Overwatch

[Grooveriding]

So I've played for 2 days now. Quite a few times, I know I dodged something and the kill cam shows me just standing there. So I google it and... Overwatch has a tickrate of 20? It's like playing a 90's shooter again.

Yeah I'm not sure what they were thinking. It was brought up constantly before release and they claimed that their netcode was 'different' so it would be a non-issue... I'd guess it could be a cost-saving measure to reduce CPU cycles needed server side. It's pretty annoying.

 

[Vivendi]

I think there's a good mix of long range, medium, and close range fighters.

As snipers, Widowmaker and Hanzo have the longest range weapons.
Bastion in his turret mode has pretty good damage at long/medium range.
Torbjorn's turret has decent range as well.
Junkrat has long range if he can get a high vantage point.
Pharah with her rockets has great range.
McCree can pick off heroes at a decent range.

Finally, Soldier 76 is pretty good at long range fighting. Since he's my most played hero so far, here's my quick guide for him if anyone is interested. I'd like to your guy's tips on other heroes as well.

- Stay behind your team. He has only 200HP so he gets burst down quickly at short range.
- Keep an eye out for enemy flankers, esp. Tracer, McCree, Reaper, Pharah, Genji, you can take them down pretty easily as long as you keep your distance.
- Always tap or fire in short bursts unless at really short range. His gun is crazy accurate as long as you don't autofire.
- Aim for the head. It's also good to know that his ultimate doesn't aim for the head but for the body center.
- Sprint to the frontline to drop your healing pod for your tank if he needs it. You can turn on an option to see ally HP to help for this.
- Usually better to save the rocket for picking off heroes.
- He can flank the enemy team easily because he sprints so fast and it's indefinite with no CD. Just sprint in, shoot someone, launch rocket, run back and heal. Repeat from a different angle.
- In close quarters fighting, don't forget about the melee attack.
- His ultimate: there's no need to be too picky about when to use it. It recharges pretty quickly. It's very useful on opponents trying to capture a point. Always flank since you will still die easily. Wait for Reinhardt's shield to be down. Be careful against a Genji as well.

 

[Aikouka]

So I've played for 2 days now. Quite a few times, I know I dodged something and the kill cam shows me just standing there. So I google it and... Overwatch has a tickrate of 20? It's like playing a 90's shooter again.

One problem is that Blizzard has admitted that they designed the game to favor the attacker in situations where there's a conflict between states. They did state that "escape moves" would generally favor the person being attacked. However, I have noticed that the idea of an "escape move" isn't clearly defined. A good example was during a game on Lijiang Tower (Garden) where I was playing Genji and a Reinhardt started attacking me, and I used Dash Strike to get away. I thought I was fine; however, I still ended up dying to his attack, and when this weird situation happens, you usually get awkward physics/ragdoll effects. I've had my character thrown rapidly across the screen from this.

There's another issue that annoys the crap out of me. I like to play Roadhog from time to time, and they changed his hook near the end of closed beta. They changed it to adjust the distance in which it brings in certain characters (smaller characters = closer). Well, once they made that change, it seemed to also affect the hook physics as I started seeing what appeared to be character momentum being added into my hook. What that meant is that the hooked enemy started being pulled to the side, above or below me.

I only did the practice range to get an idea of each character. I only liked a few of the characters. A lot of them have such short range weapons its ridiculous.

Not really. The only characters with really high fall-off are D.Va, Reaper, Tracer and Roadhog (left click). Symmetra's weapon is a close-range weapon with left click, but right click fires an orb.

I think there's a good mix of long range, medium, and close range fighters.

As snipers, Widowmaker and Hanzo have the longest range weapons.
Bastion in his turret mode has pretty good damage at long/medium range.
Torbjorn's turret has decent range as well.
Junkrat has long range if he can get a high vantage point.
Pharah with her rockets has great range.
McCree can pick off heroes at a decent range.

Finally, Soldier 76 is pretty good at long range fighting. Since he's my most played hero so far, here's my quick guide for him if anyone is interested. I'd like to your guy's tips on other heroes as well.

Keep in mind that McCree and Soldier:76 both have fall-off. So, their damage isn't super effective at longer ranges. I consider Soldier to excel at medium range and McCree at close-to-medium range.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

BT: Aequitas#1704

Add me, I have no Bnet friends :'(

 

[Vivendi]

One problem is that Blizzard has admitted that they designed the game to favor the attacker in situations where there's a conflict between states.

They can still do that while having a higher tickrate. As it is now, it's nothing to do with favoring the shooter, just normal Blizzard PR BS, just them being cheap. How do they expect this game to be taken seriously as a competitive esport.... I would've expected it be atleast 60, maybe even 100. 20Hz feels like a joke honestly.

Keep in mind that McCree and Soldier:76 both have fall-off. So, their damage isn't super effective at longer ranges. I consider Soldier to excel at medium range and McCree at close-to-medium range.

Yea that's why I mentioned Soldier and McCree last. I'm fine with Soldier's damage fall-off at longer ranges. I think he'd be stupid OP if it didn't.

 

[HumblePie]

So I've played for 2 days now. Quite a few times, I know I dodged something and the kill cam shows me just standing there. So I google it and... Overwatch has a tickrate of 20? It's like playing a 90's shooter again.

Tick rate has nothing to do with that. That is pure latency from the aspect of the shooter.

Tick rate is basically the commands being sent per second. The upload rate is 60 commands per second. That is how many commands from the client to the server can be sent during a 1 second upload package. The server sends back 20 commands per second.


Now normally most people actually aren't sending all 60 commands. For example holding down the W key to move forward with the SHIFT key to sprint while pressing the fire button all at the same time sends multiple commands of the W along with the SHIFT command key along with the mouse movement. There are also a sundry amount of other commands not exactly related to the player pressing a button that are sent.

Much of the Blizzard is streamlining their code from the server to handle latency issues with some people by reducing the return tick rate of 21 commands per connected person. Which means if there is 12 people in the game you are getting 11 X 21 = 231 commands in a single update package. Those packets contain more than just those commands though. Still, most of the commands being sent from a given client is are really not needed and don't make any difference in terms of play back. People like to equate the tickrate to frames per second, but they are not the same.

What you are experiencing is the side effect of a "favor the shooter" model of game design along with playing against someone with bad net latency. The person that killed you has a bad connection to the game and is in fact not receiving many packets from the other players. Which means if a few seconds worth of packets aren't being given to a player then that means several of the people around that player on their screen look to be standing completely still.

This is where favor the shooter sucks for good latency players and is great for crap latency players when they are mixed together. The bad latency player gets to shoot at standing targets and the server will for the most part ALWAYS allow the hit.

The killcam is just the repeated uploaded footage that the player saw when they made the kill against you. So you get to see yourself standing still on their screen.

The tickrate issue is blown way out of proportion and doesn't affect most players unless everyone in the game has great internet with low latency to the servers (talking 20ping or less here). Then the tick rate starts to make a difference in some regards to smoothness of movement with less interpolation needed.

Here is the Overwatch developers talking about the netcode here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTH2ZPgYujQ

This is why I laugh at people that think the tickrate is what makes killcams look like "aimbots" and think that a killcam showing a snapping motion that makes the cursor move inches across the screen is a side affect of the 21 tick rate. The answer is that is not the case. There is some "possible" interpolation of the movement going on from the other persons client but any potential snapping interpolation would be shown as pixels on the screen and not large movements at all.

More discussion here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/3u5kfg/everything_you_need_to_know_about_tick_rate/

 

[Vivendi]

Tick rate has nothing to do with that. That is pure latency from the aspect of the shooter.

Tick rate is basically the commands being sent per second.

For the long response you wrote... you have no idea tick rate actually is. Tick rate is the frequency with which the server updates the game state on the server side, hence why it's unit is Hertz. It's not a limit on the number of commands per second.

Obviously, A good tick rate isn't everything; to have a good FPS experience, there are a multitude of factors, like latency, framerate, clientside update rate, and ALSO tick rate. When the tick rate is this bad, it absolutely makes a difference; no matter what the BS Blizzard is spouting about their "netcode".

Edit: I should clarify: the lower the tickrate, the more the server has to extrapolate what happened in the game between the "ticks". There's no good reason for it be as low as 20. Higher tick rates help to reduce server error.

 

[s44]

How do they expect this game to be taken seriously as a competitive esport....

Custom matches are 60, and that's how all the beta tourneys were run. Ranked will surely be 60 as well.

As snipers, Widowmaker and Hanzo have the longest range weapons.
Bastion in his turret mode has pretty good damage at long/medium range.
Torbjorn's turret has decent range as well.
Junkrat has long range if he can get a high vantage point.
Pharah with her rockets has great range.
McCree can pick off heroes at a decent range.

Finally, Soldier 76 is pretty good at long range fighting. Since he's my most played hero so far, here's my quick guide for him if anyone is interested. I'd like to your guy's tips on other heroes as well.

A side note: they're not primary weapons by any stretch, but Mercy and D.Va's pistols have zero damage dropoff at range and are nice for throwing damage downrange in a pinch. I believe Mei's rightclick has little or no dropoff as well... but the delay on the first shot (the next 3 come quicker) makes leading it a bit tricky. Also Torb's rivet gun has the same lack of dropoff (IIRC) and if you can do projectile compensation it packs a long-range wallop.

Anyway, on Soldier note that the rockets aren't only for finishing off people at range or hitting Tracer in a closed area, but you can also rocket jump with them.

 

[Vivendi]

Custom matches are 60, and that's how all the beta tourneys were run. Ranked will surely be 60 as well.

Ah I didn't know that, I didn't follow the game at all during beta. So basically they are admitting that 20 isn't enough, but they don't care about Quick Play that much to implement it there as well.

 

[pontifex]

Whats the deal with the practice matches with ai? It kept kicking me out and rejoining because of not enough people? I thought i was playing with bots, how can there not be enough people?

 

[Aikouka]

Hm... I have to say that the thing that bugs me the most has to be the lack of communication in games. Closed beta vs. release is just like old WoW vs. new WoW. You've got people that work together compared to people that are just functioning as some sort of unit. For me, it makes the game FAR less fun.

At this point, I'm getting close to giving up on solo queuing. I'll probably stick mostly to joining up with some people on my friends list.

They can still do that while having a higher tickrate. As it is now, it's nothing to do with favoring the shooter, just normal Blizzard PR BS, just them being cheap. How do they expect this game to be taken seriously as a competitive esport.... I would've expected it be atleast 60, maybe even 100. 20Hz feels like a joke honestly.

It does to a degree. When a conflict arises, like what you saw, the game favors the person attacking. In this case, the person that killed you was favored over your state. Now, I'm not disagreeing that a server with a more accurate state (i.e. higher update rate) wouldn't help with this. Although, it seems Blizzard has been rather tight-lipped about why it's set at ~20 even though they've been asked about it a few times. I don't think it's server assets as Blizzard is using AWS for some of their servers.

EDIT:

Whats the deal with the practice matches with ai? It kept kicking me out and rejoining because of not enough people? I thought i was playing with bots, how can there not be enough people?

Practice with AI is 6 humans vs. 6 AI. If you don't have enough people to join your team, it won't work. In other words, there's no you + 5 bots vs. 6 bots.

 

[pontifex]

I dont even know how they can call it practice because the human team just slaughters the ai team right at their spawn point.

 

[s44]

In other words, there's no you + 5 bots vs. 6 bots.

Yes there is. Play > Custom Game, then hit the "Add AI" button on the right.

 

[Midwayman]

Although, it seems Blizzard has been rather tight-lipped about why it's set at ~20 even though they've been asked about it a few times. I don't think it's server assets as Blizzard is using AWS for some of their servers.

That's pretty simple. Its cheaper to run 20hz vs 60hz and they think they can get away with it. 20hz is just pathetic these days though. Especially on a game as fast paced as OW is.

 

[TidusZ]

Regarding 20 tick, in CS matchmaking I notice the delay constantly, especially when you hs someone and they take half a second to die, but in Overwatch I don't notice any delay.

 

[Insomniator]

I've played 12 hours so far and haven't noticed any lag or issues with tick rate. Its... completely fine. If they up it for competitive even better.

Hope you aren't blaming any deaths on low tick rate lol.

 

[HumblePie]

Regarding 20 tick, in CS matchmaking I notice the delay constantly, especially when you hs someone and they take half a second to die, but in Overwatch I don't notice any delay.

Difference between default to the shooter versus somewhat helpful to the shooter.

The lesser tick rate from the server is not what is causing the issues people are complaining about. In beta during special events, like tournies, the tick rate from both the client and the servers were set to 60. The people experienced the same thing during that play and still complained without knowing the higher rate increase was done for those games.

There is a difference between latency issues with game decisions made based off latency and tick rate issues.

 

[Aikouka]

Yes there is. Play > Custom Game, then hit the "Add AI" button on the right.

I meant in the Play vs. AI mode, but you are right in that you can add as many bots as you want in custom game on either team.

I've played 12 hours so far and haven't noticed any lag or issues with tick rate. Its... completely fine. If they up it for competitive even better.

Hope you aren't blaming any deaths on low tick rate lol.

They aren't wrong. There are times when you will die and the kill cam shows you in a different spot than where you were on your own screen, and that discrepancy would easily lead to your death (i.e. out in open vs. behind a wall). I mean... who in here hasn't been hooked after they just moved behind a wall? During my time in closed beta, it happened numerous times, and I've even been the Roadhog that did it to someone too!

 

[Midwayman]

Regarding 20 tick, in CS matchmaking I notice the delay constantly, especially when you hs someone and they take half a second to die, but in Overwatch I don't notice any delay.

It probably does something like bf4 where the hits and animations are all client side, but confirmed by the server. CSGO is all server side IIRC. BF4 you can see the little spurts of blood from hits, or explosions of vehicles, but not get the hit markers if the server rejects the hit.

Low tick in particular can make it feel like you're getting one shot a lot as damage is only being sent to the client 20 times a second so instead of seeing your health tick down you get one huge damage packet. It also makes lag related issues like getting killed behind cover feel worse.

Battlenonsese did a good video on it as usual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHO6Ky-w0UQ

 

[lupi]

Woot, got my first play of the game. Did it last night as symmetra and it was funny to watch. Was sitting in an alcove just off of an object area where there is a bridge above you than you can jump down from and I had placed all my turrets at the edge of the alcove covering the approach to the objective and the rest covering the back to get someone trying to jump down behind me. For the first half of the replay it catches me just standing there after putting up last turret and I'm doing nothing. Not sure how long the clips are but that felt real long. Finally the next attacker wave is incoming, I fire off an orb at the freeze girl but she dies just before I hit, but then cowboy runs into the objective area and then peels off into my alcove. I kill him by backing up and firing along with the turrets. Start to walk back to my sentry area and 2 more drop down from above, kill one while turrets works off the other. No idea exactly what the medals do but think I got 3 gold and a silver that time.

 

[HumblePie]

I've played 12 hours so far and haven't noticed any lag or issues with tick rate. Its... completely fine. If they up it for competitive even better.

Hope you aren't blaming any deaths on low tick rate lol.

When I played in beta I had some issues with latency problems. I have some video I recorded where I toss my flashbang grenade while playing McGree at a target but they aren't stunned. I can upload it to youtube if you want. Basically I toss a grenade at a Mercy and she runs around like nothing happened. I manage to get away and come back at her tossing a second grenade. That one stuns her and I am able to make the kill. I have had other instances though where I died from it. I have a video also of me where I use McGree's roll to avoid a roadhog hook. Even the killcam shows me rolling away before he launches his hook. But still the hook manages to nab me and I am killed because of it.

There are also instances of a Roadhog hooking my siege mode bastion through walls. That one is a massive headscratcher because even on the kill cam it clearly showed him tossing it at a wall and pulling me through it.

 

[darkewaffle]

Based entirely off feel (and only a few anecdotal tests in the shooting range) I don't think I have a problem with/have noticed the tick rate but I do think the hitboxes are fairly generous. For instance as Widowmaker in the test range you can headshot the stationary robots while the center of your crosshair is noticeably removed from the 'head'. It seems to be a fairly 'wide' scan. Hanzo's arrows feel as though they have quite 'long' projectiles as well. And I've seen in my kill cam my character sidestepping Reinharts charge only to then "snapped" onto it - though that could certainly be 'favor the shooter' coming into effect as well assuming I'm visible/lined up on his screen.

 

[Aikouka]

Woot, got my first play of the game.

You... probably ought to just record it next time rather than writing it out. If you don't have recording software, just enable ShadowPlay or something like that. I used to use Fraps, but Shadowplay is just easier on resources (framerate and storage).

When I played in beta I had some issues with latency problems. I have some video I recorded where I toss my flashbang grenade while playing McGree at a target but they aren't stunned. I can upload it to youtube if you want. Basically I toss a grenade at a Mercy and she runs around like nothing happened.

Are you sure it wasn't a range issue? Flashbang doesn't have a very long toss range nor is its effect radius that large. It's really only reliable when tossed directly onto a person or right at their feet (i.e. when Genji is using Deflect) and you do need to be fairly close.

 

[HumblePie]

You... probably ought to just record it next time rather than writing it out. If you don't have recording software, just enable ShadowPlay or something like that. I used to use Fraps, but Shadowplay is just easier on resources (framerate and storage).



Are you sure it wasn't a range issue? Flashbang doesn't have a very long toss range nor is its effect radius that large. It's really only reliable when tossed directly onto a person or right at their feet (i.e. when Genji is using Deflect) and you do need to be fairly close.

The person was 3 meters away from me the first time and further away the second time. I know the distance and I have it on video. Not hard for me to edit and upload, just takes a bit of time to do so if you are interested in watching it.

 

[HumblePie]

Damage info spreadsheet for Overwatch in case anyone cares.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...IDMcFjdEsFkefcW_78mAIRKp0w/htmlview?sle=true#

Only thing not mentioned is Basic melee attacks which is 25 damage regardless of the hero.