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Overwatch4 years agoNestor "jhoves" Abuluyan Jr.

Sooo we all know that blaming and raging is the easiest way to lose, right?

I just came back from a year off the game, but I've played since season 8, like 5hundo hours on lucio or whatever, like to play other stuff too. I wanted to see how the role queue is working out, try out sigma and echo, and holy shit if Overwatch isn't the best it's ever been. To know going into a solo queue match that you're for sure going to have two tanks and :o two healers?? What a boon. I caught myself thinking today grinding plat, "wow, they've made competive so much more palatable, just imagine if the toxic side of the player base had improved with it."

I'm completely baffled at how so many of the people I get matched with just can't control themselves, how much they just compulsively have to join voice chat after a lost or hell even a won round to berate/blame/complain. I run into a lot of good or just fun teammates too but it feels like it's a half and half deal, excepting the people who just mostly reasonably mute team chat.

Like, think about it. It's so obviously counter-productive, wasted energy that could be spent turning a game around. There's close to 0 chance that pointing fingers and displacing insecurities/frustration will actually improve your situation with whatever teammate might be bad or off the mark or whatever. Less skilled teammates are just part of the game.

I mean, I totally get it, it's super easy to get frustrated and take it out on someone else-- but I also feel like it should be completely obvious that taking it out on your team will virtually never help anything because

  1. You can't just outright control other people, sorry, and

  2. Most often each of the three roles enables the others cyclically (tanks protect everyone and make space for dps, supports keep tanks alive and boost damage, dps reduces pressure on tanks and support, etc etc c'est la vie)

  3. you either have messed up, will mess up, or are messing up as well.

I don't know if anyone here needs to hear it but jesus, deflating your teammates has to be one of the most drastic ways to decrease your chances of winning a game, moreso than some unfortunate kid unconsciously soft throwing by accident. Seriously, it's like it's actually the selfish thing to do to just be nice or constructive. The outcome will be better for you.

Even if there really is a clear weak link on your team (odds are they're already frustrated anyway), instead of being a sad bummer ahole, you can also just let them know, e.g. "Reiny baby, let me love you," or "i think shutting up pharah could be our win condition, does anyone play hitscan?" Research has shown that negative reinforcement is not only less productive than positive, it's actually in most cases, especially long term, hardly effective at all. It's why the millenials are so fucked up.

I've climbed hundreds of SR 100% from making simple callouts and making little goofs or saying things like "les fuck em up" at the start of a round. In such a teamwork focused game, just to have a team that feels comfortable and/or confident playing is seriously, sincerely your biggest advantage. If no one can be either of those things, then just count it as reps and leave at the defeat screen.

unless you're gonna hard carry. then call me whatever you want dadyy

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