Overwatch was my first FPS game, and I just wanted to commend some of the design elements that I think make this game so accessible in a genre that I have not found to be very scrub-friendly.
Overwatch is a first-person-shooter (FPS) game brought to you by Blizzard (the company that made World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, etc.). The game elements boil down to:
FPS has been a genre that has been particularly intimidating for me to get into because of various factors. The key points that I think Blizzard really nailed in making it more accessible to even new FPS players are….
When I think of FPS, I think about “420 NO SCOPE BOOM HEADSHOT” 1-shot instakills. Although 1-shot kills exist in Overwatch, as a new player, you will often die in a slower manner, which gives you a better chance to figure out how you’re dying and a better chance to react and escape. Cause of death is also a little more obvious in Overwatch. It’ll go something along the lines of…
“SOMEONE IS SHOOTING ME, FIND COVER QUICKLY. “
or…
“THERE IS THIS BIG MONKEY ZAPPING ME, PLEASE HELP. “
And if you really don’t know how you died, there is always the kill cam that shows you what dealt the final blow, which is a huge aid for newer players learning about what other characters do and how to improve survivability.
Just in case you do die, you get to respawn and try again in just a few seconds! This gives you so many opportunities to learn about your mistakes and get right back in the action ASAP. Dying and respawning also gives you the chance to switch characters. I think this greatly helps new players explore the range of characters that are available to them and to learn what they all do. Because everyone has the opportunity to switch characters at many points in the game, a new player can be exposed to the majority of characters in a short time span. You don’t need to invest a ridiculous amount of time just to get a basic understanding of what characters do.
Giving the ability to switch characters also minimizes the risk of losing the game before any of the fighting actually starts just because your team’s characters are just bad picks against the enemy team’s characters. This is more of a concern in MOBAs like League of Legends or DOTA2 (where you are stuck with the same hero for the whole ~45min game), but can still be a source of anguish in Overwatch, which is why it’s great the designers allow players this flexibility.
I think the character variety really helps with players who are new to FPS. There are characters that don’t require excellent aim to be effective (e.g. Reinhardt). There are characters that don’t require extensive knowledge of the terrain to be mobile (e.g. Pharrah). Because of the large character pool, you can choose one or two things to work on and find a character that will best fit your needs. You also don’t ever have to be amazing at aiming to be great at the game. You could have great game sense (about when to attack and defend) and it will carry you far (given your team listens…) which is great for first-time FPS players coming from MOBAs or other game genres.
Although this is probably something that is detrimental for the competitive scene and high level players, for new FPSers and those new to Overwatch, I think this was a great design choice. It feels bad when you are absolute crap at playing a new game. It feels worse when your 5 teammates can look at the scoreboard and rage at you because you are quite obviously contributing little to the team. It is the worst when you look at the scoreboard and feel like you’re bringing the team down because you are new to a game. By removing the scoreboard from the game, I think the toxicity of players were greatly reduced because they don’t have any data to back up the claim that another player is doing really poorly. And from a player perspective, you know when you are doing well (you are given medals if you are 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in a category) but you won’t ever know how bad you are doing when you are doing poorly (are you last place or second to last?). This design choice was definitely good for the overall community and morale of players.
Blizzard is having a great sale on Overwatch right now. You do have to buy it from the Taiwan page (make sure you use paypal for auto currency conversion), but you can switch to the US servers after installing, it’s in English, and the discount is close to 50% ($39.99 -> NT$650 ~ $20.60). GO GO GO!!