I have noticed that the OW community seems very reluctant to learn how to play the game from people who are better than them or only accept very few people as knowledgable enough to have an opinion worth listening to.
Very few are open to the fact that their peers might actually might know a bit more or even be a better player despite being in the same rank.
There’s also a lot of “I don’t like this person so nothing they say can possibly be right” going on but that’s mostly something I have noticed on the forums.
The lack of gamesense and positional awareness I have witnessed in rank all the up to masters is quite appalling and literally reasons for why games can be lost.
I’d never thought I’d hear a Diamond tank asking if reseting position to the highground on Gibraltar A defense is necesary. I mean seriously? The people who control the highground basically wins that section of the map, that’s why most people only push the cart to the corner and have everyone except maybe 1 go to contest the highground and push them away while the cart is getting some progress.
There are honestly so many teamfights that are lost because people have no idea where to be on the map at any given point.
You would think so, but no. And thats the problem.
OW average player’s ego is so high because the punishment for bad plays is not as prevalent as in other games, so Dunning Kruger and Survivor Bias runs rampant like its nothing.
I can guarantee you that on average ranks and below, you can pick any replay, ask the player in a random part of a team fight “Why are you here and why are you shooting/not shooting?” and they will not be able to answer accurately.
Now all ranks are way worse than they were before when people was “forced” to flex. Lack of versatility and Onetricks are prevalent in RQ.
I think hidden MMR is definitely doing something to make people stay in ranks for longer than they deserve to be but to me it’s undeniable that the overall level of play now is higher than it was a year ago. Even though people aren’t conscious of what they are doing and why simply by playing more and more as well as some trickle down there’s going to be improvement.
You notice this the most with people who play very few ranked games per season, like the people who just do it to get placed and maybe a few more mostly for comp points, even though their hidden MMR might keep them in a rank for a long time, they are definitely not going to be as good as the people who actually play full seasons, even if their skill doesn’t deteriorate over time.
I don’t think people are worse at all than pre RQ, I think people are actually better now at individual roles. The amount of one tricks is unaffected. Flexing roles to “fix” a problem is in a lot of ways also a crux that people use to get an advantage over players who are on an individual basis more skilled.
Not at all, literally the other way around lol. Theres no “hidden MMR” anymore since RQ.
RQ was a “soft reset” of the MMR, so you see people that were barely gold pre RQ, getting to Plat in 1 role, and staying high silver/low gold in the rest. The Lack of versatilty issue is way way way way worse with RQ since you are not required to flex at all.
Also since only 1 of the team can take your hero, OTPs are way more prevalent than they ever were. This system pretty much encourages it, the number definitely went up and playing in my alt showed to me:
Im crushing people that are Diamond right now in QP and in Comp (I can see their profiles many times) with a very low amount of effort. That didnt happen AT ALL before RQ.
RQ is only “boosting” people because they are forced to play with your pick. Nobody in the team (besides 1) can do it better than you and nobody can switch, so they are stuck with the stubborn, inflexible player.
Level has gone down fast, just look at the T500 start for “combined” ranks and you will see it. Thats just how it is.
That is just wrong, hidden MMR is the internal system they are using instead of SR, it still exists. SR is just a number that makes more sense to the playerbase but the hidden MMR is a system that determines your rank and pulls you towards it as what MMR is trying to do is put you in a place where you win 50% of your games.
This is completely anecdotal, some people have varying SRs across roles because they that’s genuinly how good they are on different roles, I was a flex and still am and all my roles placed in low master, same as I was pre role queue.
Flexing in some ways is artificially boosting yourself as you are fixing a problem that you can’t with your skill by getting an inherent advantage by picking a counter.
It’s also a fallacy that RQ doesn’t have versatility or flexing, you still have to be versatile and flex within your role to get the most out of it. Limiting people to a role is not a bad thing.
Overflexing is actually an incredibly bad habbit, because people think that the solution is often times as simple as picking a hard counter to a certain pick on the enemy team. If this was the case then the top level of play would not have metas like we literally have had since the beginning of the game.
OQ are boosted because if they lock what they want and don’t switch then it’s up to the rest to fill around it
Do you see how this works? There is nothing stubborn about RQ, you pick a role so you already know what to expect before playing the game without forcing anyone else into an off role or having to play an off role yourself.
This is just a misunderstanding of how it is. People can choose to only play 1 role now if that’s what they want so obviously that means that if there are very few tank players compared to DPS and support, then the barrier to entry for top 500 is going to be significantly lower, that has absolutely nothing to do with the overall level of play being lowered overall. If anything in OQ someone on your team who’s tanking could be on the level of a diamond tank in a GM game
You are clearly off base mate, no offense.
First - That “hidden MMR” that you are talking about doesnt exist at all. What you are referring to is an urban legend that some hard stuck people claim they have on their main accounts and then after 50-100 Comp matches on their alt, they end up in the same SR.
Second - The internal MMR, that is invisible to players, changes CONSTANTLY. And yes, it was sort of “reset” by letting the placements on the initial RQ move higher levels of SR up and down (like on stupid levels, 100 per win etc).
Its not anecdotal pal, its FACTUAL.
Many players didnt have anything to track their own skill in 2 roles out of 3 because they were really really really bad and RQ basically boosted them in 1 role, and left the other 2 back. You didnt see it as much, like me, because i was a True Flex player, so all my role SR are within the same 250 gap.
Damn that is wrong on so many levels I dont even know where to begin.
This game is not an MMO, this is not about “Becoming the best OTP Doomfist” there is and if you switch when theres 3 counters in the enemy team, you are “Flexing/Boosting” yourself out of a bad situation because you lack the skill to deal with your counters. That is simply not true at all, and not how the game works at all.
The next sentence clearly shows you dont know what “Flex” is, mostly because you made out a fallacy out of nowhere, when presented with facts that clearly expose the lack of versatility of people. Again, this is a FACT: Before RQ, you had to be able to play any role and a lot of different heroes
“Flex within your role” is not a thing. Some roles have literally 7-8 heroes. Which makes your “flexing range” around 80% smaller? Yeah nah. Not a thing.
Simply false.
Again, before RQ someone could do your job better than you and “take you off” the role. Now that cant happen. Unless you are being hardcore disingenuous here, you should know this is simply true.
It isnt though, you are skewing the situation to avoid the truth.
Theres only 2 ways this can be:
Either RQ has exposed the lack of versatility a lot of people had and now we can see that overall the SR is lower (average between the 3 roles)
RQ basically allows more inflexible, or people that lack A LOT of versatility, to climb higher because they are not required to flex … in a game that was BUILT on Switching heroes to counter the enemy (again, core principle of the game, factual).
Either of the 2, doesnt look good for your side of the argument dude.
Like not at all.
A question based on a small part of this conversation…
What is the issue with “inflexability”
If someone enjoys only playing supports, and only enjoys playing Mercy… who are we to tell them other wise.
If they are not very good on that hero… so be it. The avoid button should be used.
This and one tricks is an issue i’ve never really understood… Why should they swap from the hero/role they enjoy, just to suit who ever is complaining… When the complainer could swap to help the inflexible player.
If you are unwilling to do that, you have no right asking the one trick/inflexible player to swap.
After countless hours of playing the game, I had the epiphany. So here it goes.
Play exactly what you want, don’t let others affect your gameplay or fun.
You will eventually reach your skill level with that character and that’s that.
Don’t participate in chat, they’ll want to bait you into reporting you. Just play what you want, and enjoy.
You can’t teach everybody, you can’t count on matchmaking, you can’t control anything in this game unless you’re a team of 6. You’ll just be dissapointed over and over again with no light at the end of the tunel.
Play what you want, when you want, and take the Ls.
as i see it, people allways will have an ego, but it’s more so that they want to play the game in a way that they think is fun .
but you do know who got an ego problem?
counterstrike players, they refuse to use guns that are good simply because it’s a “noob” weapon or it’s not the “meta weapon”.
now back to overwatch, this comes in the form of players thinking some heroes are bad because someone at higher ranks just expressed their opinion, well that’s kinda similar to the counterstrike weapon example i referenced earlier.
The hidden MMR is the internal MMR, it’s the one that players don’t see because it doesn’t make much sense to players. Jeff explained it on a stream I believe a while back.
When people make alt accounts they might initially place higher but if their MMR on their main is correct they’ll likely drop to whatever they are after several games.
OQ MMR had a reset as well, if anything people’s SR have been more inflated in current OQ simply because much less people play it. People who were previously Gold in ranks like Diamond believing that’s the skill level they were always meant to be lol.
No, you have no statistics to prove this, ergo not a fact. You are basing this completely on a couple of examples you have seen or heard through others.
Some people have multipile accounts for each role prior to RQ, but the people in OQ who were forced to fill like I said could genuinly be GM on DPS but Diamond on tank which is one of the reasons why OQ is dumb as the game cannot account for player behaviour making for very imbalanced matches.
Based on your definition I’m a true flex as well as all my roles placed low masters and stayed there until I stopped playing the game competitively.
Just as you have examples of people being boosted by the MMR on their main role, there are also examples of players who have widely varying SRs across all roles, like Gold in one, Diamond in another and GM in third for example.
The game is not an MMO though it does have elements of it which is key.
To understand how the game is played “correctly” you always have to go top down and the game played in its most efficient way is in a team based environment with people specializing in roles. It’s not about being a one-trick but being good at one particular thing, whether it be main tank, off tank, hitscan, projectile or whatever.
Most people who flex will be a jack of all trades and master of none, very few manage to be an actual master of all.
Hard counters is proof that there is a built in mechanic to compensate for playerskill to allow people to shutdown problematic heroes/players. Selecting the right hero is a player decision which also a type of skill but it lowers the other skills required for the game. A player that fixes all problems by only flexing will never become really good at any given hero and learn how heroes that don’t directly counter another hero can actually counterplay them.
There is a dumb misconception that flexing is switching between any role within any given time during a match to counter something on the enemy team and that it was a good thing while in reality it can be downright throwing. What people failed to realize is that commitment to countering a player on the enemy team can open up more holes to be exploited by the enemy team.
A classic example of this is people malding over a Pharmercy to the point where everyone are looking up at the sky, meanwhile the Pharah’s direct impact may be lowered however, the pharah’s frontline are steamrolling over the other team’s frontline as there’s nothing to stop them from doing so.
Or the classic support/tank switch off to Sombra, they hack it and thing they should win meanwhile the lack of a support/tank on the team is being heavily exploited and the the sombra goes “WhAt aRe YoU DoING?! tHE DoOmFIsT Is HaCkEd, WhY ArE We lOsInG, TrASh TeAm!”
Yes, flexing within your role is a thing. It’s not like there is 1 hero per role. Flexing has never exclusively meant to jump from role to role, it’s simply having a pool of heroes you can play.
There are 17 different heroes to pick from in the damage category, 8 in tank and 7 in support, all playing differently and requiring different skillsets. How in the hell is being able to play multipile heroes within your role not being flexible?
Mate, you don’t even know what a fact is, stop using the word.
There was no requirement to be able to play any role or a lot of different heroes at all, the existence of one-tricks in top 500 is literally proof of that. This would not be the case if in fact being flexible was a necessity, it helps but it’s not necessary, that is a fact.
You thinking that you can do another person’s job better than them and switching does not force them to switch. Maybe the will, maybe they won’t regardless of which if they don’t now you suddenly have 1 less of another role and likely committed to another which again, could be a downright throw.
You are creating false parameters to fit your agenda.
That is not what RQ is showing, what it’s showing is what people’s skill level is on different roles. People being able to flex doesn’t mean that they are equally good on all roles. A person who can play McCree at GM level and Reinhardt at Diamond level is still flexible, they however aren’t anywhere near the same skill level with both heroes and that is the problem of OQ. There are people who will force their desired role and people who are willing to flex or fill (those two are very different btw). You never knew if the person flexing or filling was actually any good at what they did. This is why matches before were far more imbalanced than they currently are because the matchmaker could not account for player behaviour, that insecurity has partially been removed with RQ. People queue for the role they want to play and are put in a lobby where they should belong in. Even if they are “boosted” they should drop to whatever rank they do belong in as you mentioned earlier with people creating alts.
The reason why queue times are like they are is because each role is clearly not equally popular. If the majority of players in GM are damage, followed by support and a very low number of tanks, it’s mathematically obvious that the barrier to entry for top 500 is going to be significantly lower for a tank role, meaning that you could very well be a diamond or a master tank in top 500 which was most common during the early days of RQ. That’s not indicative of the level of play being lowered, but simply a reflection of what the actual skill level has always been.
RQ allows players to focus on their role and be flexible within it. It allows for specializing and constant improvement, you don’t have to go into a game wondering whether you get to play the role you want or have to flex/fill. It allows people to actually improve in a controlled environment.
If anything having less options make it harder so you need to improve on certain heroes and learn how the heroes you have available can counterplay whatever you are up against. People are required to flex, you just have your own definition of what that means which isn’t the correct one. Hero switching still exists in RQ, fact, you just have to do it within your selected role.
The core principle of the game still exists, however RQ has increased the skill floor across the playerbase as people need to work with a select pool of heroes they choose to opt into and learn how to counterplay with less obvious counters.
You call yourself a true flex, how are you so sure that the MMR of one of your roles isn’t boosting your other roles to be within the same range?
No , no, no. Dont backpedal.
I am talking about the urban myth you threw out there here: I think hidden MMR is definitely doing something to make people stay in ranks for longer than they deserve
This is false. The rest I already explained. OQ didnt existed before, it was the normal SR so there was no reset at all. They literally took the same value pre RQ and used it.
I do have them. I look people’s profiles A LOT and no, you cant claim my examples are anecdotal and magically what you say isnt so yeah, either we are both wrong or your reply makes zero sense.
No, again, you are way off base.
This game is not about that, doesnt work that way, doesnt have MMO elements, nope. 100% wrong. The only thing that comes close is a MOBA and its still an “ish” .
Another false urban myth/legend.
Many flex players keep almost the same ranks even at the highest levels. Examples? PvPX, Kraggie and many other T500 GMs that are also T500 combined.
Wrong.
This is a misconception you have because you truly believe this is an MMO and the personal skills are more valuable than the team ones, which is false by the way. Proven over and over again by well coordinated teams rolling over better mechanical players in OWL, top Streams etc.
You dont “fix” the problems just by picking the right counter, you have to have the proper skills to play said counter and know you have to select it. That superceeds personal skills. Period.
Again, knowing what to switch, when to switch and having the proper skills to play the hero superceed personal skills with ONE hero. Thats what it is and you are taking an extreme example, where someone makes the right decisions and for some reason it doesnt work because one of the 3 factors I mentioned failed.
That is not the rule, that is the exception.
Also, not everyone that switches heroes is a flex player, more like the opposite: Only those who know who to switch to, when to do it and properly play said counters IS a flex player.
No.
Its not a thing.
Same role heroes have way way way way more transferrable skills and are way similar than heroes from different roles.
Theres a world of difference between playing Soldier76 and Brig. Not so much between Zen and Ana for example. That is just a fact.
Apply this to yourself. You got proven wrong several times and you clearly dont know what this game is about (proven by your MMO sentence).
Again, you are running around trying to make it seem that exceptions are the rule. The VAST majority of the players are NOT onetricks so congratulations on destroying your own point.
Again, 2 sides of that coin.
I can claim, with way more success, than onetricks are throwing WAY MORE than flex players. Mostly because it is 10x easier to counter a one trick than countering a flex player.
And this game is about switching to counter, synergies and team play.
Nope.
You just dont like them because they destroy your point. The rest is flufff.
To quote your words: No, you have no statistics to prove this, ergo not a fact. You are basing this completely on a couple of examples you have seen or heard through others
You are only talking about personal skills, no team skills, no synergies (since your hero choice is super limited) and no versatility (you dont need to play several heroes in different roles) therefore you need to have less skills in RQ.
That is just a FACT.
Because I played before and after RQ the same number of matches in each role so yeah, I am 100% sure.
Try to refute points without throwing urban myths, because you cant make claims and then ask for proof when refuted. Burden of proof doesnt work that way pal.
I’m not backpedaling, that’s what I always meant by hidden MMR. They use another system internally that adjusts your gains and losses accordingly. The goal of the MMR is to find the place you belong in which is defined by a 50/50 win loss ratio.
The irrelevance of placements speaks for itself. People who just play for placements and a few more game every season are very likely to just hang around in the same ELO even if they lose. You have to overperform or underperform based on what your MMR is to climb/derank.
“I look at people’s profiles a lot” are you having a laugh mate? So how many profiles do you reckon you have seen, can you compile some data based on it as proof? How exactly is digging through profiles proof of something that’s 100% bias? Are you some kind of savant who can accurately tell what people’s true SR is based on a game and some profile digging?
No wait, damage, tank and support roles don’t exist in MMOs and aren’t a general trope of the genre, true you got me there. We do however have 3 lanes, waves of ads to farm and leveling right?
You just proved me right mate. I said very few people manage to be a master of all. You named 2 people and “many other T500”, do I have to explain maths to you as well? GM is roughly only 1% of the playerbase, so if talk about players who are really good flex who go under the category “master of all”, that number is even smaller. So less than 1% vs. 99% of the players
Yeah it’s not like release Brig was a completely busted counter to dive that lead to damage heroes not even being played at the team level… wait.
A well coordinated team is very likely going to roll over a pro or top streamer (streaming makes people good?), if the team they are up against isn’t coordinated.
Is a well coordinated ladder team going to beat an actual OWL team? No.
You fix a lot of the problem by picking the counter, you inherently get an advantage in the matchup. Sure if you have never played the hero before or are just atrocious at it, it’s probably not going to do well on it. But if you are decent you probably will make a difference, even if the enemy player is overall better than you because the hero pick is making up for your lack of skill.
Again, you are making up definitions as you go to make a point.
A flex player is simply someone who can play multipile hero, that’s it. Nothing more, everything is completely made up nonesense.
Unless the switch is discussed with your team, which it rarely is and someone else willingly gives up and swaps to another role (which rarely happened because of players having too big of an ego), you just messed up your team comp to counter something while creating a new problem.
What? This makes zero sense. There are a lot of different types of heroes requiring very different skills in the same role. You mention 76 and Brig, why not Brig and Ana, or Bap? Even Lucio. They are completely different, in even in terms of positioning, mechanical skill requirement and how to play them in general.
What about Ball and Orisa? Are they not wildly different at all?
You have not proven anything, all your facts are opinions and your proof doesn’t exist, your only proof so far is “I check people’s profiles” which is laughable.
The only one running around and backpedaling here is you mate, you previous made it out to be the only truth but now there are suddenly exceptions?
If I’m destroying my argument by applying logic, then what exactly did you do by doing bringing up a very similar argument with 2 named players and top 500 players being able to the exception of “jack of all trades, master of none”? (which I btw. did say was possible, but the norm is still that most players don’t become that.
Sure, but your claim holds no more value than someone who’d claim the opposite. I’m not a 1-trick but whenever people counter pick me on Tracer and they aren’t good enough to actually counter me, I’m just going to farm them and have my team exploit that they are trying to counter me.
They aren’t destroying anything, they just show how hard you struggle to discuss something without having to make things up and treat them as the truth.
I’m sorry does any of that make sense to you? Sounds like you are really forcing an argument here.
How about we turn it around and say you have less heroes to choose from, therefore you have to be better at everything that’s available to you so you can make a difference by becoming a better player overall. It takes more skill to understand which hero is a good pick vs. something else without it being an obvious counter, meaning that you have less of an inherent advantage on said hero and playing it well enough to still counter the enemy player.
Does team skill, and synergies not exist in RQ?
Again, you really haven’t understood this whole fact thing… do you need a dictionary mate?
Try writting this 100 times “My biased opinions are not facts”.
Hmm, I still haven’t seen any proof from you, no your opinions still aren’t facts. How many are matches are “same number of matches?”. 5 for placements, 10, 100?
The sad part here is that you really just seem to be one of those generic players who have a superiority complex and think other people are boosted in your rank.
IAgain, simple facts:
The internal MMR made to find the true ranking of a player is NOT made to “make people stay in ranks for longer than they deserve” , those 2 things are way way different dude.
You got called on and now you are backing out: The very definition of backpedaling.
Again, asking for proof when you provided NONE.
Where is your survey? where are your stats? where is your proof? How come everything I say that goes against your point is magically anecdotal and what you say is true 100%?
Yeah, nah.
Oh yeah, Hanzo has a bow, therefore he is totally, 100% the same as a Human hunter level 80 yeah. Just because they have the same weapon.
Reach harder if you are going to troll at this point mate.
I named those and theres 500 people in that list. Also you named none, provided ZERO evidence but ask for some. Learn how burden of proof works.
Again, taking ONE exception, ONE hero, as a rule.
Repeat 100 times: " An exception is not a rule and I cant use an outlier to prove anything"
False. It comes from the word “Flexible”.
If you play Mcree, Soldier, Widow and Ashe you are, according to you, a “Flex player”. Is that dude really flexing? Nah.
Flexing requires to have a variety of skills, a hitscan main is NOT a Flex player. Learn the difference before trying to give lessons pal.
This is not a “rebuttal” mate.
All heroes inside Tank/Support have a lot of transferrable skills dude. Nobody is claiming they are the SAME, but they are really alike. Again, just because you dont like the answer, doesnt mean its false. Learn the difference.
You are 100% making up the claims with zero proof and logic. You can laugh at mine like it means something (appeal to ridicule fallacy, uh cool) but I am still looking for yours: So far? Zero.
Learn about learning curves, they are logarithmic.
Experience and skills gained are not a 45º angle. A OTP that has 200h on Mcree is not 4x better at playing Mcree, than a Hitscan main that has 50 in Mcree, 50 in Ashe, 50 in Soldier and 50 in Widow. Not even 4x better than a dude with just 50h in Mcree alone.
Again, if that dude counter picking you actually KNOWS how to play said hero, you are getting farmed. You are just using an example where the dude knows which heroes counter Tracer but cant play none of them properly.
Basically the only exception that suits your point, and that guy, by definition is switching, not FLEXING. Anyone can press H in the spawn, not everybody is able to Flex.
Again, learn the difference.
Projecting much?
Look at your own replies dude, you are just throwing things and hope something sticks. The moment I bring logic to counter argument, you ask for proof.
Again, thats not how burden of proof works
It does, but the system does like 30% of the job for you.
You dont have to agree as a team who plays what, you dont have to look for different combinations besides 222 to counter a “weird” play by the enemy (because they cant either) so yeah, RQ requires less skill.
You can argue (wrongly of course) that skill means little to nothing because you value personal/hero skills way way way more (which is again, wrong) but thats what it is.
After you my dude, and while you are at it, please provide proof about ANYTHING that you claimed, specially things like RQ made people more skillful and Flex players actually throwing more than helping, those are going to be fun.
50 each season in each role.
Where is your proof? Since you clearly dont know how the burden of proof works, here is a free search: The burden of proof is always on the person who brings a claim in a dispute
Before asking for proof, GIVE yours. Otherwise you can throw anything and hope it sticks.
Absolutely nothing in my conversation points to that, never said anyone is boosted in my rank, nothing related. This is HARDCORE projecting here.
Oh the I R O N Y
No more responses for you unless you provide proof of ANY statement you make. Go ahead.
