you know how much of a slap to the face that's like? It wasn't like the changes were good enough either, I've tried them out, and they made a game, that was already mediocre, into a awesome experience. Blizzard just didn't like how the community wanted the game to be like. A developer goes ahead a let's people decide how they want the game to work, and when the people present something they agree on, the developer says "It's not as good as what we have." or "We don't want the game to be like that." What's the point of letting the community make decisions, when the developer doesn't respect them? Starcraft 2 is full of community discussion, and developer echo chambers. Needless to say, I've never played Starcraft 2 since. This wasn't the first time the Starcraft 2 Team has told the community that they are basically wrong. TF2 Team is just slient. We get changes, and we all enjoy them. If a change is bad, or doesn't work out a certain way, the Team is quick to fix it. When the community disagrees with the TF2 Team, we see change happen. 2016 is one of TF2's best years, because we have a TF2 Team that is listening to the community, and understands how the community wants the game to be like. You don't need a development team that is vocal, you need one that listens. I will never take the TF2 Team for granted, because they listen to the community. We are in the post winter lull, but once summer hits, TF2 will see some amazing things happen. Stop worrying about big, mean Overwatch. It's going to be a fun ride seeing another Blizzard game eat shit, hard.

[QUOTE=RPG;50226108]... Wait a second, since they removed the strings of the Spy vs Engie update, that means that the Revolver animations that the Engineer got a long time ago means no longer a six shooter for him, or am I panicking too early?[/QUOTE] Probably, yeah, but I can't see new weapons happening in the near future (like the summer update) anyway. Not until they ship Competitive MM and (likely) a couple of major rebalancing patches based on feedback from the Beta.

Overwatch is a game with no sandwiches, jars of urine, or even a crazed GI who puts heads on fences and screams at them. How the fuck can they even release that shit and call it a game. [sp] but seriously, of all the things I've seen from OW it doesn't look like it'd really overlap with TF2 in the slightest. Maybe I'm just thinking too thematically, but TF2 has iconic and easily recognizable weapons and classes based on pastiches of action movies, spy thrillers, and Americana artwork. OW is a really neat looking game, it has a setting that is somewhat new, but it's not TF2's style. The gameplay looks equally different with a lot more, like people have been saying, MOBA elements added and this might make balancing a little tricky for how many heroes they have which I think is about twice what TF2 has. Honestly OW is just another game and it looks fun and has a great look and neat characters, but, and this is important, it's not TF2. It's not Heavy, it's Soldier, it's not MEEEEEEEDIIIIIIIIC!, it's not KABOOOOOOM!, it's not PUSH THAT CART! The art style and humor is so completely opposite that it can't even compare to TF2 because it's different. Just because it has guns and heroes doesn't mean it can do what TF2 does with it's guns and classes [/sp]

[QUOTE=Fancy Godgineer;50225607]You gotta remember that TF2 was released with barely any lore behind it. It was just two big companies fighting over rural areas of New Mexico. Now look at it. It's got fleshed out lore which is ever-expanding(even though at a very sluggish pace) and each class now has more personality than the previously established national stereotypes. Overwatch might be more flashy, cool, maybe even a better game, but its lore will never amount to what valve managed to cook up over the years for TF2.[/QUOTE] Every character in Overwatch already has a huge backstory. In fact, 2 videos detailing Overwatch and characters in the game, as well as 2 comics (with more coming this month) were released giving even more backstory. Overwatch [B]already[/B] has more lore than TF2 has ever had. Overwatch, Blackwatch, the Omnics and crises involved with them, it's way more interesting than the current clusterfuck of TF2's story.

[QUOTE=Rajikaru;50226165]Every character in Overwatch already has a huge backstory. In fact, 2 videos detailing Overwatch and characters in the game, as well as 2 comics (with more coming this month) were released giving even more backstory. Overwatch [B]already[/B] has more lore than TF2 has ever had. Overwatch, Blackwatch, the Omnics and crises involved with them, it's way more interesting than the current clusterfuck of TF2's story.[/QUOTE] Kind of makes me wonder for what purpose all that lore's for, if it's for advertising purposes or just the team being bored and making up a story, like Valve did with Dota 2. I mean, in comparison, TF2 was just "Blue vs. Red. Why? Who the fuck cares, here's a gun, go shoot stuff." And it worked just fine.

Games can have a story without there being an actual reason to use it in the game. Just because there's no single player mode doesn't mean the story doesn't matter. It's there for those who are interested in the story of the characters and learning about them and their personalities.

I find Overwatch super fun and will definitely spend a lot of time playing it, but one area where I feel it really falls short is the dialogue. Compared to Team Fortress 2, the in-game dialogue of most of Overwatch's heroes feels kind of bland. Aside from lines that directly reference a character's nationality/abilities most of the things they say are so generic that they could practically be said by any character. Exceptions like Junkrat and Reinhardt are much livelier, but you can only listen to McCree reference so many cowboy movies before you wish he had something interesting to say.

Having character dialouge more entertaining than TF2's cast is a huge challange. And despite all the delays, the TF comics have always delivered some of the best written characters when it comes to comedy