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A year later, how does Overwatch compare to Team Fortress 2?

Wallach

Member
Overwatch still doesn't even have proper dedicated servers and so the community around the game and servers is piss poor compared to TF2. It's why I've played like 120 hours of Overwatch and never went back and got 2.5k hours out of TF2. There's no comparison.

OW is P2P?
 

Shredderi

Member
TF2 has the better humor and charm still. I've become to love those wacky characters.
TF2 has a social element that Overwatch hasn't even tried to touch yet: custom servers. I loved going every day to play on the same finnish server. With time everyone started to remember the regular names there and it became a sort of community. This is nowhere to be seen in TF2.

I do like Overwatch and it is doing a lot of things right, but no new heroes, balance updates, reworkings or maps are going to have as big of an impact on my continued experience with the game as custom servers would. I would love to find a community once again ala TF2. That was really a huge thing for me in that game.
 

Zemm

Member
OW is P2P?

I mean dedicated servers hosted by private individuals based around a community such as a forum where you get to meet the same 20-30 people and just have fun playing the game for 8 years.

There's no community like that in Overwatch and it makes the game boring as fuck, may as well be playing with and against bots that are programmed to type a racial slur every 5 minutes because that's what the gane feels like.
 
The games are sooo different in playstyle and general vibe that I don't see the need to keep comparing them! TF2 ruined themselves when trying to become competitive in the worst possible way, before that I fondly remember long battles and hours of mindless fun that is very different from the fast-paced and more organized battles in Overwatch.
 

tkscz

Member
i don't understand why Team Fortress 2 fans still not accepting the fact that it's dead

Overwatch didn't just replace TF2, it also replaced the most played and popular shooter of the last gen, it replaced Call of Duty

Right that's why it's still one of the most played games on steam. Totally dead.

I still play TF2, but mostly modded servers, which I've yet to see from Overwatch. VS Saxton hale, TF2Ware (Wario Ware mod), Parkour race, Death Run, Prop Hunt. Even Valve made special stages and Man vs Machine keep me playing. TF2 isn't dead, it just isn't Meme popular anymore. No one references it to everything anymore, and OW will have the same thing happen to it. The game is still going strong, just not as big with GAF as it use to be.
 

Theonik

Member
Early TF2 was better than Overwatch ever will be probably but Valve kinda ruined TF2 later down the line and besides the game is like 10 years old now.
 

Yukinari

Member
Player expression and social interaction is far stronger in TF2 than OW, i dont think anyone can argue that.

Rarely anybody uses taunts, sprays and voicelines in OW outside of waiting for a match to start or during an event brawl. Not to mention a lot of people probably have the skins you have so you rarely see variance in fashion. (Granted this means a less messy artstyle)

But above all else, TF2 has superior videos and comics. Blizz has no fucking idea how to produce something funny like Valve does.
 
Overwatch has no offline bot match.

I know it is nothing compared to getting to play an actual match, but when you are offline or your internet cannot support an online game a bot match is still better than LITERALLY NOTHING. Not only that, but it can give me a chance to play around with characters I haven't used or even scout and learn the maps without impacting other people's games.

And the online bot match that they do have is limited in that not all characters can be bots and we are nearing a year out from release!

I'm sure I'm a fringe case with that, but this thing in particular really shits me.
 

-MD-

Member
When I play Overwatch I wish I was playing TF2.

Friends don't like TF2 for whatever reason though.
 
I mean dedicated servers hosted by private individuals based around a community such as a forum where you get to meet the same 20-30 people and just have fun playing the game for 8 years.

There's no community like that in Overwatch and it makes the game boring as fuck, may as well be playing with and against bots that are programmed to type a racial slur every 5 minutes because that's what the gane feels like.

This. OW just doesn't click with me. I'm just playing with randoms that I don't know and probably never will see again. I met some of my best mates playing TF2. There's no sense of community in matchmaking. You'll never get those moments where there's this certain player you've been randomly playing with for a while, then you two come up with brilliant strategies, shenanigans or trolling because you kinda already know what each other thinks without talking that much.

The skill ceiling is just lower too. I mean, sure TF2 did that too, but I could never get the feeling that I'm always wearing training wheels in OW.
 
Team Fortress changed too much from what I used to enjoy in the first year or so. I tried to play it again recently, I find it impenetrable now.
 
TF2 scratches the itch that OW can't seem to scratch.
First it has the spy class, which has been my favorite class in all off fps. It has community servers which are great for meeting regulars (met a great friend through TF2) and it gives you room to "relax" and do silly things without people constantly getting upset cause they are not winning. 20 mins on a map can make for some hilarious experiences. Also camping a sniper for 20 mins is hilarious as a spy.

They just had to fuck it up with all the bloat, It's still my #1 FPS and have played it for like 1.5k hours compared to 40 hours of OW. I do hope they do make a TF3, they have a fan with me.
 

Einchy

semen stains the mountaintops
TF2 died the day the 2F2F server was shut down.
I do think Blizzard letting the community make cosmetics/animations as well as maps and Blizzard making the best ones official like TF2 would be a great way to add a bunch of extra content to Overwatch.

The custom servers and mods in TF2 can be really great too.
A bunch of the TF2 fan made maps were better than the official ones.
 

Won

Member
"I miss server communites" is the thing that comes to mind everytime I bother spending time with Overwatch.

I also miss actually interesting maps.

It's too bad it has ballooned so much. I don't think there will be anything that matches the TF2 experience in its early years.
 

Bluth54

Member
TF2 died the day the 2F2F server was shut down.

A bunch of the TF2 fan made maps were better than the official ones.

Yeah I think Snakewater, Sunshine and Process are much better than any Valve made 5CP maps.
I also really like Borneo and Swiftwater (though I know Swiftwater is pretty divisive) and consider them to be top tier payload maps along with Badwater and Upward.

Even though I don't like CTF in TF2 I know that Turbine is super popular among that crowd, it's probably up there with 2Fort popularity wise.

I really do think Blizzard should make their map creator publicly available so they can take Valve's route and buy the high quality maps to put into updates.
 

Yarbskoo

Member
I still think TF2 is the better game, and I play it occasionally.

Also, TF2 and its accompanying media is much better written than what Blizzard is offering. It's not even close.
 
This thread inspired me to go play a bit of TF2pub. I pretty much only play scout these days since the other 'impact' classes feel too hard-countered by engy/pyro/heavy.

The team I joined was losing pretty badly defending Badwater and the medic started complaining about our team composition and saying 'you guys want me to pocket a SCOUT?!?!'.

I've been playing (with breaks) since the 2007 release, including competitively so I said 'pocket me bro, use normal uber instead of quickfix and I'll push them into spawn'. Ended up with 83 frags and 16k damage for the round, next closest was about 30 frags and 6k damage. The enemy team went from pushing my teams shit in to trapped in their own spawn purely through the efforts of me and my newfound medic friend working together.

You can't have that sort of individual impact in Overwatch, which is why it'll always be a less rewarding experience for me.
 

Apathy

Member
As a person that loved tf2, and loves overwatch,I will remember tf2 for the hours of fun but it's now dead to me
 

Owensboro

Member
Man, this turned into a game dickwaving contest real fast. Both games can compare favorably to each other and be fun you guys! One doesn't have to be the best!

When playing the games, TF2 and Overwatch elicit the exact same feelings from me which is really all I can ask. I'm honestly happy playing either and almost never get mad when playing them, which is seriously impressive. About the only thing I wish Overwatch had were private servers, as my fondest memories of TF2 were finding 2 or 3 servers I would frequent and making friends with everyone on those servers. It adds a whole new dimension to FPS's when you know everyone on your team and the opposing team. Suddenly it's a lot more fun/hilarious when it's your friends on the opposing team who are the ones who did that sick team combination and ate your lunch. Almost nothing pisses you off, and it's a glorious way to play a team-based competitive game.
 
I always found the TF2 gameplay lacking, particularly the movement which always feels weird to me when I play it. I never liked the maps, the classes, the art style... and this was all before additional weapons and hats were added. It wasn't all bad of course, the mods were neat.
 
The lack of community content is very glaring in OW

Yup.

It's hard to remember these days that Payload was originally some goofy custom game mode some guy on a community server came up with, no more official than Prophunt or Versus Saxton Hale. Valve just cleaned it up a bit and put it in official servers. Now it's one of the most popular game modes in TF2, and Overwatch is designed around it.

Back in the day, when we had a vibrant community server infrastructure, new content could simply be lifted from community servers, cleaned up, and added to the game. Valve did not have to devote countless man hours to test and debug new features that they want to add. Lacking this is why nearly all of Overwatch's modes are jacked straight from TF2, and why the couple of "original" game modes usually suck.
 

Randdalf

Member
Yup.

It's hard to remember these days that Payload was originally some goofy custom game mode some guy on a community server came up with, no more official than Prophunt or Versus Saxton Hale. Valve just cleaned it up a bit and put it in official servers. Now it's one of the most popular game modes in TF2, and Overwatch is designed around it.

Back in the day, when we had a vibrant community server infrastructure, new content could simply be lifted from community servers, cleaned up, and added to the game. Valve did not have to devote countless man hours to test and debug new features that they want to add. Lacking this is why nearly all of Overwatch's modes are jacked straight from TF2, and why the couple of "original" game modes usually suck.

I'm not so sure that's true. I'm fairly sure that Payload was Valve's evolution of the VIP game mode from TFC. You can tell Gold Rush was originally a VIP map by its early design (images of which are floating around somewhere).
 

Dunkley

Member
nobody talks/thinks about TF2 anymore

tons of people talk and think about overwatch every day

so i'd say blizzard won, not that it was really a contest, because TF2 is like 10 years old at this point and it had to fade from the gamers' consciousnesses eventually

Yeah, it isn't exactly that people were talking about TF2 a lot to begin with prior to Overwatch as even the Hat Simulator memes had grown old at that point in time.

I personally think both games are nice, although I do wish Overwatch had mapping tools. I know their approach to mapping differs far and wide from Valve's but I still wish they opened it up for some talented folks to try and make maps.

What gaffers play doesn't matter.

Just look at wildlands.

Yep, GAF isn't really a reliable source of gaming trends. We're a vocal minority, and of course while it's possible for the GAF consensus to align with the general consensus, it's hardly ever as likely to the extent where you can reliably judge a game's health by looking at GAF.
 
I'm not so sure that's true. I'm fairly sure that Payload was Valve's evolution of the VIP game mode from TFC. You can tell Gold Rush was originally a VIP map by its early design (images of which are floating around somewhere).

No, I definitely remember playing Payload on a custom server when the game was still in beta. Can't remember for the life of me what the map was called though.
 

Forkball

Member
Team Fortress 2 is (was?) a significantly better game. And I love Overwatch. It was my #2 game of the year and I still pop in every now and then while I haven't played TF2 in years.

A very easy one is simply the maps. You could write a book on how brilliantly designed many of the TF2 maps are. Gravel Pit, Badwater Basin, Gorge, Gold Rush, HIGHTOWER etc. The best maps are designed where all classes can excel. There are no pointless areas and since TF2 is so situated around traversal, having multiple options when it comes to attacking and defending is vital and keeps matches dynamic. Overwatch has some good maps, but none I would call brilliant. Some are just straight up frustrating, like Hanamura.

From an aesthetic viewpoint, TF2 is largely superior (inb4demopan). It took a very bold premise, mid-twentieth century commercial art mixed with 60s spy/science fiction, and managed to develop an amazing cohesion among the maps and character designs. The art design was brilliant. Even though many of the maps took place in similar and outright boring settings (farms and factories), they were visually distinct due to their impressionistic design. TF2 went down the rabbit hole a long time ago adding in crazy costumes, but initial look for the game was so daring. Overwatch has a pretty safe art style and is a crazy mishmash of every sci fi trope you can think of. I think the game looks great and there are some amazing character designs, but the direction they based TF2 on is so bold to me.

Another thing that immediately stuck me as being inferior to TF2 in Overwatch is how the characters interact with each other. TF2 is filled with so many amazing quotes and voice lines that happen naturally in the game, but Overwatch is seriously lacking in that department. There are some clever equippable voice lines, but I almost never hear people use them. The same goes with sprays. Yeah, people spam sprays in base, but in TF2 people used so many creative sprays and loved to show them off. Perhaps this is a side effect of allowing custom sprays.

I also think the general flow of a TF2 match is better than in Overwatch. So many Overwatch games end in the last minute when one team finally gets their stuff together and decided to pop their ults at the same time. If TF2 you had to make more deliberate decisions. You needed to snipe a specific person at a specific time, synchronize members to take down a dreaded sentry, take unorthodox paths to flank the enemy etc.

Team Fortress 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. I'm talking about definitely in my top ten, if not top five. It is the best online experience I've ever had. Playing on the TF2 GAF server are some of my fondest gaming memories, and I still talk to many of the people I played with to this day. Overwatch is Team Fortress 3 in a lot of ways and I'm thrilled that someone made an incredible TF2-ish game. It's a logical evolution of many of the things that make TF2 great while also incorporating fresh and exciting ideas. But to me, Overwatch still doesn't touch what made TF2 phenomenal. Maybe one day it will though...
 

Chronoja

Member
TF2 suffered the minute they started adding extra weapons. The game was near perfect until they did that. The weapons started getting more and more absurd and now the classes have lost their identity imo.

That was always my issue with it in the end (I didn't even mind the hats), but Overwatch just feels so pure.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not calling you out or anything, but because I'm familiar with tf2 I can't fully understand how this is the case unless you're so unfamiliar with TF2 that from the outside it just feels this way.

The only major class shifts I can think of that constitute a loss of identity are Demoman -> Demoknight, Sniper -> Huntsman and Engineer -> BattleEngineer. And that's not even to say it's a negative, it's all basic strategical choice to tip the scales in your teams favour and counter your opponent. And part of all that is learning what each class is capable of, knowing that a Heavy is capable of wielding a Huo Long Heater and spouting flames, knowing he'll be consuming ammo at an incredible rate with it, knowing as a spy you can jump the flames if you time it right.

This is an odd comparison but do people feel the same way with games like Hearthstone, with multiple expansions a year, having to learn card effects and interactions? It's a similar thing with tf2, learn the potential setups ("card decks") of each class and it's not a problem, and there's far less variation in tf2, and in general most of them matter less than you think.

Maybe I'm in the minority who thinks that the weapons added tons of depth to tf2, the only real negative is how you acquire them, the drops, crafting and market system make it feel more opaque than it really is, fundamental class weapons should be available to everyone at this point.
 
Can you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not calling you out or anything, but because I'm familiar with tf2 I can't fully understand how this is the case unless you're so unfamiliar with TF2 that from the outside it just feels this way.

The only major class shifts I can think of that constitute a loss of identity are Demoman -> Demoknight, Sniper -> Huntsman and Engineer -> BattleEngineer. And that's not even to say it's a negative, it's all basic strategical choice to tip the scales in your teams favour and counter your opponent. And part of all that is learning what each class is capable of, knowing that a Heavy is capable of wielding a Huo Long Heater and spouting flames, knowing he'll be consuming ammo at an incredible rate with it, knowing as a spy you can jump the flames if you time it right.

This is an odd comparison but do people feel the same way with games like Hearthstone, with multiple expansions a year, having to learn card effects and interactions? It's a similar thing with tf2, learn the potential setups ("card decks") of each class and it's not a problem, and there's far less variation in tf2, and in general most of them matter less than you think.

Maybe I'm in the minority who thinks that the weapons added tons of depth to tf2, the only real negative is how you acquire them, the drops, crafting and market system make it feel more opaque than it really is, fundamental class weapons should be available to everyone at this point.

I played since launch and I started falling out once they started adding a second load out for classes and lost all interest when they started adding even more.

It ruins the purity of the classes, it also makes it more effort than it's worth to keep up with what weapon does what.

Also just adding more random bullshit =/= 'depth'.
 

Yukinari

Member
Winston is boring? Zarya is low-skill?

With such a tank heavy meta i would agree that theyre boring.

Nobody WANTS to constantly fill in for Rein but someone has to because hes that essential to serious matches.

Orisa, the most interesting tank, is not viable enough.
 
Can you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not calling you out or anything, but because I'm familiar with tf2 I can't fully understand how this is the case unless you're so unfamiliar with TF2 that from the outside it just feels this way.

The only major class shifts I can think of that constitute a loss of identity are Demoman -> Demoknight, Sniper -> Huntsman and Engineer -> BattleEngineer. And that's not even to say it's a negative, it's all basic strategical choice to tip the scales in your teams favour and counter your opponent. And part of all that is learning what each class is capable of, knowing that a Heavy is capable of wielding a Huo Long Heater and spouting flames, knowing he'll be consuming ammo at an incredible rate with it, knowing as a spy you can jump the flames if you time it right.

This is an odd comparison but do people feel the same way with games like Hearthstone, with multiple expansions a year, having to learn card effects and interactions? It's a similar thing with tf2, learn the potential setups ("card decks") of each class and it's not a problem, and there's far less variation in tf2, and in general most of them matter less than you think.

Maybe I'm in the minority who thinks that the weapons added tons of depth to tf2, the only real negative is how you acquire them, the drops, crafting and market system make it feel more opaque than it really is, fundamental class weapons should be available to everyone at this point.

This is veering a little off topic, but the problem with the unlocks as a concept can best be explained with an example:

You walk around a corner into close quarters with a pyro that has his flaregun out. How long will it take him to pull out his flamethrower? How should I react? You can't accurately answer that question in the split second that you have because you've got no way of telling if he's running the degreaser or not until he whips it out. Guessing wrong could potentially get you killed.

That might seem like a petty/small example, but to take something as pure as TF2's original design concepts and then muddy them up like that in the name of variety doesn't sit well with me.
 
Blizzard saw pyro airblasting people off cliffs and thought it was a good mechanic so they gave it to multiple characters and made the aoe three times bigger. 😂

I never thought there would be an FPS that took the worst parts of tf2, the low skill floor items/mechanics and the cramped corridor maps, and base a whole game off of it... Yet here we are.

The worst part of Ow is probably that it's a glorified game of rock, paper, scissors though. It contributes a lot to the toxicity of the community and the staleness of the game. But I guess it's necessary with how poor the shooting and movement in the game is.

On the bright side, this at least means that all the Heavy/Engineer/Pyro mains bailed to Overwatch. The actual quality of matches has skyrocketed.
 

Chronoja

Member
This is veering a little off topic, but the problem with the unlocks as a concept can best be explained with an example:

You walk around a corner into close quarters with a pyro that has his flaregun out. How long will it take him to pull out his flamethrower? How should I react? You can't accurately answer that question in the split second that you have because you've got no way of telling if he's running the degreaser or not until he whips it out. Guessing wrong could potentially get you killed.

That might seem like a petty/small example, but to take something as pure as TF2's original design concepts and then muddy them up like that in the name of variety doesn't sit well with me.

That's understandable, I guess it's just my interpretation of the meaning class identity, visual identity or something feels more applicable. If you're rounding a corner into a pyro, yes it's going to be difficult to determine how to react, but the core of his class hasn't changed, he's going to have a flamethrower of some type with a maximum range and depth enters in learning how to react accordingly, until you know for sure, e.g. don't turn 180 and run in case he wields a backburner. Also I'd argue that dying, learning and adjusting accordingly is part of the process. Point is, pyro isn't running around with long range machine guns or something that completely alters the class identity which is that of a short range / ambush class. Only a few classes, listed earlier, have had their class identity change significantly.

Either way I agree anyway, it's seems like I'm arguing semantics, I'm happy to leave it there and not drag further off topic.
 

Randdalf

Member
No, I definitely remember playing Payload on a custom server when the game was still in beta. Can't remember for the life of me what the map was called though.

IIRC that map was called Mining and was somebody recreating Payload after Valve had announced it but before it was released.
 

fhqwhgads

Member
I really hate how these threads always turn into a massive US VS THEM mentality. The idea that both games can be good is apparently an alien concept to people. Thinking rationally? Nope, let's treat it like console wars and proud rant about how MY game is better than YOUR stupid game.

I stand by what I say in that Overwatch did a great job of bringing something new to table and expanding on what Team Fortress laid out without feeling like a flat out clone. Anyone who says the two games are nothing alike really isn't thinking hard enough.

TF2 is easily in my top 5 games ever but I find it hard to play again because it's changed so much for the worse. The snail's pace of updates and how weapons seem to change stats on a constant basis really hurt things, one moment I'd have a nice weapon loadout and the next update, one of them is now ludicrously overpowered, the other is overly nerfed and the next is a compeltely different weapon now. If anything, the focus on characters over weapons is one of Overwatch's strong points.

TF2 might've been one of the best FPS games there was, but it just ain't what it used to be. OW is doing a great job of filling in a lost need even if it doesn't exactly match up with TF2's glory days, IMO anyways. Just gotta hope OW doesn't fall down the same mistakes that caused TF2 to stagnate the way it did.
 

Zaru

Member
Team Fortress 2 was among the ultimate comfort games. Games that could be your "home".
You could do your best to play for the objectives, having thrilling encounters in a range of maps.
Or you could just hang out in the same map with the same people (dedicated server) to fuck around or perfect yourself.
Sometimes you were the obliterator, sometimes you were the obliterated, but it wasn't the fault of some opaque matchmaking algorithm (before that was even a thing). It was just god's will that someone better than you popped onto the server. Sometimes YOU were that person, single-handedly turning around the tides of a match.
If you got bored of normal game modes, there were crazy variations to be found. Sometimes you would just stumble upon a server where MLP fans would do non-stop conga lines, and that's alright too.
Many will probably disagree, but the item drops and crafting put another layer of motivation on everything because there were items to be found that actually changed gameplay, not just skins (as much as TF2 ended up being about hats), and you could "work" for them.

My point is, the game had massive and ever-increasing variety of gameplay experiences and seriousness, depending on your mood. No matter what I felt like or wanted to play like, the game had something for me.
Overwatch didn't feel like that when I played it. It's just a multiplayer shooter. It does well what it intends to do, but no more than that. It could never be my "home" like games such as TF2 or Warcraft 3 were.

The only reason I stopped playing TF2 wasn't that it got boring, but that it was taking up too much of my time at the cost of playing other (singleplayer) games, and that felt wrong. It was almost TOO good.™

Now, this is just 1 year in. TF2 changed a lot in the first few years, and who knows how Overwatch will be 3 years from now? I'd be happy to re-evaluate my position, but it doesn't seem likely at the moment.
 

Mossybrew

Member
TF2 is like 10 years old at this point and it had to fade from the gamers' consciousnesses eventually

This pretty much sums it up IMO.

Team Fortress changed too much from what I used to enjoy in the first year or so. I tried to play it again recently, I find it impenetrable now.

My experience was similar. Played a decent amount that first year or so, them moved on. On a lark I checked it out again a couple years ago, just seemed like so much stuff had been crammed into the game, I didn't have the effort to figure it all out.
 

Phox

Banned
I can make $$$ with TF2 drop and don't feel anything when I get a legendary in OW. That's said OW gameplay is ahead of TF2 by a mile but still love both games.
 

tkscz

Member
Now I don't play OW, I don't have money to spare now-a-days and when i do there are other games on my mind. But from what I've watched compared to what I've played, OW feels more professional/Tournament and TF2 feels more relaxed and just fun. Might just be the people I watch playing it, but it feels like OW is something to play when you want to really be competitive and TF2 is what you play when you want to goof around or play seriously, depending on your mood.

It's like Regular battle vs Ranked Battle in Splatoon. You Turf War when you want to just play and Ranked when you're feeling competitive.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Think TF2 is still the better game but it doesn't matter when it is what, over a decade old now and has a pittance of the ongoing budget/support that Overwatch has?
 

Toxi

Banned
I miss old Team Fortress 2. The Scout update is when the game really started going downhill. The weapons were poorly tested and gimmicky to an extreme not seen before. Who the fuck thought Bonk Energy Drink and the Sandman were acceptable? And it just kept getting worse. Then you add the fucking cosmetics that obliterated the game's original art style.
 

Syf

Banned
Never really got into TF2, but love Overwatch. One thing I wish they'd improve on is pushing more non-cosmetic, permanent content. Game needs more maps faster.
 
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