Ok, so. Most of my time on overwatch is in quick play. I have 1000hrs on the game, and I think only 80 or so of that is in competitive. I pretty much just play my placements every season, maybe a few games after that, and then stop. But there is one main reason for that:
Anxiety. I find myself wanting to play competitive all the time, because it’s obviously the best way to improve at the game, and I do want to get better. But everytime I play, I get extremely nervous, shaky, and it throws my aim off. Not to mention my decision making usually goes down the drain, because I’m so focused on “If I do bad this game, my team will bully me, and that’ll make me feel bad”, or “If I lose this game, I’ll lose SR, and probably go on a massive loss streak”.
I play a lot of tracer, and I’ve noticed that in competitive, I’m even scared to flank. The fear of dying deters me from playing tracer the way I always do, and the best way to get value out of her (Most of the time, obviously there are situations where you do have to return to the team for healing etc).
Also, the toxicity of ranked further stops me from clicking the competitive button. I’m afraid that I’ll get bullied or harassed by my teammates, since it happens almost every rank game I play - and specifically when it’s a loss.
If any of you have any tips to help, it would be appreciated, or just share your experiences if you have any.
This might not help, but I only play total mayhem and custom games, I also play PVE events. I don’t really bother with comp.
But here is one thing, remember it’s just a game. its ok if you lose/die, just make sure you are having fun!
And if you don’t want to get harassed, just ignore them or don’t use voice chat at all
Definitely avoid competitive if you get anxiety from the game. I used to have that to the point where I actually felt sick of being anxious, kind of the reason I uninstalled LoL 2 years ago. But playing support in competitive strictly with voice off is not that bad especially if you play Moira because you don’t really need comboing ults or stuff like that.
I feel myself in this post. Anxiety hindered the desire to play comp all-together. I wouldn’t dare to touch competitive and whenever I did I was afraid someone would call me out.
I made a second account and started playing it carelessly. I had this «if i lose, i Lose nothing happens.» i slowly moved that mindset to my main account. Try playing it without caring at the end of the day it’s just a game.
QP is actually more competitive in my opinion just with less chance of voice comms.
I would try hard in here without the worry of SR loss and throw in the odd competitive queue so you can try and meld that relaxed mentality.
Mute others and play your game, this game is far from perfect and far from being balanced, playing it 100% serious will drive you insane, there’s people throwing games and being toxic and etc, you could do wrong moves all the match and you’re still far from being like them
I think you just need to actively accept that failure is the only way to improve. If you are afraid of dying while trying to flank, just tell yourself to try anyway. Keep consciously doing things that make you anxious and soon you will be doing it on automatic. As for toxicity, just mute it, seriously, I get that its a bit generic of response, but just mute anyway who is being a dick and move on.
I know a bit how you feel. I’ve only recently started to play dps in comp thanks to 222 and since it’s my least played role overall I feel more pressure playing it. Along with the fact that there is a bit of added pressure for that role anyway I would say.
I’m still getting around it, and I guess my main way of doing so is that I’ve had a few accounts for quite a while, but that is easier for me since I play on console.
Back when I stared out playing, I was always playing comp with friends and they would add a lot of pressure to it. At that point I was anxious about it in the same way as you, just playing comp at all felt more intense and I would be nervous each game.
Pretty early on I made another account to just grind comp on solo and get used to it. That helped me a lot as I actually got better at the game, made a lot of mistakes and learned from them in that environment and now I’m not worried in the same way when I go in, especially playing tank or support as I’ve got hundreds of hours of doing it now.
DPS is a bit different like I said, but I’m now trying to get used to that and work on my consistency when I pick damage heroes. Having 222 and being at the rank I deserve for the role is helping. I’m just grinding QP on DPS and then trying to take my new experience into ranked games. Eventually I’ll feel the same about playing that role as well.
I totally agree. I also find that it’s the role that gets blamed the most as well. Sure, that can be the case sometimes, but how the game is right now, DPS isn’t a very impactful role, most of the time.
Yet it’s the first role that gets blame thrown at it, and gets a lot of toxicity just for playing the role itself. I think there’s a bit of a problem with some tank and support mains thinking they’re above DPS for playing the less desired role, and when that toxicity gets thrown towards someone like me, it can be a pretty horrible experience.
I’m like this. Not just in comp. It happens in Quick Play & Arcade but not for PvE lol. I don’t why this happens. Losing should be fun but nope i feel depressed after losing. It never happened when i played Team Fortress 2 and Paladins. Since those two are the only online game i play including OW and GTAO but that i only heists & missions.
If i play DMG i get blamed for not killing fast enough, if i play Support i get blamed heals are too slow or not getting healed and if i play tanks either i’m pretty passive or aggressive but it goes horribly wrong.
Honestly i thought of not playing game again but i keep thinking of it and my youtube feed is feed with OW content.
Leave voice chat. I personally don’t care a bit about what my team says, but even beside that it’s a great way to concentrate purely on your actions, your team’s actions, and the other team’s actions. Voice chat all too often has useless chatter, delayed (useless) or even false (worse than useless) callouts. I’d only bother using VC in diamond where people are actually making an effort to cooperate and coordinate.
That’s only where it begins tho. I’m diamond too and as dps it just helps a lot with concentration. Especially with dps, really, since people are so quick to jump on you as being the reason for losing fights/rounds. I’ve found even encouraging comms lead me to screw up as I get overconfident and change what I do rather than doing what was working before
oh man yeah I don’t play in VC which I know could help me get some extra wins, but that would add a complete other layer of anxiety to the game that I just don’t need or want to deal with. If someone thinks I’m terrible, chances are I know I’m having a bad game and am trying to correct it already.
If I heard them tell me so there’s no way I would manage to turn it around, I’d be too upset/tilted
This actually sounds like a really good idea. Money being the only issue obviously. I’m going to uni next week, so I’m going to have to be careful with my money, but this is definitely something that I would consider, and I honestly I hadn’t thought of this.
I agree, but I still feel like voice chat is incredibly useful, cause it seems that whenever I get a game where no-one is talking, nothing gets co-ordinated and we lose. And yeah. I know when I’m having a bad game, and it does make me upset when people then start bullying me about it, even though I was pretty content with just being aware that I was playing poorly.
Yep, I experience this too. I pretty much quit comp because of it, but it’s present in the rest of the game (save for PVE) as well.
I take many breaks due to this, but honestly … the best thing to do is just try to stop taking the game seriously. It helps if you can play with people who are also playing for fun and you can make lighthearted of a bad situation.
My attitude completely changed about the game, and it’s become a lot more enjoyable due to that.
Comp’s still a pain, though, not gonna lie, but … eh, at least it’s an improvement. XD
I have the same thing, and it’s because you like the game. No amount of anxiety is going to stop you from liking something that you genuinely like doing, even if you get nervous while doing it. Youtube content is free from the things that cause this anxiety - I find myself watching a lot of overwatch when I can’t overcome my anxiety to play it.
But really though, the only “cure” is to stop caring so much about it. I’d also recommend some anxiety-revealing herbs like kratom (as long as it’s LEGAL where you are and you’re above 18. Not promoting illegal substances; don’t ban me Blizz. XD)