The Differences Between Watching Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 Competitive

I’ll be honest, I’m not great at games. But I do enjoy watching games being played skillfully. So does aabicus. And so do a lot of people, enough for people to buy into weird schemes and build multi-million dollar prize pools for video game competitions. While Dota 2 and League of Legends aren’t my cup of tea to watch, I’ll always enjoy a bit of pro TF2.

Now, top tier Team Fortress 2 is pretty fun. It’s strategic and fast-paced. You know what’s also fun? Pro Overwatch. But there’s something about them that, I don’t know, feels off.

Most of TF2’s problems really stem from the community trying to fix problems that Valve refuses to address. After all, competitive TF2 is mostly run by the community, and even though competitive matchmaking exists in-game, the community stuff is often much better and much more action-y. While some might not particularly agree with X weapon being banned or whatever, there’s normally a legitimate reason for this (for example, the BASE Jumper has a handful of bugs, and the Reserve Shooter is a broken weapon that shouldn’t minicrit just because someone is standing on a slope), and the competitive community has actually improved on this recently, with more unified rules and weapon bans.

But all in all, competitive TF2 is fun to watch. There’s skilled shooting, skilled movement and skilled jumping around. Every death is important, but there’s plenty of death. Assuming the game isn’t so equally matched that it’s ground to a stalemate. Generally though, the lack of action and everyone playing safely (too safely maybe) is because the teams are too equally matched. The community has worked hard in order to avoid scenarios like that.

My point is, it’s actiony. People die a lot. Sacrifices are a big part of the game and protecting players is done via movement and your own bodies, fighting to get between the front lines and the otherwise helpless Medics keeping the teams alive. And the best stuff is the top-end, skilled team stuff. Teams that have worked together for ages and know exactly what they’re doing.

Overwatch though, I find the opposite is true. I find that individual players are more interesting to watch than dedicated teams. Why? I’m not quite sure, but I feel it’s because people don’t really die a lot in Overwatch. And the better the team, the less people die.

Don’t look at me like that, it’s true. Less people die in Overwatch. It’s a LOT harder to die. There’s so many heals and barriers and things like that. On top of everyone having much more health in general, there’s so much more tankiness, which means more people soak up more bullets and less people actually die. Or at least noticeably die. But that’s where the healers and tanks come in. They admirably put all their effort in to simply not dying or timing themselves for that perfect ultimate. And when someone does pull it off, it’s awesome.

On the flip side, when everyone pulls off perfect ultimates, nothing seems to happen. Well, not nothing. But it’s too much all at once. But the chaotic nature of individual players means that people will actually die for once.

That’s not to say that watching Overwatch is boring, it really isn’t. But the gratification you get is far different. In TF2 it’s a strategic battle with bloodbaths, sacrifices and body-blocking bullets, coupled with raw aim and mobility. In Overwatch, it’s timing your ultimates and shiny particle effects, and making the most of your abilities, while making sure no one dies ever.

It’s the difference between a slow, steady push and a quick, hard tug. And I know I shouldn’t compare them, but it’s so damn easy to compare the two games, especially when they make such different splashes in the competitive gaming pool.