My experience with Overwatch Competitive

I’ve been playing Overwatch for multiple years at this point ever since the closed beta.  Over the past year my love for the game has diminished to the point where I don’t really enjoy playing it.  Now when I play Overwatch it is to play my seven weekly competitive games so I can maintain my rank for the game, which I don’t even always do anymore.  Overwatch for me used to be a really fun game that I could always play and enjoy now now the game feels watered down and isn’t close to being as fun for me and I want to find out why so I think I should start at the beginning.

How my Overwatch journey began was one of my friends at the time had a beta account and he let me play on it because I saw game play of the it and wanted to try it out myself.  So till the full release I would share it with him. In the beta I came to love the game and would play every second when my friend wasn’t online and I had free time. When the game officially came out I really wanted to get it but I wasn’t able to so I would move on a different friends account, I would play on their only for a little while till I got my own account.

When I finally did get my own account about a year after the game officially released I jumped straight into competitive with my friend.  That was a bad decision because at the time my friend was in the upper 5% of players so everyone there was way better than anything I had experienced.  Even though I wasn’t absolutely terrible it was my first time playing in a more competitive atmosphere compared to the casual quick play where people would mostly just goof off.  Because of this I got placed in low gold which was below the average player.  This was because the game would compare my match statistics to other players that were in my MMR the hidden skill rating the game gives you, usually when you do your first ten ranked matches the game uses an algorithm to detect which rank you should be placed in and since it has no idea in the placement games it places you in your MMR.  So I should have been playing against people my own MMR in my placement matches but rather I ended up playing with the top 5% of players.  Because of this my statistics for the game were significantly worse than the other in my game and other players that have my MMR going against equal opponents.

When I first got placed in low gold I was a little bummed because I did want to do good.  So I decided to make myself improve as much as I could, I would record matches and watch them over and watch some of the best players in the world and analyze what they did that was good and what they did that was bad.  But, when I was doing all this I enjoyed it, I was having fun so it didn’t seem like work.  Then after doing all these things to improve I would slowly climb in rank going from Gold to Platinum then to Diamond and then Masters.  All that happened over around a year, over a year I had climbed up and improved to where I had originally been destroyed in my first 10 matches ever.

Cut to present day and I’m much better at the game but it turned out to be a curse in disguise more than anything, people in higher skill ranks people are more rude or commonly known as toxic, and the games variety gets boiled down to everyone playing the same thing because it is more powerful than everything else and gives you a winning advantage.  If I had stayed in lower ranks it might had lead me to stay in a more casual experience.  Also the game sadly has deteriorated over time heroes have been added in that don’t seem balanced in one way or another.  Some heroes are too weak, some are too powerful, some are only viable at a certain skill rank and the list goes on.  I think one of the reasons why the game ends up with such poor hero design is not because the team working on it for the game isn’t talented it is because they are rushed they make and release a new hero every 4 months. Along making new heroes the team also has to work on the things already in the game like fixing bugs, changing already existing heroes whether it is changing a cool down for a hero’s attack or entirely changing everything about the hero other than the model.  Though I used to love the game I don’t think I will be playing it much in the future sadly.

Related image (All Overwatch Competitive Ranks, the numbers on the right is the Skill Rating number)

Why I dislike Brawl Stars

So usually I don’t cover mobile games but this new game Brawl Stars has been blowing up.  It is made my Super cell the same company who made two other extremely popular mobile games including Clash of Clans and Clash Royal.  Brawl Stars Super cell’s latest game is a top down shooter where you can unlock different heroes and play in a variety of game modes such as a battle royale and a 3v3 where players fight for gems that spawn in the middle of the map. By playing these game modes

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Now for why I dislike Brawl Stars.  The most irritating thing is the trophy system, The entire system is based off of how much time you put into the game instead of how good you are at the game.  Which I think is kind of dumb if they are to add such a rating.  Earning trophies is extremely tedious as well where each game seems to only reward you up to 6 and losses take around 2.  Now there seems to be extra trophies awarded for being MVP which allows you to get up too 6 trophies on the winning side and lose 0 on the losing side either way. This slow progress is even more punishing and tedious because many heroes and game modes are unplayable till you hit a certain trophy count.  So you have to play the same boring game modes until you eventually unlock another one.  I think you should have access to all of them once you start playing the game.  If they made it so there was  a casual and competitive playlist that would be much better, that way the casual one could be based of time spent in the playlist  because losing would not make you lose trophies and you would have all game modes unlocked.  While in the competitive playlist which would have it’s own trophies along with it would reward you based on the current trophy system. I understand why certain heroes and other rewards can be locked behind trophy count because it makes the player want to grind and it makes the game feel more rewarding but I don’t think this should also be applied to game modes.  Now one of the things that I was afraid of  immediately once learning the base of the game is that it might be a pay to win type game where one can use real money to buy heroes that are just unreasonably more powerful than others,  and though that is does apply a little bit it isn’t as much as I though most characters seems well balanced and each one even the beginner characters can be played against the rarer characters.

Left 4 Dead 2 First Impressions

Image result for Left 4 Dead 2     Recently over winter break I decided to purchase Left 4 Dead 2 because it was recommended to me by friends and it had a holiday sale.  At first I was a bit hesitant because I thought it might end up being one of the games that I open once a month for 30 mins because of how old it is.  Left 4 Dead 2 was released in 2009 making around 10 years old.  But, I got it any ways because it was super cheap anyway and when I started playing I all my expectations were surpassed.  For a game made in 2009 it still had pretty fun game play with cool mechanics for different zombies you could become and all the different weapons and not to mention the really well made maps.  As well as the fact that their are still many active players on PC so it wasn’t as hard to find a game as I thought.  Playing with friends also made very fun because of how hectic it was and it seemed as there was never any downtime. Though Left 4 Dead 2 is really old I still think it is one of the best if not the best zombie game I’ve ever played and it should set the bar for any other zombie games.

First Time Playing Subnautica

As of this post I have about 5 hours on Subnautica.  Around 2 hours in Survival and 3 hours in Creative.  If you want to check it out for yourself the game it is free till the end of the month on the Epic Games Launcher, the same place you go to play Fortnite on PC.

Initial Thoughts

First off Subnautica is a survival game where you are the sole survivor of a spaceship crash onto a planet that is entirely water. When starting off it was pretty straightforward, it provided you with some food and water and your escape pod for shelter.  The beginning was pretty slow because you have just get some basic materials.  But, after the slow start the game really picks up there are so many biomes, shipwrecks, destroyed escape pods to explore and from these new areas your character learns how to create new vehicles and how to make bases and so many really cool things.  After playing a little bit in Survival I decided to jump into Creative to see as much of the game as I could.  I proceeded to create the vehicles and tried making a base of my own and it really surpassed my expectations.  The vehicles I played with and thought were really fun was the robotic suit that lets you go around in the depths while having a sense of security, the little underwater submarine which made going around to gather materials millions of times easier, and my personal favorite the full fledged submarine which allows you to go to depths that I didn’t even know existed and the whole submarine is accessible and allows storage for the robot suit or mini-sub and when using it felt like a mobile home.

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Destiny 2: Black Armoury

Black Armoury Overview

On Tuesday, December 4th Destiny released a new type of DLC content called the Annual Pass.  The Annual Pass allows players to unlock exclusive content on top of the new content provided each season.  But, the content provided through the Annual Pass is time restricted in that each weekly reset on tuesday players will be slowly given more and more content from this seasons Annual Pass dlc.  The Annual Pass dlc for the new Season called the Season of the Forged is the Black Armoury.  From what is known after the first week of it’s release the Black Armoury explores a hidden golden age weapon founder that are no longer able to create their wares because of the events that happened in Destiny 2’s base campaign.  So to help them we as players must find the Black Armouries hidden forges and reignite their flames so the Black Armoury can be back in business.

First Forge Released (Volundr Forge)

My Experience (so far)

One of the biggest community complaints is that the new forge activities were at the level of 650. Previous to the launch of the new season and Black Armoury the level max was 600, so the day of launch many players were not able to experience the main part of initial release because they were to low level to be a threat to the enemies in the forges.  Personally I did find it a bit frustrating when I first hopped on.  But, it actually makes sense, Bungie the developers of Destiny said the Annual Pass would provide new endgame content because according to the Destiny community there should be more.  And for players to get on expecting to be able to instantly tackle the new “end game content” is bizarre.  Endgame Activities in Destiny are never something an average player can just hop into expecting to complete.  I think it is fine as well considering that each week we will be getting a certain amount of content to experience so there is no need to rush it and complete it all in one day and I think that something the Destiny community does that harms itself is that to be a good player you need to almost speedrun new content completing it as fast as possible which ruins the fun to an extent and hopefully with the time gated content releases on weekly resets will fix that.

My Top 5 Favorite Games/ Game Franchises

This list was made in no particular order and I by no means am saying that these are the best Games/ Game Franchises these are just some games that I personally enjoyed and currently enjoy a lot.

Assassin’s Creed Franchise:

Assassins Creed 2 was one of the first games I really loved. I spent countless hours playing the game whether it was doing main missions, side missions, or just exploring the world and messing around. My love for the game would make me interested in the rest of the franchise and even more than that the lore of all the games. I would always go on youtube and see the story of each game and how it would tie into the story of the franchise.

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Skyrim:

Skyrim was also one of the first games I loved, playing it around the same time as I did the Assassins Creed 2. Skyrim has number 3 in having the highest playtime I have on any of the games i’ve ever played. I spent around 600+ hours in the game of Skyrim exploring the massive world and completing every small bit of the game that I could until I beat 100% of the game and then making a new save and doing it all over except on a harder difficulty.

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Destiny Franchise:

I first discovered Destiny though recommendations from friends and I tried it because it was also made by Bungie the creators of the Halo franchise another game franchise I love Destiny 1 was the first online game I had ever played with friends. This made it so much more fun than anything I had played before. I already loved the game by itself but playing with friends enhanced that experience times 10. One of my favorite memories of all time was playing the Kings Fall raid for the first time with friends as they babied me through it for 9 hours. This love from Destiny 1 enticed me to play Destiny 2 a fresh and revamped version to the old game that had been updated for 4 years till Bungie realized it would be a good idea to announce Destiny 2. So far Destiny 2 has been one of my go to games and I love playing with all of the friends i’ve made through the game. Over Destiny 1 and 2 I have spent over 1400 hours in the world of Destiny even though it is technically 2 games I count the playtime together making the Destiny franchise have the most playtime i’ve ever had in a game.

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Overwatch:

Overwatch was my first pc game around 4 years ago.  I really wanted to play it ever since I heard about it before it was released and it was in its beta stage.  I loved the concept of a shooter where there a multiple characters and each one does something totally different. Also just like Destiny it was a multiplayer game so playing it with freinds made it that much more fun.  After 4 years I still play Overwatch even though it isn’t as fun as it used to be for me it is still better than Fortnite and it is one of my go to games today.

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Halo Franchise:

Halo Reach was my first shooter game and I was immediately hooked. Although I never really played the multiplayer aspect of Halo Reach I still really enjoyed the campaign an other single player modes. In later on Halo games I would begin playing online more and I would play custom games created by the Halo community which made me love the game franchise even more. Even though I don’t play the newer Halo games for 2 reasons one of them is that I don’t have a xbox 1 another being I don’t enjoy them as much as I used to, but the old halos I used to play as a kid are great classics for me.

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Destiny 2 – Festival of the Lost Review

I know this is a bit delayed because I missed a couple days either way this is my review of the festival of the lost in Destiny 2. Festival of the lost is the annual halloween event for the Destiny franchise. Sadly last year Destiny 2 did not get it’s Festival of the Lost because the game release date was around the same time that the Festival of the Lost would occur. Which means this is the first Festival of the Lost in Destiny 2 and it is came with some new in game rewards and content so lets hop right in.

The New Content

This years festival of the lost brought the return of the iconic mask which let you play as the in game npc (Non Player Characters). Some of the notable few include master rahool the ultimate meme master of the destiny franchise, the man who can crush your loot dreams when you hope to get a new piece of gear but end up getting your 16th grenade launcher that day and the colonel the late hunter vanguard Cayde-6’s beloved pet chicken just to name a few.  Along with the basic weapon and armour shaders, emotes, and emblems. The big piece of this event is the Haunted Forest a new 3 player pve experience where players explore randomly generated areas and kill enemies to build progress towards a boss fight and players repeat this progress as many times as possible before the timer of 15 minutes is over. Every time the boss is killed the level of enemies gets higher making each wave harder and harder. Each wave completed at the end of the 15 minutes grants a fragmented soul. Fragmented souls can be used to buy the event shaders, emblems, masks, and the pinnacle event reward.

Pinnacle Reward and Fragmented Souls

The new horror story auto rifle is a new and revamped version of one of the original and beloved Destiny 2 weapons the origin story. The horror story is a top tier weapon with a set assortment of top tier perks including rampage which increases damage every time the player gets a kill stacking 3 time increasing overall damage up to 65% the other perk is zen moment which increases weapons stability when damage is dealt with the weapon. It also comes with a fully masterworked reload perk which is amazing in the current state of the game since the average player doesn’t have the materials necessary to manually masterwork a weapon fully.  Overall the Horror Story is a beast

See the source image

Overall experience

Overall this years festival of the lost was a step in the right direction for Destiny 2 events but it is not where it should be. Destiny 2 events should have more longevity and replayable content. In this years festival of the lost the new game mode was extremely repetitive and it wasn’t all that fun after the first few games. Also the event provided good loot to grind for so there was a lot to grind for in the game, but the second the event was over all of the things everyone was grinding for was gone and Destiny 2 went back to being bland. If there was a way to be able to start to grind for something and then work towards it as you please that would make the game a more pleasnt experience overall. I also understand that Bungie the creators of Destiny 2 want event items to be exclusive and difficult to get but this also leads to players burning out on the game. So even though the game because very fun and grindy during an event the it makes the overall experience of Destiny worse afterwards and Bungie should try to find a way to carry the excitement of an event to Destiny 2 when there are no special events going on.

Overwatch: Return of Junkenstein’s Revenge

October 9th marked the third year for Junkenstein’s Revenge, the inaugural Halloween event for the hero shooter game Overwatch. Every year this event comes with the limited time event called Junkenstein’s Revenge. It is a PvE (Player vs. Environment) horde mode where 4 players must protect a door from the onslaught of Professor Junkenstein and his creations. Junkenstein will send his minions which will act as bosses to defeat while killing the normal waves of enemies that stack upon the bosses will try to kamikaze on the door making it increasingly difficult to juggle all the enemies at once. There are also tires made by Professor Junkenstein that will speed through everything and head straight to the door to try and damage it. If the door takes too much damage to the minions and tires it will collapse ending with the fail of the mission. Another way to fail is if all 4 teammates die to bosses, minions, and tires. This mission can be played in 4 different difficulties Normal, Hard, Epic, Legendary. But, if all waves are survived and players defeat the final battle where players must fight all the bosses at once with more enemies and tires spawning than before than they will succeed and complete the event. There is also another way to play called Junkenstein’s endless, in this mode once players survive the regular amount of waves required to finish an event they will be thrusted into bonus waves where everything will become 10x harder.

Like any other Overwatch event it is not complete without it’s skins. This time around the Halloween skins were more detailed and innovated than ever before. For example the enchanted armor skin for the hero Pharah which is controlled by a ghost so when the hero dies the armor clutters to the floor as if the ghost controlling had disappeared. Another new skin is Jack-O-Lantern for Hammond aka. Wrecking Ball his skin was changed in that his suit of armor becomes a pumpkin that instead of shooting bullets shoot candy.

So come join the Overwatch community and enjoy the spooky festivities of Junkenstein’s Revenge.

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Enchanted Armor (Pharah)

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Jack-O-Lantern (Hammond aka. Wrecking Ball)

Destiny 2 – Corruption Week

Finally 21 days after the drop of Destiny 2’s latest DLC named “Forsaken” the end game area The Dreaming City has reached its final stage of corruption induced by the Taken, an evil parasite corrupting the galaxy. Players everywhere finally got to witness this stage of The Dreaming City and along with it came many secrets.

First up after completing the Blind Well challenge and going to turn in the offering to the oracle something unexpected happened instead of the regular dialogue from Mara Sov, thought to be dead for years, queen of the Awoken, and sister of Uldren Sov killer of Cayde-6 beloved by all hunter vanguard. Players actually got to travel through a portal to meet the notorious Mara Sov confirming all the theories that she is alive once and for all.

Other news relating to Mara Sov is that this week players got to experience a mission that has been teased for weeks, The Shattered Throne. It was hidden mission found in the dungeons that can only be found by entering the taken portals in the Dreaming City once every three weeks. Upon entering The Shattered Throne it is found to be at an astounding power level of 585 while the average player base at the time of this article is around 555. This made it a new and challenging experience to Destiny called a Dungeon a so called 3 man raid with puzzles and bosses, with the average clear taking anywhere from two and a half to a whopping 5 hours. The size of The Shattered Throne is very large as well, as big as half of the Dreaming City and containing as many secrets as the Dreaming City itself. Thankfully this mission grants a very anticipated piece of gear the wishender exotic bow that grants wallhacks within a short distance. This exotic bow also allows players to to finally destroy the ahamkara(baby dragon) eggs around the dreaming city. It is still unknown what these dragon eggs do or what will happen when they are all destroyed but, it is speculated to maybe start a new hidden exotic questline like the whisper of the worm exotic sniper rifle.

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The picture above shows only about one-eighth of the the Shattered Throne dungeon. It is made clear the size of the Shattered Throne and there are no doubt many more hidden secret inside. Hopefully overtime we, The Destiny community will be able to uncover everything the Shattered Throne is hiding.