Overwatch

I'm not sure its non canon as it is not part of the story. I think its pretty canon that these characters would play off of each other this way and that way and the histories and personalities are presented ingame are true even if these actual encounters have not happened in the plot.

edited 19th Oct '17 11:15:03 PM by lycropath

When talking about in-game stuff not being canon, they were talking about the content of their conversations and such - since it depicts characters talking to or talking in reference to characters they've never met, among other things - not that everything in-game is to be considered inapplicable to who the character are.

It's to deal with stuff like, for example, Widowmaker and later Doomfist trying to recruit Hanzo into Talon, which would otherwise be something with implications about where the plot is going while the lines themselves are just supposed to be for flavor.

But there isn't much reason to extend that to their personalities as shown by in-game stuff, though, because it's still the main way they build the characters. To keep on the same example - though the fact that Hanzo refused an invitation to Talon in-game is almost certainly non-canon, the fact that Hanzo would refuse an invitation to Talon if given the choice probably isn't.

Or in short: that.

edited 19th Oct '17 11:14:07 PM by KnownUnknown

Yeah what the characters say isn't canon but how they act & might react is.

The gameplay of Overwatch is all a series of virtual reality training simulations, which occasionally get a bit "out there" (Ana and Widowmaker on the same team? Zenyatta and Bastion delivering the EMP in King's Row? Why not?)

I've always theorized that it's the Omnic version of Skynet running various combat simulations for analysis so that it can be prepared for all possibilities when it initiates its plan for global domination.

I've always thought it would be amusing if Zenyatta, Bastion and Orisa automatically died when the payload was delivered in King's Row, regardless of which team they were on.

Would it hurt Genji too you think?

Tracer too if you think about it.

I'm fairly certain Winston would have accounted for EMPs when he designed the accelerator.

That'd be really funny if Sombra hacks killed Tracer instantly.

You shouldn't hack a woman's device that keeps her anchored in time. That's how she kills your grandfather and you stop existing.

If Overwatch was Pokemon

Never really got into esports, so this doesn't impact me a lot. Although I do hope they allow the team uniforms to be obtainable for all players since I'm sure a at least a few of them will have a good color pallet.

Very surprised this was announced with Blizz Con only a week away. I was expecting an esports-related announcement, and while I do expect more details on what was discussed in the video the chances of a separate announcement have just gone up considerably.

Neato! Maybe I'll actually start watching e-sports. On another note, have some more updates. I think you're going to find this pretty darn interesting...

So Mercy's getting reworked/retuned yet again.

Can't wait to see Zen getting some "love" as well.

They've noticed people wanting to play a healer and decided that they'd better see what they can do to fix that.

Yup. Clearly the DPS master race must never be toppled.

At this point I'm not even sure that's sarcastic enough, or just true.

While they are at it, they should buff Ana to be competitive with Mercy.

She can really use some mobility skills.

I think reverting Ana to near her peak at season 2 (80 damage poison shots, grenade doubles healing, nano boost also gives speed boosts) would not only make her top tier again, but also reintroduce the likes of Reinhardt and Roadhog, both of which would benefit from a re-enhanced nano boost.

...who am I kidding? They won't ever do that. Once Mercy gets nerfed, her and Zen is next on the chopping block.

I think ascribing outright malice against supports to Blizzard's balance decisions is a bit much.

We do need to keep in mind that balancing a game like Overwatch is hard, even for a company like Blizzard. I can say with almost absolute confidence that if I were put in charge of balancing Overwatch, I'd screw it up way worse then it is now.

For example buffing the other supports to keep up with post-rework Mercy might seem like an obvious choice, but if supports get too strong as a whole we could end up in a situation where neither team can really outdamage the other's healing, to the point where defending teams have a strong advantage in payload and CP maps.

Now of course that isn't to say that support buffs should be taken off the table entirely, I'm simply giving a reason why Blizzard might be hesitant to just buff all non-Mercy supports in an attempt to bring the pickrate of the support classes in line with each other.

I recently did my traditional "Oh, shit, the season's ending soon!" placements and noticed that Mercy as she is really does change the tone of the game. And I kinda like it. She might be a bit too powerful, but it's refreshing to be able to successfully run a team of Mercy/Lucio/Winston/Genji/Junkrat/Soldier in Comp. Back in previous metas, that'd be considered suicide because no Rein shield and triple DPS without The Rectangle of Safety™ borderlined on throwing. Mercy's Res having such a strong impact is what allows these weird-ass comps to break the mold.

Honestly, I think it's in DPSs' best interests to want Mercy to stay the same.

I should correct you - it's in the dive-style DPS' (Tracer/Genji/Sombra etc.) interests for her to stay like she is now. One-shot specialists like Widow and Doomfist don't want that, because if she has her rez up, picks (i.e. an opportune kill made against a key enemy) almost immediately become meaningless since she can just press E to undo their work.

x2 Touche. But in my defense, this Gone Horribly Right rework to Mercy's kit was made largely because so many complaints by DPS mains were made about hide-and-seek rezzes. It's not the fact that I had to relearn her, it's that I'm baffled as to why people are complaining about what they had been wishing and begging for to Jeff Kaplan and co..

Res is on a 30-sec cooldown, though. I'll agree that it makes single picks less impactful because she can do that once, but things will still fall apart if the team can get multiple picks. In fact, depending on positioning, Mercy may risk getting picked herself if she goes to use Res (I know I've gotten her more than once while she was going for it—even if I couldn't stop her most of the time—and I was playing Lucio).

My guess is that they're going to change it so that Mercy Resurrects people with 50% health.