The Competitive Mindset | Overwatch

Approaching competitive play with the right mindset can certainly go a long way. Are you in for some quick ELO or do you actually care for the competition?

The Season 8 start time is approaching and in an attempt of arming players with knowledge before said time arrives- Whether you never played Ranked before or you are now coming back after a break; I wanna make sure you know what you are getting yourself into.

Check out my previous videos that cover Season 8 Changes and how to play comp optimally, too!

► PREPARE for Season 8 | Overwatch

► Road to GM - Aim or Game Sense? | Overwatch

► Role Distribution in Overwatch EXPLAINED

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► Commentated Gameplay by Cliff for Terios Gaming.

[TheMasterKrook]

The competitive mindset:

"God I wish this guy would switch off dps"

[seancarroll]

You bring up good points.

My view of what the Competitive Mindset is:

1) Be tactical. If you move in one direction, make sure it is a proper direction. You may actually have found a weak spot, or made a grave error.

2) Focus on your own flaws. You are not perfect; you will goof. Excise the error so you learn not to do it again.

3) Communication is key. If you have a Reaper giving you hell, repeatedly, it's probably a good idea to call it out. If you see something you can exploit, bring it up in team chat.

4) Think as a team. Individuals don't win matches, or at least they shouldn't normally. Your healer will appreciate that his/her own efforts are recognized, and your tank or DPS would like to know if he/she did the right thing at the right time.

5) Lastly, and often forgotten, IT IS ONLY A GAME! Does the match really reflect on your life's work or direction? If not, why are you cursing like a sailor? Why are you backbiting individuals in general?

Naive, perhaps. But that is how I view things. Everyone likes to win, but you learn more from failure.

[mollof]

I try to be possitive, but that's hard when other players are negative and spread it on you. But if the other players are possitive too, it's all more fun. Even if you lose it feels better.

[Snoozytube]

Im honestly looking forward to season 8, and im going to try my best!

[Chef-Jitsu]

I missed seasons 4-6 due to a new job and just not having time. I came back for 7 and have to say you are correct in many ways. I have had the same experience you described here and in other videos you made. I lost over 300 SR due to people leaving matches alone. I managed to gain it back but it is frustrating how many times I must play a support due to 5 DPS gods all fighting for POTG. Not to mention how many times I heard "I only need one more win to get my golden gun". That is so frustrating. I play comp because I like the challenge. I am not a great player and will never have the option to go pro but at least comp gives me that same experience, like playing a pick up game of basketball or something. However that is rarely the case, when it is good it is an awesome experience. When it is bad it is a toxic hot mess. Blizzard needs to put rules and intentions in place.

[CliffTerios]

So uh.. Anyone else looking forward to S8 or..?

[TheOnePieceFanZ]

the right mindset for competitive is realising that if you are on your rank and feel like you should be a bit higher your chances to win will always be just slightly higher than 50% its nowhere near to 100% no matter how hard you try (as long as the difference isnt like bronze vs top 500) since this game involves 12 players not just 1

[tjhunter]

I think for people to be set in the comp mindset 100%. There should be a team que that has a rank based off of w/l. On top of that it would be set up in the form of professional games where you need to win 2 maps. Sure it may be draining but it would truly separate those who play for the feel of comp from those who want to surpass all others.

[SkyeBerryJam]

I played from the end of season 4 and skipped season 7. I’ve been trying to work with one tricks more since the devs said they wouldn’t be doing much about it, and have been having a lot more fun trying creative things and actually think I’m winning more than I did before. It also feels like people are more open to me playing what I want to play but of course I can’t speak for everyone.

[orangeowlgreendragon]

Coming from a casual player, aside from friends who really want me to que up with them for comp at times, I basically gave it up because just the very name and concept of itself eventually got to a point where it sickens me. Yeah I get it that there are very high amounts of fun from the thrill of people doing their absolute best to win and see some verification of improvement, but that type to me stays pretty inconsistent and it feels really depressing once the obsession with anticipation and hope for win streaks are gone. With becoming to obsessed with craving for making something inconsistent consistent, I gave myself so much unreasonable anxiety forcing to play the same labeled win healthy way over and over again. By this, I mean playing to fill in the damn cracks that no one wants or can't do decently with so much and blaming myself for making the slightest mistake(basically a repeat of other ranked based experiences from other games I used to play).
I got to my point of becoming a casual because I came to terms that I didn't have to try so hard anymore. I got to a point where I can experience the other side of fun that I value more. That side is the very euphoria of blissfully picking my favorite heroes with no feeling of needed consequence. Goofing off during the middle of matches being lax enough to laugh again. Exploring the map and mechanics all around without a real sense of pressure of time, and especially experiencing so many other vibes you can get from the game just by going to custom and/or arcade mode in this game. Yes, the causal side also has a dulling factor which is that things get too easy enough where it could get boring, but I say that I'd rather waltz with higher chanes of possibly experiencing boredom than experiencing more chances of possible frustration and anxiety.

[CmRoddy]

The correct mindset should be, "Let's do what we need to in order to win." In other words, switching heroes to counter the enemy when needed, playing a role you may not FEEL like playing at that exact moment but doing so to try and squeeze out an advantage for your team, or doing simple things like grouping up with the team.

But 7 seasons of performance based SR rewards have conditioned the community to not care about that because seeing that stupid number go up feels better than getting a win...? I don't get how that works in people's minds, but I grew up playing online shooters with the "I must win no matter what, " mindset rather than puffing myself up at the expense of the match.

It seems like ever since COD4:MW the focus has shifted from having a good win/loss ratio to having a good kill/death ratio on your career profile, and it is making Overwatch nearly unplayable. If only 10% of matches are actually close/competitive/fun matches then what is the point of wasting time with it?

Let's hope Season 8 is the beginning of a change in this mindset for Overwatch Competitive.

[conscriptdk]

That orb bounce at 1:14... Perfectly aligned to bounce off the next small pillar towards the enemy..

[quplet]

I've been trying to get my friends to understand exactly this lately. I'm a low GM/high master player and many of my friends are plat or low diamond. The reoccurring problem that I see in their gameplay is not so much their skill, but their mindset. One friend is a great guy if everything goes well, but when things turn on him, he gets extremely tilted and very toxic. I've been trying to tell him that individual games don't matter. That you are going to get throwers, trolls, bad players, etc. That you are going to lose but as long as you are better than people in that area, you will win more than them and climb. That only hurts you and your fellow teammates when you get tilted. Another one blames his team for every loss. Great video, hope this reaches many people like them.

[pegaweegee]

I always find that people judge each other by time on certain heroes. People sometimes see my time "hey this guy is a Lúcio main, why isn't he playing as Lúcio?" A negative example would be "Why do we have a Symmetra main on our team, we lose.
People have time on heroes for certain reasons, either they *want* to be that hero, or they *have* to be that hero since the team requests it. :o

[thatoneguyoverthere]

The mindset that allows me to play comp is, "I'm not playing to have fun, I am playing to give my team a win. It does not matter if i want to play a hero or not, if it helps us then i need to do it." Having that mindset makes it a lot easier to take a loss because I know i did what i needed to do. while it isn't only my fault, I CAN STILL IMPROVE. Thank You.

[torblerone]

For me, the competitive mindset is being able and willing to do your best to help your team win.

The main things this means are:

1. Staying calm. Don't tilt and yell at your teammates, it's not going to make them play any better. In fact, it can make them play worse. I know sometimes I can get angry at tilted teammates, and end up doing things like missing critical shots because I wasn't paying attention, or going in when some of my team have been picked off and we should fall back. Honestly I need to work on staying calm, I can get frustrated easily ingame. Hanzo's scatter arrow is the prime culprit.

2. Playing your best. Honestly, this one should go without saying, but so many people won't try their best when they think a game is lost, because they're afraid of their best not being good enough, and would rather say, "Well, I wasn't really trying" than really put in the effort to try and bring a game around. There's also the classic switching heroes when you think a game is lost not to help the team, but to preserve your winrate on your favorite heroes.

3. Effective communication. When I play competitive Overwatch, it isn't to hear someone's life story about how they deserve to be a higher rank but just can't invest enough time into the game to climb, or how their teammates are always bad. Links into the first point.

4. Flexing. Please, please, take the time to learn more than one hero. Try to broaden your hero pool. One of the best ways to do this is to find which heroes you're naturally better at than others, and work on them. I'd recommend being decent at a minimum of at least 6 heroes: 2 DPS, 2 Tanks, 2 Supports, so you can almost always fill in a needed role. Having a specialty, like being for example, a Soldier main, is okay, but try to take the time to learn other heroes.

[mazedmarky]

Nice topic Terios. I was taking a walk earlier and thinking about Overwatch. In a way it reminds me of back in the day when I played Roller Coaster Tycoon. What does it have to do with Overwatch? you may ask and then Theme Park World came out.

At first I was stoked to experience big parks that I built in first person but to me it got stale very quickly (after one day actually, haha) What I am saying is that these 'team-based games' as you call it, which I agree with, is like a 'new' genre that may need a lot more time to mature. To me it's actually easier to sometimes switch into a like bird kind of perspective when playing the game, like seeing the whole picture and not only your 103 FOV all the time. Thanks for reading my roman.

[anthonyinfante]

Cant wait for s8 thx for helping me out with alot. Keep up the vidzzz

[Suffering]

I've only started playing ranked in season 7, and you described my experience with it so perfectly. Really, one of the most annoying things to me were those people that, as you put it, give up the game before it even started. Or the ones that get tilted mid-match because it's not going so well or for whatever reason, then throw and you realise after: hey, we could have totally had a chance of winning this if not for half the team throwing. Yeah, that's infuriating. It really does feel like I am queuing for a chance to get a match where everyone is actually interested in giving their best and winning. Not sure what exactly Blizzard can do to improve that for everyone, as there are just people who don't really care that much. I just know that what helps me get the most enjoyment out of it is not playing it too often.

That said, I am looking forward to S8 despite the flaws the system has.

[TheAstrobiologistOW]

I really love trying to find my own niche in competitive, but unfortunately the niche I lean towards is oddball and gimmicky heroes like Bastion, Roadhog, Torbjorn, and Symmetra. This usually puts me in a rather uncomfortable situation where my teammates are accusing me of throwing when in fact I’m just trying to fill as best I can with the characters that interest me.