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First person shooters and MOBA are two popular genres which are not going away anytime soon. Nowadays there are more and more games coming out by combining these two elements, such
Battleborn,
Paladins,
Gigantic and
Overwatch. We call them team-based shooters.
In the issue of MMO faceoff, we are going to look at Overwatch and Paladins which have both entered beta test recently. First of all, I want to say that this is not an article about which game is better since both games are in beta phase and any features could be changed before the official release. Moreover it's also not about if one game copied another. Both Blizzard and Hi-rez are very good at Action MMO and Overwatch and Paladins started their development almost during the same time.
Characters and Abilities![]()
There are 21 distinctive heroes in Overwatch, and each one has a very detail back story including faction, age, occupation. Whereas in Paladins we get only 8 different heroes. Paladins character design needs to be stepped up, but don't worry since we have seen the hero pool become larger and larger in Smite.
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Players can see some familiar and not so familiar combinations of abilities in these two game. Characters in Overwatch have common abilities and ultimate ability, these abilities are more
sci-fi style than Paladins. Ultimate abilities are powerful abilities only available to a hero once their Ultimate Meter has filled.
As for Paladins, it has incentive to level up both in-game and out. Every time the players level up, they get to choose one of three
cards, plucked randomly from the player's deck, which can be equipped on their hero. It's kind of like talent system in other MOBA games. Moreover players can ride on their
mounts like
Heroes of the Storm, therefore, Paladins remains more MOBA elements around their characters.
Battleground & Combat![]()
Paladins has much larger,
wide open battlegrounds while Overwatch offers a
corridor style maps for games. Both games' combat are more-or-less we can expect from objective. In Paladins, players' goal is
destroying the opposing team's base. They have to capture the engine, escort the siege weapon to opposing HQ and finally destroy enemies' base. However Overwatch divides it into two different game mode
Playload and
Point Capture. Maybe it's because Overwatch's battleground is much smaller and Blizzard wants players to focus on the objective. Big battleground offers more strategies but may end up playing for kills and not the objective. Overall, both games' battlegrounds look like battlefield in WoW for me, and Overwatch reminds me of
Call of Duty while Paladins reminds me of
Battlefiled series.
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Gameplay
Overwatch is actually a blast to play, you can see the a lot of action, quick switching and close body fight in this game. Right now there is still no sense of progression in Overwatch, such as levels, gold, a stats archive. Anything to show that you're improving or moving forward. But the gameplay itself is brilliant and beautiful and lots of fun, so that stuff should be easy to add to an already well-made game. Whereas Paladins are more wide open and represents the studio's vision of a fantasy world as it might exist 1000 years after sword-and-board combat. Hi-Rez Studios gives players more freedom to mold their favorite character with unique decks, but the character is still need more depth. Also there is no reloading in Paladins, which makes some weapons look similar.
Business Model![]()
Overwatch won't be a free-to-play game. The base game will cost $40 on PC, with the Origins Edition costing $60 on all platforms. The Collector's Edition is priced at $129.99.
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Paladins will be free-to-play Like Smite, but you can get access to Paladins immediately if you're willing to drop $19.99 on it now. Operational costs will be covered by the sale of cosmetic items and card packs. I hope the card pack won't be a P2W staff.
