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BlizzCon Main Stage Overwatch Panel

by - 9 years ago

Immediately following the announcement of Blizzard’s latest game, Overwatch, an unannounced panel was held for the new title on the main stage. Panel hosts Christ Metzen and Jeffrey Kaplan took the stage to discuss the game’s design philosophies, story, characters, abilities, character roles, maps, and much more.

Tracer and Character Design Philosophy

Overwatch Tracer Abilities BlizzCon 2014

 

Overwatch will feature many playable characters, not the least of which being the 12 announced just hours ago. For the panel, Metzen and Kaplan used Tracer as a springboard for discussion on how they’re approaching abilities and other character-related design ideas.

For Overwatch, Kaplan explains, abilities are meant to be “extremely simple…and fun in and of themselves, but when put together, they can be used in deep ways to create interesting combinations.”

For Tracer, this amounts to two abilities that use her Energy resource, as well as her Pulse Pistols, which constitute her regular attack. She has three bars of Energy, which are expended to use any of the following:

  • Blink: A teleport ability that instantly transports her 10 meters–it uses 1 “tick” of Energy and can be used successively
  • Recall: Returns her to her exact position and health pool three seconds before use

Characters also have an Ultimate Ability. Ultimate Abilities spend charge built up on the Ultimate Meter. Trace uses Pulse Bomb, which sticks to any surface (walls, ceilings, etc.), as well as other players and objects. It explodes for “devastating damage in a small radius.”

Kaplan went on to explain that these abilities are exciting to see work together. He gave an example with Tracer and Torbjörn, a builder/tinker character. While Torbjörn could be setting up a turret to defend a strategic crunch point in a map, Tracer could quickly Blink up to the turret, stick it with her Pulse Bomb, and Recall away, clearing the way for her team to take down an objective.

While players might be tempted to lock in to playing one character frequently (and likely will develop favorites), Kaplan explained that the design intent is for players to change characters often. At each resurrection, players are able to change who they play, and therefore how they play and interact with their team.

Hero Roles

Overwatch has four distinct Hero Roles. They’re markedly different from World of Warcraft‘s, as Kaplan explained that they are loose and dependent on gameplay circumstances. He mentioned that they’re largely intended to help organize gameplay. These roles include Offense, Defense, Tank, and Support.

Overwatch has been designed with these roles to change up the usual first-person shooter gameplay, making the game more attractive to players of other types of games, like MMOs. Characters are designed to die less frequently. Metzen elaborated that “more survivability means more interaction with the team you’re playing with.”

While this is true, different roles will fair better in different situations.

Offense

Overwatch Hero Roles Offense BlizzCon 2014

 

Offense characters are often the first to arrive at map objectives, are usually the fastest, and often have the highest damage output. They aren’t suited to tank due to their low survivability. Their highlights include:

  • Scouting: They can get ahead of the team and see the layout and composition of enemy players, as well as turrets and other strategic objects
  • Harassing: They’re good at harrying teams from behind due to their speed and damage, whittling down the weakest to make the team more manageable
  • Pressing the Objective
  • High Damage

Examples include Tracer (who sports Blink and Pulse Bomb), Pharah (who can use a rocket pack to fly over the map), Reaper (who can teleport out-of-combat around the map), and Hanzo (who can scale buildings and attack from above).

Defense

Overwatch Hero Roles Defense BlizzCon 2014

 

 

Defensive characters are best suited for locking down map objectives and choke points, as well as establishing static defenses, like turrets. Their highlights include:

  • Guarding Locations: They can lay down turrets and generally survive a little better than offensive characters, so they can lock down and hold on until help arrives
  • Creating Choke Points: Their objects and abilities allow them to funnel the enemy into more manageable spaces
  • Establishing Fronts: They can form the battlefield and the flow of combat

Defensive characters are more strategic generally. Kaplan explained a situation in which Torbjörn laid down his turret on the top of an EMT (a kind of moving vehicle element in the map) in King’s Row, which internal players affectionately call the “Killdozer.” The Killdozer would then mow players down as it moved across the map.

Tank

Overwatch Hero Roles Tank BlizzCon 2014

Tanks, as is typical in Blizzard games, focus on protecting those around (and behind) them. They benefit from an enlarged health pool and, because of their armor, take 50% less damage than other characters. Their abilities also help them hold the line. Their highlights include:

  • Protecting
  • High Survivability
  • Disrupting: Their survivability lets them jump into the fray and “disrupt” enemy attacks and strategy without getting killed
  • Leading the Charge

Kaplan explained in particular how Winston’s abilities help him both defend and disrupt. Defensively, Winston can deploy a shield that blocks all incoming fire but allows his allies to safely fire from behind. For disruption, Winston can go into Primal Rage, which allows him to knock enemy players around and cause general havoc.

Support

Overwatch Hero Roles Support BlizzCon 2014

Support characters are those which mitigate damage for players by throwing out buffs and healing, or those which throw out debuffs on their enemies for greater damage. Kaplan applauds their inclusion, stating that he feels they change up the first-person shooter genre enough to attract players who don’t traditionally take to such games. Their highlights include:

  • Healing
  • Buffing/Debuffing
  • Utility

Some interesting examples include Mercy, Zenyatta, and Symmetra. Mercy can either use her Healing Stream to heal team members or buff them for increased damage. Zenyatta can place healing orbs on himself and others for minor healing, as well as debuff enemies with Orb of Discord for increased damage (which stacks). Symmetra is able to build up to 6 mini-turrets (similar to a defensive character) which can stick to walls, ceilings, and other places, as well as create a teleporter which instantly transports team members to her location.

 

Maps and Game Modes

Overwatch is starting with only a handful of maps. Kaplan explained that this is because they would rather have a few well-developed, simple-yet-strategic maps than boast about tons of confusing ones off the bat. From a game mode perspective, design has stayed away from “deathmode”-type matches, since gameplay is based on team coordination and strategy, not mowing down enemies.

Three maps were discussed, including King’s Row, Temple of Anubis, and Hanamura. Metzen chimed in on each explaining the story elements, such as the Temple of Anubis, which is set on Earth in a future Giza. The Temple is a juxtaposition of the historic and established (Egyption temples and pyramids) as well as the fantasy and science fiction, with elements of high technology, robot building, and other neat flavor accents.

The juxtaposition of new and old is a common element in all three maps. Hanamura, hometown of Hanzo, mashes the suburban and traditional “oriental” style together, and King’s Row sports a bustling British London above with an underworld of robots and technology below.

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JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


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