Acceleration Broke Overwatch
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- Опубліковано 11 чер 2024
- Overwatch has had an almost unique problem for the 7 years since its launch. It’s acceleration system made engagement with the game at a base level easy, and allowed a massive audience to onboard into the game from Blizzards other products, but what balancing problems lie underneath the surface of such a simple system?
Now, 7 years later, what are they doing to fix it, and will it be enough?
Can simply changing the hitbox sizes do enough?
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00:00 Intro
00:51 Intro
02:00 Onboarding
03:40 Acceleration
03:28 Aiming
07:25 Other Systems
08:23 Does This Fit Blizzards Target Audience?
09:08 Quarantining
11:23 Blizzard Has Always Known
11:24 How Can Blizzard Fix This?
13:13 The Problems
Being a veteran in TF2 (7k hours) switching to overwatch when it became free to play I didn't really pay attention to the fast acceleration, I just thought the general mechanics of the game felt very nice and snappy. but after a few months going back to TF2 felt like being on ice skates.
exactly, the reason sniper is so much more oppresive in tf2 compared to ow2 is because its SO easy to hit your shots in tf2
I just tried a tf2 clone in roblox which actually had instant movement acceleration + bigger hitboxes and it just felt better to play lol
Yeah, that's on point, movement accel is the secret crack that jails ppl to ow
yeah, my friend got me to try play tf2 a few times, and each time I always say, "why is the floor made of ice" because thats what it feels like to me as an overwatch player lol
It really goes to show how hard it is to walk back a system like this, even if it creates problems, getting something smooth taken away from you is always going to feel massively different.
Holy shit, I came back to tf2 and it was awful to move, and reading this felt so relatable
OW actually has no acceleration at all rather than fast acceleration. Everything is instant. You go from stationary to max walking speed in an instant. And you go from max walking speed to stationary in an instant. So rather than saying "Acceleration Broke Overwatch" it should be "The Lack of Acceleration Broke Overwatch".
There are 2 exceptions though. Lucio has a small amount of acceleration to allow him to bunny hop. (he only decelerates when touching the ground, and doesn't decelerate in mid-air. So if you spend less time on the ground you decelerate less and thus maintain more momentum) And ball has a lot of acceleration due to his physics-y hero design. (This also allows him to maintain his momentum with bhopping across nearly entire maps)
didnt know ball could bhop. if you hit perfect bhops is it actually possible to go max velocity through an entire map?
I think what you're trying to say is that overwatch has infinite acceleration, I avoided that term so as not to confuse people, but looks like enough people still got turned around!
@@idiothoved sort of. If you can avoid hitting anything and travel in a reasonably straight line, you can keep most of your momentum by bhopping. This is why scroll wheel jumping is nice on ball. It's even more necessary on Lucio, because he can do the same thing on the ground, and he loses speed from being attached to a wall too long. Any rollouts you see will generally use scroll wheel for every jump after the first one.
@@DoctorQcumber interesting. I never thought of ball like you would with Lucio. That's some nice game knowledge 👍
@@idiothoved too bad it wont be useful since ball is in such a bad spot since ow2 release
The movement and gunplay comes from arena shooters like Quake and UT.
There are basically no popular arena shooters any more, which is why OW feels unlike any other shooters.
Entirely true, but there’s quite a lot of dissonance between that reality and blizzards mo when it comes to mass market appeal and target audiences.
And now they removed half of the fun, actually needing good aim.
This is just not true bro. Quake had the lowest accel and de-accel, to the point you could lock people down with knockback on hit and when BHOPping you could keep speed while sliding across the ground.
UT has way snappier movement but it wasn't because of high accel but the double tap dodge which was instant.
One problem. Quake is a much faster game, I like strafe jumping. Overwatch is fast, but not Quake fast. I'd rather they add a slight deceleration to switching direction than make the hitbox's massive, it worked in quake to have circular hotbox's because the players were always on equal footing and the mobility was always insane if you had the skill to do it.
@@torm0 OW and Quake movement is 2 whole different things and the problem is momentum/acceleration.
Quake has low acceleration but no speed cap and a way to steadily increase speed via strafe jumping.
Where as OW has super high acceleration but no way to increase speed (some hero specific stuff may do though).
I just tried going reinstalling Quake Live, i was suprised how slow movement is on the ground.
I think something that’s also super difficult abt changing OW is that the animations themselves don’t lend well to consistent aiming. Most heroes sway their bodies a lot when moving in certain directions (their head briefly moves faster than their body on your screen), combined with other misc animations making things hard
Crouching is practically instant
Genji does a flip with his double jump
Various heroes are hunched in a way that makes headshots from the back really hard
Half the characters are insanely skinny and wear skintight clothes -> tiny hitboxes
Hanzo literally moves his head hitbox every time he shoots
No one talk sabout how movement in ow is super important than aiming, it literally makes or breaks the player. From dodging to even making it difficult for the other team to shoot you.
Especially for Lucio and Ball mains
Edit: and Tracer, to some extent
No one talks about it because that’s something that is already ingrained in the mind subconsciously. Think about the many times people spam the jump button when getting hit to minimize damage.
There's no way they put TF2 in the "not impactful aim" category on that tier list...
tf2 is a lot more based around survivability and working as a team in many cases, that combined with the fact that many weapons have large spread or rate of fire means a lot of the time you dont need super good aim to do well if you know how the game works and when to fight, run, etc, i agree with their decision lmao
Tf2 is a pretty easy game mechanically
@@ParakeetGod the only weapons that fulfill that description are explosive weapons and flamwthrowers. Even with shotguns in tf2 you do need pin point accuracy to do good damage. That is the difference between a good player and a great player. At the top level you will see players dying because they missed a pellet and the rival did not, or even missed an airshot. So no, aim is very important
@@lukasg4807 it is, every game has to be at a base level or else nobody would want to learn the game. However said simplicity allows for complexity that few other games have. That's why the game still lives.
@@lukasg4807 Press Q to have autoaim ultimate.
I heard recently one of the top Lucio players was talking about how even at their skill level, even at the best of the best who play in like.. ladder, they hover around 30% ish accuracy before these changes. People have to understand that competitors even at the top, are not robots. They don't hit every shot. And people worried now that it's "No skill to aim" anymore dont realize that now the people who were ALREADY good at aiming, will be even better at landing their shots. The ocean that was between top players and even mid tier players is now not *as* vast, but even still, those players at the top will do better regardless.
Flats viewer spotted
I’d like to add the fact they have better mechanics. They have better movement, positioning, idea of what cooldowns are active. Like a lucio trying to force hinder and then actually going in to challenge the cass. People forget that those are a thing that can also make a skill gap. Someone with good aim can be horrible with positioning and therefore be in the average ranks. But now half of those things are canceled out and is almost basically purely based on aim
Also lets be honest it feels horrible to die when ur whole body is around a corner.
It's a slow moving projectile. You should be spamming it most of the time anyway. Compare the top widows to the bottom widows in terms of accuracy. Think, now they just made widows at the top level even better.
@@angel__kingI'm guilty
eskay, right? i remember her saying that lol
I'm convinced most overwatch players dont play other FPS or dont pay attention to them, cuz its crazy how no one picks up on the fact that overwatch movement is far more instant than the vast majority, while also having movement abilities.. and barriers.. and invuln abilities, and verticality, and healing. While some outliers need to be slightly corrected, sure, in large part these changes were absolutely necessary for the game. And it's baffling for it to come this late.
They didn’t part of OW’s success was that it attracted players that didn’t normally play FPS games.
Yeah most of us only play Overwatch haha. Once you learn some of the game it’s incredibly engaging, no other game really “does it” for me.
I confess, Overwatch is the only FPS I play apart from Borderlands games, and I didn't pick up my first FPS until my mid 20s
i’m pretty big fps player? i’ve been playing cod games since i was 8, played r6, played val, any recent ftp fps really, and overwatch is the onlyy game i’ve stayed very consistently playing since i started two years ago. and yes i am shit lol.
First time I realized is when I tried Fortnite on launch coming from Overwatch. I couldn't use my movement to avoid damage anymore and I hated it. It felt like I was walking through quicksand. Despite all the major flaws Overwatch has had over the years I really came to appreciate the core game design and how good the engine feels to exist in.
In the case of Winston and Dva, they used to be legitimately good gateway heroes - their postioning used to be pretty forgiving in noob elos, and only became stricter/more punishing when you reached higher elos.... But that was back when the ttk was slow enough that enemy team's _gamesense_ (situational awareness, callouts, coordinated focus fire, etc.) was the real determining factor for how forgiving/punishing your positioning was.
this is a very high quality high effort video and deserves a lot more views than it currently has. i can see how much work you put into this
I appreciate your time, yeah it was a load of work! Hopefully I can get faster and better at production in future 😅 thanks for the high praise!
Dude you hit the nail on the head with “aiming contest with teenagers after a hard day of work”. The changes just feel so much better and the game itself is more enjoyable. Great video
The variance between the characters has been reduced so much, the options to avoid having to shoot a genji are now mostly gone, and the games worse for the casual player-base for it. Thanks for spending some of your time with me 😊
No, why should you be granted something you did not deserve? Why you insist on being given something for free when you did not deserve it? Why do I need to feel like shit hitting people healthbars because you don't want to be destroyed by people who are better than you. Accept that you suck and play with casuals like you. Why tf do you insist on being able to play at high level if you are not willing to put in the work...
Never hated casuals, but starting to now
I’m still incredibly grateful for OW movement system. It’s the only FPS game that doesn’t make me feel motion sickness. It was so freeing and magical to play a game that didn’t cause me to feel nauseous eventually, so if this change is the cost, so be it.
Glad some1 made a video about this, so weird going from counterstrike to overwatch. Seeing a character go from full speed 1 direction to fulll speed another direction is jarring, especially if their model is leaning like kiriko or soldier
8:45 Players from WoW/hearthstone/etc didn't leave because they "didn't click" with Overwatch. Early Overwatch 1 was _especially_ beloved by gamers who normally wouldn't touch a FPS with a ten-foot pole, because it had plenty of non-aim dependent characters that were just as fun and addicting to play as the aim-dependent ones.
The _real_ reason those players didn't stick with Overwatch is because they were more or less forced out of the game.
Instead of capitalizing on Overwatch's universal appeal, Blizzard decided that the game should emulate tac shooters instead. The pivot in target audience resulted in a series of heavy-handed updates that removed/trivialized everything that non-fps players originally liked about the game... which sends the implicit message of _"You are no longer this game's intended audience, so we have no further use for you. Just leave already."_
I think they’ll nerf the projectiles size since I’ve literally gotten shot behind a wall from hanzo, but use the data for some characters to make them more noob friendly and lower the skill ceiling
In the same blog that they announced the new changes that the mid season patch is going to be adjustments for those changes(dps passive, projectile size etc). So we can expect some tune down on the changes.
Thank God, an ashe shot two feet past my foot while I was on pharah(which I try to keep an incredibly erratic strafe pattern for) and it still hit me and killed me
Yeah some really powerful abilities need to be adjusted on a case by case basis. Also the Dps passive should have an indicator if it stays
Not a bouncing Storm Arrow?
Hello relf, just wanted to say your videos are a joy to watch. So well scripted, great story telling, the editing flows and there is no dead air. Such a fantastic discussion piece with so much more thought and effort put into it than a 20 minute vod clip of ranting inside the practice range. Keep doing your thing because you are absolutely bringing stuff to the table that sets you apart from other creators.
Thank you for the kind words! I try to make the type of stuff I enjoy watching, so I'm glad to find some like minded people!
lack of acceleration + the torb rework is why my friend stopped playing and what ultimately saw me leaving the game as well. So... good change? Still not gonna be enough to bring me back when their SBMM turns every match into a predetermined pile of unremarkable grey goop, but it's nice that someone is interested in fixing actual problems.
It’s nice to hear from the unspoken people who overwatch left behind years ago, there’s such a selection bias on people who talk about the game that you don’t see it too often 😅
Genji I think is the prime example of why this sort of game design can have subtle but long lasting ramifications.
The nerfs and buffs that character receives are sometimes mind boggling, but it's easy to forget that what makes him so much of a nuisance is that he was given a totally free movement skill (double jump) that can be used with no cooldown or telegraphing! It seems like such a little thing, but it adds so much passive power to his kit that small changes to the rest of his abilities can have really crazy impacts that are both good and bad for him.
What's also interesting is how they "corrected" this when they gave Hanzo his lunge mechanic. By putting it on a cooldown it was at least somewhat able to be played around, making it not nearly as much of a problem.
no matter, I'm glad you made this video because it's stuff like this that I've always wondered why nobody brought up before. Thanks!
I noticed that in OW2 I suck at hitscans while in other games I'm constantly clicking heads lol
I've primarily played overwatch for 7 years and any time I switch games I feel like a tracking god sometimes.
@@CROSSFADE69 I played fortnite for a while after grinding OW1 and holy shit I was like a professional with the aiming, I go back to OW and I feel like a bronze 5 noob lmao
so it wasnt just me@@CROSSFADE69
Being able to spam A/D/A/D and phase in to an alternate dimension where taking damage from bullets is only a suggestion should have been fixed before the game left its first beta.
It did get nerfed around season 3 or something and imo it's not really an issue gameplay wise its just another barrier of entry for new players- but think how busted widow/hanzo would be without it
Remember when crouching instantly snapped your head for three seasons before it got changed to take some time?
Well I'm about to expose myself as a VALORANT player but I think AD strafing is a very important skill to learn in Overwatch. I think it's absolutely a good thing to have mechanics that raise the skill ceiling. I also just enjoy the fact you can still jiggle peak in Overwatch. I definitely abuse it on Kiri against snipers. I'm kind of concerned that we aren't reducing the skill floor we are obliterating the skill ceiling which in my opinion is a bad thing for any PvP game.
Best argument I've heard in favor of it, however there are still a couple of issues. First, if it gets to the point where it is NOTICABLE that you are hitting shots you clearly missed, it destroys all of the effort that went into game feel (aka the feedback) and to players it will feel "cheap" or "buggy" if it doesn't match up with what is on their screen. That is my first concern. Second, although I have no problem with lowering the skill floor, I DO have an issue if we are lowering the skill ceiling as well. If anything I think most of the cast needs a higher skill ceiling, and was hoping they would move in that direction instead of dragging the skill ceiling of other things down. There are too many "binary" mechanics like locking beams or CDs that can't be done better or worse. If you want a healthy pro scene you have to have a high skill ceiling or they are bored to tears. Not every skill is mechanical aim and something like Rein in OW1 is a good example of counter play being worked into the abilities that allows for skill expression. We're moving the wrong direction IMO.
Incredibly well thought out video. I have been playing overwatch for about 5 years now and I still learned something new. It's been so long since I've "seen" the game through beginners eyes and this makes perfect sense. Good job, earned a sub! :)
Thank you so much, I appreciate your time and the lovely comments!
Acceleration is a thing, but why is no one speaking about the animations.
To me, the acceleration thing wouldn't be an issue at all if the targets were all capsules with a dot as a head, with no animation.
I'm not saying it should be that way, it's just to make you notice how stupid some characters animations are when you strafe left to right, jump, crouch, use abilities etc.
It's no longer just no acceleration, it's a litteral teleportation.
The head of tracer is a good exemple of this.
this change reminds me a lof of when For Honor changed from being reaction based to having to make reads on your opponent rather than reacting to anything they try. in both games there are hundreds of factors happening at once to determine the game, yet a lot of the factors can be obsolete if someone just aims or reacts better. this change seems like they want characters like widow to have REAL roles over just, "yeah you can play widow if you're an aim freak, and if not shes useless" I havent played yet but i like the changes as to me it seems like they want the game to be based more around positioning, teamwork, cooldowns, strats and big plays, over who has more hours in aim trainer and a 500hz oled monitor
But Widow should be useless if you can't aim well, that's literally the entire point of the character and will remain the entire point of the character as long as she has a oneshot.
@@theelegiast9140 nah, dont think a character should be inaccessible just because youu cant hit a tiny hitboox on a character that is frantically moving in all directions. its a video game
Ok but then the hero just becomes oppressive, it actively makes the game less fun for other players, because the oneshot becomes easy to do and too consistent to pull off. Again, if they want Widow to be more accessible, then they should take away her oneshot and build her character around something that won't be gamebreaking if a lot of people can do it.@@passdaboof
@@passdaboofit's not if you're playing at your rank, low rank players walk in straight lines and make it easier for shit widows to hit shots. All the change did is remove your ability to outplay the guy on coke with a 500hz monitor, because your a-d strafing won't matter.
@@lukasg4807so a-d strafing is outplaying someone? anyone who plays pvp games any decent amount are a d strafing by reflex, its not outplaying someone its just what you do. outplaying people is about positioning and decision making, which you have more of an opportunity to do with a bigger health pool
Coming in OW from CS really fkd my brain cause of these straifs.
the hitbox change itself wont ruin the game. It may feel as though youre not as rewarded for skill but most of the playerbase is casual and dont want to have to play like their life depends on it and try that hard and learn all of those mechanics just to have some fun by getting some kills. It's also exactly as you said, it makes the game more approachable and inclusive. I am a paladins player with almost 3k hours and the hitboxes arent as big of an issue there, if anything, im not as scared of hopping on the game after a long time and missing all of my shots. It just makes everything much more enjoyable.
however paldins is also balanced around the big hitboxes. headshots are very easy to hit so theyre being payed attention to. Oneshot kills are really not that prevalent because of that. Snipers dont have the ability to one shot unless they get dmg buffs or the opponent has very low max hp. Only some ults have oneshot potential on their own but even then its fairly easy to counter them as long as you can tell its coming.
Who gives af about the casual playerbase? Half of them won't even realize the game got updated, and it's already easier to hit shots in those lobbies with the worse movement. A game that caters to competitive players is still great for casuals, while the opposite is not true
Played overwatch since launch and I think you've made a really good analysis here. I do think these hitbox changes aren't necessarily a bad thing but perhaps moved the needle too much in the other direction. They've made heroes like Hanzo no longer have the same satisfying core gameplay loop and made tanks get melted. Perhaps the original idea may have been good but I can't claim to be a fan of the execution.
Dude you are so smart! This is easily one of if not the best breakdown of Overwatch ever. Fantastic video! As for the changes themselves, this past week has been the most excited I've been to play ranked in a while, so I think it's good!
God yeah, there was clip going around a year ago where a kiriko was about to be shot from behind but they hit an AD strafe right before it made contact and leaned all the way left and then right perfectly dodging shots
Very good video, you gonna blow up in no time, also that wall was painful 10:17
Really interesting video. To relate this to my experience in fps games. In apex when i see an octane b hop and tap strafe I ponder uninstalling as they wind up a purple mag devotion on me.
I'm happy something that I felt like a nerd for noticing years ago is finally getting talked about
Here's an idea for how they could fix it; revert the head hitbox to how it was before.. BUT make it increase in size, when the player's acceleration changes; compensating -only- for the exact problem given.
I remember playing literally any other game and being frustrated that i couldn't fall back on movement whenever i was choking my aim
the only thing between me and my opponent was how well i moved my mouse, and knowing an interaction was doomed because i placed my cross hair wrong was really annoying
I really like feeling that push and pull of picking, risky more readable movement to clutch a final blow, or to focus purely on dodging to try to recover the tide
The game Friends VS Friends is what turned me onto acceleration being a potential problem in shooters, as that game has snap turning as well. I then applied that lens to overwatch, and realized it's why the moment to moment gameplay feels so frustrating despite me liking the macro game. I have tried to tell people about this issue, but as you say, 99% of people just don't understand. I was constantly getting bashed for being just bad at the game, when my gamesense and positioning are fairly great. I decided to play paladins instead and had tons of fun.
Good choice picking up paladins, also tanking is way more enjoyable in paladins compared to overwatch in my opinion. In overwatch I only play dps, in paladins i can play all roles and actually enjoy it lol
I have consistently played overwatch since release and this latest patch is probably one of the most fun I’ve had. We can actually do something against players that have bad positioning since there’s a significant amount of healbotting reduced. Also with the hit boxes, I can actually land shots as a Lucio on my opponents.
ow was my first fps game, and honestly my first high intensity game. I fell in love with the movement based heros because they provide that alternative skill expression not based on aim. I tried out paladins for a while and was amazed at how good my aim was in that game! it's nice to see an explanation for that experience I had
as a 1k+ hr switch player (i use a monitor and pro controller), i’m very happy you mentioned the platform. while being locked at 30 fps is by itself a reason to never play on the switch, the gyro controls (similar to splatoon) actually make it as close to a mouse and keyboard experience on console there is.
i can definitely concur with your points though. when i started, i played nothing but moira and mercy for a long time, a bit of pharah, and was silver in ow1. it took me 100+ hours on them to feel used to the speed, movement, and positioning this game needs before i could feel confident enough to aim. some of my favorite characters now to play as a diamond are ana, kiri, zen, ashe and widowmaker, bc i’m fortunate enough to have the time to play and practice them. With the bar being lowered i hope people who have less time on their hands can also enjoy aim intensive characters.
some characters need to be adjusted a bit but overall i feel very positive about the patch as a console player and i think it’s for the greater health of the game.
When i see moira mercy healbot mains, who unintentionally are throwing my game just by the low skill ceiling character they picked and the way they play them, i see myself in them. in the past it felt necessary to start on these characters because you feel like you can’t do anything else. hopefully more people will expand their horizons and hero pool with this patch
There’s no comparable experience to playing Reinhardt with gyro controls! If the switch could handle 60fps it’d be my primary platform!
there were a couple times where i think you mixed up skill floor and skill ceiling but other than that great vid bruv
I unironically miss headshots because of the new hitbox it the things are so big that it hits arms and shoulders when it’s aimed at the head
Great video although I’m curious what was going on with the text on the paladins clip in the background?
Good work on the video, but devs just deleted any skills with A+D strafing. There's absolutely no reason to learn it now that the hitboxes are huge. It's become such a huge problem when it comes to Widowmaker that people are uninstalling. "Just counter her LUL" it's impossible when you have one-tricks or teammates with egos.
I certainly hope widow will be tweaked first when they get around to it, luckily they seem to already have some changes in the pipeline. Thanks for your time and I appreciate the compliment 😄
It seems like they broke everything to cater to the people who shouldn't even be playing the game.
AD strafing shouldn't even be a skill to begin with in OW
@@foodyrulez Yup the people praising this patch just confirm to me that a lot of the Overwatch playerbase just don't like competitive games. I'm not a fan of lowering the skill ceiling in mulitplayer games as a whole not just PvP ones.
@@cynthiahembree3957 They could have literally added an EZ Mode which features noob friendly gameplay and DVA can have some voicelines that voice her disgust when she is played in EZ Mode. Problem solved for everyone.
I think Hanzo is pretty much solved, honestly. While his projectiles are now pretty large, they also indirectly removed his OHK capability against all but 2 heroes. For his reduced reward for hitting crits, they had to buff his consistency, or else he would be unplayable. The increase to projectile speed and size, as well as reducing his Storm Arrow cooldown, does a splendid job of tackling his viability and performance issues. Granted, Hanzo+Mercy can feel slightly more oppressive as he can OHK with more consistency, but that's no longer a Hanzo problem at this point.
Great video! I was just talking with my friends about how OW2 is the hardest FPS out right now. This was a good video about why and a good eye opener about who this new patch is for and affects.
Im pretty sure this is not almost instantly but actual instantly. You hit left, you go left. Hit right, go right. How it always should b imo, movement is big and it aint happening wit slowdowns
EXACTLY and it makes doing parkour that much more rewarding due to the consistency
If you track movement speed in training range, there is actually a tiny window where you're not moving max speed. I actually rewrote all instances of "instantly" in my script to "almost instantly" in order to avoid well achkchulies! ;)
That was a well-thought-out and well-presented video. Thanks. The movement/aim mechanics are something that I like about Overwatch. I like how each character moves/feels different, not just like a boring dude with a gun like all of the other games.
Now i understand why i thought that the movement inside of paladin is horrible,it was the acceleration all along
Once you've experienced pure movement everything else seems like walking through tar.
@@realth8572 exactly,thats why i only play overwatch and other games with the same movement 🤣
Im not a game dev, but theres got to be a way to reduce the skill floor without impacting the skill ceiling so much. Just making all the bullets twice as big feels like a flimsy solution, and impacts certain characters and playstyles more than others. For example winston, an extremely difficult but rewarding character without aim requirments, gained basically no benefit from the projectile changes. To counteract this they increased the primal swing damage and the primary fire damage but made no changes to his secondary fire but most importatnly his landing damage. Winston isnt known for doing a high dps, the landing damage is massively important for burst and without that spike of damage he just feels a bit sad.
They buffed the global melee DMG so as long as you do the combo correctly the dive is technically buffed
@@Exrederex The melee increase is porportional to the health increase (about 25%), youre doing the same percentage of health you did before from the melee but a reduced percentage from the landing damage. Also the punch landing combo is overhyped, it doesnt increase the dps it just makes it a more concentrated spike. And its worse than just holding left click if the target has armour.
For me overwatch felt incredibly slow. The instant acceleration wasn't really noticeable to me, but the "enforced slowness" of all the movement was what made me feel slow. All the movement tech is specifically the movement baked into different characters, the only movement tech allowed is the stuff given to you by the game, it felt like. Halo is a game series I like more, which didn't have movement tech, but that wasn't trying to, its focus was elsewhere. Titanfall 2 is another game that i also like better, and it has movement in it, but it isn't artificially limited like Overwatch's is.
Valorant is in the same boat, i think, but I've been forced to play it via peer pressure so i like it more. To clarify, they both feel like they have an artificial movement system speed limit
Overwatch 2's balancing also feels awful.
But if you like Overwatch, all the power to ya
this was a very well written, informed and presented video! I liked it a lot! I am however, on a different note, slightly confused as to why I had to watch an Apple commercial at 2:30.. I feel like the point was made and it still went on for some time. Other than that, awesome Video, I learned a lot!
Yeah you’re right there, I was trying to convey as best as possible how wide reaching the concept is and how many systems it speaks to. But I did go a little heavy 😅
The large hit boxes finally explain how I sometimes die from DVA bomb when I'm around the corner!
5:40 When he says Zen's head moves more when crouching I thought about how Zenyatta using his right click makes his head bob to the center of his body.
As a game dev who recreated the air strafing quake movement in 1:1 in unity I've been telling this lack of momentum representation to my Apex friends for a long time. Tracking anyone not in a trajectory or laying dead on the keyboard in OW is insanely prediction based. I've also played semi pro Siege and can confidently say that Siege movement works because of the general lack of requirement for tracking - ttk is infinitely lower, so Siege players usually completely give up tracking and use the most sticky mouse pads out there.
"How many red clickbait arrows do you want in the thumbnail"
"Yes."
I think fallout three in new Vegas also had instant acceleration on aiming
The difficulty was what got me into the game, i really think a decent balance was enough but this the best OW2 has ever been.
At first i was sceptical about new changes. But when i tried it feelt good, some fixes are needed for sure, but in general i was having a blast playing as dps (my least favorite role). Altho i have this weird thing scratching in back of my mind: is it me hitting those shots or just new hit boxes?
Never thoughts about this, but there ARE characters who benefit a bit too much from these changes (widowmaker at the most). i will say actoss the board though only like 4-5 heros feel super opressive and once they specifically get toned down I think this update was great.
The execution was never going to be there, but hopefully once they iterate on the system they can round out the edges, atleast this game now feels properly theirs so they can feel comfortable making sweeping changes. Aaron actually announced yesterday that tweaks are coming soon! Just gotta cross our fingers and see if they can balance as well as they can design.
@@realth8572 I did really like the pharah rework and that's the only thing left giving me hope.
Overwatch used to be this perfect game where any skill range could get into it because you didn’t need to aim to play the game, some characters helped you with that. I got into it as my first FPS and it slowly built up my ability to aim better for other games. But the shift over time to more and more aim focused, I get it, a lot of the fanbase left is hardcore shooter people, but I miss the days where anyone could play and have fun. I miss Sym 2.0 where she had the extra utility of a moving shield, shield generator, and a lasso laser, because you didn’t have to have crazy aim to get value. What I’m saying is, yes skill issue, my aim is shit (better than back when the game first came out for sure though), and the shift to more and more aim focused patches makes it harder for me to enjoy the game.
Ok while I understand some of your gripes having something like old sym primary was just bad for the game, moira is already op enough as is with a similar aiming system, a dps doing that would not be good for the game. There are still characters where aiming is not insanely important tho... or just play tank lol
besides quake and overwatch gta 5 actually has a very snappy ad strafe but only when you're in first person mode. this combined with an extreme amount of variables and tech in the game has honestly made the online pvp for it incredibly competitive. I actually used to play gta online solely for that pvp game loop. there's something incredibly satisfying about playing the game against many overpowered vehicles and other things with just a sniper, rpg and ad strafing lol
just did some quick experimentation with hanzo and tracer in practice range, if tracer's head is just 20% covered or so with the terminal screen right next to her, hanzo's arrows have to be reasonably on point of some visible part of the edge of her head, but once her head has almost no natural coverage, his arrow hitbox is in full effect and you can be a good 16 inches or 40 centimeters away and get the headshot.
Is that the effect of the hitbox clashing with natural cover before the headbox?
@@realth8572 idk how it works because even if the coverage clashes with the hitbox and sort of deletes that part of it, there should still be plenty of hit box left over to hit the rest of her face and it just doesn't. also if you aim just below her chin it counts as body shots. so the massive hitbox really only seems to benefit the empty space around tracer provided she doesn't have as little as 10 to 20 percent of her character model behind natural coverage. so it really does seem just like a buff to try and help against the instant acceleration of a+d spamming as you've said, especially with characters who have dramatic leans towards whatever direction they're running in.
this. this. this. i've had this on my mind for many years, and it is crazy that only now it has being talked about. that's why i found heroes like echo who have acceleration and deacceleration to their movement is 'right' as opposed to something like soldier 76
stupid question what's the song at 1:00? I know its from undertale but im not in the mood to go through the entire soundtrack
Undertale OST: 63 - It’s Raining Somewhere Else
@@realth8572 thank you mate and i wasn't expecting a reply that fast
It was a good change to overall gameplay. The instantaneous movement is absolutely necessary for certain heros' playstyles to exist (lucio, mercy, kiriko, soldier, genji, tracer, etc) but it also created strange situations where a player should have died, but bought enough time for some friendly set of cds or support to kick in. My favorite one as a ball main is distracting 4 enemy players only so that a junkerqueen can plow through two or three teammates before death and abuse her narrow hitbox and speedboost...after crossing 30meters of open space.
She dies way more consistently now. Damage hits when it's supposed to now, ie against aggressive opponents, and larger healthpools keep you from dying when it shouldnt. So the ability play and target focus all feels more impactful, and because of consistency, also rewarding.
Maybe that's what I've been missing. I've wanted to pick up another online FPS for ages because overwatch makes me sad. However, literally nothing scratches the same itch. That's cause it's IS unlike any other popular shooter in its core feel. I've tried Quake Champions once but, after the tutorial, the game felt kinda inaccessible and I like the cooperation and tempo of overwatch.
no momentum, no acceleration, feels like complete shit to play and fight against
I think criticising low skill floor heroes (when it comes to aiming) like Winston, Brig, Moira, Mercy, for being "quarantines" and not being a perfect solution to players who have trouble aiming misses the point.
Overwatch is a fast paced FPS hero shooter 39 different heroes, each with their own weapons, abillities, ultimates, and unique interactions with every other hero. Its a hard game, and its supposed to be challenging. Someone who can't aim is only supposed to go so far'
The game can give them something to play like those heroes, but for it to bend over backwards to cater to them would destroy what the game was about in the first place, and alienate the people who enjoyed playing what the game used to be
It's funny cause I learned all my movement and aim from TF2 and older valve titles and it honestly transfered so well into other titles. I can still return to TF2 and work in it for a couple hours to reach my old skill level. Tbh tho I would still agree on the competitive aspect TF2 pro's are on another level because of how limited they are. Overwatch really seems like a whine fest
Been playing since og open beta and changes feel great to me. Feeling optimistic.
Well spoken and doesn’t do generic overdone video essay tropes. Good work:).
Thank you, I appreciate your time!
To me, the hard-to-hit shots in overwatch are when your enemy is strafing left and right. And if your target is strafing, then you're aiming at the wrong target. I know it sounds silly, but why would you waste resources fighting a target aware of your presence that has enough time to strafe? A lot of my gunfights begin by taking an off angle and shooting them when they least expect it, they either have to take cover or their team has to put resources into keeping them alive. This is why regardless of how hard it is to aim in this game, you can still succeed with average aim and great positioning/target priority. (I peaked GM3 in overwatch so there's some weight to what I'm saying, I promise)
Yeah but when you actually have to engage ins 1v1 with another dps you'll see why the movement is a problem. It feels more luck based if you win the duel rather than it coming down purely to aim.
Acceleration is what makes Overwatch OverWatch
Can you make a video about Torb and Symm's reworks and how they alienate players? You have a really good understanding about it. I really miss Torb upgrading turrets 😢
Hey boss, I actually have a something like 50 page script written up for an overwatch critique which includes 7 or 8 pages on this topic, I’m currently working out wether I want to cut it up and release the individual topics, or to wait till I get a bit more popular and release it as a 2 hour critique in full!
I think some characters have been disproportionately affected like I laser Lucio now
I think think the increase in size is a good thing, I've only seen my accuracy go up 5-10% for a doubling of the projectile sizes. Like you said in the video movement is so important in this game, so projectiles are at a severe disadvantage than hitscan. Just increasing speeds would make for more redundant hero design
I will talk about in future how bullet spread, slow travel time and falloff are very hard to balance because they lead themselves to becoming tank hate firing modes if they are given enough damage to be useful at anything else. That fact causes a lot of homogenisation between designs and the failure to recognise this has caused redundant weapon design like Lifeweavers secondary.
It’s one of the less talked about reasons as to how 5v5 has created problems for the game, if there is one less high health big target, suddenly there is about double the “hate this one character” abilities specifically stopping the one tank instead of being used for off angle control etc. really interesting stuff!
@@realth8572 honestly I've been a big fan of 5v5, but reading this has opened my eyes. You are totally right about the difficulty of projectiles lending their use case, at many levels of play, being reserved for tanks. Looking forward to your video!
Blizzard has doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on trying to turn a fun team-based hero shooter with a broad range of characters into a highly competitive FPS e-sport where you click on things. And even though no one in the entire world likes it (not even the streamers for whom the changes were arguably made) they just keep on going down this road. It's not a coincidence that the community were so interested in PVE: the Overwatch fanbase wants wacky fun gameplay, not an ultraserious high skill FPS.
I understand that it doesn't fit the game, but an ADS or zoom buttons really make the speed problem bigger on console. On battlefield or cod you can move your aim quickly and focus on targets with a slower sensibility. Overwatch tries to replicate that with aim assist, but there's a lack of player control about when that assist is working.
CS GO never worked on the previous generation, valorant didn't even try to go to consoles and halo implemented the ADS.
Great video. One small correction as I see this misconception everywhere now, hitbox sizes are not changing. The size of projectiles is what’s changing. The hitboxes will remain the same size but projectiles being bigger makes targets easier to hit.
Hey there, i should've used a visual example so it was more clear, but the radius of the projectiles are essentially added to the width of the hitboxes, meaning that aside from some weird jank on corners, for instance with two conical hitboxes, the effect of in creasing projectile size is more or less the same as increasing the actual hitbox size. I appreciate the compliment :)
What is the name of the song that starts playing at 8:58 ?
Fallen Down: Undertale OST
@@realth8572 thanks I knew I recognised it from somewhere
The problem isn't the technical paraphernalia of the game as much as it is the fact that the most utterly casual players still get on the ranked queues plus a system that's designed to give them dopamine anyways while they tell them they're allowed to play like trash and not try at all.
That's why people's pissed. No balance change will ever sugarcoat the dreadful quality of life levels we have right now. Nobody wants to play the game, or use comms, or even try.
They just made the solo queue experience an even bigger nightmare.
Funny enough the only reason they changed the hit box is because of the dps passive and they were worried it wouldn't be effective in low ranks because dps cant hit there shots so they changed it.
This certainly wouldn’t be beyond belief, they did however have a comment on acceleration in the dev notes which I think related to the size increases, so at least someone is thinking over there!
Aim Welfare.
Was that a mistake made 7 years ago, or was the snappy movement what made it the overwatch game of the year when it launched? I can say that as a player with bad aim skills, I closed the gap by being better than other people in the movement. I guess what I considered a skill, one in which I was good, is something that we should try to remove from the game, cool! (I guess I'm just salty at this point)
Sadly the problem is... Its both? Seven years ago no reviewer knew enough about game design to see that the acceleration could be problematic, so it all it did was make the game feel fresh and fast paced. Even now, with education on game design being so much more prevalent, most people cant pinpoint it as a problem. There's really no way out, that's clean.
The problem is a large majority of the characters who dominated pre patch were characters with small hit boxes and high mobility. They either needed to increase the projectile size or hit box sizes. The reason the game became so popular before was because a ton of ability’s that pre-nerf could make or break the game so it was more about strategic ability and ult usage on top of fps gameplay but as times gone on they’ve favored the actual gun damage so you can get kills and plays without using your abilities. Should you or do you? No but it’s def possible
@@angel__king It still should have been on a case by case basis instead of blanket buffing. I think it was an oversight to just buff everything
there should be guide on movements against certain characters ngl
She did it again later in the match, I bet she didn't even realize what happened!
I think this is probably the heart of why Overwatch is the one FPS game I still tolerate to this day. The only other game in the FPS genre that gave this same level of control and fluidity is Doom Eternal, and I had a lot of fun with that. But being that Doom Eternal didn't have the same PvP mode to its 2016 counterpart, I didn't stick with it over Overwatch. But I think there'd be a large market of the movement shooter to come back if it's done right.
I do not think this is an error by Blizzard. I think this is what makes OW unique in its own way: a game where aiming is hard and it is not the main factor in an fps game. There is nothing like this on the market. You can play with your friends, have no mechanical skill aim and play Lucio wallriding and providing some value to the team even when missing every shot.
I do not think it is fair to the game taking a single feature of the basic mechanics and analyze it without the context around it.
well for that last point of fixing hanzo, he can’t one shot anymore as they increased everyone’s health too (unless you’re a tracer you still get 1 shot)
or dva pilot
Ahh u stopped donkey kongs track when the best part was about to happen!
While it’s definitely impossible to say that aiming in ow is easy at a high level of play in casual I just find the skill ceiling of the game to be so low. Bad positioning? Here’s a zero risk get out of jail free card. Bad aim? Here’s a lock on aim ability that does your job for you. Enemy team doing a coordinated push? Good thing you’ve got an easy to hit stun mechanic or your tank has some button that just eats literally all attacks from the enemy team as they are effortlessly healed to full. Other team pulling off a coordinated push? Just use your ultimate that makes your whole team borderline invincible with at best 1 counter that only 1 hero has so odds are the enemy team won’t be able to do anything as a simple “q” invalidates all the actual skill they took to get to the point and try to capture it
Small channel with awesome content, can this be real? Great video
Thank you, appreciate your time!
Doesn't the only hero that actually have acceleration, is Lucio?
FINALLY SOMEONE POINTING OUT FUTNUT HAS AMAZINGLY DESIGNED GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS THAT NOBODY TALKS ABOUT
Mainly because the bs creator support program gives content creators financial incentive to spread misinformation and churn out puff piece vapid content over making constructive videos about the game itself.
At this point I genuinely believe people dont want overwatch to be fixed. They want more bugs and techs, because those become "unwritten rules" down the line. When you fix a game, you also delete what an older player has learned over the years. This is why people are angry. They are stubborn and dont want change. Just like with smash brothers melee and other older games, people want it to stay the same forever. That is not how we progress im sorry. We gotta think about new players too ya know. These new changes are amazing, and im having so much fun with it. I dont think people are mad at the changes, theyre mad at the fact it changed. Adapt and overcome
I agree entirely, it’s understandable that older players like the old game, that’s why they’re still playing it. But for the long term health of it as a product, they need to be able to market to their target audience!
Completely agree, also the HP buff and new dps passive is pretty much fixing the massive amount of healing and damage issues that game had for over one year. But somehow players want it to be reverted I honestly don't understand and this coming from a ow1 veteran.
@andrecarvalho9144 Yes, for real! People are legit complaining about the devs finally fixing things players have complained about in the past. Its a lose lose with these people man. I wholeheartedly believe the devs are on the right track with this one.
@realth8572 Exactly! I dont understand how some of these people are arguing that overwatch should be less accessible. For what purpose? Arent they worried the game is gonna die? This grumpy old man mentality is not helping the future and growth of this amazing videogame. It is literally all cope. I couldnt even get friends to play with me, they would get too mad at the 1 shots and required too much past knowledge (which isnt ALWAYS a bad thing). Now I have a chance to invite because the game is definitely more fair now. I didnt have too too many problems personally, but NOW, most of my problems are gone. Im glad they readjusted the baseline, and I am excited for future updates!
@@PaulPickle honestly the community seems to be acting with dishonest in this season for no reason. Talking like the devs haven't said in the same blog that they announced those changes that there's going to be a mid season patch to adjust those changes after the players have played them and given feedback
I disagree that these hitbox changes are a good thing, I’m no god by any means (literally masters) but I personally ENJOY the difficulty of landing my shots, I like the feeling of getting better month by month and these hitbox changes make me feel like all my progress is for nothing, even when I was new to ow2 it had always been my goal to become better knowing that this is one of the more difficult games to aim in, I play on console. All that being said, I’m glad that other players ARE enjoying these new changes ❤
Aim welfare is a bandaid to help the worst players feel like they aren't bad, while preventing them from actually getting better, while also preventing most of the higher level skill needed at the top end, it ruins more than it fixes just so that the people at the bottom can be given aim assist.
@@foodyrulez I couldn’t agree more, these are my thoughts exactly, only lower skilled/ new players can enjoy these changes, it leaves the rest of us out who’ve actually grown better and more skilled
Yeah I feel this. If I wanted to hit every shot (without earing it) I would play Warframe. As much as I am glad people are having fun I don't think this is a healthy change. This is probably just going to backfire really badly.
Thats why hitbox changes are not that bad. Hitscans were not overpowered but straffing is. Still now even if I am more consistent i cant play more than 3 competitive games without having my brain fried. And at the same time you have characters that were broken (brig for example) without having to switch your brain on to hyperfocusing on aiming.
quake definitely has significantly slower movement accel than overwatch, not sure why you pointed it out as an exception
The strafe in overwatch is what really drew me into the game. Being able to juke out incoming shots and abilities added a layer to the pvp that I always found lacking in other shooters, I've never had any issue with aim but games like Titanfall and Overwatch always just felt more enjoyable to me with this extra depth. So much enjoyment from it that I would grind ffa and 4v4 tdm on Ana just to learn how to counter strafe each individual hero. It wasn't until season 4 of overwatch 2 where something changed. I'm not sure if it was net code or networking, I don't pretend to be a guru, all I know is I went from around 40% accuracy on Echo to 20% that season. The games hit registration felt awful moving forward and was entirely server dependent I would spend the early stages of the round trying to see if I was playing Echo, tracer, mei, junkrat, cassidy based on hit registration in the server. Ultimatley playing open que ranked to broaden the hero pool for flexing. This change to projectile size, while I think it is a bit much has brought the feel of the first couple seasons back. I think widow is atrocious now, currently I'm soloing around M2-1 and I can't imagine what widow is like any higher ranked than this.
Wanted to say this is the first video of yours I've seen, the quality is amazing, Loved the breakdown and cadence you used throughout. IMO the background jingle gets slightly high/loud in parts. , I loved the way you placed yourself around the map is certain spots that was cool and That hoody emblem was absolute fire btw not sure how you even pulled that off but nice touch. Really enjoyed it and looking forward to the next one!
Thank you so much, the servers did change around season 4, I believe the americas were partitioned differently, and the eu now shares servers with Saudi Arabia, part of that was server space, part of that was wanting SA to have a good queue time since they were investing money into the scene. Weirdly enough I bluescreened myself to the same colour as the logo, and then put the blue back in post for the video recording, it cut down the quality of the camera a bit but I think it ended up at a good balance. I appreciate the advice about the music, I was tweaking it a lot during the end, rendered it twice with different audio volume and still wasn’t too happy with the balance, so some work to do there!
Regardless, really appreciate your time!
Are you sure your ping isn't just worse now?
Plenty of other games give you the option to juke incoming shots and abilities. The only difference is that in OW, there is no opportunity cost to this, while in those games, you basically need to *not be shooting back* if you want to take evasive action. If someone is shooting at you in Apex Legends or even Counter Strike, there are a lot of ways to evade, and all of them require you to decide to not shoot back.
At some point the size of bullets / hitboxes just becomes ridiculous. I feel like this is the case now. Aiming is an integral part of a FPS, if you are bad at it then you are just bad at the game. It's always been like that in FPS games and that has just worked out fine. That is what match making and the likes are for. The same applies to hero selection. I believe it's actually quite a mistake to offer very low skill heroes at all. Because that leads to the quarantining you mentioned. Not offering those extremes also would open up the most of hero pool again.
I think they are gonna tone some of the more egregious ones down a little, like soldier, widow etc, but the rest are here to stay.
We love our effort chads out here making good OW content.
7:15 he also hit the helex rocket on the grounf bc it jumps the player making it easier to predict movement