It’s very easy to tell when someone you know doesn’t belong in a rank they want to be at. So please stop trying to help them get to ranks they don’t belong in yet.
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I play with anyone man, I don’t care what rank they are. I’ve been in Plat since competitive started. Most of my friends are Gold (some Silver), and what I’ve learned from playing in duo or triple stack games with them is they are just as competitive as Plat players.
Yes, sometimes their mechanical skill is lacking, but under the right leadership and coordination, they can absolutely thrive. I’ve taken some of these players under my wing and now they have gone on to surpass me, moving onto Diamond +
As a tank main, I try my best to enable my team. This often means being a dedicated leader and shot-caller. I also teach my friends how to shot call as well (or they listen and learn from my example because it can be contagious).
I also teach them how to manage their teams ult economy so they don’t blow it. I teach them better positioning, I call for fall backs, and regroups so we can re-engage a team fight at the last second as a full team.
These are some things that players at lower ranks understand, but they don’t have someone to help put it into practice. There are exceptionally good support and tank mains that struggle to rank up too because of this lack of fundamental coordination.
I’m sorry, but I can’t get on board with this kind of behavior. I’ve seen gamers grow and thrive under the right team guidance. So I’m going to keep grouping up with my Gold buddies whenever they Call. Because I am their friend… I must answer.
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I think RichC just won the thread with the first reply.
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You are coaching them, not everyone is doing that and players hate getting advice from people they don’t know. If you are a DPS player yourself and your friend is a lower ranked DPS as well who for some reason expects to play DPS too when playing against supperior players. There’s going to be a problem.
Likewise, if the lower ranked person doesn’t have the game sense/awareness to know what to play against the enemy it’s a problem as well. If you decide to stay on Ana against a full dive team and get absolutely nothing done because you can neither heal or land your abilities then what are you really doing?
If you are trying to boost someone that’s entirely on your shoulders but the person who are going to take the downfall is the rest of the team.
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Thanks RichC for this reply.
I just wanna add one thing. It’s by confronting better than oneself that we can progress.
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True but irrelevant, you are not just facing better, you are doing so with a handicap.
The key to improvement is to do things that are just a bit harder than what you are used to, not a lot harder than what you are used to.
I mean, now you are getting more specific, whereas your original post was more vague. But even as a tank main, I’m also playing Winston and D.Va teaching my dps friends how to properly coordinate a dive (something that at their gold rank sometimes fails to do effectively).
So when we dive, I’m often on Winston or D.Va, and I end the game with 3 or 4 gold medals. How is this different from a dps player carrying a game?
Look the point I was trying to make is this: Overwatch is a team game, and under the right team friendly environment, those little symbols under your portrait start to fade away quickly. Team friendly players (regardless of what role they are in) will thrive in a team friendly environment; and that’s what I try to provide when people group up with me.
It also goes both ways too. I have friends who are Diamond that group up with me. I have a GM coach, some of you probably have seen him post on the forums, Fragehardt. He’s GM and we group together all the time because I’m trying to learn, and then I try to pass that knowledge onto others.
This game can be great if we all try to be a little more helpful toward one another instead of trying to tear each other down. So long as people want to work together as a team, and they are within the SR range that Blizzard has set. There is no problem.
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Gonna have to agree with Rich.
Even if they don’t “belong” in that rank, I am not going to tell my friends I refuse to play Competitive with them because they hold me back. My SR and your SR are not worth disrespecting a friend.
My friends will never be second to a video game, no matter how competitive it gets.
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That’s fine and all when you are doing it in a full stack, everyone is on board there. The only ones who are going to face the consequences are the people who signed up for it.
You can teach DPS all the ways to engage right but it doesn’t take away that mechanical skill is still a factor. A 76 with the right highground control is not going to be effective if the shots that need to land aren’t.
You can ask someone who wants to play Ana into Dive to swap to another hero that’s better against as many times as you want without them carrying or even communicating why they won’t. Not being able to play the thing is a perfectly acceptable reason but if that’s not being communicated then nothing is going to change.
It’s a team game but you also need to show your team mates some decency. It’s not just a one way streak.
It might not be as noticeable in ranks below Diamond, but the skill gap in higher ranks are very significant. If I was to play with a GM friend I’d be a guaranteed liability to the team, no matter how hard I tried.
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you’re right rich, but as someone said the difference is you’re playing on your main account (assumingly) when these people do this they don’t coach like you do, they just try to carry them, complain about the rest of the team in their private chat and give them false confidence.
there are people in masters/gm that play on plat or even gold accounts and just carry their friends (which doesn’t always work cause the MM can see their MMR unless they’re borrowing an account).
Then when they play in the rank by themselves there’s a culture shock cause they realize there’s no one to make up for their deficiencies as a player when they’re alone.
coaching someone in your SR range of 1000-500-250 (depending on rank) is PERFECTLY fine, playing with someone on a lower rated account to gain the system is never OK
I have a friend with good mechanics and awareness but he gets super tilted sometimes and basically throws the game out of toxicity to himself. He has gone in VC and been toxic before but what usually loses us the game is just the self destruction happening inside him.
This is a solid point, and you are correct. Thank you for pointing out this difference. I really wish there was a way to prevent the smurfing and boosting of others. Smurfs do in fact ruin games, and more so if they are boosting someone. Does Blizzard have anything to detect this kind of in game behavior? If not, they need to run something in their algorithm perhaps.
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that’s heavy my dude
“does blizzard have…behavior?”
Yes, i know people who run 1-2 boosters and still end up losing, because the system can detect the higher MMR the boosters have and they get matched with harder opponents or get paired with lower rated allies to compensate, being in a group also makes the system give you tougher opponents assuming they’re all solo queue-ing.
He gets super triggered if one of our teammates do something like just trickle in and even though he tells them to group up there would be 1 or 2 people that aren’t in VC or just keep trickling. He feels like there’s just nothing he can do about these people and has abit of a breakdown. Sometimes I feel the same way because it’s really outside of our control.
Ouch, what about the random people who are unlucky enough to get stuck on the team of boosters? Seems like they might be getting punished for no real reason.
mmmmmm i wouldn’t exactly call it bad luck if they get stuck with boosters, cause they’re likely to win as long as they don’t feed, or trickle boosters have higher MMR because of how they play, whereas some people that belong in their rank will have higher MMR just due to the massive amounts of RNG in the system, if someone on the enemy team leaves and it’s just an absolute sh*tstomp it’s still counted as a win, or if someone throws on the enemy team, enemy team was just bad, etc.
tbh a lot of platinum players could reach diamond easily, or maybe even masters if they started recognizing that they all want to win and listening to eachother, i’ve been playing on a platinum alt and most games are lost for really silly reasons regarding ego, we almost never lose when people follow plans and work together and if we do we know we tried.’
reasons include: flooding match chat when comms are going out, starting un-necessary fights, making the entire team play around you, not being in voice chat to hear calls (you don’t have to talk just listen), etc.
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My god I would love to play with someone like you. I wish I wasn’t such a bucket of nerves around people, and didn’t have panic attacks every time I screw up.
If I ever get another Xanax prescription, I’m hitting you up. Lol
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Having a lower ranked player is just as impactful as playing against a smurf really. There’s a clear difference and both situations suck equally.
You can add me anytime. I’m always down to play with new people.
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