There is a time and place for everything. And guess what, dorks: the time and place to try new characters and avoid roles you aren’t willing to fill isn’t inmyOverwatch 2Competitive Mode lobby. If you’ve played any first-person shooter in the last ten years, then you know there tends to be two speeds involved in Competitive.
There’s casual play. Laid back, relaxed, and a space to experiment and try new things. I love that. Safe and easy. The second speed, where I live when it comes toOverwatch 2, is in Competitive Play. These days, that’s all myself and my game group are willing to play. This is thereal game, not that soft, stakes-free playground.
It’s important to learn what speed you’re willing to move at when it comes to playing shooters online. However, don’t attempt to figure out what that speed is while you’re on my team, alright? I am not a sherpa dragging you up the mountain of victory.
I’m tired of players who don’t seem to understand that the point of playing Competitive Play is to be… you know… competitive. So allow me this polite word to one and all.
Dear complete strangers: stop trying to ruin my moment of glory. It’s all I have.
Rising Through The Overwatch 2 Competitive Ranks
One night last week, I realized a pattern by the fourth game of the night. My four-stack can only cover so much ground in a five-person team game like Overwatch 2. So inevitably, we get stuck with someone who probably thinks we’re rude. Our group is in Discord chat, and we organize everything there, from map picks to hero bans.
It’s a system that works well for us. However, there’s always the occasional monkey wrench thrown into the works. A tank who thinks his job is to fight one-on-five. A damage-dealer has a worse K/D/A than the supports. A Support unwilling to play anything but their one-trick hero.
On this particular night, it was door number three. We banned Mercy since that player hadn’t listed the healer as her preferred hero. They then proceeded to complain that they didn’t know how to play any other heroes besides Mercy.
And… I mean, I guess they weren’t lying, because we lost due to a lack of healing and utility. Sure, my headset died halfway through and I did less than 5,000 damage… But, come on: nobody is forcing you into the deep end of the water. The ghost of Jeff Kaplan wearing a shirt showcasing the inaugural season ofOverwatch Leagueisn’t holding you at gunpoint and telling you to solo queue for Competitive. If you’re unwilling to learn multiple heroes for any occasion then what are you doing on this end of town?
This ismytown. Not yours. Get out of my town.
The social contract of playing competitive modes in first-person shooters only holds up if everyone is willing to play their part. That means being ready to play the role that is required, not what you want.
That sounds not fun. Remember fun?
Quiet, you. If you aren’t playing Competitive Mode and doing everything in your ability to win, then why are you there? Do I look like a babysitter? Do you think this is the esports version of The Magic School Bus, and I’m here to teach you all about this serious gamer life?
Not on my watch, buddy. I work 40 hours a week, sleep very little, and ignore my long-distance relatives. That means the two hours a night I spend honing my competitive edge isn’t yours to ruin. Maybe you’re thinking that it’s all about iron sharpening iron? Let’s talk about that old adage.
War Is Hell (And Other People, Mostly)
There’s nothing quite like real experience in a thing to get you up to speed quickly. Old war movies love to talk about how once you shoot and kill your first enemy soldier that it gets easier. By that logic, there’s plenty of players who look at playing a Competitive mode in the likes ofOverwatch 2or Valorant as live exercise. A chance to get yourself up to game speed.
Well, I watchedthe movie Pattononce in high school. My big takeaways were that George C Scott smoked too much and that war isn’t a place to find yourself. Go find yourself on your own time. My extremely nebulous rank is not at the whim of your need to learn as you go, say ‘whoopsie’ when you die 12 times in a round, then offer up a ‘GG’ in match chat after we lose like everything is fine.
Everything is not fine. I am in high gold, and it is completely and utterly your fault, nameless person! I absolutely belong at a higher ELO than I am currently at. Am I ever going to get there? Not with this never-ending conga line of people trying to have ‘fun’ in their ‘games’.
This is not about fun. Stop having fun this instant. Am I having fun? Of course. It’s fun to win. Not that I have… Any time recently…
Wait. Why was I playing in the first place?
You used to like this game. When did that change?
Um… Well, you see… I guess I don’t know. At one point I used to play because simply playing was enough in and of itself. But then years pass, you’re still playing the same game, and you have to find some kind of meaning to inject into the experience. After all, there’s got to be some kind of meaning to it, right?
Otherwise I’ve been playing the same game for ten years, slowly beginning to resent the thing I loved once.
Oh god.
There’s still time to change.
You’re right. People just trying something new and learning aren’t the issue. I’ve turned into the thing I used to hate about online gaming: the loud, angry monster who sees the game only in the 1s and 0s of winning and losing. The person who eventually sours the experience so much for others that they become the cautionary tale of why nobody turns on match chat anymore.
Learn from my example, friends. Don’t fall into that pit of despair and think only about the end result of playing video games. It’s a medium filled with so much more.
We begin to lose sight of that when we begin to boil down the experience to columns of winners and losers. It also makes us worse at the game.
There you go, champ. Now, what are you going to do next?
… Queue back up and get my losses back before bed. Obviously. What? Do I look like some kind of quitter? I can go to bed any time I want.
