Many of my friends and followers know that i have been a true Overwatch fan for a long time now. While the game has everything i always was looking for in games, it also has it's downsides. Today, i would like to tell you everything about what in my opinion is the most balanced game ever made and how communities can actually destroy a game like this.
Overwatch is one of the awesome games created by Blizzard who are already known for many great games like Hearthstone and World of Warcraft. The game currently as of today (April 16th 2018) exists of 27 heroes which players can pick into a 6 vs 6 game. While the game has many game modes integrated into an "Arcade" mode, the most important game mode is the Competetive games a.k.a Ranked games. Every game you play you can earn or lose "SR" which determines your Skill Rating. Currently the ranks are as following:
Bronze (1-1499)
Silver (1500-1999)
Gold (2000-2499)
Platinum (2500-2999)
Diamond (3000-3499)
Masters (3500-3999) (My own rank(3750))
Grand Master (4000-5000)
Top 500
Every skill level have different kinds of people and different strategies. After a certain point in skill ranks most people master the game mechanically but still lack teamwork and/or tactics. There are many reasons why a good player could be stuck in lower ranks while he would be good enough for higher ranks, we will talk about this later.
The 27 Heroes are divided into groups:
Offense Heroes
Defense Heroes
Tank Heroes
Support Heroes
While the role names are obvious and most of the times are correct with the heroes in those roles, some defense heroes can also work as a DPS. The best example would be Widowmaker, which is a sniper but could kill the whole enemy team.
Since there is too much to explain about this game, i would really advice anyone interested in this to browse youtube with gameplay of this game. This is the best thing to do before buying any game anyways, but in this post i will share details which you will not find on Youtube or anywhere else. Make sure you read it all if you are interested in this game.
This is by far the most balanced game i have ever played. It feels like every team composition has a counter for it as well as every hero in that team comp. Does the enemy have a good Widowmaker? Then you can just go for a heavy shield composition with heroes who could dive onto the Widowmaker. In this game, there is no "best" hero, which is very hard to find in a game. Most games struggle with this but it seems like Blizzard doesn't have ANY troubles with this as they keep releasing new hero's without changing the balance.
Like in most "team" games, the best gaming experience will come from being in a good team with people who know what they are doing. These could be your real life friends or people which you have met online. This game totally changes when there are 6 people in voice chat communicating with each other and planning attacking or defensive strategies on the enemy team. Sometimes a good player can make split-second decisions which will save the game for your team, when you are that player hearing all those " OMG, WOW, NICEEEE" words is fantastic.
Some games are very easy to play. For example, Call of Duty is mostly about just killing the enemy. You can shoot at him, knife him or throw a grenade or whatever to kill that enemy. Everyone has the same movement and everyone has the same possibilities in weapons/kits. In Overwatch, that's something completely different. Every hero has around 3 or 4 abilities which you all have to watch out for. Some abilities could kill you, others could save their teammates. You might have to run away, try to kill that person ASAP or make sure you counter it with another ability to win the fight. Alot of heroes have different movements, for example:
Pharah: Can fly
Genji: Can climb walls, can double jump, can dash away
Tracer: Can blink and recall
Winston: Can jump away
Soldier 76: Can run faster
The above list could go on for a while, you get the point: You have to watch out for alot of things. This makes a player require huge amounts of skill to climb the Skill Rank ladder.
The people playing it!
It's really heart breaking how such a good game can be totally destroyed for you if you are forced to play with people who you don't know. If you can't manage to find 6 people to start a game with, your team will be automaticly filled with randoms. Since ALOT people are taking this game very serious, it's a very good oppurtunity for trolls and people with absolutely NO life or brains to get into games and "throw" the game. This means, they will do everything possible to make sure your team loses the game. All they want is to hear you rage in voice chat so they can record that and upload it to youtube. Some don't even do it to upload it, they just do it because that's how they are having fun.
This is something which is present in many games these days. Unfortunately, i think that the amount of trolls in Overwatch is breaking records at the moment. Currently i am playing this game on the PS4 and i am finding trolls every 2 or 3 games. This makes it very hard to win a game and results in good players getting stuck in a certain rank.
The lower your rank, the more trolls you will encounter. The ONLY solution for this is to make a 6 man team and play with them all the time. Unfortunately, since this is a game which requires high skill, not all of your friends who you usually play games with might fit in the team. Me and my friends were playing COD with around 10 people, begging for a spot to be free in those 6vs6's. In this game, i only had 1 friend who made it close to my rank and even he needed my help to get close to me.
This is actually making me lose all my love for this game and is causing frustrating moments while i should be having fun.
Currently, Overwatch is one of the best games to go "pro" at. With the introduction of The Overwatch League (https://overwatchleague.com/en-us/) many players have been training alot to reach the main stage for this game. The minimum salary is $50k a year excluding all the bonusses players earn from winning games and sponsors. On top of that, a pro player gets an audience automaticly when they start streaming.
For anyone who is interested in professional gaming tournaments, the Overwatch League is definetaly something you should check out. The buy in for teams was $20 million per team, this amount shows us that it's something very serious. The tactics and skills which you can see on their live streams is awesome and something which every gamer will love to see.
Thank you for reading this, i hope you liked it. I want to use this oppurtunity to connect with you gamers. If you check my previous post, i have started a contest to connect with other gamers. Just by connecting with other gamers you can earn SBD's + make new friends. As i have mentioned before, playing with other skilled gamers is an advantage. It's always better than playing with random trolls. If you have a PS4 and would like to play Overwatch or Fortnite with me, this is my PSN:
Ferow070
