How do people play this game longterm?

General Discussion
1

I get fustrated playing this game, maybe 1 out of 50 matches is actually close and maybe 1 in 5 matches you will get competent team mates, which means 80% of the time your team mates are zombies.

Maybe I am the problem, I just feel like leaving matches, I lose hope when there’s 5 dps and I’m the single healer, it feels like I am trying and other people are just having fun and doing what they want to.

The matching making is so fustrating.
I am no pro, I think I am average at best.
I pick Lucio for 1/3 of the match and then Hammon for the 2/3 remaining, I end the match with silver damage, kills and gold heals, wtf are people doing?
We had baguette from start to finish and zen for 2/3rds.
DPS of 76, widow, Hanzo. . .How is it possible, I am matched with these people so I must be much worse than I believe I am.

It feels like I have to pick healer constantly otherwise I don’t get healed, standing there on 10 hp pressing “I need healing” tumble weed rolls past Running back to spawn is often more efficient.

The endorsment thing is pretty much dead, the trolls are back in full swing, 5 player dps teams, always 2 snipers.
Torb/sym attack, which is fine, buy not switching if it doesn’t work is bs.
Reinhardt that only knows how to charge so does 1 vs 6 and feeds, generally tanks that dive, by themselves, feed and die.

I know portaits do not equal skill but I am silver portait now, that’s enough information for the system to use to match me up but it’s a false economy as you cannot do well in a bad team that’s feeding.

I think mentally so many of you who do not get angry, fustrated, annoyed and can just carry on, impressive mental strength you have.

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2

With the “Play / Find a Group” button you can create your own team or join another one in a slot that is locked to the role you want to play (damage/tank/support). A huge part of the problem solved. If you create the group you can write “level 100+” in the group title and kick those players who join with lower level. This is a good guarantee that the players have at least basic skills (like map knowledge).

Of course win is still not guaranteed but the chances of a meaningful/enjoyable match are much higher. In QP the skill rating of joining people seems to be quite variable in all cases. Another problem: QP is often used by people who want to learn a new hero they have no experience with.

The biggest source of your frustration is that from solo queuing you expect something magical that does not exist. If you solo Q then 90% of people wants to play DPS and very few of them will be willing to flex. They start to flex when time is running out, realise that they are losing and try to switch at the last moment (usually DPS who have no medals) when the priority of winning goes up for some weird psychological reason. Meanwhile 3-4 people are trolling in chat with varying degrees of politeness.

When I started a few months ago I didn’t know how Overwatch worked and had high expectations which led to a lot of frustration in the first few weeks. At that time there was no “Find a Group” feature.

Many beginners can play only one hero which is usually DPS so in solo Q with low level players you can also expect a lot of instalocking low skilled players who take up the most influential (DPS) slots rather quickly. (I was also instalocking mccree when I was a beginner.)

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I am only lvl 300 but I’ve played since the first Halloween event of Overwatch an I still enjoy it like at the start.

Something I find funny is the fact that I never got frustrated over the game. Things only got on my nerves once I got exhausted. At that point, I’m thinking “Alright, time for a break.”, and in about an hour or even a week, I play again and fully enjoy it.

There are basically 3 factors that determine your enjoyment of the game long-term:

Gamemodes
The gamemode itself has a huge factor of your enjoyment overall. If you don’t like a gamemode, you don’t have to play it. Playing a gamemode you don’t enjoy is basically playing a game, not to have fun, but to get frustrated.

Mentality
Your mentality during a game determines, whether you leave the game with satisfaction or with agony. Most players have the following mentality:

I have to win! I can’t lose!

With that mentality, you only focus on winning the game to a point where you get desperate. Losing does hurt twice as much than winning satisfy you (loss aversion) and you start to blame others or the game to lift up your pain. However, that pain is there and it will creep up in any game.

By changing your mentality, you can avoid such pain:

I want to win but I don’t mind defeat, as long I gave my best

This mentality doesn’t focus on winning that much but rather on the game. Winning is still a goal but defeat has no impact on you because you already play at your best. That defeat ist due to something that’s out of your control but at least you increased your team’s chance of winning.

With the first mentality, you frustrate when losing but with the second one, you leave the game pretty calmly because “Welp, you tried”

Taking a break
If you feel exhausted or not in the mood to play, feel free to stop and take a break from the game. Distancing from Overwatch for a while let’s you recover from exhaustion and you play the game with a refreshed mind.

Taking a break even has a psychological purpose. Playing a game shoots endorphins in your brain but over time - I’m not sure exactly - either less endorphins are produced or the neurons get dull and require more endorphins to get the same joy. By taking a break, you “reset” the endorphins and playing a game after a long while is a lot more enjoyable than playing it without taking a break.

Even if it sounds harsh, but your claim that you are the problem is true. Your enjoyment depends only on what games you play, what your mentality is and whether you take a break. So play what you like, focus on the game and take a break if you feel exhausted and would will enjoy Overwatch again. At least this is the case for me.

Gl and Hf in your next matches!

:dragon:

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Pure optimism doesn’t work for a lot of people. I know it helps some people with stress management (which sometimes yields better outcomes too) but it usually doesn’t work for me. I need realistic strategies to deal with my issues.

I think the problems with OverWatch can be roughly outlined in a few bullet points:

  • OW by its very nature is a competitive game but one’s personal results depend a lot on the other players on the team. For this reason players who have much lower skill level or seemingly don’t care about winning usually seen as a problem by others (unless the match is still balanced). Polite people simply don’t want to team up with that low skilled player again while less polite ones might start a flame war.
  • Solo Q causes a lot of team composition issues. Many people find it too much hassle to build a team (even with the new “Find a Group” feature) but still expect magic from solo Q. I treat solo Q as a convenient matchmaking that yields generally poor results. I use it only for QP when I’m lazy to use the “Find a Group” button.
  • The ranking system tries to place everyone where he/she has 50% win rate in long term. This means that a little bit more than 50% is positive progress. Many players don’t know how ranking works: people want 100% win rate and loss is the end of the world - human psychology.
  • Some people want to rank up without actually improving themselves. Without practising and experimenting both micro/macro skills reach plateau rather quickly. Actual rating can be improved by practising, learning from articles/videos, learning from better players, trying to figure out how to counter lost matches next time, trying to find teammates/friends who have similar attitude (also want to improve) and work together well with you in a team. If you have friends who play only as relaxation (I see no problem with this) without wanting to improve then they won’t be good team mates for climbing.

Based on the above list it isn’t difficult to see that the problems exist and will exist in OverWatch. The reason for this is that a large portion of the player base don’t know the above list. The good thing is that those who know the above list know how to deal with the problems in a realistic way. I don’t need optimism to avoid frustration 100% of the time.

He is definitely not the only problem there but he is part of it because of his frustration (that is a result of having zero strategies to deal with the issues).

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Seriously, while I think you’re a whining 17yo girl voiced boy…

I understand you because I’m 32(with adult voice haha) and OW is the reason I visited a psychotherapist a few weeks ago(still do).

Game is frustrating. But then again, you don’t have to play. And you need to stop blaming anyone else but yourself. Either for being bad or for playing when you don’t enjoy it.

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Find long term friends and stop caring so much about winning. Unless you get to the top the matches will vary heavily in quality, the lower you are the more terrible matches there are

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7

This is actually very helpful.

My advice definitely works for me but, as you said, it doesn’t work for everyone. So the best thing to do is to try multiple strategies to find out the right one for you. Maybe your strategy works better for me than my old one, who knows :slight_smile:

It is interesting to hear how different people approach this issue.

Based on my strategies, the player is the only cause of the problem but that wouldn’t be the case with your strategy. Again, my strategy won’t work for everyone.

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Personalities differ a lot. I usually approach and solve things with logical reasoning. Zero feelings if possible, especially because problems are usually associated with negative ones.

If we follow pure logic he isn’t the only one but there are very few other players who are actual problems if someone follows my strategy.

If we assume that OW is a competitive team game (which it is) then there are a few players who are clearly there the screw up the game of others (like the combat mercy intentionally using only pistol without healing) and these people are always a problem without condition. However the number of these players is very low.

In most cases people have trouble dealing with bad team comp and/or unskilled players but both can be remedied with “Find a Group” and building a list of reliable friends so the problem is indeed only him most of the time because he doesn’t have any strategies.

2 Likes
9

Well, in a competitive game people naturally want to win. I’d rather say its healthier to concentrate on a 50+% win rate than on a 100% and trying to reach more than 50% win rate by improving skills and trying to build teams instead of simply playing more hours.

Even in case of a defeat the question should be “How could I win a similar match next time?”. This leads to actual improvements in skill in contrast with not caring about win.

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10

I focus on my performance.

Ok, cool, I got gold elims as Zen. Am I actually performing really well? Or did I shut a couple of poorly positioned people down and my team just haven’t done anything to get higher? If the answer is the latter, then that ultimately arbitrary medal is literally meaningless.

I focus on improving. I don’t care about the end result of an individual match, I don’t care about the also abitrary SR rating. My friend had to tell me that I reached Diamond. And he had to tell me that I reached Master. Because in both cases, I wasn’t paying attention to how much I was gaining or losing.

Bad team. Ok, but was it really a bad team? Or am I looking for something to blame? It’s hard to admit, but sometimes I don’t play to my full potential, and I don’t like this, so I blame things that are out of my control. If it genuinely was a bad team? Ok, no biggie. The sun will rise and we will try again.

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11

Ehh, yesterday I played a match with a very unpleasant team who wanted to blame me for all their woes even though I knew I was performing very well and it was their incompetence that lost us the match. I was trying hard and literally on fire the whole time. I did some great play in that match, but it didn’t matter. I took a lot of abuse and got reported making me lose an endorsement level.

So, the end of the game comes around and I’m the only one with a card, most healing done… No cards for my team. No comment from them, they all just instantly leave.

“Mercy one trick. Boosted Mercy. Make sure you report her!”

Report me for what, exactly? :roll_eyes: Still, automated system obviously assumed I did terrible things, I guess? So, this is why I don’t care about endorsement level.

The game is fine, and like all things it should be enjoyed in small doses mixed in with other games. Overwatch used to be my main go-to game but it’s been regulated to a secondary game for me. It’s fun most of the time but boy can the player base be nasty.

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I didn’t say to ‘‘not care about winning’’ I said to ‘‘not care so much’’, there’s a difference. What I said means to not obsess over whatever you win or lose. You can still try your best, and work on improving with this mentality.

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I’m a 44 year old with a stressful job and kids so gaming is my ‘chill time’. Don’t get me wrong, I play Comp with the desire to win/progress. But, it’s a game and I really don’t understand how anybody gets angry over a game. Peeps need to keep things in perspective in my opinion.

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14

Didn’t really sound like he was whining though, he took part of the blame but I do see where he is coming from. I’ve had the game since a few days after it came out and I’m only level 160.

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My “logic” is obviously flawed in so many levels but it has a purpose. The point of my strategy is the illusion of full control.

All 3 factors which I mentioned are factors that can be controlled by the player:
You can choose your game.
You can choose your mentality.
You can choose your breaks.

Having no control over a situation can be upsetting, especially if that situation has an impact on you. So instead of letting uncontrollable situations ruin your enjoyment, you can focus your enjoyment on things that are under your control.

There is no need to argue whether the player is the only problem to their enjoyment or not because it obviously is not. My strategy, however, just pretends that the player is the only problem to enforce the illusion of full control.

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I’m the same age as you :dizzy_face:

OW is indeed a choice, it’s pretty much the only game I play right not due to time commitments, playing for 1 hour late night/early morning, trying to relax a bit before bed time.

I often say people choose to get offended by things in life, I guess I could apply that same thought process to gaming, I should act sooner upon my fustrations and not continue to queue up for another match, expecting that match to be better when in reality it could be equal or worse.

I have played the game since release and should know better. Expectations vs reality. :thinking:

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Sorry to break your delusion, but if the game decided to match you with “zombies”, then you are just as bad as they are, maybe even worse.

Choosing to whine over choosing to improve is a dead giveaway of that.

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19

Or he is playing his role and they are just throwing like most dpses do in qp in lower ranks.

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20

Well i can relate to you. This problem persists becouse 1. there is way to much dps players and 2. they are in general rly stubborn. As i tank main i wanna play just tanks but with 5 dps team it is just imposible to do sth. Yes i understand. It is quickplay. But it does matter since there i can train tanks for competitive. For example i wont juist go into competitive with Hammond. I am just becoming accustomed to him but how to train with 0 heal (i know he is fast and i can get to health packs but then noone is on objective).
And i will also say that a lot of those ppl are zombies. Just instapick every map sam thing and that is it. Found i hilarious when u get gold everything with tanks. And that is not rare.

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Ask yourself that question. After all, you’re the silver portrait here