My private server escapades were interrupted this past weekend by the Overwatch beta weekend.

Well then, looks like I’m playing this instead.

Unlike last time, a lot of my internet friends got in as well, so we queued up over the course of about four hours. The results were… interesting.

My first impression was one of queues. I’m not sure if it was the after-effects of the DDoS attacks or if the stress test was actually delivering stress, but queuing into matches with more than one person increased the delay significantly. At one point, our group of 5 had to wait for almost ten full minutes. Was there seriously not a single loose straggler trying to get into a game? Was Blizzard trying to match premades with premades?

Regardless, if there is one thing in particular that can kill games like this, it will be queues.

My second impression is one of… I don’t know. Difficulty? It wasn’t just about facing people who were clearly in the Closed beta portion for months. It was about teams that are not scrambled after each match, meaning if you were steamrolled in the prior one, you will face the same lineup and get steamrolled again. Unless you drop game inbetween matches and then get hit with queues again.

Then there was the Route 66 map, which is one of the worse I have ever played in a shooter. Not only is the map bad, if you get wiped on defense, attackers basically win the game instantly as it takes ages to run all the way back. [Edit: Appears that the payload speed has been decreased by 10% on this map.] In a game where you can be one-shot without much recourse, this sort of thing is bonkers.

Nepal is equally bad, now that I think about it. The game mode here is pseudo King of the Hill, where you have to capture a point by standing in it. But once captured, you continue to get points until the enemy captures it, without having to stand in the area. Which basically means you cap the point, then set up firing lines and spam the capture area with explosions, etc. It’s not impossible to recapture points and win, but the game mode never really feels all that fun. Especially one of the three maps Nepal is divided into, that has the capture point in an open area with zero cover with bottomless pits surrounding it.

So, basically, I had significantly less fun this time around with Overwatch than the previous time. It’s still fun overall, just less so. Considering my options for FPS goodness is squeezing blood from Battlefield 4 or wading into a decade of congealed veterans (CS, TF2, etc), I might end up getting Overwatch anyway. Hopefully at a discount.