People gotta get the practice in at some point.
Arcade is a terrible place to practice anything, and going to Widow customs is also terrible cuz there’s always that one GM player that goes in to just ruin everyone’s day.
I know it sucks to have a crappy player on your team but to be real QP is the best way to practice any hero you’re not so great at.
I’m a terrible Reinhardt, and I can’t get decent practice in the arcade because either the game mode just doesn’t work out or the arcade matchmaking makes VERY unbalanced teams. So I gotta practice him in QP, it might result in a few losses, but I gotta get good with him somehow.
This is the argument I would use to say you’re trying to win. If you’re trying to do well, then you’re trying to win.
Generally speaking my observations suggest that people play games with the intention to win - but I did not say they had to be super tryhard to have to min max their way to victory and always try to perform the optimal strategy. Playing whatever you find fun and not actively trying to lose is considered trying to win in my book. If we disagree on that then I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
No matter how well you do vs ai, translating the aim to actual acc vs players can only be 30% tops, but actuality, it is between 15% and 20%. Tbh, if you only want to work on mechanical skills, other games are beter. I use Aim Hero for this.
Pratctising using other games and tools has its limitations. Practicing aiming at stafing and jumping movements cannot be replicated in other games or tools. For example, genji jumping over you, pharah and mercy in the air, tracer blinks, etc.
Knowledge of maps, positioning, knowing, how to watch your flanks are game sepcific and must be train within the game.
Finally the last point, you don’t get the same pressure from one game than from another game. Same with traing tools and AI training the pressure is non-existent. Since I stop playing QP since last year and move to AI due to QP crowd attitude changing, each time I play a Mystery Hero game nowadays, even if it is easy, my arms will always end up shaking uncontrollably mid way until the end of the game. I have none of this shaking when playing vs AIs, in training tools, or even in ow deathmatch.
In Overwatch just playing your hero well often isn’t enough to win though, and thats the real point here. If I was focused on winning then I would swap heroes, but if all I care about is playing a specific hero well I’ll just widow until we lose.
Well that’s why I said I agree that there are different degrees of effort. I think it’s perfectly valid to place a restriction on yourself to maximize the fun you have (e.g. im only going to play widow this round). That’s perfectly fine. I never suggested you have to swap heroes or do something unfun in the pursuit of winning. However, as you play your hero, the game has an objective. If you’re playing widow and you’re trying to do well with her, that means you’re getting kills which is the goal of widowmaker.
tbh bots are a good way to seriously learn how to play widow and learn muscle memory
that doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t be allowed to play quick play as widow, thats ridiculous, people are allowed to play whatever they want, just saying that bots can help a bunch.
You can like something even if you’re bad at it. I played a ton of r6, but I suck at it, and it’s pretty unrewarding if you are bad. But what kept me playing is the moments where I do well. It makes all the unrewarding moments worth it. I’d imagine it’s the same for people who play widow. They might be bad, but that moment where they hit a shot will grappling to the air makes it worth it for them.
You don’t need movement patterns - she’s hit-scan … you don’t shoot at people where they will be, you shoot exactly where they’re at. If you can reliably hook-jump and hit hs on Ana in all Anas headshot only game - you’re ready to play Widow. If you’re just standing behind in qp hard-scoping, waiting for someone to show up so you can kill him, then you’re doing it wrong …
Widow is not mind-game hero(99% of the time), she’s just point and shoot and hit a hs. If you can’t hit hs, you need to work on your aim, not your movement, positioning and that sort of things, only aim and aim is something you get faster vs bots, aiming mini-games, etc.
They want to play and practice because the appeal of the dinks, the sky shots, the single handiedly taking out the back line through a risky angle is so strong.
Everything you just said is wrong. Practicing against actual people and not bots is much better. Practicing in that environment helps not only with learning how actual players move, but with positioning, awareness and all the other things needed to be effective. Sure i can join custom head shot only games, but that will only help to an extent. If I am getting super hard counterd by flankers or a winston or whatever. I will switch. its not like i’m just gonna sit there and die for the entire match.
Its not like I’m trolling when i pick widow. i do try. I may not be the best at times but it doesn’t mean i’m throwing or trolling. Plus i just like playing widow sometimes. its relaxing to me to sometimes sit in the backline and try and plink heads.
Not your own movement, enemy movement. Hitscan doesn’t mean you dont need to understand the movement patterns of your enemy. If you’re aiming at someone who is moving around a lot you need to be able to understand, predict, and react to their movement. That’s why AD strafing and crouching is very effective against hitscans (including widow). Flick shots are fast but they’re not instantaneous. Your muscle memory still flicks to the position your brains expects them to be in a very short amount of time.
I think everyone is missing the point here. Blizz is the one people should be pointing fingers at. The company could have changed its practice range a long time ago, give the players a map where Hanzo/widowmakers can be trained etc. While their custom games have tons of options, they don’t give players any incentives to go beyond QP mode.
Edit: Meanwhile, they are busy with OWL and stuff, instead of working out balance patches or improvements for the community.
After supporting many aspiring snipers I feel ‘‘allowed’’ to be a terrible Widow in QP.
Though I have to say people don’t seem to be as allowing about it as I am, constant toxicity and questioning how many kills I have. I’m not forcing anyone else to play a healer or tank, let me play what I want too.
100% agree with this. If you can’t even place your reticle close to an enemy than there is no point of picking her is QP and you should resort to practicing against headshot-only AI. All these people saying that you need to practice against real people are just trying to cover up for themselves being bad. Widow is a hit scan ffs, flick onto the enemey’s head and click.
I would understand if people are making the “AI don’t act like humans” if the post was about a projectile hero, but it’s not. This is more of a problem of people not being used to their sensitivity and that’s where practicing against AI comes into play.
Practicing against AI as Widowmaker is detrimental to Widowmaker play because AI are very, very predictable, and people are less so. You don’t want AI habits to become the basis for your predictions.