What is the purpose of Overwatch's Beta?

[Zyranthian]

There's no way it would work on consoles, while I'm certainly not opposed to console ports as a concept at all, this game would not work on a console, way too fast without a mouse.

I wouldn't be so sure, plug a Xbox controller into your pc and it has a pretty much fully fleshed out control scheme built for controller. I think if anything its perfect for consoles. I wouldn't personally play it on console or with a controller, but its a good fit.

[Deleted]

There's no way it would work on consoles, while I'm certainly not opposed to console ports as a concept at all, this game would not work on a console, way too fast without a mouse.

Unfortunately it will be ported to consoles - unfortunately, because I think playing a FPS game on a gamepad is a sacrilege :P. But that's just my very biased opinion...

As for the beta process.. it's mostly for hype and hardware optimization. Also first stab at balance passes. I'm surprised though about little amount of glitches. It is very clear that this game was made with much more attention to detail than Hots was at the same stage/place in time.

[Herecius]

I wouldn't be so sure, plug a Xbox controller into your pc and it has a pretty much fully fleshed out control scheme built for controller. I think if anything its perfect for consoles. I wouldn't personally play it on console or with a controller, but its a good fit.

Tracer on console would be an unworkable nightmare, imo.

[Grishnaar]

Unfortunately it will be ported to consoles - unfortunately, because I think playing a FPS game on a gamepad is a sacrilege :P. But that's just my very biased opinion...

I think they same way, however I am not against people playing on it. More sucky players for my kill count (you can NEVER play an FPS on a console as good as on a PC with a mouse)

[Adlian]

Mostly hype the crowd as hell and find/fix some bugs in the process.

[Darksoldierr]

Also, if you noticed, there is no ranked mode, no progression, player profile, in game tournaments, team leagues, etc
I assume, these features will be added as time goes on just like in the Heroes alpha.

And on top of that, as everyone said. Balance shaping to the maximum, bug hunting. Afterall, now thousands testing for what was tested only by 100-200 people till now

[Deleted]

Blizzard alphas are usually on the lvl of other developers beta versions. Blizzard betas are usually almost flawless and on the lvl of other developers release versions. So the main purpose is to create hype for not letting the large masses in.

[Kaleredar]

Why to let me play it early of course.



Now once they realize that and send me the invite, everything will be back on track

[Deleted]

1st waves im guessing are a kind of publicity stunt, i'm guessing as more waves come out it will start to function like a normal beta where people give feedback and report bugs and such.

[Mister K]

Building hype, testing balance, stress-testing servers and overall just polishing everything.

You can say what you want about Blizzard but at least to some extent they still uphold their quality and polish standards even with Betas =P (Considering the days of buggy early access we live in)

They'd do themselves a favour if they don't take as much time in beta as they did with HotS, hype fades over time.

This pretty much. Now give me beta! >=[

[thunderdragon2]

as some one thats never played tf2 or watched a tf2 steam is this worth trying for me? ( ive heard that overwatch is similar to tf2)

[Daedius]

I got a closed beta invite for Gearbox's Battleborn... pretty fun, love the Co-op mode's humour... heavy Borderlands influence with how bosses are introduced... and the interactions between the antagonist and them, and the random stats on load out 'gear'.

Hopefully I get a beta invite for Overwatch too.

[Collected]

I'm legitimately confused about what they are testing here. Is it just balance? I don't see any bugs from the streams I'm watching.

Clearly they are testing something, but what?

Balance.. systems.. servers.. looking for crash bugs.. general bugs.. etc etc.

IT's a very polished game I agree.. it looks release ready to me. But Blizzard are very particular about quality.

[Flutterguy]

Plenty of little bugs. For instance I noticed Junkrat's traps can disappear into geometry where you can't see them even if you're looking for them.

I noticed a Widowmaker getting to areas that appeared to be outside the general map area to snipe from.

Some spawns you can shoot into. Other spawns you can't.

There's a raging debate on their forum about Bastion, the map Temple of Anubis, and whether teams should be allowed to have more than 1 of a hero per team.(this connects largely to Bastion and Pharah stacking on certain maps, namely Temple of Anubis).