I love Overwatch and think it's a better game

RazzTy · May 22, 2016, 10:29pm

I just like to call them what they are …Battleborn.

The reason I respect Gearbox with this game vs Blizzard and Overwatch, is because once again Blizzard played it safe. They created a familiar game that will bring tons to its game play but nothing really unique.

Gearbox on the other hand (with ip’s that they create and have complete control of at least) has always tried to create something new in the shooter genre .

Borderlands imho , was what brought the shooter genre forward the most after countless COD clones . They decided to infuse the best parts about rpgs (unique characters , progression skill trees and addictive loot ) and created a genre changer.

That’s what I feel with Battleborn. Again , Gearbox decided to think outside of the comfort zone and tried to create yet another unique sub genre in the shooter platform. That’s why it’s actually pretty hard to describe this game to someone unfamiliar with MOBAs but love shooters , our muscle memory has been programed where if you shoot a player controlled enemy, they should die before emptying the first magazine. Even to this day , I fall for the trappings of chasing after a potential kill with only a sliver of health and dying in a gank in the process.

Overwatch (as fun of a game as it is) will sell more because of its casual approach but the thing here to remember is the flavor of the month shooter comes and goes . It’s normally the ones that you have to adapt to and relearn mechanics that you stick with once mastered. In the OW beta , I felt like I had already reached my peak in terms of learning it’s system were as I’m just now mastering a single character in Battleborn.

Sorry for the long post.

STELFninja · May 22, 2016, 10:52pm

IMHO OW isn’t a shooter, its first person, but a shooter requires a projectile weapon and aiming for all characters, else what are you ‘shooting’, i’d call it a first person battle arena or something. I’d not call it familiar, was like vanilla wow meets dirty bomb maybe.
Battleborn is unique, in the way it has first person moba style game and co-op shooter tied into one. but apart from that i see nothing new, defo not a new genre. Not saying its bad, just that i dont see it breaking ground.

I agree they should not be compared. I think its unfortunate BB got delayed, people can’t buy every game that comes out and coming so close to OW, people might have to choose one or the other, or maybe dark souls 3, who knows, but there marketing did suck…lack of that is, the trailers are awesome!

Ana · May 22, 2016, 10:57pm

I don’t think suicide is something worthy of respect.

Bb and Ow are not similar enough to be competitors, yet gearbox marketing for some unknown reason decided to make it seem otherwise.

They painted BB as a competitor when the two games simply have nothing of value in common.

This will essentially create a scenario where people never bother with BB because they think its just Overwatch but not as good.

So that leaves it with only people who dug deep enough to know better.

So we’ve got maybe 100k players across all platforms not even a month in, the number is declining and Overwatch is about to carve out another chunk in two days.

Who on earth would aspire to such a low performance?

If marketing hadn’t gone off the deep end they could have co existed.

Overwatch stands to have millions.

Just look at the trends, battleborn has near non existent interest. That’s not good.

They need a new ad campaign.

RazzTy · May 22, 2016, 11:08pm

Who wouldn’t? 100k online players isn’t bad in the least. If you are talking 100k sales , I don’t think that’s accurate. With any game development you set goals , sure having aspirations of doing “COD” numbers is great , but we see what that has done to the shooter genre the last gen. Every game waso a COD clone. When GBX states that the game is currently meeting expectations , I believe them.

Everyone wants to say that it was GBX’s fault that the comparisons are similar when that isn’t true. Even GBX hype man Randy couldn’t peg what it was supposed to be (jokingly at that) and it flew over everyone’s head. Originally it was the media who couldn’t stop comparing the 2 and the devs pretty much got swept into that. Once you keep hearing “are you prepared to take on Overwatch” for the hundredth time and get tired of saying it’s a different game , eventually you start competing.

They didn’t market the game as a competitor and if you back down because another game indirectly gets compared to yours , it shows no faith in your own product.

STELFninja · May 22, 2016, 11:17pm

Game is already reduced in price, if this doesn’t increase players then not sure marketing is going to help much.

STELFninja · May 22, 2016, 11:22pm

“Hype Man Randy” did make some noise about OW being compared to BB and how they were flattered to be considered competition though. Was on reddit i think.

Ana · May 23, 2016, 12:26am

Except that blizzard never said they considered bb competition.

It was all on gearbox.

And 100k was like a overestimate. The real numbers likely dont pierce 50k.

For an online game intended to be esports worthy thats death

Crucible-Prime · May 23, 2016, 4:54am

I’m just gonna say it.

I don’t think Activision/Blizzard ever thinks of anyone as competition. They just brush it off as “nobody is in our league” and this from a guy who does enjoy Diablo and has played em all. Great company but they don;t listen to their fans, don;t even communicate with em proper - check their forums it;s full of people pleading for info and they get crap- and generally strike me a the sort of folks who assume they know everything and can’t possibly do any wrong. Just from how they respond to fans on their own forums.

Say what you will but at least GBX communicates with us openly.

Ryballs · May 23, 2016, 5:40am

Well technically TF1 did…

Back when Medic healed people by hacking them with an axe.

Ana · May 23, 2016, 6:28am

No they don’t. I can’t believe anyone would even say that after the key debacle.

It took far too long to get a response. Blizzard is known for engaging with the community on a regular basis. Gearbox its like pulling teeth.

Just don’t know what you are talking about.

The only thing blizz did was CONGRATULATE gearbox on launch day, and gearbox replied by being a jackass. Then pitchford goes off and makes it seem like they are competing with overwatch.

All of this creates a misleading line of marketing.

The games are not in the same genre. Thats not opinion. Its a factual statement, one I am rather sick of repeating.

The marketing team needed to get a better handle of what employees are saying on their social media. Then on top of it, we have the utter nonsense they called an ad campaign. It tells you nothing about what the game actually is. It’s bad marketing. The response you want from an ad campaign is “Damn, I want that”, not “what the ■■■■ did I just watch”?

Because of it the masses have the wrong idea about what Battleborn actually is.

That cost us a thriving population. Depending on how badly Overwatch cuts into the playerbase, it may have also cost us a future.

STELFninja · May 23, 2016, 7:35am

I joined the forum to get more info about fixes/patches, I cant find this, apart from the battleplan which is some bullet points. Are their threads they do respond to? I want to know what they are goign to fix,

Shield_Biter · May 23, 2016, 8:14am

http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/groups/Inside_The_Box

^Dev tracker. You can find who has posted in what thread all in the one spot

STELFninja · May 23, 2016, 8:18am

Yeah I looked there, is a dedicated link at top of home page.

I see lots of feedback on homeworld from devs, but all i really see for BB is people being told off by mods. will go through the whole thing, but really this is best place for info on what they are fixing in patch?

Shield_Biter · May 23, 2016, 8:21am

Specifically patch fixes? Outside if the dev tracker and weekly Battleplan? Nope, you won’t find any more or more specific information as far as I know

STELFninja · May 23, 2016, 8:27am

Well i guess some idea of what they agree is a bug, or what needs balancing, what they are doing to fix it etc
I have played quite a lot of EA stuff sinced it became a thing, so maybe i am used to more info than is the norm for a full release, but some sort of issue log/bug board or whatever.

Ana · May 23, 2016, 9:04am

They don’t see to have communication set as a priority.

Seems there are still quite a few devs that feel they can get away with it, but I think once you start making games like this you need to start being more transparent

girat93 · May 23, 2016, 10:56am

out of curiosity, where did blizzard congratulate gearbox

do you have a link or screenshot?

wolfdix · May 23, 2016, 10:06pm

Why are the posters who swear by OW and arguing it to hell and back even here? Legit question

intimes · May 23, 2016, 12:37pm

There will be no Battleborn 2. There is no chance the sales will now pick up, it dropped to sales rank 40 ps4, vanished xbox1 in the PAL charts this week. This is not a slow burn game, word of mouth will not sell it now. This game will never reach the sales of Borderlands 1.

So after the financially successful Borderlands 3 (Lets say late 2018/early2019 at best). Gearbox then ask themselves what should they create for the new XBOX2 and Playstation 5. Which may be graphically capable of 2k/60fps or 4k/30fps.

(A) Create a Battleborn Two, even though sales were abysmal and this type of genre has passed it’s sell-by-date.

(B) Create a new buzz with a new game.

A few sales this year will help to sell more copies. But a second Battleborn would be beyond insane.