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Overwatch 21:9 support has arrived*!!!!!111!!1!11!!

Blizzard

Banned
The cost factor isn't about Atmos, it's about 21:9. I agree that if we're talking about cost alienation, there isn't a comparison. I'm just pointing out that Blizzard's excuse that they're not implementing true 21:9 because of "fairness" is bullocks. They put in a ton of effort allowing for a greater game experience for people playing with better audio set ups, but apparently a wider view for people with a different screen setup which every other shooter does support, is a bridge too far. That's all I find laughable. That was the point I was trying to make, not about the cost issue, because otherwise we could be debating graphics cards and all sorts of stuff. In terms of tech implementation in options creating an "unfair" advantage, it's already right there! Most shooters don't have half the audio experience Overwatch does. Yet they felt it was worth it! (It is.)
In my opinion it's not a fair comparison because:
quake has a fov limit for fairness reasons

you basically don't want to encourage people to buy extra displays to see more of their surroundings

if serious players with 21:9 displays need to letterbox into 16:9 to get the maximum fov, it's the lesser evil
Having more peripheral vision is a more significant boost, in my opinion, than hearing better with a good audio setup. It also specifically affects certain ingame things like Soldier 76 ult / McCree ult trying to keep everyone in view. I know you can hit people out of your FOV, but being able to SEE that you're going to hit them can be important.

This move seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
 

Plum

Member
In my opinion it's not a fair comparison because:

Having more peripheral vision is a more significant boost, in my opinion, than hearing better with a good audio setup. It also specifically affects certain ingame things like Soldier 76 ult / McCree ult trying to keep everyone in view. I know you can hit people out of your FOV, but being able to SEE that you're going to hit them can be important.

This move seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

Firstly, Ults aren't affected by FOV whatsoever; secondly, every single other competitive game out there has 21:9 support (PROPER 21:9 support) and they're still competitive and thirdly, Quake's FOV limit is NOWHERE near the limit OW has in place, it's so you don't have literal 360 degree FOV, the comparison between it an OW when the latter's max FOV on PC is tiny in the first place isn't a good one.

If Blizzard truly cared about their competitive mode being ultra-competitive they'd add in something like a 60hz tickrate which would benefit ALL players, yet they don't.

So no, it's not a reasonable compromise. To me it's just petty ignorance and hypocrisy from Blizzard.
 

duckroll

Member
Having more peripheral vision is a more significant boost, in my opinion, than hearing better with a good audio setup. It also specifically affects certain ingame things like Soldier 76 ult / McCree ult trying to keep everyone in view. I know you can hit people out of your FOV, but being able to SEE that you're going to hit them can be important.

Sure. Ultimately it's a matter of opinion here, but honestly, audio cues are more important than people tend to realize, especially in a "smaller" game like this where it's 6v6 and every character has unique tells. Being able to hear not just who is coming but from where exactly, is a big aid.
 

Plum

Member
When ultrawide is the standard, or even makes a move to become the standard and not a niche screen ratio, then sure move over to that.

According to Steam's Hardware Survey 1080p at 60Hz is still the overwhelming standard. By that metric "It's standard" is not an excuse when Blizzard supports 1440p, 4k, 144hz, 7:1 surround, high-DPI Mice, etc which are all far from being considered standard features for the majority of the PC gaming population. It's hypocrisy and/or ignorance, nothing more.
 

mxgt

Banned
Crazy that there's so many people that agree with Blizzard doing this.

Look at all those CSGO pros that use the full 21:9 support. oh wait.
 
Sure. Ultimately it's a matter of opinion here, but honestly, audio cues are more important than people tend to realize, especially in a "smaller" game like this where it's 6v6 and every character has unique tells. Being able to hear not just who is coming but from where exactly, is a big aid.

Yep. You can literally line up a shot for when someone is about to turn a corner in many instances. Great for hooking people. Especially Tracers/Genji's who don't start to move frantically until they see someone.
 
According to Steam's Hardware Survey 1080p at 60Hz is still the overwhelming standard. By that metric "It's standard" is not an excuse when Blizzard supports 1440p, 4k, 144hz, 7:1 surround, high-DPI Mice, etc which are all far from being considered standard features for the majority of the PC gaming population. It's hypocrisy and/or ignorance, nothing more.

Precisely.

Anyone who are defending this is basically defending those poor PC ports from Japanese devs that are capped at 1080p resolution. Is 1080p being the standard means it's okay to support those people only? It's a PC game, so devs have to do their best to cater for everyone.
 

Water

Member
if serious players with 21:9 displays need to letterbox into 16:9 to get the maximum fov, it's the lesser evil
There's no need for anyone to letterbox or pillarbox. If maximum FOV was raised considerably higher than 103 for everyone, folks with large displays could play comfortably. And 16:9 players would still see more than anyone else, if they chose to.

Blizzard designers aren't stupid, so there must be an actual reason they have decided to fuck this up for PC players. Nothing seems obvious, but the best I can come up with is trying to save designer time. Clearly the console and PC versions are very different games thanks to input scheme, and Blizzard has shown they are willing to do some balancing for PC and console separately (Torbjörn got nerfed on console right?). If they allow significantly higher top end FOV on PC, the game versions would drift a little bit farther apart than they already are, as flanking becomes weaker on PC, characters need to be nerfed and buffed accordingly, etc. They already have a hard design job and probably want to keep even small additional incoherence in check, even if it's at the cost of a somewhat worse product.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
As a 21:9 monitor owner, I agree it's a good move to account for field of view in your game balance.

On the other hand, cutting off the top and bottom of my FOV doesn't feel like things have been balanced to me. Feels like a suboptimal compromise in favour of 16:9 owners (which are understandably in the majority).

How about a few options on how to handle it?

1. Some horizontal FOV gain for some vertical FOV gain. Obviously horizontal FOV is more valuable, but vertical FOV is still quite important in this game as well, so weight the FOV in favour of a modest FOV increase.

2. Provide 16:9 players with option for the compromised 21:9 mode (giving them some black bars top and bottom).

3. Provide 21:9 players with option for the original 16:9 mode (retaining black bars left and right).

As it is... it's only for people that really want the image to fill out the screen... to the point they're willing to take the FOV penalty for it. Or for people that don't realize that they're negatively impacted by having part of their image cut off.
 

Plum

Member
Yep. You can literally line up a shot for when someone is about to turn a corner in many instances. Great for hooking people. Especially Tracers/Genji's who don't start to move frantically until they see someone.

So it's better to give 21:9 players a disadvantage instead? If a Pharah, Widowmaker, Genji, etc were to be above that limited vertical FOV a 21:9 player won't be able to see them and react accordingly the same way someone playing in 16:9 with the correct FOV would.

Here's a crude example of what I mean:

NIypC7m.jpg

If Blizzard truly cared about competitiveness they'd just limit the game to 16:9 in Competitive mode and allow for true 21:9 in Quick Play, maybe add a nice border to the game when playing in 21:9 competitive. Everyone would have been fine with that, Blizzard could satiate their weird FOV infatuation, 21:9 players would be dissapointed but not actively offended and 16:9 players would be on the same playing field.
 

Caayn

Member
So Blizzard still desperately clings on to not allowing actual 21:9 in their games.

I wonder when they'll release a patch forcing everyone to play in 1280*1024 capped at 30hz with a min ping of 100ms, forces sound in mono output and reduces all mouse input to 2000DPI or less. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair for everyone.
 

TheYanger

Member
As a 21:9 monitor owner, I agree it's a good move to account for field of view in your game balance.

On the other hand, cutting off the top and bottom of my FOV doesn't feel like things have been balanced to me. Feels like a suboptimal compromise in favour of 16:9 owners (which are understandably in the majority).

How about a few options on how to handle it?

1. Some horizontal FOV gain for some vertical FOV gain. Obviously horizontal FOV is more valuable, but vertical FOV is still quite important in this game as well, so weight the FOV in favour of a modest FOV increase.

2. Provide 16:9 players with option for the compromised 21:9 mode (giving them some black bars top and bottom).

3. Provide 21:9 players with option for the original 16:9 mode (retaining black bars left and right).

As it is... it's only for people that really want the image to fill out the screen... to the point they're willing to take the FOV penalty for it. Or for people that don't realize that they're negatively impacted by having part of their image cut off.

Your 'compromise' though is still "21:9 players see more of the game and can opt to go to the 16:9 view" - giving 16:9 the option to drastically shrink their view is not a compromise, the 21:9 monitor is already bigger, presumably you're running the game at a comparable resolution in terms of dots per inch, so it's not a 'loss' for you to shrink your view, it's a considerable loss for a 16:9 player to do so.

So it's better to give 21:9 players a disadvantage instead? If a Pharah, Widowmaker, Genji, etc were to be above that limited vertical FOV a 21:9 player won't be able to see them and react accordingly the same way someone playing in 16:9 with the correct FOV would.

Absolutely, especially since a 21:9 player can easily crop the sides to get the 'standard' view, while as above asking a 16:9 player to shrink their view instead seems absurd both in terms of the numbers of users using it, as well as the actual impact on the game (entirely negative).
 
So it's better to give 21:9 players a disadvantage instead? If a Pharah, Widowmaker, Genji, etc were to be above that limited vertical FOV a 21:9 player won't be able to see them and react accordingly the same way someone playing in 16:9 with the correct FOV would.

Here's a crude example of what I mean:



If Blizzard truly cared about competitiveness they'd just limit the game to 16:9 in Competitive mode and allow for true 21:9 in Quick Play, maybe add a nice border to the game when playing in 21:9 competitive. Everyone would have been fine with that, Blizzard could satiate their weird FOV infatuation, 21:9 players would be dissapointed but not actively offended and 16:9 players would be on the same playing field.

Nope Im all for allowing a proper 21:9 mode. I was just agreeing that audio cues are important. I think its a cop out to blame hardware advantage when 21:9 monitors have been getting much cheaper. Also since other pc equipment and 144hz monitors already give an advantage.
 

mxgt

Banned
So Blizzard still desperately clings on to not allowing actual 21:9 in their games.

I wonder when they'll release a patch forcing everyone to play in 1280*1024 capped at 30hz with a min ping of 100ms, forces sound in mono output and reduces all mouse input to 2000DPI or less. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair for everyone.

Funny thing is they just put proper 21 9 into HOTS and have it in most of their games.

Pretty much every other competitive FPS has proper 21:9

No pros ever use 21:9

talking about "unfairness" when you have 144hz vs 60, different audio & hardware setups, etc.

It's pure ignorance from Blizzard & people defending the decision, and it's a real shame.
 

Plum

Member
Nope Im all for allowing a proper 21:9 mode. I was just agreeing that audio cues are important. I think its a cop out to blame hardware advantage when 21:9 have been getting much cheaper. Also since better pc equipment and 144hz monitors already give an advantage.

Ah, sorry, should have read the post you quoted :p

Still, that's a post showing how absurd the decision is to anyone who wants to defend it.

Absolutely, especially since a 21:9 player can easily crop the sides to get the 'standard' view, while as above asking a 16:9 player to shrink their view instead seems absurd both in terms of the numbers of users using it, as well as the actual impact on the game (entirely negative).

So if Blizzard decided tomorrow to add a black screen saying "HIGHER REFRESH RATES NOT SUPPORTED" to every frame between 60 and 144 in a second it would be a perfectly fine decision because 144hz players can easily just lock their framerate to 60? You're arguing for actively disadvantaging a certain subsection of players in EVERY mode of the game, when as said above a compromise would be to lock the game to 16:9 in comp and allow for true 21:9 in quick play, a move requiring not even an inkling of effort from the developers. This is just a big lazy middle finger to 21:9 users from Blizzard.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Your 'compromise' though is still "21:9 players see more of the game and can opt to go to the 16:9 view" - giving 16:9 the option to drastically shrink their view is not a compromise, the 21:9 monitor is already bigger, presumably you're running the game at a comparable resolution in terms of dots per inch, so it's not a 'loss' for

Tweak the numbers so that both 16:9 and 21:9 sees roughly the same proportion of play space (albeit in a different aspect ratio), or even slightly favour the 16:9 player.

Also, you can't fix this argument to screen size, given that you can get 40" 4k monitors at 16:9 (and plenty of 16:9s in the 27-30+ inch range).

The point is to provide both players with an aspect native view and a non-native view, which provides slightly different sets of pros and cons. 16:9 should be considered competition FOV, but there should be reason to switch to 21:9 for either player as they desire.
 

SeanTSC

Member
I'm not sure why some people are arguing that there should be some kind of "compromise" for Competitive modes when nearly every other recent/popular FPS with competitive play (that have had Ranked stuff long before Overwatch) do not have to put in any sort of bullshit compromise. Blizzard just should follow everyone else's example and not make a big deal out of it.
 

Durante

Member
Why not just balance for a constant diagonal FoV regardless of aspect ratio?

It's a simple formula, not rocket science.
 

Plum

Member
I'm not sure why some people are arguing that there should be some kind of "compromise" for Competitive modes when nearly every other recent/popular FPS with competitive play (that have had Ranked stuff long before Overwatch) do not have to put in any sort of bullshit compromise. Blizzard just should follow everyone else's example and not make a big deal out of it.

I'm not arguing that their should be a compromise like that, I'd love proper 21:9 support, but it's at least better than what Blizzard have actually done.

"We're stubborn so we won't ever allow 21:9 in Competitive, but we'll allow it in Quick Play" is a MUCH better thing to say than "We're stubborn so we will actively put you at a disadvantage in both Competitive and Quick Play"

It's similar to Nintendo bringing out bullshit excuses for why Link can't be female, sometimes just saying "we do it because we want to" is a better excuse than trying to compromise and making yourself look foolish in the process.
 
As an 21:9 user this sucks, because games are just way more immersive and beautiful on a 21:9 monitor. That said, I DO understand that its a competitive problem not because you can see a bit more fov but because of the ULTIMATES. I can't really expect them to make change and retest core code just to work around a small percentage of users.

Sucks but I got used to the black bars anyway.
 

Plum

Member
As an 21:9 user this sucks, because games are just way more immersive and beautiful on a 21:9 monitor. That said, I DO understand that its a competitive problem not because you can see a bit more fov but because of the ULTIMATES. I can't really expect them to make change and retest core code just to work around a small percentage of users.

Sucks but I got used to the black bars anyway.

The Ultimates aren't tied to FOV:

The ults are already independent of FOV.

http://overwatch.wikia.com/wiki/McCree#Notes
"Deadeye's range is not dictated by the field of view on your monitor, so it may hit targets who are just out of your own sight."
 

Plum

Member
ugh... Then they really don't have any legit reason now do they? Are they oblivious that many cs go pro players play on weird fov and aspect ratios like stretched 4:3 and so on?

They don't, it's entirely a stubborn luddite-like rational from Blizzard. 16:10 Users get shafted as well except they get less Horizontal FOV instead of less Vertical. There is NO excuse, not even "because it's standard!" because, as I said above, standard is 1080p/60fps which the game isn't locked to.

It's souring me on both the game and Blizzard as a company frankly.
 

Calmine

Member
Another middle finger too us 21:9 users

I don't see how it provides that much of an advantage tbh, Ive never been like WOAH IM SO MUCH MORE AWESOME IN THIS FPS because I can see a little bit more

Exactly I've never seen it as advantage thing. I play BF4 in 21:9 and I still play like shit no different than me playing in 16:9 haha.

What I don't get is why couldn't they just implement it in the same way as the beta with hex editing?
 
I'm failing to see how 21:9 support would turn the tide of a battle. It's such a tiny difference in a game like overwatch. Games that require much more precision and perception are allowing 21:9 monitors and are not nearly as advantageous as people are making it out to be.
 

Odrion

Banned
blizzard probably don't want people forcing 21:9 on their 16:9 monitors for the advantage and then a ton of socially shared media of it is this shitty game with giant black bars
 

Ullus

Member
Yep. It does the exact same as 21:9 except with horizontal instead of vertical FOV.

Guess that explains why something felt off after I switched from 16:9 to 16:10. What a dumb decision.
I mean, the reason i bought a 1200p monitor in the first place is because I wanted more vertical space, not less horizontal.
 

Odrion

Banned
I mean really what would be a fair solution is allowing the FOV to be cranked up high enough where the advantage of having a 21:9 monitor is that the image would look less distorted than on a 16:9 monitor. Then it's more of an IQ advantage than gameplay.

But they probably don't want people to go look at esports guy play the game at 16:9 and have it be this 90s-ass fisheyed mess of bullshit.
 

Plum

Member
I mean really what would be a fair solution is allowing the FOV to be cranked up high enough where the advantage of having a 21:9 monitor is that the image would look less distorted than on a 16:9 monitor. Then it's more of an IQ advantage than gameplay.

But they probably don't want people to go look at esports guy play the game at 16:9 and have it be this 90s-ass fisheyed mess of bullshit.

The thing is the game doesn't even have that large of an FOV. It uses the other definition of FOV than the ones found in other games, so it's 105fov would only be about 80 in something like CS:GO. A 16:9 monitor would be perfectly fine with an FOV of 110 degrees without things looking like a fisheyed mess, and if that FOV was supported 21:9 users could use it and actually enjoy their experience with the game.
 

Plum

Member
Ew. I'm assuming most games handle this well, and OW is an exception?

Yeah. A 105hfov is about an 80vertical fov. Most people find that at the very least a vertical fov of 90 is needed for a game to be comfortable, and most every single other MP fps supports that fov (even goddamn CoD supports it!).
 
Don't know if it'll do any good but here's a petition I found on the Battlenet forums:

https://www.change.org/p/blizzard-give-overwatch-proper-21-9-support

Maybe if Blizzard sees that there's actual support for the resolution they'll support it themselves.

Hey, if your name is Plum on the forums, I'd like to say thanks for your backup in that thread (I'm Bumbletron). I just can't understand why people are against everyone having the option to actually increase their FOV if they really want to. I thought people loved options.
 

mxgt

Banned
Hey, if your name is Plum on the forums, I'd like to say thanks for your backup in that thread (I'm Bumbletron). I just can't understand why people are against everyone having the option to actually increase their FOV if they really want to. I thought people loved options.

People get really defensive and upset when they have a perceived notion of "unfairness".

My guess is the large majority of people agreeing with Blizzard have never used 21:9.
 
People get really defensive and upset when they have a perceived notion of "unfairness".

My guess is the large majority of people agreeing with Blizzard have never used 21:9.

Well, especially in a shooter where people don't realize exactly how much tunnel vision actually affects game play. You focus down the crosshair so much that in an intense firefight, you could actually miss seeing a close enemy in your vision on the side of the screen. The periphery doesn't help as much as you would think. Also, it should be kept in mind: Overwatch maps are just a series of hallways, and horizontal FOV helps very little in this game. This is literally just for immersion.
 

Seronei

Member
Why haven't they removed 4:3 though? Certainly more signs that a lower FOV is actually an advantage than 21:9 resolutions being that. Just look at the amount of pro FPS players using 4:3 resolutions and low FOV.
 

Plum

Member
Hey, if your name is Plum on the forums, I'd like to say thanks for your backup in that thread (I'm Bumbletron). I just can't understand why people are against everyone having the option to actually increase their FOV if they really want to. I thought people loved options.

Yeah, that's me. And no problem :)

But I think the stubbornness surrounding this particular option is because it wasn't supported in the first place and therefore they become ignorant about it. No other community surrounding games developed by FPS-veterans instead of FPS-first timers calls for 21:9 support to be removed because they know exactly what affects it has on the game, same reason why nobody is calling for Overwatch to be locked to 60hz and 1080p despite 144hz and 1440p/4K giving advantages to players using them.
 

mxgt

Banned
Why haven't they removed 4:3 though? Certainly more signs that a lower FOV is actually an advantage than 21:9 resolutions being that. Just look at the amount of pro FPS players using 4:3 resolutions and low FOV.

4:3 doesn't even exist IIRC?

I think the only aspect that works as it should is 16:9. Pretty sad, really.
 
Well, especially in a shooter where people don't realize exactly how much tunnel vision actually affects game play. You focus down the crosshair so much that in an intense firefight, you could actually miss seeing a close enemy in your vision on the side of the screen. The periphery doesn't help as much as you would think. Also, it should be kept in mind: Overwatch maps are just a series of hallways, and horizontal FOV helps very little in this game. This is literally just for immersion.

Right. Just a series of hallways. All fights are head to head. Nobody flanks in Overwatch.

Peripheral vision isn't at all advantageous.

Yeah, that's me. And no problem :)

But I think the stubbornness surrounding this particular option is because it wasn't supported in the first place and therefore they become ignorant about it. No other community surrounding games developed by FPS-veterans instead of FPS-first timers calls for 21:9 support to be removed because they know exactly what affects it has on the game, same reason why nobody is calling for Overwatch to be locked to 60hz and 1080p despite 144hz and 1440p/4K giving advantages to players using them.

Why does 144hz get held up as being as advantageous over 60hz as 21:9 is over 16:9? You'll see things less than one hundredth of a second faster. Is that a huge difference when reaction times typically run upwards of a quarter of a second? Genuinely don't understand. Everyone else who has held this as true has just laughed in derision at anyone who disagreed or expressed uncertainty.
 
While they're at it, they should ban people from using graphics cards from above 2001, because higher FPS is an unfair advantage that no one should have access to. /s

Seriously, I don't understand why developers do this and why people support it. Buying this size monitor has been the worst purchase ever, mostly because devs can't be bothered releasing actual support. Is this just because Blizzard doesn't want to add in FOV?

I can certainly see how it's an advantage, but it's comparable to a better graphics card in my mind. Anyone can go out and get one, they aren't expensive anymore, it's not totally game changing, it adds like 2cm of more screen space. I hate games that cut off the top, even Dota 2 does that and it's crap.
 
While they're at it, they should ban people from using graphics cards from above 2001, because higher FPS is an unfair advantage that no one should have access to. /s

Seriously, I don't understand why developers do this and why people support it. Buying this size monitor has been the worst purchase ever, mostly because devs can't be bothered releasing actual support. Is this just because Blizzard doesn't want to add in FOV?

I can certainly see how it's an advantage, but it's comparable to a better graphics card in my mind. Anyone can go out and get one, they aren't expensive anymore, it's not totally game changing, it adds like 2cm of more screen space. I hate games that cut off the top, even Dota 2 does that and it's crap.

I wonder what the lowest specs you can get Overwatch running at 60fps at on low are.

And two cm? Your screen is almost a third wider.
 
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