#pve still exists

[catshavefeelings]

I hate the overwatch tag on tumblr. I just wanna look at women. Am I asking too much

[sleidog]

don't feel like spreading the poll of the week because theres enough negativity and pointed-ness around, however

[lenaperseveranceoxton]

I thought I heard a new Tracer elimination voice line on Sojourn while playing a Competitive match on the first day of Season 14 (December 10th), but I didn't post about it here because I saw it was already added to their quotation page on the Overwatch Fandom wiki, which I read was last updated on December 7th.

Well, I downloaded the recently-updated file extraction tool, sorted by new files, and saw it there, so I guess my instincts were right. I must've just misread the wiki page's history or something, but frankly, I was foolish to doubt that I hadn't memorized every pre-existing Tracer voice line by heart.

(The line was "Clocked out for the day, Sojo?", by the way. How many times have they called her "Sojo" now? I've lost count, but it never gets old.)

In more interesting news, I sorted by new image files first, and I saw two pictures of Maximilien.

At first, I thought "Whoa, is he finally going to be a hero?" Then, I realized Season 14 just started, and they're not going to be teasing Season 16's hero for a while.

As I skimmed through the voice lines, however, I first started hearing voice lines where he seemed to be granting certain heroes upgrades, and I thought it was for something similar to the recent "Junkenstein's Lab" and "Kingmaker" events. Then, I started hearing lines like "Get to cover-- quickly!", "They're behind you!", "I need to be revived!", and "Help me up, agents..." and started JUMPING OUT OF MY SEAT! ARE WE FINALLY GETTING A NEW PVE MODE AFTER THE LAYOFFS?

I say this because it's weird for him to tell the players to get to cover. It's weird for him to say "They're behind you," rather than just "Behind us!" if it was some sort of PvP escort mission. It's weird how many lines he has that, in a PvP environment, could lead to an overload of auditory stimuli. (That's why they removed very important lines like Soldier: 76's "You fought with honor, kid" and "You won't be forgotten" early on into Overwatch 1... very important to me, anyway.) It's all just WEIRD. This CAN'T be another one of my delusions. It just can't.

Now, back to the important matter at hand: Lena "Tracer" Oxton. Tracer has gotten four more voice lines in this update, which I guess are for this potential PvE mode? "I'm not giving up!", "Keep it going!", "Cheerio!", and "One down!"

(I thought "Cheerio!" could've been a rare Goodbye voice line like their rare "What's crackin'?" Hello voice line, but after spamming Goodbye in the Practice Range for less than a minute, I don't think that's the case.)

Unfortunately, while Maximilien also has lines thanking some heroes for saving him, it doesn't seem like he has one for Lena. He does say "Merci, Mercy. Merci," however, so I find it strange the writers felt the need to make a "Haha, French funny!" joke but couldn't write a line or two directed towards any members of the strike team that took him into custody all those years ago. It also would've been funny for him to make a jab about Lena protecting him better than they protected Tekhartha Mondatta or something, but it's fine. French funny, I guess.

Anyway, before I go, I need to keep a certain tradition on this blog going. I saw someone count that there were 54 new conversations in this update, and guess what! Lena and Jack STILL won't talk to each other!

[wyrmguardsecrets]

Take it with a grain of salt but I had a really bad experience with a guild on Mg Horde. It all happened in VC but even if I had evidence I don’t think I’d be comfortable posting it. My friend and I saw some cool Rp stuff and had talked about trying out Rp. Really cool marches and rp battles. It kept coming up until we finally decided to do it near the end of BfA. 

The stuff that got us interested was on Mg but we assumed that if they kept doing those kinds of events and spreading the word, the faction would get popular. I remade my toon over there and got into what seemed like a cool guild. Work stuff delayed by buddy. 

At first the guild seemed active but more indifferent to me as a new member. Nothing I hadn’t experienced before on PvE servers. A week and a half in, I saw two officers and some members in VC so I joined. I got a few hellos but they went back to chatting amongst themselves. I just listened and did my thing until they started talking about some lowbie in Org. I recognized the name because it was my friend. 

They called his toon “One of Thrall’s pussies” and agreed that they wouldn’t let that kind of trash exist on their server. I started whispering to my friend telling me what they were saying. The conversation turned into how Garrosh should have gutted Thrall like a fish and all this. Stupid stuff. Then they said that the first Siege of Org should have been Stormwind so they could have killed Andiun when he was still a “baby (gay slur)” and how Garrosh could finish what he started. 

Then they go on how Garrosh deserved to be the one to kill Anduin and debated if Garrosh would execute him while he was helpless or take him back to Org to kill him in the arena when he was healed. Then they talked about how more Alliance should be raid bosses so their bodies can be displayed in Org then Jaina being the last raid boss and how blizz robbed them of it. They talked about how Jaina could be displayed and by what body part she should be hung up by. One said they couldn’t hang her by her head because they should send the head to her mother. Then someone said they should “split her in two” like some movie with bone in the title. I never heard of that movie and I can’t remember the full name either. They all agreed that would be perfect because one half could be shown in Org and the other sent to her mother. 

At first I thought it was funny to hear them talk shit on my buddy and we laughed when I whispered it to him. But as the conversation got  darker, I started to feel like I was in some mini serial killer convention. I couldn't stomach the talk about Jaina so I left my computer. When I came back, they were talking about how if you go to war, you're “morally obligated to kill everyone” including children in order to win that war. This was one of the officers and they started talking about how in RL, you have to even kill the babies because “their blood was poisoned.” I left the call and left the guild. The officer whispered me but I didn’t read it. I logged out and deleted the toon. Gold and all. Told my buddy to do the same. 

That guild is still around and one of the top guilds from what I hear. When I hear about stuff on that server I believe it. Be careful. Those people pretend to be welcoming but they actually need help. Like straight jackets and padded rooms. Please be careful.

.

[t3chborb]

As depressing as the 2 Ramattra + Zenyatta spawn room interactions are, for me, 2 outta the 3 Ramattra + Echo interactions take the cake. Both are just... insane.

Echo: You... are an R-7000 unit. The one humans call... umm... Ramattra: Ravagers, yes. Squad killers, and... ruder things. Echo: Does it trouble you? Being so feared and hated? Ramattra: Once. Now, it gives me a warm little feeling inside.

... A few things:

(Putting a read more cuz the post got a bit long)

Being judged for being the model of omnic his soul just happens to occupy bothered him.

He likes it now. Which, good for him, but imagine liking being hated, especially when it used to bother you. Just how far gone you have to be for that?

... Does he truly like it now, or is he pulling an excuse out of his ass? Because the sheer strain in his voice when he finishes Echo's sentence kind of suggests otherwise.

Wait a minute... Does... does he hate his body??? That could explain why he's having a hard time talking about his model, yet is perfectly content with humans hating and fearing him, as that could be tied to his personal choices (standing up for the survival of his species, Null Sector, all that jazz), not something he can't control (his model, which is something he didn't choose and can't change)...

The other interaction doesn't get any better.

Ramattra: It's a shame none us have ever met Aurora, your predecessor. Echo: I hear that often. *throat clearing noise* What would you have asked her? Ramattra: The same thing I ask her every day. I wish she could answer.

The "asking every day" is potentially metaphorical, not pin-point accurate, which... honestly doesn't matter. He asks often enough to use such wording. That naturally begs the question, what is he asking?

When I first heard this interaction all the way back, I knew whatever he's asking has to be some rough shit, just based on the sheer nature of his character, and the fact Aurora is lowkey a God (weeell not entirely, according to Symmetra's short story, but whatever, close enough). But, it's hard to pinpoint what exactly he could be asking. Bro has a lot on his plate, and, at the time, there wasn't much evidence.

There certainly still isn't anything concrete to figure it out... but... since then, we have received this.

Sooooo just on the fact of where this information comes from, it isn't anything too solid. It's from the PVE missions menu. Which is told strictly from the perspective of the Overwatch-the-in-universe-organization's members. They don't know what the audience does. They don't even know who's in charge of Null Sector beyond Genji's educated guess.

That means this entry existing in OW's archives is from Genji, who is the only one on the squad who has any idea who Ramattra is. Aaand, based on Zen's flashback in the PVE missions, Genji has never even met Ramattra. So what Genji knows about the guy comes strictly from Zenyatta (maaaybe Mondatta), either by Zen being observant enough to notice, or Ramattra straight up told him.

Aaaand Ram and Zen haven't seen each other in decades. Obviously, Ramattra has changed a lot since his Shambali days. So OW's archive might not be exactly up to date.

But, it is the best piece of information we have. And Jesus Christ, it hurts a lot by itself, but in the context of Echo's interaction, it's even worse.

[loveswickedpitch]

see you in hell you stupid fruits: a rambling reflection on revue starlight relive

revue starlight relive has reached end of service, so i guess i might as well share my thoughts? if you just want the tl;dr, my opinion can be summed up as "good fucking riddance", but you know. might as well talk about it a bit more.

first off, things i liked about relive. i liked most of the new characters it introduced, even if they were pretty flat early on. it was clear that they weren't sure what to do with some of them, but they did expand on them and give them more depth over time. some of the events were cute. the battle system was fun. arcana arcadia had some cool stuff, even if i had already stopped actually playing the game by that point (more on that later). and, uh... that's kind of it, i guess.

none of this stuff was ever really able to overcome the game's flaws. the new characters were fun, but it was pretty clear that they didn't always know how to juggle them, and some characters would go months with no new events or cards (i recall Misora often being neglected). events often had cute moments and occasionally an interesting character tidbit, but a lot of the time they just felt like pointless fluff.

while the basic battle system was compelling, the game never did much with it. PvE stuff was mostly just bland grinding and PvP was a mess full of ridiculous power creep where if you wanted to keep up you had to either get super lucky with your pulls or spend hundreds of dollars. Leveling up and unlocking skills for characters was tedious. in fact, most of the gameplay was an exercise in tedium - eventually, i realized i was going to all this effort to raise characters and do dailies and shit for basically no reason! why bother grinding characters so i can beat event bosses over and over to get the many different types of materials when the only thing to do with them is make your characters better so that you can get more materials??? if you just wanted to experience the cutscenes, you didn't need to engage with the actual gameplay much at all, so why bother? that's not even mentioning the complete lack of variety in basic enemies and bosses that got reused over and over.

arcana arcadia was really cool, but i don't think the story was well-served by the format, and also it took years for them to get to it - the first story arc was pretty much nothing and the second mostly felt like a course correction rather than a compelling narrative arc on its own (especially the first half, imo - the Rinmeikan and Frontier stories were probably the best).

but even if all of this was fine, and the game had compelling gameplay and writing, it would still be bad, because it's just a slot machine with anime girls on it! the entire purpose of the game, the whole reason it exists in the first place, is to grab as much money as possible from vulnerable people. and i kind of debated on whether i would talk about this, but i was one of those people. i spent thousands of dollars on this game because it turns out, surprise, i have a gambling addiction! so it was very frustrating for the bulk of writing for this franchise was locked behind an app i could not safely use.

i think that's basically it. it was a bad game stapled to a slot machine that showed you yuri if you won and i'm glad it's dead.

at least junna and nana kissed.

[hellahezz]

this is coming out of nowhere but i still think about selvven and azarile (although he no longer exists in game) in cyrodiil together. that was fun times! and almost 10 years ago damn

AAAAAAAAAA Me too!!!! We had so much fun just hanging out in Cyrodiil all the time, I learned the ropes of PVP thanks to you 😁 I still can't believe how long it's been, Selvven is still here! More PVE now but I still bully him relentlessly <3

I found some old screenshots too!

Ah yes, back in the day where it was ugly default armour or nothing

[putwerewolvesindbd]

anniversary stream notes

twitch drops again. oh boy. until may 28th.

announcing new dbd game. what the fog is a co-op roguelite which you can get for free if you have a behavior account for a limited time

year 9 roadmap announced, including:

addressing rubberbanding issue, hopefully in the current ptb

six new chapters, some survivor-only:

june is the dnd chapter

july is a licensed survivor

august licensed killer & survivor duo

december original killer & survivor

march '25 licensed killer-only

april '25 original survivor-only

modifiers in july and september

special event-specific queues so you can play vanilla dbd if you like

adding new game mode in summer, 2v8 mode. has bigger maps, replaces perks with classes. no hooks, uses pyramid head's cages. can only choose from 5 original killers, but plan to add more if it goes over well. killers cannot both play the same killer.

more dlc bundle packs

new challenge system, can complete passively without having to select them & can do multiple at once

inbox system to remove news popups while still conveying announcements

finisher mori changes- basekit but can only use on last remaining survivor. mori offerings changed to just offer bp for finisher moris

cross-progression coming later this summer between console and pc dbd

expansion for the dbd board game, bringing in original characters up to knight

dnd chapter:

killer is vecna. he casts spells. survivors can pick up magic items from chests, specific contents determined by roll of d20. voiced by matt mercer.

killer perk: weave attunement. first time an item is depleted, survivor drops item. survivors in range of the dropped item have auras revealed. survivor who picks up item is oblivious.

killer perk: languid touch. if a survivor scares a crow within the terror radius they're exhausted

killer perk: dark arrogance. killer is blinded and stunned for longer but gain faster vault speed

survivor is aestri yazar. like legion, can play a different character with cosmetics, baermar uraz

survivor perk: mirrored illusion. after finishing a generator, can press ability button near a generator, chest, totem, or exit gate to conjure and illusion

survivor perk: bardic inspiration. do a performance around other survivors with different results depending on the roll of a d20.

survivor perk: still sight. stand still for a bit to see auras of generators, totems, and chests

[shoutout to dvveet on twitter who posted graphics with the perk details! they did not tell us on stream]

new map is a dungeon

new mechanic- passage. magic teleport doors

casting of frank stone updates: it's a game that exists. new trailer.

some bits from the unnamed pve game by midwinter was shown. given codename "project t." play as trespassers in the backwater, fight thralls, shoot them with guns. maybe drive trucks.

anniversary event masquerade details:

pre-masquerade login events with outfits + currency boosts each week

mad designer makes an appearance. not a playable character. will show up in trials with bag of tricks. will give players abilities at start & after certain "points" are accumulated, with up to 5 tricks in play per match.

do not have to escape with invitations to get cosmetics. cosmetics connected to even currency. can also get older masks in the store

new masks for: clown, doctor, hag, plague, skull merchant, twins, adam francis, kate denson, renato lyra, david tapp, thalita lyra, yun-jin lee

survivors can use invitations to go into quiet mode and not make noise. killers can use them to immediately send downed survivors to a hook

outfits for the unknown, bill overbeck, and the pig

dbd 7-piece dice set up for pre-order

CASTLEVANIA CONFIRMED

[randomnameless]

Three houses get more representation in heroes because its popular ?

I guess?

My issue isn't with how popular or loved Fodlan is, but what FEH was supposed to be.

With FE Cipher, even if Fates and Awakening were very popular, we still had entire sets featuring FE6 characters. Ditto for FE4/5/8 (tfw a Bael got its own card).

CYL is a popularity contest, that much I understand.

And yet, I also understand FEH is supposed to be a celebration of the franchise itself - bla bla FEH is a main game because Vero is a paid DLC in Engage bla but would anyone really pay 60 bucks to play book 1 and 6 about Vero's story? Really ? If this is a main game , then the first warriors game is one too lol - so why are the same 3 games over represented ?

In Cipher, we had a Fates set, then a Jugdral set (featuring CIpher OCs?), then an Archanea set, then an awakening set, then a Valentia one, etc etc.

But if they follow the current FEH, it'd be one fodlan set, one thracia set, one fodlan set, one awakening set, one fodlan set, one tellius set, one fodlan set, one elibe set, one fodlan set etc.

I really get how popular units/games will always sell and the fan favourites are always represented, I played through 2 Tales gacha games lol, Links had basically a bajillion of Leons and Yuris while poor Caius barely existed, and Rowen never got a premium unit!

CYL is a fan event - for sure - but beyond CYL, it's just FEH that tires me - it's not a celebration of the FE series anymore, it's just a cashgrab to take money from some fans using their current obsession (Fateswakening in Year1-2, Fodlan now) so while it never concerned me in the first few years, I dgaf and moved on, wondering if the units I like would ever get a thing (and they did! Saias was released for free lol) but now with the state of powercreep the game has?

You have to roll for units, to get their skills and fodder them to units you care about, and even then, they might not be able to clean PVE content - I like when things are challenging, sure, but the last Seer's Snare was a cruel wake-up : even with the newest shiny skills and whatnot, Caineghis cannot compete with duo!Anna. P!Naesala has the WTA against them? Who gives a fig, he dies on initiation.

Hegemongard was just a prelude to what FEH would become lol - even if, with investment, old units could still put up a fight against her, but you had to get dedicated team to counter her.

Now? With a team with W!Mitris, L!Alear and A!Elincia? Good luck tanking anything lol - sure, Tina is a godsend and I find if hilarious how this random nobody from FE5 is supposed to counter the crazed current meta, but it's the same issue - sell ridiculous units, and sell ridiculous counters.

It's the essence of a gacha game.

Maybe the next A!Caineghis or maybe a L!Caineghis will make the character relevant again - at least if you want to play and use him, but... as far as FEH is concerned, no one gaf about Cain, so he might have gotten a refine and yet he'll not get another unit. Forgive him in you want to play PVE content - or roll for new premium units and field him as a cute mascot.

[dykeishheart]

Hmm. Upon further play with dlc weapons spells and ashes, I have to wonder if the devs remembered their own game's power scaling.

Some spells hit like a truck but most hit like soggy spaghetti. Some ashes of war are godly strong and some are just worse versions of existing ashes but which cost more to use, and some are entirely useless for pve because their movement is just batshit. Absolutely nothing costs a sensible amount of fp to use. Some weapons are either flaming trash or are capable of melting Malenia with minimal effort, with only like one or two exceptions that exist in a mythic "just okay" category. All of the new spell casting tools suck, like literally all of them. Never use any of them.

Maybe this is a bad opinion but like I would kinda think you want every new spell and ash of war added by a paid dlc to be strong. They put in a whole new subcategory of incantation called Bear Communion that has five permanenr stackable buffs that can apply to it (Ralva's hide, roar talisman, Godfrey icon, the two incantation boosting talismans) and it tops out at like 1k damage on a charged cast (without any extra cheese like stacking golden vow, fgms, and howl of shabriri) while taking almost ten seconds to perform, which is still less damage than two casts of catch flame on the same build.

[sttrinians2007]

i don't get why people are still crying about ow2 pve. who actually enjoys playing pve on ow... it was never going to be good anyway wtf are you complaining about not getting? i do think they should take a page out of apex book and develop uhhh the lore a bit more because at this point it's these characters just... exist ... and there is no story. (PSA i do NOT like the fucking weird comics that apex makes, but i appreciate a little lore trailer at the beginning of every season). add SOMETHING for the freaks, jfc.

[asmallgaycow]

why do exotic catalyst quests force you to play pvp for some of them, it's such bullshit. I don't like pvp, I never have, and forcing me to suffer to finish a quest for something COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO PVP is just bullshit. Like, what's the logic here? I just want the cryothesia catalyst. Why do I have to go and get 50 kills in crucible? I tried it. I hate it. If you're trying to force players to try something they normally wouldn't do, then at least for the love of fuck make the investement not so hard. make it like one or two kills. but 50!? and yeah I know the catalyst boosters exist, but you still have to get quite a few kills. and you have to get it *with the gun you're trying to catalyze.* so I'm stuck plinking away at shotgunners and snipers with my shitty little sidearm that really doesn't work in pvp. this fucking sucks. at least give us the option to do pvp or pve for fucks sake.

[schifty-al]

So I've connected two mental points and I'm gonna put them out here despite whether or not anyone else comprehending anything I have to say.

While I was 8 hours into a 9 hour day my boss reminded me not to work so hard after staging everything I could possibly need before leaving for the day. After some peace and quiet for awhile I realized I felt a familiar feeling that I'm going to struggle to explain.

"I'm just some guy, but literally no one else I know could possibly do what I'm doing. It has to be me; somebody else might fuck it up."

I realized I've had that feeling multiple times before. The moment that stands out the most from my memory is the earliest when I use to play Star Wars battlefront almost 2 decades ago on Xbox. I would constantly play as a basic grunt pushing forward barely surviving the onslaught between me and my objective. Thinking, "I'm just some guy, but I'm gonna be the hero that wins this battle and saves as many of my comrades as I can cause I'm the only one who can."

Then I was doing the same thing in Conker live and reloaded multiplayer PvE campaign. Playing a grunt that pushed through the impossible to achieve the objective and save who I can.

Fast-forward to Mass Effect 2, Mordin Solus, "Had to be me, someone else might've gotten it wrong." Etched itself into my brain.

Thinking about how even with some help I'm the one who processed probably 7000 out of 9000 packages my tiny little post office scanned today. How my decision not to stay home is one of the major factors a Canadian company that only exists because of the exploitation of indentured servants and blatantly lying to their customers is still turning a profit.

If I just stopped working harder than most humans can comprehend would that make a difference, would it help, or would it just piss off tens of thousands of people and make no difference by the end of the week?

[nitewrighter]

is it just me or is the overwatch team not focusing as much on lore as they used to? are they doing this on purpose because of pve or are they just forgetting to develop characters in multiple mediums

Well I mean this has been an ongoing logistical issue with the fact that there's over 30 heroes in the cast for a while (we all remember where we were when the Devs said Hanzo is as relevant to the central plot as the hamster...) as well as the need to continually introduce new heroes to keep the game fresh.

I think it's a combination of saving a lot of material for the PvE, and also I think in the future there is going to be less of a focus on linear lore and they're going to go for more of a 'toy box' approach similar to what League of Legends has--lots of AU's based on skins, less emphasis on a super strong central canon once the PvE has set off all of its lore bombs. I think StarWatch being introduced with its comic, skins, and game mode represents this shift as well. I don't think they'll drop the 'core' world of Overwatch completely, as that's still a vital baseline for introducing new heroes and also their novels and short stories, but the 'core' plot is going to be more of a vehicle for introducing new characters, and the new characters themselves are vehicles for further fleshing out the world and prompting new interactions from the existing cast. In the meantime fan favorites will get re-interpreted in events and game modes that aren't necessarily 'canon' but have their own plots--like Junkenstein's Revenge and StarWatch. I think the fact that each Battlepass season has its own 'Theme' leads into this as well.

[hmsquared]

I was browsing Steam just now, and I saw Overwatch has an overwhelmingly negative review score. Here are my thoughts on this.

I want to start off by saying that I don't support Activision Blizzard in the controversies they've caused. I think the company has a bit of an ego problem and it needs to pull itself together.

That being said, I love Overwatch. I haven't played it in a while, but I still love it. I think everyone can find a character that they like, even if they don't play video games. The various maps are incredibly detailed, even though they didn't have to be. And aside from XCOM, I can't think of a franchise with a more diverse cast.

I've seen people complaining about the microtransactions and having to pay for lore missions. What I have not seen those people talking about is the original cost $60. While I'm pretty neutral on microtransactions, I do think Overwatch switching to free-to-play is ultimately a good thing. It means more people have a chance to play, especially those who can't afford tons of $60 games.

Then there's the cut PvE content. Personally, I've never been a fan of Overwatch's single player missions, so I'm not too angry about it. That being said, I understand why people are pissed. I mentioned this a long time ago, but I think Overwatch 2's development suffered from expectations. People wanted the thing to come out polished and perfect and complained about the beta. Every game has its bugs, and as shitty as Activision Blizzard treats its employees, you have to admit Overwatch is in a playable condition.

I understand people's anger with the old Overwatch not existing anymore. Frankly, I'm still getting used to it as well. But review bombing a perfectly serviceable game is not cool. It's childish.

[t3chborb]

OW2 PVE has been axed completely, huh...

*sigh

I can't say I didn't see it coming to some extent, buuuut I still, perhaps foolishly, was holding onto hope that we'd get something. Nothing too grand, but still something. Cuz otherwise, 7 years of world building would be down the fucking drain.

Ha, ha, haaaa...

Honestly, live service games are the single worst possible medium to tell stories that exists. Fictional stories need an ending to be effective, but live service games want to run into perpetuality for that sweet sweet cash flow. If OW got a proper ending, how would Blizz keep shoving in new heroes? They would all have to be disconnected from the Talon/OW/Null Sector alignments because, well, where were those people when shit was going down? Yes, they could keep on making characters that are generally not connected to the main plot like Lifeweaver and Illari, people that just kind of exist in the world, but with a finished story they'd feel tacked on. Purposeless. And at that point what would keep lore and world building enthusiasts interested? All those casuals buying the precious virtual cosmetics? Gameplay, sure, but you cannot tell me all of them are playing the video game purely for the gameplay.

So while I can understand the reasoning behind the cancellation (as fucking shitty as capitalism is), and as inevitable as it was, it's still terrible after all of the teasing.