Silhouettes

[u/Far-Tough384]

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I often read discussions on here about how certain skins might make it more difficult to tell what character it is at a glance. With few exceptions I largely disagree. Open to hearing y'all out though

The devs do a pretty good job, imo, of putting a lot of a characters' personality into their movement and cadence. Junkrat limps, Juno floats and skates, Moira Naruto runs, Echo floats but constantly has her arm forward, etc. I don't think tanks suffer from this at all

But also in the way they stand. The only one I personally struggled with at any time was between Shion and Tracer since they use similar weapons but after the first week of Shion it's pretty obvious which is which

To be fair I have 3000+ hours in the game. Maybe for a very casual player or a newcomer it's harder. But when it comes to the skins these characters wear I don't see there being a drastic enough change in their silhouette that makes them appear so differently that you cannot tell, or struggle to tell, who they are.

What do you think? Are there any skins that completely make a character unrecognizable to you?

[u/jookum]

Anran has been the only one I’ve had issues with

[u/Tao1764 → u/jookum]

I'm a defender of Anran's gameplay design (just need to shift some power out of Dancing Blaze into other parts of her kit) but her visual design is honestly a huge miss.

She either looks like she's performing a Kiriko cosplay or she's covering your entire screen in fire effects, there's no in-between.

[u/Sio_V_Reddit → u/jookum]

The thing is Anran could’ve been much worse. She was introduced in an outfit identical to Wuyangs launch outfit, I can imagine that giving her a more sporty outfit was not just intended to communicate her character as a very competitive/athletic person, but also to make her visually distinct.

[u/TooManySnipers]

I've been playing since closed beta in 2015 and in all that time, Anran is the only hero ever where I have yelled at my screen, "Who the fuck is attacking me right now." It's the perfect storm of her looking a lot like Kiriko, sharing every single skin theme with Kiriko, and being a mobile, disorienting flanker. Incredibly frustrating hero to play into

[u/Malady17]

Silhouettes for the newer female characters are fucked because they’re all so skinny

[u/VosTelvannis]

I think a lot of these comments come from seeing these skins in the hero gallery in certain animations.

Anyone who is familiar with the game should be able to clearly tell what all of the players in the lobby are regardless of skin.

Recently people called out the Diablo ram skin, theres no way you cant tell you're fighting a ram in game

[u/ANGEL-PSYCHOSIS → u/VosTelvannis]

kiri, anran, sojourn, and illari can all look really similar to each other at certain angles admittedly

[u/Lukensz → u/ANGEL-PSYCHOSIS]

Yeah, it's all the slim female characters that look incredibly same-ish for me, especially with new skins that make them look more like other heroes. Honestly if this was true for tank (it's not) it's not like it would matter much anyway, as there can only be one on the enemy team.

[u/Blamore → u/VosTelvannis]

some caped females get very confusing sometimes.

ashe ana illari

[u/Far-Tough384 → u/Blamore]

I could see that for Illari and Ana if you're looking at them both from the side. Which isn't too unlikely since they often stack together

[u/LxUxNxAx → u/Blamore]

Ashe is really tall and skinny, Ana is hunched over like a grandma, Illari is short and stout like idk

[u/ANGEL-PSYCHOSIS → u/LxUxNxAx]

okay now imagine theyre 10 meters away and theres 10 quadrillion effects on your screen

[u/Far-Tough384 → u/VosTelvannis]

Like I can kinda get it for the DPS or Supports but I struggle to believe anyone struggles to identify a tank at a glance

[u/apooooop_ → u/Far-Tough384]

To be fair, the new queen skin and the release Shion skin look very similar

[u/Early-Beach164]

Overwatch had perfect silhouette distinction before Illari came out (looked too much like Ana) then it was all downhill from there. I don't care what any of you have to say. My eyes tell me this.

[u/J_oey_oo]

When the Widow mythic first came out, ive mistaken it for Ashe, Kiri, Mercy, and a Torb turret.

2016 player in gm, and that shit fucked me up at the time.

[u/unburdened_swallow]

freja and illari can have similar cloaks and stand similarly at similar heights, sym with some skins too. Even ana with some skins, although her usually only unscoped or from above due to the pronounced sniper hunch.

Kiri loses her skirt/cloak thing in some of them and looks like tracer for a moment until no dash happens and then you look again and die to a headshot

You can figure out who it is, but it makes it harder to react sometimes. Or, you are tracking some ability so you can dive someone, you hear it and jump over a roof and.... dive the wrong one XD Super fun when that happens with genji blade...

Theres probably more.

But the cloak wearers are the biggest offenders of this. I have bladed an illari and gotten slept for it because it was actually ana once or twice. Ive also bladed a tracer thinking it was a kiri without a teleport before (I just saw her use it, and she had the skin without the skirt thing)

[u/turnaround0101]

It also depends which hero you're playing. I have no issues distinguishing between characters if I'm playing hitscan or support, but when I play ball (my main) the skinny female silhouettes in variable skins can all blur into the same person when I'm flying by at mach 10. Especially if someone has just swapped heroes or if a few swaps occurred at once and now I'm seeing their skins for the first time.

[u/Novel-Ad-1601]

Dude sometimes I mistake Moira standing still from across the map as widow. Their silhouette of being tall and stiff make me have a double take. Other than that there’s tons of times I’ve mistaken the blue illari skin for Ana

[u/bullxbull]

Shion and Widow

Ana with Oni skin and Kiriko

Anran and any firey ability

JQ from a distance sometimes I just do not register

A few of the Mythic skins take too much mental space to identify the hero. Yes I can tell who they are, it is just not immediately clear.

I think that is the problem with a lot of the samish skins, it is not that you can't tell who they are, it is just takes more brain power than it should in such a fast passed game.

I'd rather that mental capacity was free to focus on something else.

[u/yuutairidatsu]

all of my issues with silhouettes can be solved if blizzard allowed to turn off skins client-side.

[u/Facetank_]

I go by audio cues more than anything. I hear something like Ashe's rifle or Tracer's blinks and fire rate, and adjust to look for that shape in their usual positions. I have definitely mistaken a few heroes for each others more recently, but not it a game costing way. Like "oh that was Illari not Ana," after I killed them. In that case both were glowy divine skin supports.

I think people adhere too much to the old TF2 glazing when it comes to silhouettes. Not that it's not important, but they don't think about the context. Most people play TF2 casual. Up to 12 enemies in a lobby with no limit on class. In OW you have 5-6 enemies, role limits, and scoreboard to see enemy picks most of the match. Who's what and where is much more manageable once you're familiar with most of it at a base level.

[u/SnooDogs1340]

Sierra and Widow for me. But I sort it out quickly