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How is Overwatch for newcomers?

MadLaughter said:
What I did that helped out a lot was look at this (90's geocities lookin') website for each character, it goes into a lot of the nuances of people's abilities. The #1 thing to learn with overwatch is what everybody does. Knowing what to expect from the person in your crosshairs is the "ah-ha" moment.

https://www.furiouspaul.com/overwatch/
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I got the game this weekend and I'm super terrible at FPSes. I want to get good.
That website you linked is exactlly what I was looking for, thanks.
 
demosthenes said:
What system was this? While Arcade and QP are typically more on the quiet side I've found nothing really from the above. Some games have good team comps and some don't. But the games are also super fast so even in bad situations you can still work on your hero. Speaking as a lvl 50 player now who started recently how do you even know if you're contributing to your team in a positive way?
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PS4.

Well when I play was Reinhart and make sure my shield is in front of of my teammates so they can shoot them, I think I am contributing in a positive way. Healing as Mercy is pretty positive. Killing opponents on a capture point seems positive.

Not sure how to not be positive unless I just jump around & ignore the objective or grab the flag and refuse to score it (this actually happened this weekend).
 
Nimby said:
Console. Console playerbase is honestly just giant leaps and bounds behind PC userbase. It's not vacant, like people are just stupid.

EDIT: Stupid people probably aren't actually stupid, they're probably children. You also get people who fork over $100-200 dollars for a mouse+keyboard adapter so they can just stomp in QP. I have at least one on the enemy team every game, but I am level ~640.
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They probably just have really high sensitivity and low aim smoothing.

People keep thinking I play on Keyboard and Mouse on console but I'm actually playing on controller
 
Nimby said:
Console. Console playerbase is honestly just giant leaps and bounds behind PC userbase. It's not vacant, like people are just stupid.

EDIT: Stupid people probably aren't actually stupid, they're probably children. You also get people who fork over $100-200 dollars for a mouse+keyboard adapter so they can just stomp in QP. I have at least one on the enemy team every game, but I am level ~640.
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Thank you. I tried it on PC during a free weekend and it didn't really click with me because I'm more of a lone wolf player, but I keep hearing how awesome this game is. I'll get it on PC I think. I have a crappy mouse and have lost much of my twitch skills now that I'm older, that's why I thought it might maybe be easier on console.
 
Probably one of the easiest games to get into due to large player base and an easy game in general. You will be fine TC I recommend it.
 
This is my sisters first ever 3D game. She started playing last week and one week later got an 18 player kill streak with Winston (his weapon auto-aims when you're close enough so he's her main). I'd say it's pretty great for newcomers.
 
Overwatch probably has the best honeymoon period out of any shooter that I've played. You'll be able to jump in and pick almost any character and understand their gameplay loop pretty quickly.

It'll take a while for the salt to settle in but when it does it hits hard. For my own circle of friends the game is basically dead except for me and one or two people. I was hoping it would be the second coming of TF2 Gaf for me but it lasted shorter than our Dota group. There's lots of reasons for that I suppose but as a new player I wouldn't worry about that stuff. You'll definitely get your money's worth before then.
 
It's pretty easy for newcomers. The game isn't particularly demanding and there are plenty of different characters so you have a good chance of finding someone you like to play as. The matchmaking also helps. The game will put you with people of similar level and skill, and by the time you unlock competitive you will have enough time under your belt to feel confident.
 
Not sure if you have played the F2P game Paladins. If you have played it any and gotten comfortable you should be able to ease into Overwatch no problem. That's how it was for me during the free weekend. Like others stated it pairs you up with other newbs, unless somebody is using a smurf account to level up quickly and sell online.
 
Overwatch is my first multiplayer shooter ever - I'm a genre noob - and it's entirely consumed me for the past year.

Go for it.
 
Gnilres said:
This is my sisters first ever 3D game. She started playing last week and one week later got an 18 player kill streak with Winston (his weapon auto-aims when you're close enough so he's her main). I'd say it's pretty great for newcomers.
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For younger kids I always recommend them playing the vs AI modes, easy, medium or hard. Hard may be a bit much but my niece's love playing AI mode on easy or medium and your team is still real people online
Mifec said:
rofl

what the fuck? No one in the world has done this.
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? Not sure what your talking about I'm saying once you get used to all characters, learn their abilities, best counter people to each and play with them sufficiently
 
FatCatAttack said:
Overwatch probably has the best honeymoon period out of any shooter that I've played. You'll be able to jump in and pick almost any character and understand their gameplay loop pretty quickly.

It'll take a while for the salt to settle in but when it does it hits hard. For my own circle of friends the game is basically dead except for me and one or two people. I was hoping it would be the second coming of TF2 Gaf for me but it lasted shorter than our Dota group. There's lots of reasons for that I suppose but as a new player I wouldn't worry about that stuff. You'll definitely get your money's worth before then.
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Well described. Loved the game and then it fell off a cliff for me and I've never been back.
 
I don't have the same experience as you guys. I played it during a free weekend on PS4 and tought it was very fun. I bought it on PC and played a couple hours. All i got was waiting forever in quick mode and get matched with 99 players...

Its not fun of course as i get crushed. Im awful at one on one but usually do good in multiplayer like BF1. Its like im playing a street fighter game and have no clue why i suck.

Should i stick with the game until ranked games or go back to BF1 ?
 
FullMetalx117 said:
I'm thinking about making Overwatch my summer game for the PS4. How is the game for newcomers? Is everyone already too good?
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Stay. Away. From. Ranked.

Saves a lot of nerves. And joysticks. I'm not a joystick wrecker but I wrecked one playing OW competitive.
 
It's pretty good for newcomers. I bought it last Black Friday (40% discount oh boy) and had a blast right from the first match. You play along other players with similar levels to you. Buy it, OP. You won't regret it.
 
I picked it up in the sale last week for Xbone and have had a good time playing solo so far.

I've just been playing Quick Play, and like everyone has said, you seemed to get matched up pretty evenly. Haven't really run into any games that felt like I was just getting stomped over and over.

Only people I've heard use mics so far sound like they're maybe 11 years old and/or are just eating chips the whole time.
 
Been playing the free weekend for the first time and I had a blast even though I'm not super skilled at fps. I even managed to do some nice kill streaks. I enjoyed myself so much in fact that I ended up buying the game yesterday.
 
Kor's guide for Overwatch Newbies:

  • Step 1: Actually play the tutorial mission thingy. It's not amazing or anything, but it does give you the general idea of how the general gameplay feels. You have a character, that character has a few abilities and an ultimate attack. So on and so forth.
  • Step 2: Practice mode. Note that practice mode will pair you with 5 other strangers around the internet. I recommend start practice on Medium first, because easy is like Goomba stomping easy. Pick a character that you think looks cool. In Practice nobody gives a shit about team composition. Just grab a character or two or three that you think looks neat and go from there. This is more about getting the idea of how the actual games work. Payloads, Captures, etc... while gently exposing you to a few characters and their abilities.
  • Step 3: Mystery Heroes! Now that you've got a good sampling of maps and a few characters, lets throw you into Mystery Heroes. Mystery Heroes is a 6v6 mode without any bots. The main feature of this mode is that every time anyone dies, they respawn as a new character. This again means team composition doesn't have to be worried about because no one can control it. This will further expose you to new characters, and you may find yourself really enjoying someone you really thought you would hate.
  • Step 4: Whatever the fuck you want. You should be pretty familiar with the game at this point, so I recommend playing whatever mode interests you. Quickplay is the "default" mode. The game has an interesting 3v3 and 1v1 mode, and right now there is a mode call Mayhem that reduces all cooldowns by 300% (though it can be incredibly frustrating). If you decide to play competitive don't fret too much. The game is actually really good about placing you with other people of your skill level very quickly. Blizzard does placement matches to determine where about you belong. Just note that it's good to have a few (I'd say at least 5 really) characters you know how to play well enough that you wont feel like the weakest link. Don't pay attention to what anyone says about "the meta" because it doesn't really matter to people who don't play professionally, no matter what someone might try to say.


Random notes:

Make sure if you die you are the kill cam turned on and watch the kill cams every time. You'll learn how other characters function much faster this way.

Each character has their own unique options to customize. Try turning on friendly health bars under non healer characters that can still heal teammates. Soldier 76, Zarya, Torbjorn).

Turn on the kill feed as it's a great amount of information in a little space.

Use the communication wheel if you aren't going to talk. Just know that the communication wheel is context to the person speaking and the person receiving the message. If a Reinhart asks for healing, the McCree can't do anything about it, and thus doesn't hear the message. Meanwhile the Mercy hears "I need healing" but the Torbjorn hears "I need armor"
 
I started playing on pc last week. It's fun. Sometimes i win. Sometimes i lose. I usually suck. I still don't have a main. I wish i could play well as Genji though.

Quick play is fast and it doesn't feel very unbalanced.

My only gripe, and it's nothing about the game but about me, is that sometimes i feel like i'm not being helpful. Specially when trying to learn different heroes.
 
The matchmaking is pretty good for new players and most people don't bitch in quick play about what you take or play.
 
Phu said:
Overwatch is my ultimate 'kick back and relax' game.
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We don't have the same definition of kick back and relax I'm guessing. Lol
To me the game keeps me on my toes most of the time. If I wanna relax I'll play something like Civilization or Minecraft
 
Tried it this weekend only because of the free weekend on Xbox and loved it. Not really into MP except for Gears of War 4 but I was surprised that I enjoyed it so much. Like others have said, its actually very noob-friendly; I actually wasn't getting destroyed in matches like I do on other MP games.
 
You'll love it as a new player.

A few months in, you'll start to see some of the issues with the way that it's developed over the last year, but it's a really enjoyable game to start out with.

Unfortunately being on PS4, you'll probably run into numerous 'smurf' accounts since all you need to start over is a new PSN ID on the same console. Luckily the hidden MMR seems pretty quick and most of these players get boosted out of the range where they can ruin things for new players within several matches.

Quick tip if you do pick it up: go to settings > aiming > advanced settings and set your aiming method to either exponential ramp or linear ramp. The default of dual zone is incredibly poor and designed to make things easier for people bad at FPS by reducing the aiming sensitivity to one of two speeds - slow or fast.
 
It's like baby's first FPS, you'll be fine even without much shooter experience. You'll most likely find a character you feel you can contribute and have fun with. Low barrier of entry makes most Blizzard games successful.
 
All the newbies play the Arcade mode with various modes or quick play. You are fine. Competitive mode is where it is challenging and people care about rank.
 
Go to Arcade and play on No Limits, play with each character for an entire match to get the hang of each, don't worry about roles or whatever.
 
Finally caved in and bought this game after months and months of sublime HYPE basically everywhere, and while I don't like to choose heavy Dps characters or main a Healer (always been more of the support type), I'm finding myself to be a very decent Shield / damage blocker with Winston and Symmetra.

At the moment, I'm maining Queen Symmetra (4 hours so far with her) because of her insane elimination rate with her (well placed) mini turrets. That, and she also greatly facilitates the matches for you & your teammates with her crazy good shields.

Winston is also fantastic at this. As a result I'm almost always appearing as a player highlight at the end of the match with how much damage I've absorbed for my team or how I made everyone's lives better with Symmetra's Supers.

I urgently recomend people to try this middle ground as tanks / shields for those that dont like playing as healers. You contribute imensely towards keeping your teammates well alive and you are also in the action at al times as opposed to a healer.

I never thought nothing could take me away from Destiny and Uncharted 4 MP, but after trying out Overwatch this weekend again since its last free weekend, Im finally on this boat and it feels so good.

Amazing MP game. So good when you find your middle ground.
 
Nowadays I usually only play through the solo campaigns of COD, BF and similar since I suck so much at them.
Last weekend I went through the tutorial of Overwatch on the PS4 and then played only two online games and am really surprised how well I did. Had some nice killstreaks and even got "play of the game" in the 2nd game.
So the matchmaking really seems to do a very good job at the beginning and managed to find ppl at least as bad as me. :D
 
Now that the free weekend is over, it's fine. Sub lvl 100's generally stay together unless they're paired with someone above that.

But man, I have never seen smurfing in a game as bad as I saw this past weekend.

Lemstar said:
the worse your understanding of the game is, the more fun you'll have
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There's definitely something to that.
 
I played a free weekend a couple of months ago and Mercy felt very beginner friendly. Stay back and heal people while you learn the pace of the game. It was fun for the couple of matches I got to play
The game does a good job making healing classes fun to play. I was constantly on the move quickly moving around healing people. Was more intense than I would have thought
 
You just missed a free weekend.

It's fine though, 24 heroes to learn the basics of but after that it's a fairly even skill/learning curve.
 
i'm big fan of Overwatch in term on story and lore, watched short animations, read the comics, blog articles, all of them are awesome

however i'm not sure about PvP thing, i'm not FPS fan let alone mutiplayer FPS, never interested in CS:Go or even Quake

so that's why i'm not interested to play it until Free weekend days ago, i said fuck it, it was no harm to test the gameplay

tutorial and practice range kind of meh, however i was having a blast playing practice AI, it's so fun only because i won all the time

i figured i love to play Soldier, Pharah, D.va and Mercy, however i didn't enjoy play as defense heroes probably because i have no clue what's supposed to do, so this could be a problem if all of our teammates doesn't want to pick this role

after i felt confident with practice AI, i moved to quickplay, i won at first two matches, oh boy it was soooo satisfying

however after that i lost 5-6 matches in a row, suddenly my body filled with anger, it was no longer fun, i said fuck overwatch, i'm not gonna buy it, i closed the game and played Nier Automata instead

the next day, i was still thinking about it, read how to play as D.va and Mercy on various articles and booted up overwatch once again

yeah of course i still lost all the time, when that happened i filled with guilt because everyone seems so expert, i never got Play of The Game, even my heroes rarely showed up in voting after the match except when i played as Mercy

basically i love with the mechanic, i like the heroes, they are so unique, i just don't like when i lost, ruining the fun

so i was debating whether to buy this or not, if only there is story mode maybe i would buy it outright

on the last day on free weekend, my wife suddenly interested in this game, at first she didn't quite grasp the mechanic, so even though there was tutorial in there, i still need to explain what's ultimate is, what ability is, what's objective is and so on

and she was addicted to it, played it straight 6 hours, she stopped just because it hurt her hands a bit

my wife was bit crazy when played this game, she shouted, she even swore, i even reminded her repeatedly not to swear because our toddler son could hear it, i was actually kind of amuse about this situation, i never saw her like this before, the matches were so hectic that could make somebody become different person

in the end of free weekend she asked me to buy this, so yeah i bought it :D

i may not enjoy this game when i lost, but i'm pretty sure i would enjoy the time when i discuss gameplay together with my wife
 
Kor of Memory said:
Use the communication wheel if you aren't going to talk. Just know that the communication wheel is context to the person speaking and the person receiving the message. If a Reinhart asks for healing, the McCree can't do anything about it, and thus doesn't hear the message. Meanwhile the Mercy hears "I need healing" but the Torbjorn hears "I need armor"
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To add on to this, if you're playing console rebind communication menu to L3. It isn't used for anything else and it's so so much faster and easier to control on L3 then on the dpad.

While you're at it, rebind default spray to up on the dpad and spray menu to down on the dpad. That way you can still spray with ease but also bring up the menu for when you need it.
 
GearFourth said:
For younger kids I always recommend them playing the vs AI modes, easy, medium or hard. Hard may be a bit much but my niece's love playing AI mode on easy or medium and your team is still real people online
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Haha she's actually 18. Metroid Zero Mission is her favorite game tho cuz she grew up on Genesis and GBA
 
Ive had a much easier time enjoying ranked than casual

Im running into stacked teams and parties and getting steamrolled. Terrible teammates who wont go the right classes and really good opponents


I somehow have a much easier time in Ranked.

Anyways, its a fun game. I didnt get into it as others but revently got addicted again.

Btw, Paladins is f2p on ps4 if u want to try out something similar
 
TimeEffect said:
Ive had a much easier time enjoying ranked than casual

Im running into stacked teams and parties and getting steamrolled. Terrible teammates who wont go the right classes and really good opponents


I somehow have a much easier time in Ranked.

Anyways, its a fun game. I didnt get into it as others but revently got addicted again.

Btw, Paladins is f2p on ps4 if u want to try out something similar
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QP matchmaking is kind of...terrible, in a sense that it likely prioritizes team size and ping in making matches. Ranked is the way to go if you wanna play seriously with people of your skill level. You just have to hope you don't get any assholes because bad behavior in ranked affects everyone.
 
FullMetalx117 said:
I'm thinking about making Overwatch my summer game for the PS4. How is the game for newcomers? Is everyone already too good?
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SuperBanana said:
You get matched with new players.
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I played for the first time this past weekend and did non ranked games. In 3 consecutive matches I got put against some guy who spawn camped the entire match. He was no "newcomer" just watching the replays everytime he killed me. He was jumping around, teleporting and getting head shots repeatedly.
 
MechDX said:
I played for the first time this past weekend and did non ranked games. In 3 consecutive matches I got put against some guy who spawn camped the entire match. He was no "newcomer" just watching the replays everytime he killed me. He was jumping around, teleporting and getting head shots repeatedly.
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It was a free weekend, which is code for "all diamond players make new accounts to shit on people".
 
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