Jetsetlemming

Currently playing through this on hard, about four hours in. All the "???" enemies are bullet (/glue/wrench whack/stun gun zap) sponges so far, unless I get a good toss of an explosive can at them, but it definitely keeps me on my toes when even the common mimicks can sometimes kick my ass. Also pretty interested in the story and its mystery so far.  I tried exploring the outside of the station during the Zero G bit, as part of the second story quest, and got the shit kicked out of me by not one, not two, but three different weird aliens I'd never seen anything remotely like. Space is scary.

Currently playing through this on hard, about four hours in. All the "???" enemies are bullet (/glue/wrench whack/stun gun zap) sponges so far, unless I get a good toss of an explosive can at them, but it definitely keeps me on my toes when even the common mimicks can sometimes kick my ass. Also pretty interested in the story and its mystery so far.  I tried exploring the outside of the station during the Zero G bit, as part of the second story quest, and got the shit kicked out of me by not one, not two, but three different weird aliens I'd never seen anything remotely like. Space is scary.

Currently playing through this on hard, about four hours in. All the "???" enemies are bullet (/glue/wrench whack/stun gun zap) sponges so far, unless I get a good toss of an explosive can at them, but it definitely keeps me on my toes when even the common mimicks can sometimes kick my ass. Also pretty interested in the story and its mystery so far.  I tried exploring the outside of the station during the Zero G bit, as part of the second story quest, and got the shit kicked out of me by not one, not two, but three different weird aliens I'd never seen anything remotely like. Space is scary.

My friend asked me why I carry a gun around the house now. I said it is for the mimics.
He laughed
I laughed.
The coffee cup laughed.
I shot the coffee cup.

yeap, this is why I'm maining Zen right now!

Fun fact: A fully charged orb of discord volley, when headshot on a discorded target, does 598 damage. Body shot is half that, still more than enough to kill most people outright.
Fun fact: The orb of discord gives you a free three seconds of wallhax.
Fun fact: Combining these to instantly wipe out somebody trying to flank you, thinking they're clever for dropping behind a wall, is by far the best thing in all of Overwatch.

While it's true DPS heroes have more quantifiable ways of ranking up, there's other ways, I ranked up like CRAZY playing Zen, by doing something very simple: Calling out my discord orbs! I get a card at the end of the games, almost every single time, because you incentivize focused damage. Also trying to predict who your sniper or your 76 will be shooting at by giving him a boost is always good. Another example is that if you're a really good Zarya, successfully giving your mates shields can really help you as well, specially if they have a Roadhog.
As for Puddy's question, I'd say always have your favourit hero, and really learn his strengths / weaknesses and master it.
That said, it's very important to also master one hero in each of all 4 categories, your "main" might be already taken sometimes (or often, if it's a popular DPS hero like s76) and you might need to fill. Being able to adapt to comps is the best way to really get good at this game, eventually you'll have a "main" in each category, and that's the best place to be and you can swap heroes on the fly during the game with no problems.
Specially if you're doing really well with a hero (For instance, say you're killing it as pharah, if the other team has half a brain, they're gonna counter you with one or even two hitscans), that's your queue to flip that around and counter the counters.

This is exactly what I feel is missing from many modern games. Thinking and being able to formulate a plan, then actually attempting the plan and dealing with the consequences.

So if you all recall I had the worst set of placement matches this season. I can't remember how many now but it was like 50% involved people disconnecting. As a result I think I went in at 1300/Bronze
Well I've pulled myself out of that hole and managed to get to gold. Generally I've played as roadhog because he can help when your comp is low on tanks/support and have crappy dps. On a better comp I tend to just play whatever role is needed. 
There was this one night where there was a team of 2 and one of them was this stoner Canadian guy who was talking all spiritually about the game between bong hits. Saying things like "play the character you want man and let the spirit take you over" or "dude, just go with it and have positive vibes, we will win that way". We had such a great game we teamed into a group of 6 and won something like 7 games in a row. 
That was one of the most charismatic strategic stoner hippies I ever played with.

I hate hazards that do DOT's in FPS games, basically if you fuck up at all it penalizes you in the future where you can't predict what is coming. I prefer death pits to poison pits.

Barnacles in HL2 were a lot of fun to interact with. Especially combined with slippery ground.

Hah, I was gonna say the anomalies from Stalker.
But really, the best environment hazard in that game (and possibly ever) is the Zone Blowouts. Global event that kills everything not in some sort of solid cover/building. The entire game world starts panicking (even NPCs!) to scramble for cover. It gives you enough time to react and find a place to hide, and sometimes add the challenge of having to fight someone for it. It's even balancable by level design by creating less or more shelter locations. It's pretty much a given that every time it happens you'll be faced with a new unique challenge because of where you are in the world. Oh and it's beautiful to watch:
 

The mimics reminded me of the traps in Sen's Fortress, and the floor switches that activate arrow traps that can be used to your advantage to kill bad guys. That also which got me thinking of other, similar traps. Traps that don't activate when you touch them, but give a warning click or something, and then activate when you leave are interesting, since you get that "o shit" moment and then can plan a desperate, unlikely plan of escape to avoid damage.
Also, the boxes you find rarely in the 3d fallout games that have a grenade wired to the side, and explode if you open the box without noticing and taking the grenade first. It's a very simplistic version of the standard trapped chest idea from RPGs, but without needing any kind of game mechanic other than the player noticing and frobbing a thing.
edit: The STALKER example reminds me of the land mines that are in Call of Pripyat. You similar to the anomalies, you feel them out by throwing bolts, but instead of a big dramatic effect, you get a little *clink!* noise. On the other hand, if you step on one yourself, instead of getting sucked into something you might possibly escape... you just fucking die with a loud noise. Very stressful, and thankfully only in the one spot, but as a novel challenge it was cool.

Maybe I should have kids some day after all.


http://kotaku.com/here-is-a-good-video-game-kid-1793355232

I finished the game with 100% ghost and 100% pacifist on no power mode. It is designed to be solved that way. You don\t have to like the game, I'm just giving credit where credit is due  

Yeah, usually there's one option hidden somewhere under graphics options that just makes your computer crawl. lol

I'm not really into these types of collectibles, but it makes you think on which hero would look best as a statue. Widowmaker is one of my least favourite characters, so that one's a no. I think I would give it to Orisa. She looks great.

Well you know Blizzard - "polished first impression" is kind of their motto
...But yeah if they were to release a level editor for this, I would go completely nuts. Just saying.

 

I agree but this is Blizzard. I don't think they would be down with releasing something that isn't super polished. 
Personally I'd be happy with a collection of half-broken maya python scripts that need to be wrangled to work. 
On that note. Has anyone looked at the shipping asset files? Maybe I'll take a look sometime. Who knows? Maybe there's enough there to go off of. 

We are extremely open-minded about releasing a map editor for Overwatch someday. But because Overwatch was made with a brand new engine, this is not a small task or one which can happen any time soon. We have this on our long-term road map and believe heavily in user-made content. But there are many challenges ahead of us and it will be a very long road before our editor can be made available to the public.
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20753537194#post-15
The dream is alive.

Big new PTR patch with a rework of Lucio. His aura radius is reduced from 30m to 10m, but now it's visible to him and his team, and his heal and speed boost are both buffed 50%. He gets a free 30% speed increase while wall riding, plus an extra boost when he jumps off a wall. Finally, his projectiles are a bit faster. Tested it a bit, and it feels extremely different to play, but potentially satisfying? That boost when jumping off a wall means, as far as I've found, you can no longer ride around an outside corner, because you're pushed away from the structure, however since it stacks with amp it up, you can do crazy shit like jump over the wall around point A in Eichenwald when respawning as a defender. 
Also, Eichenwald now has an extra corridor connecting the health pack room on the left of the bridge choke (from defender's view) to the little tiny tunnel there on the left, meaning a Mei wall can no longer fully block that choke. However, that tunnel is a crazy kill room for scatters and grenades.
 
Edit: Also your progress towards capping a point on 2CP maps are counted as tie-breakers now, which means if you get completely shut down on point A on attack, the previously defending team will instantly win the game by touching the point uncontested. Caught everybody by surprise both times I saw it happen.