So since my last post on Overwatch, my Season 3 Rank has jumped up and down a bit. Last time I played I made it to a career high in the 2600s. All while playing with a friend through some placements. This week I played with three other friends, one of which still needed to finish his placements. And it did not go well.
I had an inkling of how bad it would go. We played Quick Play mid-afternoon for a few warm up rounds before jumping into Competitive. Except, we never made it into Competitive. Our record was pretty even but we were fighting with each other just as much as the usual privileged 3+-stack fights with their randomly assigned teammates. It was bad.
The moment I remember the most was on Hanamura defense, second point. I was Reinhardt, my friend was Zenyatta. There are two usual strategies to the map. One was to stay on the point and soak damage from the front with Reinhardt and one other, hope that 1-2 people can hold the upper left route, and have the last two either help on point or roam to check for people taking the weaker flank routes. The second strategy involved having 4 people on the upper left, have 2 roaming, and then if the enemy runs onto the point using any other route you can jump on their head from above with your tanks while your squishies fire on them from above. Basically, you aim to keep high ground over your defensive point.
But my friend wasn't having it. He didn't want to leave the point without anyone on it. My other two friends stuck with me on the high ground, the two pub teammates were roaming, and Zenyatta was alone on the point where he would be the first to die whenever the enemy walked in from a lower route, and before the enemy even touched the point.
It was frustrating. Even as engagement after engagement happened, he would die at the beginning, the enemies would then walk onto the point, and then I'd jump down with the other tank while everyone else would fire down or jump down as they saw fit. Then my friend would respawn and contribute to the fight. At one point we stopped just short at yelling at each other before ignoring each other for the rest of the match. We won, but it felt like a loss.
I understood that he was doing what he felt was right, but it hurt that he didn't trust me. Normally, especially in competitive, when you have people that aren't cooperating with you then you have to work with their plan to have any semblance of cohesion. But in this case I couldn't back down; it felt like playing the high ground, even when starting every fight 5v6, was still the best strategy. Of course I know I'm not a pro, but there are a handful of strategies even we terrible aimers can execute. Whether or not it was the best strategy was a moot point because we won, but since it was Quick Play it wasn't like the enemy team was trying their absolute best either.
I needed to leave for a few hours, so we agreed to take a break after playing for almost two hours. While gone, I realized that I didn't want to play competitive, not with my friend like this. I feel like I'm being egotistical, but I was there trying to give directions to my friends as we played because I felt like they at least should listen to me. I'm watching tournaments, listening to podcasts, and studying the game through a multitude of avenues. I have the lowest playtime of the four, but I think about and follow the game way more. Still, we reconvened later that night to play Competitive anyway. My friend said he would join us because he still hadn't finished his placements for the season yet. I could have veto'd the idea last minute but I figured we should just get it over with. And of course, I forgot that we would be in the placement queue.
What do I mean by placement queue? Simply put, Overwatch matches people who haven't finished their placements yet only against other people who haven't finished their placements yet. If you're in a group with someone, your entire group is considered unranked. And there are not many players out there that are not yet placed and are also playing in the middle of the season, so the queues can get longer even on a Saturday evening while the variance of games is high.
What, you think I wouldn't try to find some external thing to blame? I'm only human.
I'll skip the long version; simply put, we lost both. The friend left, and we played another round and lost with just three of us. One of the others finished his placements with those matches, and was demoted from mid-Gold of Season 2 to now mid-Silver. We played Quick Play for a quick confidence boost before heading back into Competitive, and then had one more loss before finally having a win.
That last win was instructive. It reminded me of a very important fact:
Overwatch Competitive is about taking a character you're good at, and playing them on a map they're good at. Your team's composition is a mandatory thing to consider, but secondary. Tertiary is dealing with the enemy team's best picks, if they're causing you problems.
There's a lot of ways you can look at this, from front line to back line, flankers to counter-flankers, divers to squad runners. But all of that comes after the previous paragraph. Follow your heart, and pick for the map. If you don't have anyone who's good for the map then be sure to learn them later, but pick what you're good at first. And no matter what you pick and why, work with the team.
Yes, I touched on all of this last week. But it's such an important lesson that I have to relearn it, and feel like I should regurgitate it too.
I'm still going to at least be playing with two of those friends, but with one of them in Silver and me in Platinum, we're going to end up in games where the average is Gold players. At that point it's my job to pick for the team the best I can, without betraying my heart. Let the others play their best, and I make sure they all work well together with the best Tank and Support picks for the job. And hey, part of why I was playing Reinhardt in Quick Play was because he's tied with D.Va as my worst tank character.
As for my ranking, it looks like it's going to stay solidly Platinum for the time being. Despite playing five matches in Competitive that day and losing four of them, I ended the night still in the 2500 range. The system has faith in me, so I'll just try to have more faith in myself.
