So how are your games going lately? [megathread]

[Eapoe]

I play quite a lot of Zen and other support in comp, I know his limitations, I know he made a bad call. I'm not quick to make assumptions, but in this case, both he and Ana were both overly focused on DPSing; I could see that while I was tanking and it was even more apparent when I switch to DPS.

I've actually taken up playing Moira a lot more this season in anticipation of getting her Banshee skin (though I've had zero legendaries in like 14+ boxes so far, not even an non-event one, so meh, at least I have Blackwatch) and finding her pretty enjoyable and very, very effective.

Lastly, is Reaper good now? He seems in every game, people also are actually asking for him O.o

Lot of support are focusing more on dps lately as I get closer to deranking our of Plat. Anymore it seems like if I’m not healing then it’s people either focusing as damage dealers or just healing the people they queue’d with.
I think a lot of people are asking for a Reaper now because of so many dive comps I’ve been seeing lately. Just in my games alone, their tends to be a Winston/DVa or Winston/WB combo that Reaper can tear thru, while also tending to heal himself while under Winston’s bubble or opposite a defense matrix. He seems to be a complete flanker if played well to take out support if no Brig or as a back line defender against dive tanks. I rarely see him for anything such as standing ground with the group. His Ult is usually good if the player watches for certain factors: Brig charge on CD or no matrix/bubble to pop down. Personally I’d rather see less groups with him as most of my games lately we have comps that can’t deal with a Pharah and the enemy team seems to crawl with them.

[Tziva]

Also I get people want to try out reworked Torb, but I probably have 20 hours in Overwatch in the last week and I don't think I've played a single game in Comp or QP, attack or defend, that didn't have a Torb on my team. His rework made him a little more flexible but I don't think it made him amazing enough to justify him as a mandatory pick.

Not sure if there's literally that many people trying the changes, or if more people feel emboldened to "main" him now that he's mildly better in non-defense situations. Plsno.

[Jessicka]

Torb is locked from Comp for 2 weeks like Symm was so you didn’t have a comp game with him. QP and DM on the other hand... all Torb everywhere.

I think as some players have always struggled against him, he’s proving “effective” for them, cue complaints of OP and popularity. I doubt it will transfer to comp though as he still has much the same weaknesses.

[Tziva]

Torb is locked from Comp for 2 weeks like Symm was so you didn’t have a comp game with him. QP and DM on the other hand... all Torb everywhere.

oh hm guess not then! (and I missed Symm's lock in comp so I didn't realise they even locked reworks in addition to new heroes)

(and honestly, it was slight hyperbole; there's probably been at least one or two matches where one of the teams didn't have one but overwhelmingly every single game there will be one on both sides.)

I think as some players have always struggled against him, he’s proving “effective” for them, cue complaints of OP and popularity. I doubt it will transfer to comp though as he still has much the same weaknesses.

Yeah, he doesn't really feel any stronger, just slightly more versatile. If he did seem OP it would make more sense, but he really doesn't seem that great. Either you get a team that can counter him well or you don't, but I haven't had that many games where the Torb was owning things (either on my team or theirs). The turret can be annoying and the lava hose is decent for area denial but I just haven't been too wowed by him. Not that he's bad, especially in qp where coordination is low, but not good enough to justify this seemingly huge spike in popularity.

It was interesting to start playing the game again after a time away. I was insanely busy in July, then out of the country for two weeks in August, then the WoW expansion dropped... and this last week is really the first time I've played Overwatch in months. It was weird to suddenly see wall to wall Torbs and Symms while some heroes that were fairly ubiquitous in most games (Moira and Brig, who was still novel) being less common. Sometimes I wish profiles were public again just to see stats for played heroes again and all the different ranks.

[Jessicka]

McCree is an awful hero. And I got all the idiots insisting on playing him tonight. 3rd lowest win rate in the game, yet somehow doesn't have the pariah status of Symm or Torb? Don't get it.

Last match summed him up perfectly, we're struggling against a team until the moment their Widow goes McCree and suddenly it feels like we're 6v5 so we stomp them.

Also, after 18 lootboxes with not even an non-event Legendary, I get one. Fucking Doomfish. Typical.

[Projectmars]

3rd lowest win rate in the game, yet somehow doesn't have the pariah status of Symm or Torb? Don't get it.

He's hitscan. Basically that.

[Tziva]

I don't think McCree is a bad hero, I think he's just a hero that has a pretty high skill floor (due to his slow fire and small magazine) that is unfortunately coupled with a broad popularity across all skill levels. All the people picking him at average and below average ranks probably unfairly inflate his loss ratio because if you can't aim well on him you might as well be afk in base.

I like McCree but I would pretty much never pick him over Soldier or Bastion for a hitscan since at least I can make up for my subpar aim by spraying bullets on them. You can't do that with McCree. People try, though!

(as an aside: with private profiles, how exactly is win rate accurately calculated anymore?)

[Polyxo]

I just got permanently banned. I don't know why. I'm a model citizen in games, and haven't ever been suspended in other games before.

[Twen]

I just got permanently banned. I don't know why. I'm a model citizen in games, and haven't ever been suspended in other games before.

If you truly don't know why you should contact Blizz for appeal, if there turns out to be no valid reason it ought to get revoked.

[Jessicka]

I just got permanently banned. I don't know why. I'm a model citizen in games, and haven't ever been suspended in other games before.

Only thing that will permaban you is using third party software, whether that’s aimbots or Visor or whatever. If you haven’t used these, it’s all you can do to call them and appeal.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

Did I say how much I hate Doomfist? Change either the knockup or the one shot mechanic of his punch. When you're seven miles from a wall or you don't even have a wall behind you, you shouldn't get 1-shotted or take massive damage. His knockup lasts too long.
Perfect example of an anti-fun hero.
https://youtu.be/6xwfAhXzySA

[Jessicka]

Last couple of days have been relentlessly shit, and only 1 legendary from 30+ boxes as well now. I remember why I stopped playing.

[Projectmars]

So many people saying nothing all game then being toxic as fuck after it ends. geeze.

[Jessicka]

So many people saying nothing all game then being toxic as fuck after it ends. geeze.

Rather that than get asked to join voice, join, get moaned at for playing Orisa rather than Rein, then have to listen to “call outs” that are always late.

[Jester Joe]

Did I say how much I hate Doomfist? Change either the knockup or the one shot mechanic of his punch. When you're seven miles from a wall or you don't even have a wall behind you, you shouldn't get 1-shotted or take massive damage. His knockup lasts too long.
Perfect example of an anti-fun hero.
https://youtu.be/6xwfAhXzySA

The side you don't see is all the times Doomfist punches someone and they just slide off the wall like its made of jello and don't die.

He's just still wonky.

[Tziva]

So many people saying nothing all game then being toxic as fuck after it ends. geeze.

Rather that than get asked to join voice, join, get moaned at for playing Orisa rather than Rein, then have to listen to “call outs” that are always late.

I wish more groups would ask others to join when they plan to use voice chat.

I don't join team voice by default. It's seldom used for its intended purpose, and usually ends up being one guy (and by "guy" I mean "angry 12 year old") venting his various frustrations or caustic bullshit/arguments between teammates rather than actual information and shotcalling, and I don't want to subject myself to it. I want to win, but I also have to protect my sanity at some point since I'm here to actually enjoy myself.

If people ask because they intend to make use of the feature, I will absolutely join. And in my experience, so will everyone else who isn't joining by default. All you have to do is nicely ask.

I keep crossing groups that don't ask or make any mention at all of utilising it, and then get mad at the end that you weren't there. Like, y'all play the same game I do, you know how infrequently actual useful discussion happens here. How hard is it just to ask folks to join? I get it is a risk I take by not joining by default, but I really wish I could PSA: If you're going to use voice chat, just tell your teammates so they know to opt in.

[Jessicka]

Half a dozen games tonight, 2 close, 1 good. Match quality has been getting steadily worse for a while, but I think I've reached a tipping point where bad games are just vastly outnumbering good. Even winning sucks when it's usually a stomp either because you have a good smurf or one of their team is throwing.

It's not just toxicity, it's broken MMR, it's the amount of smurfing/boosting/throwing that goes on, it's bad balance, it's player apathy. There's no integrity in the system anymore because "I don't care because it's my smurf", "it's not my account" and all this. So, obviously fewer and fewer players care about a system that's so very obviously broken for them. There's nothing to play for, nothing to lose, because whatever happens you can just get a new account and start over.

The devs seems equally disinterested, which is kinda sad. They put a ton of effort into the endorsement system, improving the report system, building AI to pick up bots and boosters, then go ahead and join the cool kids on Twitch with 'smurfing is cool yo', 'no consequences for being bad'. Too busy trying to look cool with the cool kids that they willingly undermine their own work. It's sad.

I guess I'll play the event out, but I'll be back to WoW on Nov 1. At least bans there are meaningful with time lost, and toys taken away; people actually want to avoid it for their main accounts.

[Tziva]

I don't know that I've ever seen Blizzard say they are cool with smurfing, just that they don't know how to fix it.

And honestly I don't really have an idea myself that wouldn't have negative repercussions in other ways. Like you can have MMR adjust faster, but then that would also unfairly punish people who have a bad day or a bad streak. And usually they are grouped with a friend to carry, how do you do that without punishing legit groups that just happen to have some reasonable skill disparity?

I had a game the other day with a widow that had over 85% critical accuracy, nearly every shot was a headshot and they were just chaining them constantly as my team ran out of base. That is the only time I've ever encountered someone I genuinely suspected was aimbotting. If they weren't, that was a smurf account for sure, of someone crazy good. Very frustrating but at least it was over insanely quick.

Anyway, it's definitely an issue but I am not sure how Blizzard could fix it. I feel like since they haven't, Blizzard isn't sure how to fix it either. (I mean, unless they really have advocated it, but I am going to guess that was just hyperbole over the frustration with the situation)

[Projectmars]

Smurfing is an issue in a lot of games and I don't think anyone's really had a ton of success actually dealing with it. Not without jumping through some hoops for it (iirc DotA2 requires a phone number or something.)

Had someone accuse a Soldier of aimbotting but after watching the moment prior to that accusation the accuser was killed sliding off some terrain, so I doubt rather than aimbotting they were just able to move the cursor in a straight line. (plus a replay of them killing me showed them to just have pretty good aim, but still not anywhere aimbot level)

[Jessicka]

I don't know that I've ever seen Blizzard say they are cool with smurfing, just that they don't know how to fix it.

And honestly I don't really have an idea myself that wouldn't have negative repercussions in other ways. Like you can have MMR adjust faster, but then that would also unfairly punish people who have a bad day or a bad streak. And usually they are grouped with a friend to carry, how do you do that without punishing legit groups that just happen to have some reasonable skill disparity?

I had a game the other day with a widow that had over 85% critical accuracy, nearly every shot was a headshot and they were just chaining them constantly as my team ran out of base. That is the only time I've ever encountered someone I genuinely suspected was aimbotting. If they weren't, that was a smurf account for sure, of someone crazy good. Very frustrating but at least it was over insanely quick.

Anyway, it's definitely an issue but I am not sure how Blizzard could fix it. I feel like since they haven't, Blizzard isn't sure how to fix it either. (I mean, unless they really have advocated it, but I am going to guess that was just hyperbole over the frustration with the situation)

They said that having alt accounts is fine, but that boosting throwing are not. They also said using an alt account while another is suspended is also fine. It's not a circle they can square, because any punishment they met out for throwing and boosting on smurfs doesn't effect the main or other smurf accounts; so basically they're cool with it.