Overwatch

Beneath The Wild Overwatch Custom Games Are Some Real Gems

... on? Well obviously you go wild, and so people have. Custom Games rolled out yesterday and there are pages and pages of them, settings all over the place. Try one, it's carnage. Go to the Arcade menu and then Find Game. In one I kept Zarya's bubble up constantly, rendering her invincible; in another, Soldier 76 could drop an entire team in a heartbeat with his ultimate, which seemed to charge every second. And Torbjorn? Oh my god Torbjorn. It's a lot of short-lived fun. Ah, the inevitable penis. But beyond the mayhem, beneath the mayhem, you can see glimpses of more considered Custom Games. There are many themed around training, be it headshots or other aspects of the game; and there are many based around teams fighting one opposing hero, which has been boosted to boss proportions. Hey the 4 v 1 genre lives on! Most are slapdash first attempts but others clearly have thought behind them. Indeed, there's now an Overwatch Custom Games subreddit devoted to them - sharing the settings you ...

Complexity Rises To The Occasion

... map by the end of the five matches, they'll deal with it then. Hammers took the first map on Hollywood as IMT's Brady "Agilities" Giradi launched a full offensive from the sky on Pharah. Not only on Hollywood, but throughout the entire best of five, Jake's Genji sliced and diced his way to the top of a mountain of IMT corpses. IMT's Christopher "Grim Reality" wouldn't let Jake have his way so easily, fighting to a draw on the second map of Hanamura, and striking back on the fourth map of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. After Watchpoint to IMT, Hammers finished King's Row and slammed down any chance of an IMT comeback. The result was a solid 3-1 win for Hammers against both teams. The week ended with Team Liquid struggling to win a single game and Luminosity struggling to stand on solid ground. With comp Lexity's turnaround, they've tied with Immortals at 2-2 matches each, but Hammers ...

What You Need To Know About Flanking In Overwatch

... his part by jumping in to continue the harassment so that Faze never get a moment’s peace. The synchronized barrage and sound barrier clean things up. In such a pivotal section of Dorado, Rogue maximized the effectiveness of their dive composition by splitting the attention of Faze and punishing their indecision. Positioning is everything. After you’re comfortable zipping in and out of battle on your own, it’s time to incorporate some map knowledge into your plan of attack. Knowing how to sneak up on your opponents is crucial to your success, so it might be worth your time to go into an empty server and study up on maps you’re having difficulties with. Escort and hybrid maps are the easiest to get acquainted with flanking because the payload has to follow a predetermined route. That removes some of the guesswork needed on the other map types, and if you’re already in the other team’s head, they could get sloppy ...

Activision Blizzard, Inc.’s Overwatch Is Killing It

... Overwatch has universal appeal. What has made this game uniquely successful is its universal appeal. There is a balance of engagement in both Eastern and Western regions, which is incredible given that Western companies usually find it difficult to succeed in Korean and Chinese markets - which is where Overwatch has seen great success reaching an audience. Activision Blizzard has pounced quickly on the momentum of the game with creative ideas for downloadable content, and the big announcement of Overwatch League to capitalize on the growing opportunity in e Sports. The overriding goal is to encourage and increase engagement with the game. Higher engagement leads to higher in-game revenue as we saw in the company's fourth quarter earnings report. Additional content drives revenue. In the fourth quarter, Activision Blizzard had record in-game revenues from sales of additional downloadable content across its diverse ...

How Can Blizzard Stop Harassment In 'overwatch'? The Answer Is Complicated

... benefit. Blizzard learned that the hard way with its "avoid this player" option that it  removed  soon after Overwatch came out. "That tool was super easily abused, because people actually used that feature to avoid extraordinarily good players, so they used it for their own gain in a way that broke their matchmaking system," Lo said. So, instead of simply proposing tools that could be abused by particularly determined harassers, Lo thinks a better long-term solution — albeit, a much more amorphous, difficult one — requires a larger shift in the Overwatch culture more generally. Modeling player behavior might be more effective in the long term. According to Lo, one of the best solutions is for Blizzard to model the kind of behavior it expects from its audience. This is a difficult challenge, but it comes down to making players feel like Blizzard and its entire ...

To Avoid Hellish Harassment In 'overwatch,' Players Flee To Exclusive Discord Chat Rooms

... in 'Overwatch'. Source:  Blizzard Entertainment. So where does Overwatch go from here? Suggestions from the Reddit community for fixing the game's harassment problem ran the gamut. Some called on Blizzard to implement harsher bans, and others advocated for bystanders in team chat to speak up when they hear someone else being harassed. But a number of women — and other folks who are marginalized in the traditionally straight, masculine spaces of online first-person shooters — forgo the process of engaging with those toxic communities at all. To avoid harassment, Overwatch players flock to Discord. To escape the hellish harassment they experience while solo-queuing — the term for joining an Overwatch game with five random teammates you don't know — many players escape to their own pre-established communities. These kinds of communities have homes all over the internet — like Reddit and Facebook — but one service that kept popping up in conversations with Overwatch players was Discord, a free online chat service that markets itself as a home for these kinds of gaming communities. Zarya in 'Overwatch'. Source:  Blizzard Entertainment. One Overwatch player, ...

New Hero Updates, Bug Fixes And Map Improvements Confirmed

... takes 35% less damage while in Sentry or Tank configuration. D. Va. Enemy shots no longer need to travel a minimum distance before they can be blocked. Mei can now be targeted by allies while in Cryo-Freeze. While performing a resurrection, Mercy now becomes temporarily invulnerable along with the allies being revived. Caduceus Staff. Zenyatta can no longer be targeted when Transcendence is active. New Hero Option: Guardian Angel Sensitivity. Allows players to adjust Guardian Angel’s targeting sensitivity. New Hero Option: Beam Sensitivity. Allows players to adjust targeting sensitivity on Mercy’s Caduceus Staff beams. New Hero Option: Hack Sensitivity. Allows players to adjust the targeting sensitivity on Sombra’s Hack ability. Related articles. Ammo is now loaded earlier in the reload animation. New Hero Option: Grappling Hook Sensitivity. Allows players to adjust Grappling Hook’s targeting sensitivity. New Hero Option: Projected Barrier Sensitivity. Allows players to adjust Projected Barrier’s targeting sensitivity. New Hero Option: Harmony Orb Sensitivity. Allows ...

Overwatch's Unique Art Style Began With Torbjorn

... a bit more. restrained. Overwatch as we now know it relies on exaggerated character designs and immediately recognizable silhouettes, and that began when Blizzard art director Sam “Samwise” Didier stepped in and gave his two cents on Torbjorn. “You want everything in your visual design to say something about your hero,” said Tsang. “So Sam was like, ‘What are these blue Tron lights? What if, instead, his belly was, like, a living furnace?’ So he was steaming with molten energy. And then he had this random claw, and Sam was like, ‘What if that’s the way he manipulates molten steel? You’ve gotta have that all tie together.’”. Torbjorn then became the test case for level art. As the team worked on Overwatch’s first level, Temple of Anubis, they inserted art of Torbjorn into it to make sure they were on the right track. “Whatever he ...