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

TheYanger

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

So play in 21:9 and have slightly less of the game visible to you. It's not like you'll be at much of a disadvantage and you get ot play in your beloved 21:9.
 

Maz

Member
Thank you blizzard, I havent been told to go fuck myself in this fashion for a long time now. Why promise to add support when you were never going to. It would have been better if they just said no support for 21:9.

I mean they least they could have done was move all ui elements to the black bars on the side instead of butchering the vertical fov. This way their fetish for "balanced" fov will be satisfied. I was looking forward to this which just makes this whole situation feel like an insult
 

Jimbostein

Neo Member
Thank god people like you weren't around when we made the switch to widescreen monitors! It was the same argument, that widescreen gave an unfair advantage over traditional monitors. If you had it your way, we'd still be using square monitors in the name of fairness!

And yes, companies also did the "cut the top/bottom" bullshit solution, and they got called on it. Screw them!
 

Water

Member
So play in 21:9 and have slightly less of the game visible to you. It's not like you'll be at much of a disadvantage and you get ot play in your beloved 21:9.

The garbage implementation Blizzard put in only exacerbates the actual problem, which is that the maximum game FOV is too low for displays large enough and close enough to cover a lot of your physical FOV. It is not just an issue for ultrawide displays, it's also an issue for large 16:9 displays! And it would all be fixed if the game FOV slider just went up to, say, 150. If you wanted to crank it up to max on a 16:9 display, you could, and you'd see more vertically than someone on a 21:9 display. That's not a problem as long as the max FOV is enough to be comfortable on a large display.

I repeat: the problem is the same (actually, worse) when you have a 32" 16:9 display than when you have a 29" 21:9 display. It's stupid that you cannot raise the FOV above 103 (which, depending on person, you might prefer to use on a 15" laptop display or 22" desktop display).
 

Soupy

Banned
I guess I am a minority when I say I disagree with this move.

PC gaming has always had(and always will have) hardware advantages no matter what you do.

Full 21:9 support is NOT OK, but...

144Hz+ vs 60Hz is OK?
GTX 1080 vs a 750 Ti is OK?
Expensive 7.1 Gaming Headsets vs Apple earbuds are OK?
High Quality Gaming Mice vs a generic dell mouse is OK?
Gigabit Fiber Internet vs horrid DSL Internet is OK?

If they want to restrict 21:9 for competitive play that's fine with me. But for normal casual to moderate play who cares.
 

RAWRferal

Member
Would be simple enough to just limit those to a 16:9 area I imagine

No it wouldn't, unless you're talking bout FOV restriction during the ultimate. Even then, you could still argue that the moments prior to activating the ult would still allow you to survey targets beforehand.

This seems like the best Blizz could do IMO.
 

SeanTSC

Member
I guess I am a minority when I say I disagree with this move.

PC gaming has always had(and always will have) hardware advantages no matter what you do.

Full 21:9 support is NOT OK, but...

144Hz+ vs 60Hz is OK?
GTX 1080 vs a 750 Ti is OK?
Expensive 7.1 Gaming Headsets vs Apple earbuds are OK?
High Quality Gaming Mice vs a generic dell mouse is OK?
Gigabit Fiber Internet vs horrid DSL Internet is OK?

If they want to restrict 21:9 for competitive play that's fine with me. But for normal casual to moderate play who cares.

Seriously, the argument that they shouldn't support 21:9 because it's "unfair" is absurd. Plus, 21:9 support is getting a LOT more common these days and it other competitive games are supporting it just fine. Given that other competitive games aren't giving people this bullshit excuse I think that Blizzard is just being irrational. Hell, just look at that amazing new BF1 footage with them showing off how awesome 21:9 is for the game, clearly Blizzard's stance is the odd one out here.
 

Flandy

Member
Seriously, the argument that they shouldn't support 21:9 because it's "unfair" is absurd. Plus, 21:9 support is getting a LOT more common these days and it other competitive games are supporting it just fine. Given that other competitive games aren't giving people this bullshit excuse I think that Blizzard is just being irrational. Hell, just look at that amazing new BF1 footage with them showing off how awesome 21:9 is for the game, clearly Blizzard's stance is the odd one out here.

Honestly the only PC Ports I've played that don't support 21:9 tend to be from Japanese devs without much experience. Lacking 21:9 support is frankly embarrassing.

I wouldn't even be upset if they hadn't promised us that they would add it back in. This is pretty much a big fuck you to everyone with a 21:9

If people are worried about Ults then just limit them to a 16:9 field. I don't see the big deal. 144Hz seems like a much bigger advantage to me than slightly better peripheral version
 

duckroll

Member
The excuse about fairness is laughable considering the game fully supports headphones with virtual Dolby Atmos and has amazing sound engineering. THAT is a huge gameplay advantage right there. :)
 

Sophia

Member
The excuse about fairness is laughable considering the game fully supports headphones with virtual Dolby Atmos and has amazing sound engineering. THAT is a huge gameplay advantage right there. :)

Duckroll knows what's up. That's by far and away one of the best features in the game, and a bigger advantage than 21:9 will ever be.

(Seriously, I love the sound direction in Overwatch.)
 

23qwerty

Member
The excuse about fairness is laughable considering the game fully supports headphones with virtual Dolby Atmos and has amazing sound engineering. THAT is a huge gameplay advantage right there. :)

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but any pair of headphones can use Atmos.
 

duckroll

Member
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but any pair of headphones can use Atmos.

Yes but most people don't play with headphones. That's the comparison here. If most players use a typical 2 speaker setup why go the extra mile to give players with surround systems or headphones the advantage of having greater battlefield awareness?

Because the tech makes sense. 21:9 is the same thing.
 

23qwerty

Member
Yes but most people don't play with headphones. That's the comparison here. If most players use a typical 2 speaker setup why go the extra mile to give players with surround systems or headphones the advantage of having greater battlefield awareness?

Because the tech makes sense. 21:9 is the same thing.

Ah, but anyone can just use headphones if they want in that case... well assuming they have some, but who doesn't?
 
{...}

Sorry, they don't control every aspect of everyone's hardware, but you guys trying to act like 60 fps is such a big disadvantage in comparison is a joke. Regardless of anything else, framerate doesn't represent a substantial tactical advantage. Yeah you can play better with a higher framerate, but a wider fov actually affects your knowledge of the fucking gamestate. it's huge. It's also VERY easily controlled on their end, and is not something where everyone has slightly different numbers, but rather where a vast vast overwhelming majority of players would be the 'disadvantaged' purely because some hardcore folk refuse to admit that their 21:9 monitor is a niche purchase.

There are 2 things I know I can count on in Gaming Side GAF

1.) You will go out of your way, above and beyond to apologize for anything Blizzard does. You'll go to bat like a true patriot and die on whatever hill they tell you to get up and die on.

2.) You will go out of your way, above and beyond to criticize anything Valve does with equal and opposite fervor. It's really impressive to watch. Do you work for Blizzard? Otherwise I'm running out of good reasons for the behavior pattern.

In any case, I'd like to see Blizzard rethink their decision here. A great game like this shouldn't be saddled with poor 21:9 support.

The following FPS games all have *proper* 21:9 support:

  • Battlefield 3
  • Battlefield 4
  • Battlefield 1
  • Titanfall
  • Titanfall 2
  • Team Fortress 2
  • Counterstrike Go
  • Planetside 2
  • Doom
  • Crysis 2
  • Crysis 3
  • Borderlands 2
  • Tales from the Borderlands
  • Evolve Stage 2
  • Unreal Tournament (new version)
  • Dead By Daylight
  • Dying Light
  • Bioshock Infinite
  • Just about every Call of Duty ever
Basically every FPS game that is or can be played competitively and every single player FPS game in recent memory offers proper 21:9 support. Many of which are far more challenging and competitive games than Overwatch. There really is no reason to do this and I'm pretty sure if they contacted any of the above game's makers and asked them what their data shows about "competitive advantage" from these resolutions based on their years of support, they'd find nothing significant of note for them to stunt the experience of gamers hoping to play it properly in 21:9.

It feels like a real missed opportunity, and in a game that makes very few missteps, I find this to be a very big and ugly one. If they wanted to they could have figured out the Ultimate stuff. The will wasn't there.
 

Nozem

Member
That was expected. I have a 16:10 monitor and when playing Starcraft 2 I see a little bit less than somebody playing on a 16:9 monitor. I can understand Blizzard here, making the most common aspect ratio the optimal version makes sense.
 
This is really shitty. Pretty much every shooter out there has 21:9 support. I don't see people bitching about it in CS:GO or UT4.
 

WadeitOut

Member
Ah, but anyone can just use headphones if they want in that case... well assuming they have some, but who doesn't?

Right. And anyone can use a 21:9 capable monitor as well.

That was expected. I have a 16:10 monitor and when playing Starcraft 2 I see a little bit less than somebody playing on a 16:9 monitor. I can understand Blizzard here, making the most common aspect ratio the optimal version makes sense.


Again, not the issue. They came out and said since they had so many requests for it they would have 21:9 support in late July. Except now we found out by "21:9 support" they literally meant they were going to zoom and cut to make it fit the resolution instead of just manipulating the FOV like we could do in the beta. Which is something basically anyone with an ultrawide monitor could already do themselves with their monitor settings.
 

WadeitOut

Member
everyone already has headphones.

Not only is this not true, but headphones are just one of many comparisons. There are various mice/keyboards that give better advantages as well. Some require you to fork out a lot of money if you don't want to buy cheap asian branded ones.

And some headsets have better advantages over other headsets.
 
there's a difference between asking people to upgrade a $5 mouse to an accurate mouse or $5 headphones to some surround headphones versus throwing away their perfectly fine 16:9 display to get a 21:9 one that will probably be worse and over $1000

21:9 fov's will become more supported for competitive multiplayer eventually, probably when more than 10% of people have those displays, but that day is not today
 

duckroll

Member
Ah, but anyone can just use headphones if they want in that case... well assuming they have some, but who doesn't?

That's a cost argument though, not a fairness one. If Blizzard said straight up they don't want to put more effort into the support because they think most people don't have a 21:9, that's fine. But claiming that they don't want to create an unfair advantage is laughable.
 

TheYanger

Member
Right. And anyone can use a 21:9 capable monitor as well.




Again, not the issue. They came out and said since they had so many requests for it they would have 21:9 support in late July. Except now we found out by "21:9 support" they literally meant they were going to zoom and cut to make it fit the resolution instead of just manipulating the FOV like we could do in the beta. Which is something basically anyone with an ultrawide monitor could already do themselves with their monitor settings.

So in other words, they added 21:9 support like they said they would, and the 21:9 defense force is in here both saying that losing a third of your competitive viewing area 'doesn't matter' for 16:9 players, but bitching that they're losing a bit of vertical on their own monitors. You can't have it both ways, and Blizzard is going to err on the side of 95% of their players. This shit is being so overblown.

That's a cost argument though, not a fairness one. If Blizzard said straight up they don't want to put more effort into the support because they think most people don't have a 21:9, that's fine. But claiming that they don't want to create an unfair advantage is laughable.

What are you even saying? It's the difference between something basically everyone has access to already, they may choose not to use it but it's not expensive or prohibited by people's setups or anything. Saying "Hey go buy a new monitor or be disadvantaged" is fucked. Who cares if other companies do it? It's shitty for an ostensibly competitive game where your entire knowledge of the gamestate is informed by what you can see and what you can hear. We're not talking "Hey, 5% of people don't own headphones" we're talking "Hey, 5% of people actually own this larger monitor that would give them 30% larger viewing area"...that's not insignificant despite what people here are trying to act like.

Then you're left with the "Wah it's not a big deal" nonsense being just as easily flipped the other way, and suddenly it becomes an argument about framerates or headphones or god knows what else. Sorry, if it's not a big deal for 95% of the population to see 30% less than you, then it's not a big deal for you to see an even smaller percent less on the vertical plane (less important) than the majority of the playerbase, especially when you can opt to just use black bars and get basically the exact same experience anyway, whereas goingthe OTHER direction (letting 16:9 players shrink their vertical to get a smaller 21:9) would both alienate an immeasurably larger number of players, but also actively hamper their resolutions far more than the loss of the sides of your 16:9 would.
 

WadeitOut

Member
there's a difference between asking people to upgrade a $5 mouse to an accurate mouse or $5 headphones to some surround headphones versus throwing away their perfectly fine 16:9 display to get a 21:9 one that will probably be worse and over $1000

21:9 fov's will become more supported for competitive multiplayer eventually, probably when more than 10% of people have those displays, but that day is not today

I have no idea what argument you are trying to make. No one is asking them to drop support for 16:9...

Again...in the beta we could manipulate the FOV to get 21:9 ourselves and they disabled FOV settings.

So in other words, they added 21:9 support like they said they would, and the 21:9 defense force is in here both saying that losing a third of your competitive viewing area 'doesn't matter' for 16:9 players, but bitching that they're losing a bit of vertical on their own monitors. You can't have it both ways, and Blizzard is going to err on the side of 95% of their players. This shit is being so overblown.

Because the idea that what they did constituting as "supporting 21:9" is a joke. And I repeat, Blizzard is not coming to your birthday party bro.
 
21:9 fov's will become more supported for competitive multiplayer eventually

What does that mean? I can play with a 21:9 monitor in any other FPS game that offers a competitive PvP mode. This is the only game where I cannot.

So in other words, they added 21:9 support like they said they would, and the 21:9 defense force is in here both saying that losing a third of your competitive viewing area 'doesn't matter' for 16:9 players, but bitching that they're losing a bit of vertical on their own monitors. You can't have it both ways, and Blizzard is going to err on the side of 95% of their players. This shit is being so overblown.

So...do you work for Blizzard or nah?

Guess they'll be locking the game down to 60 FPS next.

Seems fair to me. 144Hz Gsync is legit a bigger advantage for FPS gaming and anyone who's had that experience knows it to be a fact, not an opinion.
 

SeanTSC

Member
Well, no because you have to fork out a pile of cash for that, everyone already has headphones.

To be clear I still think this game should have proper 21:9 support.

Not all headphones are created equally though, just the same as monitors. There's bad, decent, good, amazing, etc and this can offer advantages as well beyond the Dolby Atmos stuff. Clarity/accuracy matters, how muddy or too bassy something might be matters, the Soundstage the headphones create matters, etc.

Same with displays and Motion Resolution at higher FPS. Mice and accuracy and response. Internet connections, etc.

"Everybody already has headphones" isn't true to begin with and of the headphones people do have not all of them are created equally.
 

23qwerty

Member
Not all headphones are created equally though, just the same as monitors. There's bad, decent, good, amazing, etc and this can offer advantages as well beyond the Dolby Atmos stuff. Clarity/accuracy matters, how muddy or too bassy something might be matters, the Soundstage the headphones create matters, etc.

Same with displays and Motion Resolution at higher FPS. Mice and accuracy and response. Internet connections, etc.

"Everybody already has headphones" isn't true to begin with and of the headphones people do have not all of them are created equally.

All I said is everyone has headphones or earphones, which is damn near unequivocally true, and every pair can use atmos. Not sure where this quality thing is coming from.

That's a cost argument though, not a fairness one.

I don't really see how cost or fairness factors into the atmos thing at all.. everyone can use it.

If Blizzard said straight up they don't want to put more effort into the support because they think most people don't have a 21:9, that's fine.
It would be.. okay, people still wouldn't be happy about it.


But claiming that they don't want to create an unfair advantage is laughable.
Didn't say it wasn't

Surround sound in shooters gives a competitive advantage over stereo. Again. Many comparisons we can make here.

I feel a bit like I'm talking to a brick wall that I also agree with in the overarching topic.
 

WadeitOut

Member
All I said is everyone has headphones or earphones, which is damn near unequivocally true, and every pair can use atmos. Not sure where this quality thing is coming from.

Surround sound in shooters gives a competitive advantage over stereo. Again. Many comparisons we can make here.
 

Arulan

Member
So in other words, they added 21:9 support like they said they would, and the 21:9 defense force is in here both saying that losing a third of your competitive viewing area 'doesn't matter' for 16:9 players, but bitching that they're losing a bit of vertical on their own monitors. You can't have it both ways, and Blizzard is going to err on the side of 95% of their players. This shit is being so overblown.

You don't support 120Hz by allowing you to choose the option, and then limiting your frame rate to 60.

What they call 21:9 support is cropping the image, not real 21:9 support, but you don't seem to understand this, and keep talking about advantages, disadvantages, and fairness...
 

Gen X

Trust no one. Eat steaks.
This reminds me of when I was showing my friend 16:9 gaming in the mid 90s and he said 4:3 was better cos the picture looked bigger.
 

duckroll

Member
I don't really see how cost or fairness factors into the atmos thing at all.. everyone can use it.

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.)
 

TheYanger

Member
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.)

They didn't though, playing with atmos and stereo headphones is basically just as fucking good as playing with most 7.1 headphones.
 
I have no idea what argument you are trying to make. No one is asking them to drop support for 16:9...

Again...in the beta we could manipulate the FOV to get 21:9 ourselves and they disabled FOV settings.

i'm saying that if you want to play without disadvantage, there's a difference between a cheap mouse/headphone investment (that most serious FPS players have already made) versus investing in a new display format that almost nobody uses

What does that mean? I can play with a 21:9 monitor in any other FPS game that offers a competitive PvP mode. This is the only game where I cannot.

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
 

cripterion

Member
Surround sound in shooters gives a competitive advantage over stereo. Again. Many comparisons we can make here.

Surround sound doesn't give you more screen space to lock on to enemy players.
None of the thing you guys keep mentioning compare to this and and no Counterstrike doesn't have ultimate abilities that allow you to do this so I don't even see why you keep mentioning other competitive games.

Or maybe they should remove/modify the ultimate of certain heroes so that 21/9 screen owners can get full support?
 

23qwerty

Member
Surround sound doesn't give you more screen space to lock on to enemy players.
None of the thing you guys keep mentioning compare to this and and no Counterstrike doesn't have ultimate abilities that allow you to do this so I don't even see why you keep mentioning other competitive games.

Or maybe they should remove/modify the ultimate of certain heroes so that 21/9 screen owners can get full support?

I don't get why people keep bringing up the ultimate thing when they could just limit the lock on area to a 16:9 area. Or if that's too difficult just cut off the edges for the duration of the ult as if they were focusing, which I think you could make work pretty well actually.
 

cripterion

Member
I don't get why people keep bringing up the ultimate thing when they could just limit the lock on area to a 16:9 area. Or if that's too difficult just cut off the edges for the duration of the ult as if they were focusing, which I think you could make work pretty well actually.

If they can do it then by all means that would be the best option.
 

Arulan

Member
They didn't though, playing with atmos and stereo headphones is basically just as fucking good as playing with most 7.1 headphones.

7.1 headphones are garbage all the time, you don't need Atmos to be better than those. How Atmos works on the other hand isn't uniform across stereo headphones. Closed headphones have a very small soundstage and don't benefit from it as much as open headphones can. Then you have whether a headphone has good mids, detail resolution, and a various other aspects which can give some advantage to one's ability to play.

Again, trying to control the various advantages, disadvantage, and fairness that different options can bring is pointless.
 

NimbusD

Member
Thank god people like you weren't around when we made the switch to widescreen monitors! It was the same argument, that widescreen gave an unfair advantage over traditional monitors. If you had it your way, we'd still be using square monitors in the name of fairness!

And yes, companies also did the "cut the top/bottom" bullshit solution, and they got called on it. Screw them!

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.
 

SeanTSC

Member
7.1 headphones are garbage all the time, you don't need Atmos to be better than those. How Atmos works on the other hand isn't uniform across stereo headphones. Closed headphones have a very small soundstage and don't benefit from it as much as open headphones can. Then you have whether a headphone has good mids, detail resolution, and a various other aspects which can give some advantage to one's ability to play.

Again, trying to control the various advantages, disadvantage, and fairness that different options can bring is pointless.

Yeah, pretty much this. All headphones *are not* created equally. Closed/Open matters, accuracy/clarity vs muddiness and/or being too bassy matters, etc. Most people's $10-15 throw away earbuds or bargain bin headsets are not the same as using something like a pair of Sennheiser HD598s, for example. And even similarly priced and quality cans like V-Modas or Audio-Technica's give a very different experience due to being closed vs open.

You can get advantages everywhere in PC gaming, it's always been part of it and will likely always be part of it. Your mouse, keyboard, monitor, internet connection, GPU/CPU/HDD/etc. Hell even your Mousepad can and does matter.

Plus, it seems like Blizzard is one of the only ones not jumping on the 21:9 train. Going by that nice list posted in the thread most Competitive (and otherwise) FPS games that are new/recent/popular support it and Blizzard is an outlier here.

So this whole thing with them being obstinate over one "advantage" while there's so many more anyways and most other people in competitive games are already supporting it makes it all rather silly and dumb. Just do it right, Blizzard. Pretty much everyone else is.
 

Plum

Member
If Blizzard truly cared about competitiveness in OW they'd restrict competitive mode to consoles and only at Blizzcon and other Blizzard-approved events.

Instead they're hung up on FOV as if it's the biggest determiner of player skill. Making me not want to buy an Ultrawide if this is how such a big developer (and certain members here) thinks of them, it shouldn't be a goddamned battle to get certain hardware supported.

As said above the Ultis are already independent of FOV so Blizz would have to do no extra work to get it supported (it already was in the beta!). It's them being arbitrary and petty which frankly, when you release your game on PC, is bloody ridiculous.
 
That hardware excuse is nonsense. Everyone with better hardware has an advantage. Whether it be a gpu that can get you to 144+hz or a better keyboard/mouse/headphones/etc. Its not like 21:9 monitors are ridiculously expensive anymore either. I've seen 2560x1080 ones on sale for 150 dollars.
 
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