I'm Playing Bronze And Loving It

Competitive Discussion
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I’m usually high silver. My wife is bronze. For awhile, we had to stop playing comp together because our SR was too far apart. But last night I had one of those REALLY bad losing streaks and I dropped a couple hundred SR. The silver lining (no pun intended) is that tonight I could play comp with my wife again! YAY!

But here’s the crazy thing that I discovered… I was often the only silver player, with all 11 other players being bronze. So I was playing at a lower rank than usual. I found myself bursting with useful confidence and I became the shot caller in every game. In my usual ranked games, I used to cringe at my mistakes. In my usual ranks, if we lost, I often felt as though I didn’t do well enough and I let my team mates down. But in this lower rank, I felt as though I was doing really well. Even if we lost, I felt no guilt because I knew that comparatively, I did quite well. I felt useful. It’s an amazing feeling. I found that feeling competent made Overwatch SO much more fun!

Also, the ability to suddenly win almost all of my 1v1s or get the jump on the other team gave me repeated opportunities to grab those moments of victory. It was just amazing and I think this is what the pros must feel like all the time.

So basically, I think I might be a bronze player who keeps managing to fight his way up to silver/gold, where I get my butt kicked. Obviously, I’m not going to throw games to drop down into bronze (I may have my flaws, but at least I can say I’ll never, ever be a “thrower”), but I kinda think I’d be happy doing battle down in bronze forever.

I feel skilled down there. I feel like a badass, where normally, I feel like a failure that sometimes gets lucky.

I’m reminded of that saying “The one eyed man is king in the land of the blind”.

Maybe someday I’ll get good enough to have this kind of confidence in higher ranks, but for now… I LOVE playing in bronze.

8 Likes
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Lololol, it’s just a dumb game you’d be confident against any rank if you didn’t care about winning or losing.

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Well I suppose that’s true, in a way.

But my lack of confidence comes from a sense of guilt that I’m ruining the game for my teammates. I guess what I’m realizing, is that the game is a lot more fun if I’m not worried about wrecking the game for others. If I feel as though I’m good enough to be on the team.

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That’s a ridiculous mindset to have. You gotta have faith in yourself man! And not care about what other players think, no one will ever get everyone to like them

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It’s also human nature to enjoy yourself a bit extra when you know that you’re the best player in the match I’d say.

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Curious what your idea of a really bad losing streak is.
You were 1869 and dropped to 1736 before climbing a little to what you currently are 1752.
You’re 7-9 in your last 3 sessions
You’re 35-39-3 in the month of January
What’s a really bad losing streak to you? losing 4 maybe 5 in a row?

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‘‘Yay stomping on players that are worse than me is fun.’’

Uh huh.

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Probably more fun than getting stomped by players better than you, no?

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For OP, surely :smirk: Can’t disagree with that.

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No shame in being bronze despite what anyone says. Bronze is the GM/t500 for average players. Everyone know everyone else which makes the game fun seeing familer names plat and gold suck as everyone is a stranger.

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I to would love to play in bronze. However I got suspended during season 13 for joining road to bronze groups.

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You’ve misunderstood me. It’s possible that I did a poor job explaining my point. I was trying to say that I play somewhere in the bronze skill level. I didn’t mean to imply that I was “stomping” the other players or that they were “worse than me”. I was saying that I feel as though I fit in, there. Also… I’m talking about a silver player, playing at a slightly lower rank. It’s not like I’m a GM, running circles around everyone.

Y’know… when you lay out the numbers like that, it doesn’t seem that bad at all. It honestly felt like I lost a lot more SR than I did. I had a couple games where I felt like I wasn’t contributing, so that probably made it feel like a bigger drop. Also, I suppose the discovery that I was now low enough to play with my wife, made it feel like a bigger drop as well.

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+1 for simply enjoying the game.

As i watch my children, especially my 6 year old son, play and whoop with delight and joy at every play; it just brings a smile to my grouchy face and brings to mind that this is how a game should be. Bringing joy and enjoying it.

If something like a video game ceases to be fun, well, just play another. =)

I am in Sliver and would likely drop to Bronze after placements for this season but i am enjoyed being in Silver and would likely enjoy being in Bronze as well. For the same reasons as you, i am playing at my level and have a decent chance to win or lose instead of playing against better players and not having a fighting chance at all.

That really is what competition is all about. Being able to contribute meaningfully to a victory and having a good time from that effort.

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That’s so awesome that your kids play it too. My two sons don’t really care for this game, which is a drag. :slight_smile:

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Thanks, dude. Yes, i really am blessed to have my children share my passion for video gaming. It is a really wonderful way to achieve family bonding, for sure.

However, to be fair, it was my 13 year old daughter who got me into OW. I was never one for FPS games. I totally avoided the Doom revolution in favour of Baldur’s Gate and all its preceding TSR games and some StarCraft.

Now both the children are trying to get their mother involved. Ha!

I guess that once the children see how much fun you and your wife are having together, they may just join in =)

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I know what you mean. Overwatch is my first FPS too. I was also into Neverwinter Nights, Baldur’s Gate, Warcraft 2, WoW and other fantasy games.

Your name is a bit of coincidence right now because recently, I’ve been really getting into the Silent Hill mythos. I really wish I could play P.T. and the cancelled Silent Hills game, but oh well. P.T. looks like such a beautifully artistic use of horror.

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Sounds like you are one of us, Older Watchers, Ellipsis XD

NWN 1 and 2, BG 1 and 2 were all so good as well as all the D&D video games from TSR. I am a huge Dungeons and Dragons nerd and yes, i am currently DM-ing a tabletop session for my same age (43 year old) friends from university and high school.

Call of Cthulhu would probably be the closest approximation of both P.T. and the Silent Hills game at the moment. Although there are quite a few psycho-horror games available on Steam from Taiwanese and Japanese indie developers which are pretty good. “Detention” is one such game. It has been translated from Mandarin to English for the U.S. audience although, of course, being a native Mandarin speaker; i would say that it was better in Mandarin.

Ironically, i never played Silent Hill. Although i was aware of the games and always wanted to play them but i did not own any gaming consoles (and still do not, yeah, PC Master Race. heh).

My nickname was inspired by my Lord of the Rings Online guild (The Osgiliath Gaurd aka The Older Gamers) who commented that i was totally silent while on groups with them (no mic) and by my Final Fantasy XI Paladin class Character, which was a Galka, a large-sized Humanoid race the size of little hills.

Since i was attracted to and only wanted to play Reinhardt (Tank class, i mainly play tanks in fantasy games or clerics + looks like a mecha) when i first saw the promotional poster my daughter showed me, Silenthill just seemed appropriate. XD

Sorry, i digressed for so long but it is always nice to meet a fellow Older Watcher gamer. =)

P.S. The only shooter game i ever completed was F.E.A.R. Excellent game in the FPS horror genre. The sequels were so-so but still good enough for me to complete them. =)

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Yup, I’m 45 and also a D&D nerd. Been DMing since I was 8. I actually make a living as a creator of one of those D&D webcomics, which is currently being made into a D&D styled cartoon series (which just happens to include the voice talent of two of the character actors in Overwatch. I love how this all comes full circle).

I’ll check out Detention, thanks!

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I see the same people all the time in my plat/gold matches

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Which webcomic? I’d love to check it out :smiley: