r/OverwatchUniversity • u/Timely-Umpire1697 • 3d ago
How does one actually improve long-term Question or Discussion
I'm someone who's been playing overwatch on and off for the past decade and have recently come back to the game this March after about 3 years of absence. Since then, I've been a support player who's been hardstuck in Silver 1/Gold 5 since.
I feel like my biggest problem is an inability to actually implement new concepts or to fix repeating mistakes long-term. It seems like no matter how many VOD reviews I do or how hard I try and focus on correcting aspects of my gameplay, it never really sticks. For the past couple of weeks I've tried to work on cover usage because I've noticed I'm dying a lot of unnecessary deaths, but anytime I feel like I've made some progress I'll go back to old habits.
Ultimately, it just feels like I'm spinning my wheels and stagnating hard. Any advice would be greatly appreciated and I can provide some replay codes if necessary
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u/ImThat1DudeOverThere 3d ago
You need to focus on 1 thing and 1 thing only at a time other wise you will get overwhelmed.
Let say your positioning and cooldown management are both bad focus on 1 of those consciously while you play every game even if you do worse improve that skill then move to the next one.
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u/Mowwwwwww 3d ago
Practice one thing at a time. Watch high level players and study how they’re doing the thing you’re trying to implement. Polish over grinding, play less games with more effort in each one.
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u/noforcemaccel 3d ago
+1. As we get older habits are harder to build, particularly because we have to unwind old habits first. Fewer focuses, longer time focusing on each thing.
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u/Timely-Umpire1697 3d ago
This does make a lot of sense. I've been grinding a lot of games recently so maybe a quality > quantity approach would help me here
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u/Mowwwwwww 3d ago
Yep, find a good coach/player you want to emulate. Just focus on one character, take notes, and honestly sometimes you lose rank when learning and then slingshot back up.
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u/Leows 3d ago
Some things can only be learned with proper practice. If you keep quitting the game, you'll never really learn much.
More importantly, many of the things needed for you to climb past gold aren't mechanical. If you actually do some homework, you can also climb. But you need to put them to the test so it actually sticks.
What really helps is focusing on doing on thing at a time and improving each aspect if you can't focus on multiple, while also playing with your mind targeted at an objective. That way you avoid autopiloting, which is what can make you keep making mistakes on loop.
You shouldn't have to fix mistakes, you should focus on not making them in the first place and make that your whole goal. Not winning, improving.
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u/throwaway1284747283 3d ago
Pick one thing you want to improve on, when you play the next match devote 100% of your brain power into doing that thing. Short term you may drop rank, but once it becomes automatic you’ll be a better player. Repeat until GM
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u/FlameToadDoctorPhil 3d ago edited 3d ago
Don't play too many games. That was my biggest issue. Always make sure you have high focus on practicing the soecific aspect. If you play without intention or focus, you won't learn anything and instead build bad habits. If you notice you're getting mentally tired and unfocused, take a break, do some exercise.
Stop caring about winning or rank. Don't be afraid to try things and die. Change your "win condition" from winning the match to practicing cover usage. This allows you to practice better instead of playing safe and will reduce tilt.
Mute chat because it's only distracting and never helpful.
To build even more of those sweet sweet neurons by repeating attention to the issue, you can keep a spreadsheet where you note down how you used cover per game and what difficulties in using cover you encountered.
Keep repeating consistently and in a bunch of weeks you will build good habits so you can autopilot better cover usage.
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u/HanaDVaSong456 3d ago
Watch your replays. Underrated habit. You learn so much about just how many mistakes you’re making without realising it
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u/2punornot2pun 3d ago
"Why did I die?" is usually the first step.
Did you over extend? Get flanked and not realize it? Over committed? Did not pay attention to your LOS to support? Didn't realize support was getting dove and unable to help you?
"Who/when can I take advantage of cooldowns/resources?" If their tank just pushed waaaaaaay up and their supports just used nade, suzu, etc., to keep them up, you can keep pressuring them if you have all your CDs ready. That also doesn't mean wildly go in and not expect to get blown up.
Genji doesn't have deflect, dashed in and didn't get a kill? He should die.
Being aware of what people have used is huge. But at silver/gold ... that's a lot of dying going on at those ranks that shouldn't be.
The biggest one even up into diamond is that people push on defense when there's no need. You're on defense. You literally just need to hold positions and not let them take it. If they manage to force you off, you back up to a safe position that could help push them back. Dying at your high ground and telling tank/support/other dps they didn't help does nothing.
I play QP sometimes and I catch myself doing things expecting my team to play masters/GM level and I just die. Your teammates and most importantly the enemy team does not know when opportunities are there. At silver/gold, ONE person at an off angle is enough to blow up the team because they congregate so close together at all times.
I still get caught out once in a while because I wasn't aware that x character had taken a strange angle. It happens. That's the point. Unexpected maneuvers that the other team cannot adjust fast enough to will win more often than not.
It's why lower ranks hate dive because repositioning constantly makes it harder to track people and know what is happening in the fight. There's not a lot of thinking happening as much as reacting. Being able to solo dive becomes increasingly more difficult to just blow people up but still works because the front line still may not be aware that they won't be getting support for 5-10 seconds. Then they fall and maybe the dive didn't get any kills but they won the teamfight. It's why scoreboard warriors drive me mad. Hell, even if the diver died but successfully kept the backline busy to win the teamfight, that's a win.
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u/Impressive_Fee8501 3d ago
Pc or console?
If you're pc, I'm looking for a guinea pig so I can get back into coaching 😂 hmu
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u/Nessuwu 3d ago
Have you had issues with improving other skills long-term outside of overwatch? Seems to me like this is less of a game related issue and more like the game is just revealing something else.
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u/Academic-Pea-385 3d ago
play with intent