Returning from their run at the 2019 Overwatch World Cup, AVRL sits down with team New Zealand’s Equinox, Signed, and Noxious to talk about their journey through BlizzCon.

Barely a fortnight ago, team New Zealand shipped out on a Tuesday evening under a cool spring breeze, heading to the biggest event that many in the team had ever been to. With a calm temperament, the players and staff boarded for a destination that had culminated the hopes and dreams of all those who had come before it.

August 2017. Team New Zealand lands in LAX to represent the nation for the preliminary of the biggest international event of the year. That event was none other than the Santa Monica Group Stage of the 2017 Overwatch World Cup, an event that precedes the existence of both the Overwatch League and Overwatch Contenders.

Back during a time when Dale “Signed” Tang joined team New Zealand as an up-and-coming hotshot rising through the amateur scene. Well before becoming the back-to-back Contenders champion and establishing himself on the most successful Australasian Overwatch team of 2019 that we know him for today.

“New Zealand is at a different level compared to 2017,” Signed mentioned, looking back as the only returning member of the original team that set foot in Santa Monica. A team that unceremoniously finished last place in their group among powerhouse teams such as the USA and Taiwan (comprised of the championship winning Flash Wolves roster), taking only a single map from Brazil to end New Zealand’s run at a score of 1-11.

General manager Cameron “Equinox” Dul said that “expectations were not high at all” for the New Zealanders based on past performances.

“People were definitely underestimating team NZ but for good reasons. Mainly for how we performed at SEA Invitational and also where NZ placed in 2017.”

That invitational was New Zealand’s first international exhibition of the year where they fell 0-3 to eventual finalists Japan in the opening quarterfinal of the tournament. “We started scrimming the week before the SEA invitational,” head coach Matthew “Noxious” Sawyer said in regards to officially kicking off their training and preparation process for the World Cup. “The biggest challenges were adapting to the meta and finding teams willing to scrim us.”

Anyone local to the region is no stranger to the plethora of timezone and latency hurdles teams are required to navigate through in order to find effective practice. But despite having to work through difficulties, the team was optimistic about their chances. Going into this year’s World Cup, New Zealand remained among several other teams that despite having participated in previous years, were yet to claim their first international victory. It was abundantly clear from the start of the campaign that this team had plans to change that.

In terms of setting goals for the event, coach Noxious had admirably stated that they were aiming to achieve top two in their group. An aspiration shared by the team in particular as the official bracket was drawn for the preliminary stage. That knockout bracket in question, released the day before the opening World Cup match was to be played, detailed the exact premise of the opening stage of the event.

Twenty eight teams would be split across five single elimination knockout groups. From the preliminaries only one team from each group would progress to the Top 10, joining the likes of prequalified teams such as South Korea and the United States for the next stage. In order to get there, New Zealand would have to battle through Austria, Australia, Denmark and Taiwan (Chinese Taipei), all of whom were drawn into group A.

It’s here people! Here are the brackets for the preliminaries to head into the group stage. Wake up early, make a cuppa and come show your support! Tag us if you’re watching the games! #kiwisup pic.twitter.com/kt1yTixC2K

— Team New Zealand Overwatch ?? (@NZOWWC) October 31, 2019

“As the team rapidly developed and as brackets were being released, I quickly gained more confidence and knew the team could perform well,” Equinox stated alongside a confident Signed who revealed that “when we saw the bracket we knew we could beat Austria and Australia,” a claim that would be tested within 12 hours of the team’s official bracket announcement as New Zealand would face Austria at the top of the morning in one of the opening matches of the 2019 Overwatch World Cup.

At 9:00 am local time the next day, New Zealand took their gloves off for their first official World Cup match in two years – and it was short.

Group A – Game 1 results:

?? 3?? @NZOWWC
?? 0?? @TeamAustriaOW

?? New Zealand advances, facing ?? Australia in the next round! pic.twitter.com/bYWv4TbC16

— OWWCTracker (@OWWCTracker) October 31, 2019

Suffice to say New Zealand were living up to their expectations insofar as breaking the losing streak of the past. In comparison to his last run with the 2017 team, Signed voiced that “we practiced more, we had a better understanding of how to get better due to the resources we have now compared to before. People wanted to get better and tried harder.” This first taste of victory would result in Austria’s prompt elimination from the World Cup and set the stage for the fated trans-Tasman showdown.

“Signed/Colourhex is an amazing DPS line, Jungle has great experience, August was great at adapting to flex support, and everyone was willing to grind and support our least experienced players in Joker and Plihs.”
Noxious

With only an additional “A” and “L” separating the two teams, Australia had been a very well known quantity within World Cup history compared to Austria. They were one of ten teams directly invited with financial support to participate based on international results from past performances. Those results included four total appearances across all four years the World Cup had taken place, two podium finishes at group stages leading to two qualifications to the main BlizzCon playoff stage, falling short only at the quarterfinals. Needless to say Australia was a strong favourite not only in this matchup, but in the group itself.

Team New Zealand knew this was likely going to be the stumbling point for their 2019 run. Both teams were very familiar with the other sharing a joint Contenders region in their home setting. Outside of the World Cup, Noxious is the coach of the historic Sydney Drop Bears who’ve held three consecutive Contenders titles across 2018. On the opposite side was coach Sam “Face” Merewether as Noxious’ predecessor from the same Sydney Drop Bears that claimed two of those titles.

Alongside Face stood two-time team Australia head coach and Boston Uprising’s assistant coach Jordan “Gunba” Graham with Australia’s general manager Andrew “RQT” Haws — head coach of ORDER; Signed’s Contenders Australia team with teammate Max “Unter” Unterwurzacher, also on team Australia. For these two close-knit teams, both knew the end result would mean the elimination of the other from the tournament, heralding this match as the final resting ground for their 2019 campaign.

New Zealand is seed 26 and @AUSOWWC is 6th. We are so damn proud of our boys for putting on a good show. Making aus work for it until the tie breaker match. Go get em Australia pic.twitter.com/lk75M8RzkC

— Team New Zealand Overwatch ?? (@NZOWWC) October 31, 2019

New Zealand fell short. By a sliver of a margin and the difference of one map, team Australia had secured themselves a rematch with their 2018 groupmates Denmark to decide who would progress to the next stage. “It was unfortunate to meet up with Australia as they were one of our natural scrim partners due to time zones and ping, but we were confident going in,” said Noxious. “Both Australia and team NZ had very clutch moments against each other, we hadn’t lost Eichenwalde to team Australia in recent scrims before.”

That second map of the series taking place on Eichenwalde would end up defining the match, allowing Australia to equalise an early lead held by New Zealand after map one. Easily the closest affair of the series, New Zealand was one fight away from a 2-0 match point position against the group favourites before Australia’s Jason “ieatuup” Ho tipped the scales irreversibly with an unnoticed Reaper dismantling the Kiwi’s final defence. The impact of which would be felt later on in the series as New Zealand claimed Paris as the fourth map in what could have been an overall 3-1 victory had they also confirmed Eichenwalde earlier.

“We kept a good mentality through losing Eichenwalde and crumbling on Junkertown to bring everything back on Paris to tie up the series. We fell short in adaptability on Junkertown and Oasis and that was our downfall in the end.”
Noxious

“It was unfortunate that we made more mistakes than them on the day, and there were very crucial ones that led to us losing maps that we shouldn’t have lost,” said Signed in hindsight. General manager Equinox echoed similar sentiments saying “this match was winnable.”

“The team was disappointed for not winning as it came down to minor mistakes. Being Australia, there was a lot riding on that match and it would’ve been amazing if we won.”

Australia would go on to suffer a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Denmark, who themselves had narrowly missed the playoffs in 2018 after an upsetting loss to Sweden on the last day of the Bangkok group stage. From that context, both Australia and New Zealand could take solace in knowing that another darkhorse team who had fallen short of playoffs for two years running would go on to have one of the most successful World Cup runs in recent history as an underdog country.

The 2019 World Cup would end as a watershed moment in international Overwatch history. South Korea would be toppled for the first time in four years. Team USA would finally become World Cup champions. A small country would relish the small victories as even New Zealand’s little slice of history would make their bittersweet ending taste that much better.

You can follow Equinox, Signed, Noxious and Team NZ on Twitter.

Overwatch commentator and analyst Kevin ‘AVRL’ Walker breaks down Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 announcement, new features, and what it means for Overwatch’s competitive landscape.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent your weekend with eyes glued to the monitor, eagerly awaiting Blizzard’s annual opening ceremony keynote for this year’s big reveals. To be specific, I’m talking about the worst kept secret in the week long lead up to BlizzCon, the surprise(?) sequel of Overwatch 2.

With the sight of Lilith’s translucent heartbeat mimicking my own, I too was summoned by the blood of the willing to witness what exactly the Overwatch development team had in store for us this weekend. Here’s a quick summary of what was announced:

• Brand new coop PvE experience with story missions and hero missions featuring hero levels, talent trees, and a focus on replayability.
• Upgraded engine with updated visuals for heroes, enemy factions, and the player UI. Also Genji has a sports hoodie.
• 4 confirmed maps with more in development:
  • Rio de Janeiro
  • Toronto
  • Gothenburg
  • Monte Carlo
• 2 confirmed heroes with more in development:
  • Sojourn
  • Echo
• Overwatch’s PvP multiplayer will be compatible with the original game. All PvP content including cosmetic unlockables will be brought forward into the sequel. Owners of the current Overwatch will not be required to purchase the sequel to play PvP.
• New core gamemode “Push” featuring a tug-of-war style objective. Push will be added into the competitive rotation and Overwatch League.
• No release date announced.

Answer the call.

Overwatch 2 builds on the award-winning foundation of epic competitive play, and challenges the world’s heroes to team up, power up, and take on an overwhelming outbreak of threats around the globe.

Learn more: https://t.co/XhKgOJGPNV pic.twitter.com/vdPIDH6UNk

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) November 1, 2019

If you’re asking me what my initial reaction was, I would tell you that the onslaught of prior leaks had definitely dulled the blunt force impact of the overall announcement. While the news hasn’t knocked me clean to the ground it’s still left me dazed and seeing two.

As a self proclaimed PvE god (I once held the top ranking in Overwatch Retribution for a total of 2 hours) I will always welcome the addition of more co-op and narrative content. But I know for many of us the real question we had on our minds was in regards to how the competitive multiplayer would evolve, and that is really the focus of what I want to discuss.

I will be clear in that no reasonable person is ever going to be upset with the addition of more of the usual suspects to the existing rogue’s gallery. New maps? Great. New heroes? Love it. New visuals? Very cool. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still waiting for something else. Perhaps I’m being greedy with maybe even a sprinkling of self acknowledged entitlement, but in truth I had secretly hoped for a much bigger gameplay overhaul.

I guess the pervasive aura of uneasiness can be explained as a side effect of Overwatch Chapter 2 not truly feeling like a sequel in the traditional sense. The end result of which leads us to maintaining the status quo, which may not be a bad thing but it does mean some of the deeper issues with the core gameplay leading to player dissatisfaction will go unchanged for now. That however is a lengthy topic for another day.

The real juicy patty of the proverbial burger I want to bite into is the content announced that I believe will make the biggest impact on the competitive landscape; Push. This will be the first core game mode released since the launch of Overwatch in May 2016. Unlike deathmatch, CTF and other arcade modes introduced over time, none of those are defined as being a core game mode that is played in the standard quickplay and competitive rotation.

The reason this is important for the game is due to the need for greater variety in competitive modes; filling a vacant gap in current professional match formats as well as allowing for the potential to replace existing game modes if desired.

The first statement is easy to address as currently the Control game mode is played twice as maps one and five (or more for tiebreakers) in a standard first-to-three (or best-of-five) match. This places a greater weighting on Control in professional play where no other game modes are repeated in a standard match.

Adding a fifth competitive mode allows for each game mode to have equal weighting in a series, addressing fairness across the map pool. All of that is fine assuming we want to maintain the status quo of continuing to play each game mode equally.

An alternate consideration is the potential of removing game modes from professional formats that do not offer appealing gameplay. Assault (2CP) comes to mind first and foremost as the primary offender from the perspective of most players. General gameplay of the mode aside, the other issue both Assault and Hybrid modes share is the capability and frequency of draws.

No one likes to see draws in either their own games or professional play. Nothing stifles a match more than navigating a draw which causes complete redundancy during an active series. Reducing the capability or frequency of draws through adjustments to offending modes or removal of those modes will significantly improve the gameplay experience for viewers and players.

This is where I have to give praise to the design of Push as a mode akin to Escort that prevents the capability of draws. To catch everyone up on how the new mode works; Push is a two-way payload escorting game mode that revolves around control over a neutral mobile objective.

Unlike traditional Escort, the payload in Push is a robot which pushes a team coloured distance marker to denote the greatest distance achieved by either team in that particular game. When one team loses control over the objective, the robot switches sides, running toward and pushing the distance marker for the other team in the opposite direction.

Just like a traditional payload in Escort, the objective can be contested by both teams whereby the robot pauses in wait for either team to maintain control again. The team with the greatest distance achieved when the timer expires or the team that completes a full distance push to the end of the map will be the winner.

The overall gameplay of Push however is the result of familiar territory previously explored in other team based games. As is natural with a successful game like Overwatch, many of the most notable features are borrowed or inspired by the design lessons of past games.

Of those games, Team Fortress 2 is a clear standout among others for design inspiration. Push itself draws many similarities to the popular “Symmetrical Control Point” game mode featured in TF2, commonly referred to in the community as 5CP. The real genius in the design of Push comes with solving the challenges of 5CP which held the original game mode back.

As the staple competitive game mode in TF2, anyone with past experience in professional play will tell you that despite it representing the core competitive experience, it was also flawed in many areas.

For those unfamiliar, the goal of 5CP is to capture five control points placed in linear fashion on a symmetrical map. Each team begins with two points under their control and a neutral middle point to be contested from either side. Once the neutral middle point is captured, the team with control over three points pushes toward the opposing team’s second point where that team will look to defend, to be repeated until all five points are captured by a single team.

If this is beginning to sound familiar than you’ve already landed on more than a few similarities between TF2’s 5CP and Overwatch’s Push. While the gameplay of 5CP at times can be fast and fun, one of the primary issues often experienced is pacing. Despite TF2 being the team based shooter that first introduced the payload mechanic, the escort game modes landed flat among the competitive community and were not played in most organised settings.

The payload mechanic when brought over to Overwatch however introduced a much welcomed tempo regulation device, serving as a focal point for teams to contend over much like the ball in most traditional sports. The lack of this mechanic in 5CP means the pace is set simply by how quickly a team can move across the map, resulting in incredibly fast map completions and total blowouts for opponents in one sided games.

The opposite is also painfully true for close matches as once a team successfully captures the neutral middle point, both sides will enter a stalemate that can last for egregiously long durations where neither team is willing to risk pushing into the other.

Where Overwatch’s Push solves these problems is by introducing a payload that regulates the pacing of the game while keeping the core 5CP gameplay experience intact.

In order to incentivise teams to push as the mode’s namesake would suggest, the greatest distance achieved by each team is recorded with a physical marker. As this marker represents an alternative win condition, teams are strongly encouraged to push the objective as much as possible and as far as possible, thus solving the stalemate problem often encountered in 5CP.

Due to the nature of the regulated speed at which a payload can move, teams will also experience far fewer blowouts at a far more acceptable pace. Teams must win considerably more consecutive fights in order to fully capture all objectives on the map, allowing defenders more opportunity to fight back. As stated by Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan, internal testing has resulted in far more map wins decided by greatest distance rather than full map completions.

With the addition of Push, Overwatch has now successfully ported TF2’s most highly played competitive game mode. As a former competitive TF2 player this was the one gameplay experience I had optimistically wished for the most since Overwatch’s release.

While there have been many big additions announced to other parts of the game, Push is unequivocally a major win for the PvP focused side of the game. For both ranked players and Overwatch League fans, this will be something important to look forward to in addition to everything else announced.

While there’s certainly still a lot of work ahead before all complaints are quelled, this is at least a good start in the direction Overwatch is heading.