Welcome, EmpressMya to Overwatch. You are going to find this is a very diverse and entertaining game and as you invest time into it you are sure to enjoy the diverse heroes you can play as and meet many wonderful people in our community.
My first piece of advice is to remember to always have fun playing Overwatch. As a new player, you may find many things intimidating. If this is your first online multiplayer game, remember that while many of us do like to have fun and contribute to a positive game experience win or lose. There is going to be others who unfortunately can become “toxic” or exhibit detrimental behaviors and attempt to harm your experience. That being said, I do encourage you to become familiar in advance of the Blizzard Code-of-Conduct (click here) and don’t hesitate to report players (click here) who break the Code-of-Conduct. As always play nice, play fair.
I do recommend to not immediately jump into Competitive Play right away. For starters, the rules of Overwatch and specifically Competitive Play will be changing very soon with the addition of the new “2-2-2 Role Queue” feature. This will result in Competitive (and later quick play) to be restricted to team compositions of 2 tanks, 2 damage, and 2 support heroes and there will be no swapping heroes across roles. This change which has been heavily requested and favored by a majority of the community, will result in better quality matches and a more balanced gameplay experience overall.
In addition, I recommend only participating in Competitive play when you have a firm understanding of at least 3 heroes in any of one of the roles that you choose to play. There is no right or wrong way to go about learning a new hero, but taking time to learn heroes you like and mastering their abilities will greatly improve your chances to win matches in Competitive play when you do take the plunge. When you do begin playing Competitive Play, please remember the following.
- Competitive Play is a high-stakes game that plays through an extended match of Overwatch (unless it is a Control map). Each team takes turns attacking and defending the objective point or payload and the team with more points by the moment a team runs out of time wins the game. So be sure to dedicate as much as an hour before starting a Competitive Match (very rarely do matches go as long as an hour but it is possible).
- Most player will want to use voice communications in Competitive Play, if you have a headset, I strongly encourage you to use it and participate in team comms. (Remember you can always mute players who are toxic.) Try to keep the conversation about the active moments of the match such as stating the opponents you are needing help with. Keep statements short. Most players will understand key phrases like “Solider one” where this means the opponent Soldier: 76 is only one damaging hit away from being eliminated. Don’t get too overwhelmed with voice comms but the more you learn to use them, the more likely you will succeed. Finally, avoid unnecessarily criticizing your teammates excessively. It’s okay to call out a mistake or ask teammates to group up, but don’t micromanage them.
- Make sure your system is ready for Competitive Play. There are severe leaver penalties for this game mode including a starting suspension of 10 minutes and a loss of 50 skill rating points. If you notice any technical issues including game crashes or disconnections, players like myself and Blizzard Support Agents are available to provide assistance in the technical support forum.
As you continue to play you may want to consider optimizing your computer to have the best possible Overwatch experience. I have an article that goes over detailed system setting recommendations, hardware recommendations, and ways to optimize your aim and controls here:
Again, welcome to Overwatch. Remember to have fun and don’t hesitate to ask for more help here on the forums. Most of us here on the forums are very friendly and ready to give advice or answer questions to anything you need to know about the game. I also maintain a database of all game developer responses which is a great resource of information about the game. If you continue to enjoy the game and the rich content, be sure to also check out the animated shorts and comics that explores Overwatch’s storyline. Also, be sure to check out the top professional players in exciting esport events including the Overwatch League and Overwatch Contenders.
(^^)v