Paladins, a Bootleg of Overwatch?

Bootleg or not it has quite a few differences to overwatch itself to make itself distinct.

This video sums it up pretty well

(has a little language)

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#BUT IT HAS HORSES!

Definitely not someone from Team Fortress 2. Because it doesn’t say Team Fortress 2. It doesn’t even look exactly like someone from Team Fortress 2…

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Someone wearing a TF2 skin…

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It’s not a Bootleg, it’s Overwatch-inspired game. The same way Overwatch is a TF2-inspired game. It’s really no new concept and calling it a bootleg is simply ignorant. - While yes, it takes much inspiration from the Heroes in Overwatch it is technically a MOBA, more similar to HotS or DOTA. I would suggest learning facts before making stupid and outrageous claims that put you into a position of a fool.

This is a Bootleg:

This is a Clone:

You see, Bootlegs usually put little to no effort into making of the game, games that clone or are inspired by other games build everything from ground up, While yes - it might not be the most original game out there - it’s… well, still not a bootleg.

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By definition no, but I’m pretty sure the company saw that overwatch was popular and not on steam so they set out to make their own version of the game that just kinda mirrors the original game just enough to be similar but is different enough to not be a ripoff.

I really do think this is just a game chugged out to get on the overwatch bandwagon and make some quick money.

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Let me get this straight.

A bootleg of a bootleg?

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It feels, decent but recycles over watch a bit

Never said otherwise.

Actually Paladins was in development before Overwatch was released.

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So basically both games we’re inspired by TF2 and are hilariously similar? how amusing that is.

Do you mean Overwatch’s release in May? Or the Beta in late 2015?

Well I know it was before the full release, not sure about the beta, Paladins was anounced in November 7th 2015.

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It’s automatically better than Overwatch cause it’s the same game but free.

Which is what Overwatch should’ve been.

I disagree, Overwatch if fair for its price, and with free gaming comes very pushed micro transactions, its really just bad for the gaming community.

And both games are still kinda different in their game modes.

TF2 begs to differ.

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TF2 is old school, before micro transactions were common, plus its valve :stuck_out_tongue:

Having played both games, I’d like to point out how wrong the people calling Paladins a bootleg OverWatch are.

For starters, let’s be fair here, most of the abilities in OverWatch aren’t unique to OverWatch. Many came out in other games beforehand, but more specifically, almost all of them come from a game called Global Agenda. It was a failed MMO shooter from way back when. Who developed Global Agenda, you ask? A little studio called Hi-Rez. They also made Tribes: Ascend, SMITE, and yes, they made Paladins. In other words, they made a game based mostly on TF2 and a game THEY made. Nevermind the fact that Paladins was actually being played in a closed beta before OverWatch was even announced. I’d know, there’s some footage you can find, and I was actually watching the stream of someone who had access to the beta in 2014 (they were very close with Hi-Rez). Most of the abilities seen in the old footage and streams (before OverWatch was even a term the public knew about, since everyone thought Blizzard was making a shooter MMO at that point. Sound familiar to another MMO shooter with the same abilities by a little studio called Hi-Rez?) were the same then as they are now, even the “OverWatch ripoff” ones, which is hardly fair because, as previously mentioned, most of those abilities were in other games well before.

Now, as someone who was excited about OverWatch literally the day it was announced, and pre-ordered it before there was any large deal of hype, I can confidently say that the two games play VERY differently. Let’s start with the way characters are designed, as that’s an easy one:

In OverWatch, the four categories of hero are damage, support, tank, and defense. Tanks are durable, typically close-range fighters who have large hitboxes and soak damage. Supports aid their team in unconventional or indirect ways, with shields or healing, and debuffs. Damage characters deal damage, but usually aren’t very durable, and lastly, defense characters have more static roles, emphasizing zoning and area denial. These roles are clearly defined, and rarely change.

In Paladins, the four categories of champions are damage, support, front-line, and flank. Front-line characters function similarly to tanks in OverWatch, soaking damage in close-quarters, however they also fill the defense role from OverWatch. They almost universally have area denial abilities, and are based around defending specific areas. Supports are also similar, but unlike in OverWatch, supports don’t have to be squishy. Supports can actually be quite tanky, like support tanks in many MOBAs. Also, supports don’t necessarily have to heal, and although Symmetra is a support who can’t heal in OverWatch, the amount of complaining that she should have a heal should let you know how people see supports in OverWatch. Damage characters are what they are, don’t expect differences there, though do note that snipers technically fill this role, and some are surprisingly durable. Lastly, flank. This position is for characters that don’t play around the objective. For stealthy and mobile gankers and ambushers. This role exists because in Paladins, EVERY role is expected to be on the objective at all times, that’s why more characters other than tanks are quite durable. In fact, one flank champion in particular, Buck, has as much health as several of the other tanks. The categorization of a character in Paladins isn’t based on what they’re good at necessarily, it’s based on where you should be on the battlefield. Front-line goes on the front line, supports and damage right behind them, and flank characters… flank.

Aside from the character design being a little different on that front, here’s another big difference. In OverWatch, mobility is emphasized. Only certain characters have mobility skills, and they’re very useful and valuable. In Paladins, EVERY character has a mobility skill, tanks, supports, damage characters, even the engineer guy has rocket boots. As such, you won’t find characters with slow projectiles in Paladins. The rocket launcher’s projectiles are hard to dodge, and the bow and arrow is basically hitscan. People move around and circle strafe like you wouldn’t believe, and in general, characters seem to move faster and are harder to hit. Whereas OverWatch has a focus on teamwork and abilities, Paladins has a focus on skill-based aim systems. The projectile hitboxes are much smaller, and every weapon just about, can headshot. Yes, even the shotguns. Most weapons are incredibly accurate, and the map design heavily emphasized close quarter and mid-range combat, where movement and aiming make the game feel more like an arena shooter than an OverWatch clone. Add self-regenerating health when out of combat instead of health drops on the map (think Tribes: Ascend, y’know, another game Hi-Rez made), and you’ve got yourself a much faster shooter with a very different gameplay style, where following up on kills is heavily rewarded by long death timers, and skill in gunplay is rewarded rather than just getting shot around walls by massive projectile hitboxes, or “favoring the shooter,” as they call it. If anything, Paladins favors the person getting shot at, but despite that, I rarely feel like I didn’t deserve to miss a shot. Instead, I just never feel like “Oh, wow, I totally shouldn’t have gotten that kill.” When someone kills me, I never think it’s cheap, I typically think “good aim.”

Then we come to the biggest difference. Adaptability. In OverWatch, customization for your character is entirely cosmetic. In Paladins, you have a card system that tailors the character to your preference. There’s an item shop, that allows you to buff your character based on how the match is going, whether you want to go for more damage, self-healing, utility, or defense.

Now, let’s talk about another difference: the UI. First, I’ll tell you a story. I was one of the people who was fortunate enough to play Heroes of the Storm when it was in Alpha. I remember when Raynor’s autoattack was a single, poorly rendered, and oversized bullet, rather than a spray of bullets like he has now. Back then, if you got hit by a slow, debuff, or other negative effect, a symbol with a circle around it that ticked down would appear next to your unit portrait. If you moused over it, you could see the specifics of what it did. This is standard in MOBAs, and I never thought about it. I never thought about it until Blizzard removed it. They removed the specific details, and replaced it with hard-to-see and nondescript visual cues. In a game with as many complex buffs and debuffs as HotS, especially when many of them change from game to game due to the talent system (do I have lifesteal when Tassadar shields me or not?), not having the specifics of what is happening to your character is really, REALLY annoying. It’s terrible. It was a poor decision. I wish this was the last time they did this.

You see, in OverWatch, you have the same thing. If you’re stunned, slowed, debuffed by Ana’s grenade, caught in a trap, half the time you don’t get a write-up on screen. Sometimes you do, but sometimes (Symmetra turret slow being super inconspicuous) you don’t. Now, to their credit, for the most part I don’t mind. It works. When Ana debuffs me, I know I can’t be healed. When I get stunned, I know. If Mei is freezing me, the visual cue works. However, the reason it works is because I know all the abilities in and out. I know OverWatch well. It also doesn’t have an absurd number of buffs and debuffs, there are only so many modifiers in OverWatch. Not in Paladins. You see, in Paladins, there are a lot of debuffs. Many characters have the ability to reduce healing, you can be stunned, slowed, stuck with grenades, etc. All of these show up as icons with descriptions, and it isn’t intrusive. It’s informative, and it works. I know exactly what’s going on, even as someone who hasn’t looked deeply into the abilities of every character for over a year. The UI lists every ability, including your autoattack, on the bottom of your HUD. The UI is more detailed, but I don’t feel it’s intrusive. It’s nice, being able to see exactly what’s happening. It contributes to the “I never feel like I died to something cheap” factor (those Symmetra turrets were right there? No wonder I was so slow, I couldn’t hear them over all the shouting of my teammates and ultimates).

Overall, Paladins isn’t the same game, or even that close. The emphasis is different, the tone is different, and even if some of the abilities are the same, many, and I mean almost all of them, function either in different ways, or simply aren’t the same at all. Nevermind the logistics of Paladins technically being first, and the two games both simply being inspired by the same thing (which happens all the time, by the way), the two games simply play differently. It’s not obvious at a first glance, but then again, at first glance DOOM and Halo are the same exact game, even though anyone who’s played them could tell you exactly how different they are. Play before you judge.

Also, is it really a surprise that Blizzard wasn’t 100% original? If you wanna talk about bootlegs and Blizzard, there’s PLENTY to go off of. They make a living off of ripping things off and messing with them. * cough * Warhammer * cough cough *

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Its really a shame that there are so few TF2 style? games that people will see two similar games and call one a clone.

Well I don’t really think so, but its still a good example.

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For anyone who doesn’t understand what Paladins is, or how it’s different from OverWatch, or why you might enjoy it, I recommend watching TotalBiscuit’s video on it. From the very short amount of time he’s played it, it’s already very clear to him how different the games are (as it was to me when I first started playing), and he even talks a lot about how copying ideas isn’t really that bad. As usual, the Cynical Brit knows his chops.

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It’s clear that many things in Paladins are inspired by Overwatch. Heck, there are a lot of things in OW that are inspired by TF2. But the difference is that some mechanics in OW are loosely based on some of TF2’s, while most of the stuff in paladins is nearly ripped straight from OW. For example, there’s that one knight guy who can charge, has a big shield on his wrist, and has a close range weapon. Sound familiar at all?

Paladins does have some really good ideas and characters, though. It’s just a shame that most of them are so blatantly taken from OW.