Ponywatch · 12:08am Jun 25th, 2016
art by GNDriver
I'm putting up this quick blog primarily to apologize for the lack of blogs (and PM responses) recently. I blame the hiatus, Overwatch, and Fallout 4's Contraptions Workshop.
In Fallout 4 news, the Contraptions Workshop dropped earlier this week. The DLC is full of cool concepts, but many (myself included) feel they really aren't developed to the extent that they really needed to be. Having started playing with manufacturing, I quickly found myself modifying the new DLC with Manufacturing Extended. This is a great little mod that lets you do significantly more with manufacturing. Thanks to the mod, Angel's first manufacturing creation was a simple device that breaks down junk into components and automatically deposits the components into her workbench.
click for larger version
For those interested, other mods featured in this image include Fallout 4 Seasons Project and Nanosuit 6.2 for Angel's fancy new (post-Institute) outfit.
With all the Workshop DLCs, for those of you using crafting/settlement expansion mods, I highly recommend using the All DLC Building Independent Patch. This patch puts all DLC additions in their own categories so that they won't conflict with your other mods and cause categories to disappear. I have replaced all my previous DLC crafting menu patches with this one.
And in other news, as the blog title suggests, I have finally fallen victim to the insidious pull of Overwatch. I've found myself playing it a lot more than I thought I would, and enjoying it quite a bit. Such a wonderful collection of characters to play. I've found myself gravitating towards a few of them. Lately, I've been particularly favoring Mei, Lucio and Torbjorn. (It's too bad Lucio doesn't actually have a Vinyl Scratch skin. 
)
If you play Overwatch, which characters do you prefer?
Of course, I play it mostly because I have a lot of friends who play it. I was pleased to discover the "vs AI" play options. As much as I want to play the game with other people, I don't want to play it against other people. I am a casual player, and I find the atmosphere in most PVP ranges from unpleasant to toxic. (I play games to unwind and relieve stress, not garner it.)
I do hope Blizzard puts out some new maps. According to Ecumenical News, Blizzard has some new maps in the testing phase, but it is unsure yet if they will make the grade and be added to the game.
(Comics thanks to Dan Shive of El Goonish Shive.)
art by GNDriver
Agree 100%, main reason I don't care for a lot of games. I just, really do not like PvP type stuff. The focus on trying to force PvP on everyone was one of the things (only one of many at that point, but a big one) for why I gave up on WoW.
Apparently, Overwatch MIGHT have singeplayer, according to Blizzard. Is there any option that doesn't need PS+ or Gold, like a bots mode?
mlpforums.com/uploads/monthly_09_2015/post-31154-0-10461300-1442052004.png
4046990
Anyways, I dunno. Maybe things changed when it properly released, but I found the community to be pretty chill when I was playing the beta.
4047000 It's mostly a joke at how the two are compared with each other. Overwatch is more like Battlefield crossed with a Moba.
Honestly, I haven’t had a lot of bad stuff happen in Overwatch like I have in other games. Toxic is about right for a good amount of FPS players. I think I heard one guy complaining about the team and I got t bagged once but that was about it.
Overwatch is a blast!
Contraptions has been great so far. Once I finally get my butt over there from collecting every piece of wood in the wasteland, I'm gonna use those elevators to build a huge city at Grey Garden. I've already built up defenses at the Castle, finally fixing all the holes in the wall, adding a common house, and a host of services. The place is finally battle ready.
Overwatch is so much fun. Mei is bae is the phrase I'll have to use as she is my favorite character. I really hope they continue their Overwatch animation series or make a TV show/movie out of it. The world and characters are just so interesting.
4047027 on a related note
as a side, I'm on the xbox one and I main D.Va, with Tracer/Mercy secondary. And I'm level 86.
Certainly is nice to have more options when making stuff.
I think I like Bastion as a character. Just one large robot turret built for war trying to find his place in it. I've seen the parrallels people have been making for him with the robots in Castle in the sky. Though I'm not so sure about when teams go for Bastion mania.
I understand the hesitance to play PvP, although player toxicity isn't usually too bad in Overwatch (then again, I'm a LoL veteran so I could be a bit desensitized to what others consider toxic). Maybe one player gets upset because it was a close loss, or they can't do what they're trying to do because the other team is outsmarting them.
Personally, I mostly play the entire support bracket, favoring Mercy and Lucio. On the blue moons when someone else locks support first, I find myself usually going Tracer or Pharah for offense, Hanzo or Widowmaker for defense, or Zarya or Reinhardt for tank. It's nice to be a bit versatile, and I'm trying to learn 'em all because I like doing that.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels this way. I still play games like GTA V, but only with my friends or family who have it.
I hope you enjoy Overwatch, I hear it's a great game!
Thanks for the update, Kkat!
This is basically why I play tons of Warframe.
as far as toxic player iv seen,well best way to put it is intresting players,so when my salt lvl reaches top tier i quite and play witcher or eso.overall i love the game all heroes have there personalitys and in game lines btw heroes and voice lines makes this game have more spirit and caracter.i just dont like how they are going with lore reveals but that is my opinion.
symmetra,solider,reinhartd,widow (i love french accent even if it is broken)
4047018 I got the joke. The second part of my comment was addressing Kkat's concerns of the community being seemingly toxic.
I personally prefer Mei. Like, all the time. She's just so good in so many situations!
A turret shooting down too many team-mates? Mei's ice wall can block the line of sight, and the turret will stop shooting!
An ultimate headed your way? Use stasis to negate any damage, and get a helpful heal so you can repay the enemy in kind!
Annoying attacker type character flanking you? Freeze them, and then make them watch as you slowly take aim. They see Mei's cold, unmoving smile as her ice gun begins to form a spike with an unnerving crackle. Just before they can regain any control, Mei shoots a spike of ice straight through their skulls, spreading blood and grey-matter as she gleefully replies "you were asking for it!"
The feeling you get by being her is simply electric! It feels like you're so powerful - like you can just walk up to any 'hero' and just completely stop them dead in their tracks! It feels like you're truly a force of nature as you ruin their streak, or block their ultimate, or freeze their team with your's!
Ah, hah, hah, hah! Hah, hah, hah, ha-
Uh... So yeah. I like playing Mei.
4047102 That... was incredibly badass. 10/10.
BTW, maybe it's just my inexperience with anime showing, but is mixing Japanese and English lyrics common?
Anyways, as far as Contraptions? Once again, I find the main draw completely useless and boring, but absolutely love the nerdy minor stuff. I especially love the new elevators and displays.
4046989 PC.
I've been loving Overwatch, and a Vinyl skin for Lucio would be perfect.
I tend to play far too much Torbjorn with some Reinhardt, Roadhog, Pharah and Mercy thrown in.
My favorite is probably Reinhardt when it works out well - there's nothing quite as satisfying as (stupidly) brave charges and flailing a hammer around like an idiot to clear a point.
I'm also possibly the worst Soldier 76 player in existence, though I try him to expand what roles I can take.
I can relate so much. After a few PvP games I've played with bad experiences, telling myself that was probably just a fluke and trying the game again then getting an even worse experience I've grown extremely wary of anything PvP.
That's actually one of the reasons I wasn't planning to get Overwatch. The second reason is "I already own TF2, and I'm not sick of that one yet."
And wow, Fallout 4's Settlements are getting more Minecrafty. These gizmos are reminding me a lot of some redstone creations I've seen. Sadly I am still not a builder or engineer. Let me know when there's a DLC that improves exploring/looting ruins and upgrading guns. Those are the main draws for me in this game.
Well, I already talked about this at length... I don't much care for the game itself. It doesn't make sense... look here
I think they should just make this a series or movie. People want the old style heroes back. People are sick of this edgy anti hero crap, the Father Wayne murderers and anti heroes. They want to hope, they're sick of muddled messages like in Watchmen, tired of the cool factor ruining things.
They want to see forgiveness and hope
Its so tiring to see the bad guys win and win again
People, we need an escape from life once in a while, something where we can find refuge from our world
We need heroes
We need heroes more then we need some TF2 rip off, adults and children alike. And more then anyone wants to admit
Not a great fan of Contraptions. The manufacturing is weak, the ball tracks are poorly implemented, and I don't need warehouse of scaffolding skins. I don't need to play with the weather, either. I kinda like the look of the two new power armour paint jobs, but they're T51 and my PAs are X01s. So despite some effort to like it, I'm going with 'meh'.
Overwatch isn't bad, but I'm very bad at FPSs, so I've got no plans for the PvP play, and the AI for PvE is a joke. Maybe someday.
4047375 Depends on the artist.
Some do, some don't.
You could probably search the openings to tonnes of anime's and find a roughly equal case for both full Japanese lyrics and mostly Japanese with some English thrown in.
I've seen more of the former personally, but then most of the anime I watch is stuff like Devil Survivor 2: the animation, Blazblue Alter Memory, Tales of the Abyss...
So mostly based off games I've played.
4047369 Ok. ^^
I find the toxicity mostly in the community outside the game. Why? One word: Battleborn. For reasons still a mystery to me, the majority of Overwatch fans (not just players) have an unrelenting hatred for Battleborn, and anyone who even mentions it. I play Overwatch, but I enjoy Battleborn as well, given it's inclusion of PvE and something resembling an in-game narrative. I enjoy Overwatch for it's semi-instant gratification gameplay (all characters unlocked, a decent variety of maps, and big flashy attacks/abilities). But I've never been a big fan of PvP gaming, much like Kkat I want to play to unwind and not stress. And there's only so many times I can face the same AI team (hopefully Activision-Blizzard will update it to have a better variety).
4047576 Wait, the DLC had new power armor skins? I didn't even notice.
4047603 Ah.
4047926
Yeah - two new skins for T51 PAs. One is 'Abraxo' themed, and the other is 'Sugar bombs' themed. I actually like the look on both, but walking around in T51 is pretty stupid at level 136, so I think I'll give it a miss right now.
4047945 Ah, cool. Level 260 on my main save, so I'm a bit sad that I really don't have a use for things like that or the Vim! suits. I wish they'd make any power armor paint scheme available on any type of power armor. X-O1 Atom Cats armor would be badass.
4047991 It'd be nice, but each armour range is distinctly different - each paint job that isn't just a palette swap of one that has already been done would require an artist to draw from scratch. We really need more X01 options though.
4048007 True. I guess I'm just a little annoyed that the only good looking vanilla X-O1 pain schemes are Hot Rod red and the Institute paintjob.
With Fallout 4, well looks like any add-on can be enhanced by mods within a week or less. I would honestly prefer more story exploration kind DLC like there was in Fo3 and F:NV but I guess Bethesda really wanted to try something different with this entry. I hope Nuka World sends Fallout 4 off on a high note, even if it may be similar to the Pitt with raiders. I heard you may be able to join the raiders as well. I don't mind the settlement building, what I do mind is the hassle to upkeep increasing number of settlements because some random settler decided to move in an empty place with 0 people and no recruitment beacon. Now that settler has needs to fulfill at the site.
On a related note to Overwatch.. I quickly discovered an interesting quirk with Reinhardt. His charge can be used on all characters, including a particular mech of D.va's. Twice I saw D.va trying to blow up my team with her ultimate ability to move the payload, and twice I charged straight at D'va's mech which was about to explode and as a heroic sacrifice, charged the mech to move it as far away from my team as possible. The best part is the exploding radius killed the D.va player with her own mech twice as well.
I'm so glad someone else understands when you don't ALWAYS want to be playing against other people. Which is why I get bored real fast with most competitive, team-based games.
I love playing games cooperatively though, so I'm very glad that the option exists.
Overwatch looks pretty cool but I dunno, if I'm gonna get it at all.
I agree, I really love PvE side of things, PvP, just gets me mad sometimes, that or, makes me slightly depressed.
Wish more game Dev's would listen to their players saying "More PvE, things please.." and, I really hate it when a game that's PvE, focused worries more about PvP.
I really like Junkrat. He is fun to play, a real pain to deal with, effective in every mode, good at clearing campers and his character design (appearance, personality and lore), is awesome.
Buuuut my most played hero is Mercy, because the world could always use more healers.
Kkat, what's your favorite map? Mine is King's Row.
I pre-ordered a couple copies of Overwatch for my kid and I. I mainly play TF2 so I thought it would be a nice change of pace. I have to say, I'm surprised at how fun it was. Mei is just too adorable for words, and she plays like an ice version of Pyro from TF2, my favorite class.
I still tend to play TF2 more as I find the gameplay is aimed more toward strategy rather that running and shooting, but Overwatch is damn fun for a few quick rounds. I really do wish they would add a CTF game mode though, I do love the slower pace of those.
I ws only able to play Overwatch briefly, due to the weekend-long demo, but in that time i developed a fondness for three characters.
Lucio for mobility and versatility and being fun to play as
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D-Va for her offensive ability (i got my first 4 kill combo with self-destruct)
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And Widowmaker for a similar reason, to a lesser extent.
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I think i tried every other hero but Junkrat.