How to use the Scoreboard, PROPERLY

General Discussion
1

So a certain influencer just posted a video blaming the scoreboard for somehow decreasing the state of the game.

The scoreboard is a basis design of gaming thay has been around longer than most of us playing the game. It’s just a simplified method that jndicates how a player is performing. How seriously should we take it? 50/50. Yes weird coming from the guy advocating for it, but it’s just that aide in addressing aspects of the game.

So in order to get the most of it, you need to know how to use it. I get it though, its confusing, or somehow doesn’t make sense and that can be frustrating. Just like everything in Overwatch, get over it. The scoreboard is a tool. Its up to you how you use it. Every number here is useful in its own way.

So let’s define the basic scores and what they mean. Then I’ll give an example of how they could really be telling signs of certain playstyles. We’ll go from left to right.

Eliminations:
-This indicates how much advantage you’ve earned for you team. It’s final blows on enemies.

Assists:
-How much fight contribution you are putting in. Basically tells how often you are fighting and aided in securing an elimn.

Damage Done:
-Shows how much pressure you put on the enemy. Very important since every hero, except 2 in roster, should be dealing some form of dps.

Healing Done:
-How much damage you’ve recovered for the team. Every support should cherish this number.

Damage Mitigation:
-How much damage was prevented. This is almost exclusive to tanks in general. This stat is the most useless one, but still useful.

So when reading a scoreboard you will want to look at them TOGETHER. If you are lazer focused on one number only, you are blinding yourself to the other clues that can tell an entirely different story then the one you assume. Players need to also understand what certain heros want to do or are able to do themselves.

For example. The best way to play Reinhardt is to aggressively brawl out the opposition from the objective and hold it. This means he wants high elimns, high damage, low mitigation.

Now what does it mean if Rein has low mitigation, a high death count, and is falling behind on both elimn and damage? It means he’s INTing and is not using his shield enough. This means the Rein is being highly impatient and is rushing in without thought.

Just from that analysis you can adapt your playstyle to aide that Rein player or better yet, tell him to “STOP RUSHING IN ALONE.”

Now the scoreboard isn’t perfect, but its much better than the blind blame game we’ve had for majority of Overwatch’s existence.

Certain scores mean squat for performance. Like the Mitigation score is held almsot exclusively for tanks, but again still useful in its own capacity. Furthermore tanks with shields will also get high damage mitigation where those who don’t are often left to just take the damage straight up which means no damage prevented and it doesn’t add to the score. But those tanks want higher elimns more dps becaise their playstyles are more aggressive then defensive that is how they secure the objective.

Another example is how healing can be lower while your team has high elimn counts. This just indicates your team is performing very well that there is barely a need to heal any damage. Granted this also can lead into overconfidence. Which then can make the high elimns mean nothing if all it takes if for the enemy team to win one fight to gain the momentum to win the game.

Once more the scoreboard IS NOT GOSPEL TRUTH. It is a tool that gives you clues. Leaving everything for the player to decide is such a horrible and chaotic thing to promote. It’s better to have something that can help us as players improve by telling us how we perform in some basic aspects and what we should be aiming for in our heros and how we play them.

So use it or lose it. The scoreboard has helped me a ton in improving with Wreckingball amd I wouldn’t have it anyway.

So next time you’re frustrated and want to blame some numbers, remember, numbers don’t lie. Players do. Don’t do that to yourself. It’s just something to use, but it doesn’t make it weapon just because you can identify a player issue. Its a you problem with a bad skill in teamwork.

And if you’re a player who only cares about one set of numbers. You are using it wrong and most likely failing at the other numbers that YOU need to work on yourself.

1 Like
2

Nah, I get all of the numbers. Literally all of them. I am an Olympic gold medalist of Overwatch while dying less than those clowns who are actually getting healed. It makes me want to stare into a mirror for a few hours and admire myself, really.

5 Likes
3

All I am getting is toxicity because people use the scoreboard to judge others. So I think it’s a mistake to have scoreboard to begin with, and definitely made the game unfun for me.

Maybe can show the scoreboard after the match ends but I don’t like it being shown during a game.

4 Likes
4

That’s a big tutorial. Who’s the influencer?

5

Elims are in fact not final blows but means u participated in any amount of damage within a certain time frame of an enemy dying

And really final blows and deaths are the two most important stats

1 Like
6

Hog is a special case because he scores high on everything in the scoreboard. Including DEATHS.

It is not and people are dumb. The numbers here aren’t harming you directly, its the players. Take it as you will but rhe scoreboard tells a story every match, your story and others.

Use it or don’t. It’s a tool, not a weapon and those who use it that way are just bad players stuck in their own bad habits. Do like me and exploit those bad habits.

Amteratsu

Yeah I’m gonna leave it like that. Maybe I should have said you “confirmed a kill” but now we’re jsut mixing assist into elimns. Either way the aim is to rack up both. Either way you dealt so much damage to an enemy they died. That’s the story behind that score. Nothing more.

7

Way too much to read. Just tl;dr it: Stats matter. Including damage and healing, as they directly result into ult charge. If a DPS is doing half the damage as another and they lose, said lower DPS was probably the reason. If for no other reason, just the fact that they got half as many ults as they should have. Then, imagine all of the kills the team could have gotten if they did more damage, etc.

3 Likes
8

Not really. A Dva can lend 1 pellet on an enemy, if that enemy dies shortly thereafter she gets elim credit for basically doing nothing. Moira and Winston also benefit here, because they can do a tiny fraction of damage and get elim credit.

I used to get games in OW1 where I would have 100% kill participation on Winston. Doesn’t mean I actually did that much damage, just that my team was diving with me really effectively and we were getting kills as a group. My elim count doesn’t actually say really anything about my performance in that match (it was over 60, if I remember correctly), as not one single elim was a solo kill and I think no more than 8-10 were final blows.

This is why the scoreboard isn’t actually useful. There is far, far too much context necessary in order to correctly interpret virtually anything the scoreboard can tell you. Sure, you might be able to identify a player over or under-performing based on aggregate stats, but that doesn’t tell you how or why they are doing so. Is that support on your team feeding with double digit kills, or are they getting no peel from their team and left to fend for themselves against a skilled flanker?

Most OW players lack the game knowledge or the self-awareness to really read the scoreboard in a meaningful way. Hell, speaking purely for myself, half the time the scoreboard only makes sense when I go back to watch matches in replay and I can see everything that’s going on across the entire game state freely.

9

If elims was final blows they would add up to the same number of deaths as the enemy team, not way more than that.

10

Metrics are only as good as the understanding or use of the person reading them.

Had a game the other day where within a minute of the start the tank types out “why aren’t you guys healing at all!”

I had 1800 and the other support was at 700.

We both typed out these numbers and said "we’re healing "

Weirdly enough we got no more comments for the rest of the game and won.

People either ignore the metrics because they feel differently or quote them out of context.

Very rare is the person who holistically evaluates.

1 Like
11

It’s important to at least stare at yourself once a day and say

I’m good at video games

3 Likes
12

In a sense true but not as black and white as it seems.

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13

If you genuinely understand the game… scoreboard dont mean s…

Best case senario it just allows players to get screen shots that proove that matchmaking does make unfair matches.

Thats about it…

Its like literally every spy player in tf2… farm points the whole game. Not actually contribute to anything, then blame everyone else for loosing.

The game would better off without it entirely

14

… but I’m not.

I’m really really not.

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15

Not with that attitude

lol

16

Sure, what you say is true, and I personally agree that it is better to have a scoreboard than to go blind, but many people just do not think of the scoreboard in a productive way, and just laser focus on what seems important to them, unable to comprehend anything else and repeating the same numbers over and over again in your ear, as if that would change anything.

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17

I like it because I main pharah, and anytime we were losing in OW1 my teammates always said “pharah switch they have two hitscans.” Now they see I am 19-2 and our mcree is 1-19, and, not so much on me anymore.

2 Likes
18

I’d say I’m realistic. I’ve played with “good” players and I wouldn’t insult them by putting myself on their level.

I’m good at other things though (I’m not depressive) and I just have never bothered recently to try and be “good” at video games, I concentrate on enjoying them at a gameplay level and as my relaxation.

I used to be good at “subspace” because I played it for hours and hours a day, all day, all week. I do not have time to be “good” at any video game anymore.

I am, as many of us are, in that giant pile of average players.

19

lol that’s perfectly fine. It’s a video game, who cares? lol

Now if you’re bad at other areas of life, lets have a conversation

1 Like
20

Then you’re not really using it. You just outright dismissed the Dva’s effort. The earn in that elimn as small as it is tells the story of Dva who is using her guns more and probably is doing her job of focusing enemies.

I use a lot of probability terminology because that’s all it is. Its up to you to understand what the scoring means.

If you sit there and dismiss it then you aren’t really reading a situation. You just downplay it like you probably do with a lot of other players in your matches.

Again its a tool. Its only as useful as you make it.

Its not perfect, but again its a tool for us to use and it does help. Also…have you ever thought those death were self kills or environmental elimns where they jumped off the map? That might clue you in on how well these players have control over their hero. Again just more useful info.

Not everyone has your or mine own level of experience.

It’s much worst going back ro the blind blame game with people randomly pointing fingers at each other. That is chaos. This at least tells us whats going on with clues.

Had that situation where I topped on elimns and dps, but my teammates was struggling really hars. It literally took a Mercy to ask me to swap so that the rest of the team could play.

I swapped to torb and now once we had a solid frontline my teammates were able to make a comeback.

This is a special case where yes an individual could be playing well, but in the end Overwatch is a team game. Its best experienced when everyone on a team is doing well.