"TF2 Clone" Comments

Just read a review that knocked Overwatch hard for what the author basically said was ripping off TF2 part and parcel. Am I alone in my thinking that the Blizzard MO of taking a concept (CCG, MMO) and iterating upon it, kind of as touched on in the Bombcast the past couple weeks, is generally pretty good? Do you think this is just a big ass TF2 mod/reskin?

I think it was Drew brought up they wanted a better Magic so they made Hearthstone, they wanted a better Everquest so they did WoW, etc. The review I read basically bashed it for copying game style, art style, sound design etc. from TF2 and recommended players head back to TF2 instead. It came off as wholly disingenuous, slightly misleading, and overall rubbed me entirely the wrong way. Needless to say I won't be going back to that site to read reviews but I was wondering if anyone out there has heard these or similar comments, and just feel out the concept or discuss what Blizzard might be doing to counteract these sentiments. I won't post the link here as not to draw negative attention to the site in question, but I always wonder about the larger discussion regarding reviews and the responsibility reviewers have to accurately depict the product they're reviewing. If the guy didn't like it, fine he didn't like it - but this review seemed to reduce it to the core of "it's a team-based shooter with classes and the maps aren't great". If you couldn't tell from this keyboard vomit I'm still a bit "passionate" about it, but curious what other thoughts are.

I'm of the mind that people saying it's a TF2 clone have only seen videos of the game and haven't played it for themselves. Yes, comparisons can and have been made to TF2 but calling it a clone is inaccurate

Even if it was, the end result is still a "TF2 clone" I actually like playing, as opposed to the actual TF2, so who cares?

Originality is overrated anyway. Most of the best games are not built out of wholly original ideas. Even TF2 was built off of ideas and mechanics from its predecessors.

Without iterative games heavily influenced by their inspiration, we might still not be able to look up or down in FPSs. If all Overwatch was was a TF2 clone with more ladies, robots, and sparkly graphics, folks would mostly stick with TF2 anyway. Comparing them can be useful, but whining that one is like the other is ultimately pointless. Stating that they're similar tells the reader nothing about the actual quality of the game.

Also, maybe reconsider not going to a site you like just because of one writer. Whatever that dumb review was is one person's opinion. Don't punish a whole organization for an individual's flawed judgement.

Usually when I see people compare Overwatch to TF2, it's in a positive way. Like, it captures the fun of original TF2 in a new and interesting way. Makes me want to give it a shot. Obviously, it's taking a lot of notes from TF2, but TF2 is also like 7-8 years old.

Hah. Remember when first person shooters were Doom clones?

Yeah.

Wait does this mean battleborn is tf2?

Its dumb when people make claims like this about any game. There are only so many forms a game can take so if one dev makes their take on something another dev has already done guess what thats called progress. Thats why they make new models of cars every year, new phones every year, new computers, ect ect.

Personally, I think it has as much in common with TF2 as any two games in a subgenre. So, yes, to compare it with TF2 to easily illustrate how the game works is useful to new players, but to use it as an attack is simplistic (it is as much a TF2 clone as Soul Calibur is a Tekken clone).

I've had way more fun with Overwatch than I did TF2, so there is definitely a difference that keeps me wanting to play more overwatch while my interest in TF2 died quite awhile ago.

I have sometimes been calling Overwatch "Team Fortress 3" as a quick way to explain it to people who aren't sure about it, and That's not a dig at the game at all. In my head it's high praise, TF2 is such a solid class based, super fun game with hella style and Overwatch takes those ideas and improves on them.

I think it's kinda funny that after the DOTA debacle, Blizzard out TF2'd Valve.

The only TF2 class that doesn't have a direct analog with an Overwatch character is the spy. They obviously took cues and took what made some of the more technical things about those characters and assigned them to a single button (rocket jumping for example).

Original TF2 was one of the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had and Overwatch captures that same feeling pretty effectively.

It is too similar to TF2 for me (21 characters instead of 9. Ehe). And Payload, and Capture Point? Alright.

But I like how Overwatch plays, and I truly believe Blizzard will do something cool with it some day.

(don't hate reviewers)

Has anybody ever actually claimed that Hearthstone is a better Magic: The Gathering?

I'm not knocking the game for this, as I am enjoying the hell out of it. But it the case that it does more or less wholesale borrow modes and characters straight from TF2.

@spoonman671: I see this tossed around a lot, but it always seems to be people who were put off by MTG for one reason or another. I don't think I have seen that from anyone who has actually played a decent amount of magic.

I mean.. in the broadest terms of 'I think Hearthstone is a better card game' I guess?

Just my two cents. I have around 1000 hours in TF2. It is my most played game ever.

I may never go back to it other than quick nostalgia.

I love Overwatch,

The king is dead

All hail the king

PS: TF2 is almost 10 years old, its good to have something that hits the good parts in a new way with new stuff and is shiny

To me Overwatch is much more like one version of where Valve could have taken a Team Fortress 3 than a true TF2 clone. Expanding on the number of classes, giving each more unique abilities (which they started doing after TF2 came out when they gave characters different guns and equipment to choose from, some of which were buffs you could give teammates or yourself), leaning further into the cartoony art style, implementing hats and loot drops from the start, on and on. There's no denying its heavily inspired by TF2, but it's not like we've had a whole lot of (good) TF2 style games in the 9 years since it came out.

As far as reviews go I don't think simply calling something a "_____ clone" is the most interesting argument, but if that's how they feel they can express it. To me it's more about execution, if someone comes along and outdoes an already fantastic game all the better for us as players. Criticizing specific elements of a game that don't move the needle is more interesting to me. I greatly enjoy Overwatch, but feel extremely underwhelmed by their lack of new game modes. Payload was a great mode when it came to TF2 and it's still a lot of fun in OW, but I really do wish Blizzard had been able to come up with a few new map types that moved that part of the "genre" forward like other aspects of the game did. Hopefully those will come down the line, the same way payload shook things up for TF2 a year or two in.

I mean. it is a tf2 clone, with some different stuff and some reworking. it's tf3.

what I find interesting is that TF2 was released around the same time as CoD4MW, Crysis and Halo 3. In at no point no one tried to emulate them, but also they were slowly iterating on Quake mod scene designs. Overwatches comparison are actually fair since it seems to be one of the few that doesn't want to be compared to a MMOBA. But I still have yet to see a modded server with runes, or a server with jet packs, or a server where everyone can sing, or a server with melee only, or a server with dong hats with actual jiggle physics.

@brnk said:

I'd like to believe that the Dota thing has kicked off some kind of The Prestige style rivalry where for the rest of their existence the two companies are going to be bitter rivals, constantly undermining and maligning each other in underhanded ways.

You disagreed with a review, congrats.

Well, it certainly IS very similar, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a clone. Whenever I talk to people on the fence about it, I just ask if they've played and enjoyed TF2, because it plays a lot like TF2. I just wish Overwatch would give us a way to do 16 vs 16 matches like there was in TF2. Could you imagine the chaos?

Oh, and a freaking server browser would be nice too.

As someone with over 2000 hours in TF2 that doesn't like Overwatch: I do not think the games are similar other than them both being class-based first person shooters with cartoony artstyles, and I wish this comparison would stop happening because it is, more often than not, coming from people who haven't played more than a handful of hours of one or both games.

no it isn't, man

NO IT FUCKING ISN'T :(

The two games play very differently despite the similarities. On a purely conceptual level, I think one can make the clone argument, but in terms of design and execution they're very, very different.

If TF2 is a hat simulator, OW is a butt simulator.

TF2 has you shooting people from a first person perspective. Goddamn Wolfenstein clone.

@joe_mccallister: Blizzard have always done that, taking other game ideas and refining and polishing them up to become a gold standard.

Its by no means a bad thing because we get great games out of it.

Blizzard is basically Gameloft.

It draws a lot from TF2, but there's no reason for that to be a negative.

This pretty much summarises my feelings - it gives me the feeling I got when I first played TF2, but in a new way 8 years on with TF2 already existing. That's a pretty impressive feat. It certainly distinguishes itself from that game, too - it doesn't feel "better" so much as "different" but it's hugely refreshing and a ton of fun to play.

Uh oh. This good thing is also like this other good thing. Whatever will we do. To Blizzard's credit they got me to play Overwatch, fall head over heals in love with it and put money in past the initial purchase price. Team Fortress two did none of those things for me. Not saying it's bad, (obviously it's a very well regarded, mechanically well made video game) I just never clicked with it. Then again the last time I played TF2 was like 3 or 4 years ago and at that point I wasn't really into multiplayer stuff so... Maybe I should give TF2 a shot again; or not, because Overwatch is new and TF2 is old. And so it goes.

At least TF2 doesn't have Bastion!

That's an especially hilarious comparison when you consider Team Fortress's origins as an iteration upon Quake's multiplayer, going so far as to just be a mod for Quake.

Seeing as I hated TF2 and love Overwatch, in general I think it's a bad comparison.

You'd be inherently wrong, it's a more accessible card game. But that is what I think Blizzards MO actually is - first and foremost they take an existing idea and make it accessible (and therefore fun) to pretty much everyone.

I think that's a lazy comparison. I admit that Overwatch has a really similar feel to TF2, but that's not really indicative of it being a rip off. You can rip off mechanics, characters or classes, but something like how the game handles, whether it's exciting and how fun it is is very difficult to just copy.

Overwatch is a more dynamic game. It plays faster and the frontline proceeds much more quickly than in TF2. It also surrenders customizable classes in favor of a higher number of specialized ones.

I would say Hearthstone is definitely a better video game than any iteration of Magic can ever hope to be. It was designed to work well in a computer environment. Having tried two of the Magic PC games, the fundamental aspects like the stack, the turn phases and triggered abilities don't translate well at all into a computer game.

Sure, no video game implementation has been good for Magic, that's true. But as a card game, Magic is better in almost all regards.

Battleborn and Overwatch are really nothing a like. That's mainly said by people making assumptions then the internet ran with it and people being sheep. Battleborn is a first-person MOBA-like game, Overwatch has no MOBA elements and is largely a TF2 type game.

The bigger problem I have with Overwatch is the lack of value and content. It's $60 for two games modes and a few non-distinct maps. If Ubisoft, EA, etc had done Overwatch with that amount of content they'd be crucified by hardcore gamers and the online press. Blizzard is getting a pass because "of course there will be good and free content later". The game is fun, but feels VERY incomplete IMO.

For the Magic uninformed, can you elaborate on some things Magic does better than Hearthstone? I'm not arguing, I'm just interested to know more.

The biggest thing it has over Magic is you can't get "mana screwed." In Magic, the resources you use to cast spells are part of your deck, and you need certain ones for certain spells, so there are situations where you don't draw enough mana to do what you need, or don't have the ones matching the spells in your hand. By using a universal resource and giving you one a turn, Hearthstone avoids this.

On the other hand, games like Magic are far more reactive. There are countless things you can do on your opponent's turn to change the game, unlike Hearthstone where your only option is playing secrets and sitting back.

Personally, Hearthstone takes advantage of the fact it's a video game far too liberally by having way too many cards that rely on randomness. The current Magic sets steer well clear of cards which amount to just a coin toss, in favour of making the games more strategic.

One of the reasons though that Magic falls down terribly as a video game is the fact it is a lot more complex than Hearthstone. Players have the ability to respond immediately to cards their opponents play, and interactions of that nature are resolved by a "stack" of cards and activated abilities. It translates terribly to a video game because there are so many situations when players do and don't have "priority," resulting in a much more complex game. In my opinion this is a good thing though, since it makes Magic a lot more interesting to play.

Plus, Wizards have had years and years of experience creating new sets, so the quality of the content they put out each year is higher. I'm not the best when it comes to giving an informal review of either game, but I would definitely recommend looking a little more into Magic if you like Hearthstone, as there are people who can explain it a lot better than I can. (www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/3mb69l/hearthstone_players_guide_to_magic_the_gathering/ might be of some use.)

@williamflattener: There's a number of features that Magic has and Hearthstone doesn't:

1.you can use certain abilities and cast certain spells during your opponent's turn

2.the defending player chooses which creature fights which during combat

3.creatures are restored to full health at the end of each turn (meaning that you have to kill them during combat or finish them off with a spell for them to die)

4.the mana you have is produced by cards called lands instead of being set for each turn, which results in an additional layer of strategy of having not too many and not too few lands in your deck

5.there's a biger number of categories of cards (like artifacts and enchantments) that aren't creatures which can grant permanent aura effects

6.cards can have activated spell-like abilities that you can use repeatedly for a certain cost (like skipping attack, paying mana, discarding a card, sacrificing a creature, etc)

7.other than the obvious one of having a shuffled deck, there are almost no cards with random effects

The main advantage Magic has and why I also think it's a better game is simply that it has been around for decades and has had a significant amount of time to figure out how to design cards well. At the beginning the game also was an imbalanced mess, similar to the early days of Hearthstone.

That complexity has a price though, and in the case of Magic it's the fact that it's very difficult to translate it into a video game format. Technically speaking the rules of Magic require you to ask your opponent whether he wants to answer your action with his own (like using a spell or ability) each time you make an action. Which isn't a big deal if you're playing with cards at a table (you just ask 'do you do anything'?), but is a pain in the ass to shoehorn into a video game since even the most minute action technically has to be 'approved' by the other player. This can make a single game take ages, especially if you have a sluggish opponent, and demands a lot of menial clicks of approval.

On the other hand, if you decide to streamline this process (some Magic games implemented a system when you would basically choose which actions you don't have to be asked about, or let you toggle whether you want to be asked or not), it can result in an incomplete experience since you technically have less options and the game deviates from the traditional tabletop version.