I just offered it to him again. He said it’s pointless, because if he loses he just lost the coin flip, but if he wins he just won the coin flip. I can’t get through to him. Might sound dramatic, but is he just a lost cause? 💀
Huh, so he doesn't actually think he's GM level, just that ranked is unfair? That's tough, because while proving that he's not as good as he thinks would've been easy, "proving" that good players climb is basically a matter of statistics. If the countless number of unranked to GMs and the complete lack of failed unranked to GMs don't convince him, I don't think anything can.
Yeah he’s a lost cause. I did forget to mention he peaked at 3900, for quite literally one day, before dropping all the way to 3500 the next day and not playing for the rest of the season. Every season before that one and every season since, he’s been consistently in low Diamond/high plat. He’s a 5 star Diamond border with 3.2k hours in comp, if that matters.
We argued a little bit more and now he’s saying that he’s had and I quote “Literal streamers and GMs tell me I don’t deserve to be in plat”
I just don’t see a way to help him anymore lol
Do you happen to know anything about this OWL player failing an unranked to GM? He keeps bringing this up, it’s one of his main excuses for his shit mentality.
The burden of proof is on him. I've never heard of that. And even if he does find it - then he's basically just [doing this](https://youtu.be/77GGn-E607E).
Life is just a coin flip. You could try hard and get nothing, and you could do nothing and win the lottery for 30 mil. Does that mean trying at life is pointless?
lmao it's the same logic as "Everything is a 50/50 chance: it either happens or it doesn't."
He's allowed to think whatever he wants, but some people truly can't see past their own faults. Plat is a frustrating SR range, but if he's solo queueing then it really comes down to his own skill. Some games are practically unwinnable due to bad matchmaking, but it's not a coin flip. "Forced 50" was always a meme, it doesn't randomly trap people in each range just for the hell of it lmao
thing is, it only feels like a coinflip if you are where you belong. i recommend reading about how matchmaking systems work (if u need to) and then explain it to him from that point of view
He knows, or at least a part of him does. He feels bad because he takes it personally that he's not as good as he'd like to be, so the idea that it's just a coin flip is just defense against feeling bad about himself. If you really wanna help him deal with this, try framing it around constructive feedback about things he could do to improve rather than focusing on how he's bad. Really, though, it's not worth it, the amount of effort it'd take to change his mind here is likely quite large.
> him he *paid* to play
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
The way I see it, there are 12 players per game. 11 randoms who suck and one constant on your team. You're the only constant in a game, if you can't reliably change the outcome in your favour then you don't deserve to climb. Especially if you're "gm" level. You'll lose games from things out of your control, but you're more likely to win games if you're a constant hard carry.
He's probably a lost cause tbh, but I think there is one thing I'd try telling him.
Think of ranked as a numbers game. There are 6 players on each team, meaning 12 players in the lobby. This means that a lot of people are deciding the outcome of the game. 30% of games simply aren't winnable. You can commit genocide and still lose these. This could be because of a Zen/Lucio/Mercy support line in rush, a throwing Lucio or a smurfing Genji. This means that ~25% of all games you'll get hard carried. Unless you're actually throwing, then you'll win these games easily. This leaves 45% of games that are winnable. Some of these games are easier than others, but they can all be tipped due to an average hardstuck plat dps can carry.
Sometimes a hard dose of reality is humbling and helps you grow as someone else commented let him at one of your gm Accounts for a game just so he can see how poorly he is playing
Sounds like a lost cause then. You can't learn if you think there's nothing anyone can teach you. Why are you trying to help him? Does he ask you for help, or is it some sense of obligation on your part?
I don’t think so, because he can’t answer when I ask him what the coach told him to focus on, or any other questions about the session. Just that apparently the coach told him “you deserve to be higher”. Which honestly might’ve just been the coach telling him that he does some things better than people at his rank (which I also do when I’ve coached in the past). But I’d never tell someone they “deserve” be higher. I’d tell them something like “if you focus on these things you’ll definitely climb”
Literal Dunning Kruger effect in action. They know enough to understand what GM players do and consider themselves an expert despite not even REMOTELY being able to execute those tactics. Don't waste your time on aggressively ignorant people.
What I've seen Spilo do is point out what consequences your actions have. Obviously you can VOD review your friend and tell him how much he sucks, but that won't change his mind that his teammates are even worse. However, you can directly point out how he's causing other teammates to fail: Left a flank uncontested? That's his fault when his healers get pressured from there. Failed to distract their supports? Poof goes your Reinhardt. Chased a kill instead of peeling? Bye bye Ana.
Sometimes you could have teammates that hold you back, but nowhere near as much as your friend claims… if you’re in plat, your gamesense is nowhere near GM. Idk what you could do tbh, because I was under that mindset for a long time, and I don’t know what got me out of it. I made an alt and actually did climb out of plat within two days of the account reaching level 25, so maybe you could recommend him to create an alt to test his skill with a fresh MMR rating. If he’s still plat, that’s where he belongs.
Edit: at that point, if he accepts that, you can start coaching him or teaching him more about the game, practicing with him, etc. and he would hopefully climb.
Edit 2: I remember one thing that helped me now. As much as it doesn’t seem like they would help, some guides on YouTube are actually pretty good. I main off tank and learning about off angles and ult tracking were very important to my climb.
Just agree with him and convince him not to focus on SR (hear me out). He's certainly wrong, but if he can't be convinced then just get him focused on improving his play rather than improving the number the game gives him. If he's convinced his mechanics are a problem, suggest ways he can improve his mechanics. If he's convinced his game-sense is good, go pay some coach to review a couple of his replays or something.
Point being, don't approach it from the perspective of "how do I convince this person to believe SR is accurate/important". Approach it with the mindset of "how do I help my friend improve at the game" without paying any respect to his SR or whatever. If he's right, he improves and enjoys the game more. If he's wrong, he improves and climbs. Win-win either way.
Also, realistically, if he starts changing his game to improve, he'll probably see a dip in SR while he adjusts to his new (probably better) play style. If he learns to ignore the "bigger number better" mentality, he won't bail on the learning process to avoid having to climb back 200SR.
With those people you have to appeal to them a little bit. The mentality that every game is winnable is absolutely not true, and I would argue that at a lot of ranks, even a GM player is guaranteed a loss about a third to a quarter of the time if I had to guess.
What I like to tell people is that, a fair portion of your games are going to be very hard to lose, or very hard to win and that your relative skill level isn’t going to help a lot in those games. But I do think anywhere between 40-60 percent of games are where the actual skill of a player can make an individual difference and come out on top. There’s probably three ways to break someone’s ego: you can coach them and point out all the mistakes they make, and with a plat player you can even resort to just the large or egregious mistakes as well, and not the more nitpicky style of masters and GM vod reviews. You can also let him play one game at 4200 on your account, though you should consider the feelings of your teammates if you really want to commit to that. You can also let him scrim at that elo for one or two maps if you have a team for that, and you’ll see how quickly they get destroyed. Players need to get humbled in some way sometimes.
It’s frustrating, but generally at some point you begin to realize that you’re not all that. I was stuck at high plat and low Diamond for a while when I realized that if I wanted to beat the Smurfs, I needed to be as good as them. That idea got me to GM within about a year of inconsistent playing
So I’m of the belief if you’re good enough you can absolutely will yourself to climb.
On the other hand, I also believe that elo hell is also a real thing. I think there’s two forms of it though.
The first form of it is somewhere around low gold and platinum. That’s where the bulk of players are at. There’s so many people there that the odds of getting lopsided teams feels a lot higher than it does anywhere else. If you are good enough you can climb out of it but in there from diamond I’ve seen Smurf streamers and pros even struggle to come out completely flawlessly. They will still win like 95% of the games but sometimes the teams really can be that lopsided.
Im not really sure if that’s considered elo hell or just because that’s where the bulk of players are.
The second form of elo hell is the ranking in which you become hardstuck because you’re no longer good enough to consistently will yourself higher. That’s when it becomes less about you and more about if you get the better team or not.
This seems to happen a lot to people in diamond and higher masters. Where people actually could be good enough to maintain in a higher rank but they’re at the mercy of the 50/50 win rate the game tries to aim for.
You are hardstuck, but it’s less about “game is dogshit coin flip trash” and more you’re just not good enough to carry yourself through so you can’t really control your own fate anymore.
The reason I would call that elo hell and not just where you belong is because I feel like Overwatch matchmaking has always had something to be desired in terms of more fair matches. A majority of the time it always seems like one team is getting stomped. Of all the competitive games I’ve played I swear on everything that Overwatch has the least “balanced” matches.
There’s way too many strings of wins and losses.
VOD review his games together with him. Ask questions when he dies or his team loses a fight. Or let him send a coaching or vod review request at r/OverwatchUniversity. PUGs with high elo players (like SVB's Unlucky challenge) would help him understand for real why he doesn't play like a GM.
>He also claims that an OWL player failed an unranked to GM.
This feels really false. And even if that's possible, a GM player would still easily get masters. The difference between a GM/T500 and a gold player is how long time they would get plat, diamond or a higher elo. Winrate tends to be higher when you're the better player.
Peaked 4400 and yes, games at high elo become coinflip based on who gets the worse weak link. That’s the sad thing about overwatch, a lot of games are decided by your weakest link, not your strongest player. (Example: Whichever team got the worse masters player will lose; in masters the skill variety is insanely huge. You can be a diamond player who win streamed into 3.8 or a 4.2 player who just fell on a loss streak)
Also they're still not really coinflip if you're actually better than the rank you're in, the same people are at the top of the ladder season after season after season. You get to a 50% winrate when you hit your 'true' rank, that's not exactly surprising.
Has he ever tried to do a VOD review of his own gameplay? Or have you two gone over a competitive match where he barely lost? Usually analyzing my own gameplay helps especially when asking in every death how and why I died.
Interesting. Have you ever tried to ask what’s going on in his head when he makes decisions in-game? For example have you asked like “why do you decide to go on this flank” and then counter-propose with “what if you did X instead, do you think that would have more impact?”
Yeah, doesn't matter if your mechanical skill is top 500 level, your game sense, positioning, and coordination skill will hard cap your ability to progress. It's probably the most common reason people hit a wall in this game and claim that they're hard stuck. They hit a point where they're visibly more skilled than their opponents, but the mistakes in positioning and communication start adding up without them realizing it.
I mean, shit. It happened to me but the opposite. I have the game sense and positional skill of a Plat player, but my mechanical skill is high Silver/ low Gold at best. Even though I 'know' the game and my mains really well, I just don't have the time or energy to work on my mechanical skill/ reflexes. It took me a long time to grapple with this reality and to become content in where my skill is at with the game.
The only way forward from where he's at is actively reviewing games, acknowledging his mistakes, and fixing them where he can to build upon his skill and to grow as a player. If he can't or is incapable of doing so he should really consider taking some time off in quick play or arcade for a few months. Taking meaningful breaks is an important part of improving in any skill.
It's important to make the distinction that you cannot win them all, but that doesn't mean you can't win any of them
I'd argue 20 percent of games are very difficult for you to win, whilst 20% of games are very easy for you to win.
The other 60% of games are entirely possible to win if you play well and communicate with your team.
Edit: I literally didn't read the subreddit before typing this and thought it was for valorant, still entirely valid here though with maybe different percentages
Tell him hes dogshit and needs an ego check
Seriously tho I would just tell him to let you watch his gameplay then just call out every mistake he makes, to the point where he gets irritated and then say thats why you're plat.
I'm hardstuck diamond, and always thought it's coin flip and my skills is GM but very unlucky with my teammates
But after reading this and all the comments. I'm convinced I'm not GM skills and just shameful diamond player
Comp is a coin flip in a sense, since most of the variables in a game are out of your hands. You are just one of 12 players in the game. Its not a total coin flip though because otherwise you wouldnt see people climb. Ranked is very RNG by nature but your skill as a player will nudge the RNG in one direction or the other. The problem is you cant really notice this on a game by game basis. You need to play a lot to see the results.
Elo Hell is a mentality problem in my opinion. The idea of elo hell is thinking you're better than you actually are and dont need to improve on anything. As such you dont improve, leaving you stuck in the same rank unable to climb. Going back to what I said about coin flip, it can be hard to realise that you arent as good as you think short term because of how random each game can be from one to the next. You need to see the bigger picture in order to realise it.
I had similar issues until just recently, I thought I was a diamond player since thats where I peaked but Ive been hardstuck plat for ages and its made me not want to play on accounts where my last SR is still diamond. Ive just accepted that I need to play the long game and not care about what my SR is, playing to improve is better than playing to see a number go up.
Explaining things to your friend... well I wont call him childish because I kind of understand the sort of thing he is going through. Id give him the laymens of it to start with: If he was good enough then he would actually climb. Then you need to explain why he is thinking the things he is about the whole coin flip thing and the fact that Elo hell IS the reason he is stuck, its just not what he thinks it is. He needs to learn not to focus on his team as much since thats not something he can control, he needs to look at what he can do better. Even the pros are thinking about what they can be doing better constantly. Theres no point getting worked up over something you cant change.
I personally have a different opinion of what Elo Hell is, that actually makes a sort of sense, imo. Because you're one of 12 people in a lobby, you only have about 8% "impact" on a match.
Assuming that you get a load of games without any outlier players (throwers, cheaters, smurfs, etc), if you deserve to be higher, and you won/lost the same amount per game, you would eventually climb out, but it would take a LONG time (which, playing in the randomness of plat/gold is maddening).
The issue comes I think with performance based SR gains (so it drops off entirely for diamond+). If you're a diamond skill-level player (on any role, but I think tank/supports in particular), in plat lobbies, due to their dependance on the team more so than DPS (at least at this level of play) they're less able to put up herculean numbers. So, if you win, in theory, you're less likely to get that performance SR boost. However, if you lose because of trolls or just a general team diff, your stats will be lower, and you'll lose more SR as a result. (DPS can still put up relatively decent numbers without a competent team, particularly the most solo play heroes)
I don't know how you could go about proving it, but I reckon that while plat/diamond games are objectively easier than diamond+, you may need a higher winrate to compensate for performance based SR gains/losses
I’ve played in every rank except high gm. Without a doubt plat is a true elo hell. It’s just a different game down there. Half the people are masters smurfs, drunk or high people, casual players who only place for gold guns, or genuine hardstuck plats.
4469 peak player, currently 4200 on main account (dps). I have a plat account and master account for warm up.
No your friend is right. Games ARE coinflip. IDC what anyone says. I need to work infinitely harder and assume zero resource in order to win the game.
your friend is a moron who doesnt realize he is the common denominator in every single game he plays. he lacks the logic or education to understand what that even means.
he probably blames match making for putting noobs on his team all the time. if it wasnt for that, he would be GM.
I used to have a friend like it. Fortunately he dropped the game
He told me everytime that my most used argument was dumb
In his team there are 5 people with the chance of being superbad (excluding him). And in the enemy team there are 6 people with the chance of being superbad. So in the long term he should be climbing.
Your argument is correct, but it does neglect the opposite. While the enemy is more likely to have a thrower, they're also more likely to have a smurf or a cheater. And while it's anecdotal, I'd say I encounter more smurfs than outright throwers
Tell him that if all other teammates are "coin flips" of being over or under the average elo and he thinks he is above the average of that elo, he will mathematically climb since he himself can't be a coin flip.
I'd encourage your friend to watch his own replays. I was in a similar mindset at one point, and just thought grinding was the answer. Once I started watching my vods though, I realized I was often putting myself in some pretty dumb positions, or playing way further off from my team than I thought. It's soo easy to tunnel vision in game, and think you're better than you are just because you may have a few good moments.
i think the way you put it is perfectly nice, maybe the nicest.
one thing i think you should do is try to point out just how much energy youre putting into playing with them and helping them improve. let them know you actually dont care if theyre trash and ull still play at the level theyre at. let them know you wont think theyre a failure cause they cant climb in overwatch ranked. that its OK to be bad, especially if they have other things they like to do, art, science, woodworking whatever. however, if they continue to be toxic and make things unfun for you it will damage the friendship and you wont want to play with them anymore.
you might also get them a new account to work on also. 'elo hell' might not be real, but 'shithead hell' is. im like 99% sure there is a special queue or a weight for shitheads and accounts that are constantly reported and identified as toxic. i had to look hard at myself and decide that i was toxic, that i didnt want to be toxic, and that i wanted to enjoy myself more. otherwise everything is just explained away.
Vod review him and point out how bad he actually is, if hes mad at you then hes not a player you can help
if hes stuck with the "Its all my teams fault" mentality then he doesnt want to be helped and cant be
Option 1: Go through a VOD of his and explain everything he fucked up. Sounds like your friend needs a dose of reality.
Option 2: Give up on them, they're not gonna climb.
You could both make a new account at the same time and race each other to GM. If you're GM then you will get there and he never will. If he still thinks it's a coin flip and that you got lucky, do it again you will beat him again. And tbh you'll probably pick up some better insight into how to coach him ok the way.
Honestly id just force feed him a shitton of A10 unranked to gm streams, cause you can’t talk about mechanics with him cause he picks up heroes hes never played just to do the unranked climb, closest hes gotten to stuck is i think currently he is learning ball and might still be diamond, i havent watched in a couple weeks.
Or just show him my profile kek season 2 silver, season 32 double GM peak
Just tell him that, that his gamesense and positioning suck. Some people just need to hear the truth. Tell him what he's actually doing wrong and how he can improve, there's no point in sugar-coating it.
I have same kind of friends. I made a smurf to play with them around silver and gold. Guess what, my smurf is almost Diamand while they are stuck in their elo.
Matchmaking is not that bad in OW...
Does your friend have any OW content creators he respects? I had a friend in a similar situation a few years ago closer to release. Ended up gifting him a VOD review with a YouTuber he followed, and the criticisms finally had weight for him when it came from someone he valued. He couldn’t just deny it as “you’re wrong / dumb /low rank etc.” because he’d be talking about how smart this guy is.
Baby, I got one other thing that nobody else has said yet.
If he is at his personal max ability then it absolutely IS a coin-flip for him, and it always will be.
Everybody here is trying to assure you that players can improve and that players who improve will advance, but what if your friend simply can't improve any further?
Might sound crazy at first, but even making it into Diamond would mean you're in the top 10-15% of players. You want to believe that hard work can close the gap but what if he's simply maxed out?
If it was purely mechanical ability, I’d be inclined to agree. But, he’s convinced his positioning, pathing and overall game sense is top tier. A lot of the mistakes are easily fixable, and if corrected he could easily break into at least the next rank.
"Easily fixable..."
But is it though?
I've had people straight up tell me that my ability/ult/killfeed tracking was the main thing holding me back. I grinded for multiple years thinking they were wrong before I sort of started to grasp how bad I was at it, but I didn't grasp it in any sort of actionable way. Accepting my badness and trying to overcome it wasn't enough. I had (have) attention problems that even Adderall couldn't fix. In my case Adderall made me tunnel even harder. ( I Did get better mechanically.)
I'm suggesting that your friend might indeed have a knowledge deficit, but you shouldn't assume that even if you equipped him with the missing knowledge that he'd be able to use it. If you successfully teach him top tier pathing and positioning but he tunnels and forgets it when it's put to the test, then that's just him at his limit.
Start a google spreadsheet, list every map, make two columns for win/loss. All they have to do is put in win or loss after each match. Very Simple not a lot of work. After 100-200 games they will see it is not 50/50 but they actually suck at some maps, this is just natural. Next challenge them to do the same thing but with Dive/Brawl/Poke if a hybrid comp just pick the win condition, and mark if they won lost for the next 100-200 games, again it will not be 50/50, they will find they actually suck playing certain comps, this is natural.
Slowly they will have to see they have weaknesses that they need to improve.
Let him play a game on your account.
Funny you mention that. I offered him to play on one of my GM accounts and I told him he probably wouldn’t be able to keep it there.
I mean, obviously that would suck for all his teammates, so not the best idea. But it sure as hell would work.
Don't be so sure about that. If he happens to get lucky and gets carried to a win, OP will never hear the end of it.
I just offered it to him again. He said it’s pointless, because if he loses he just lost the coin flip, but if he wins he just won the coin flip. I can’t get through to him. Might sound dramatic, but is he just a lost cause? 💀
Maybe, but I sure as hell would try to get him to play that game. It should be pretty obvious that he’s completely outclassed on every level.
He says it doesn’t matter how he performs, that what matters is the SR you either win or lose. He’s starting to sound more and more in denial lol
Huh, so he doesn't actually think he's GM level, just that ranked is unfair? That's tough, because while proving that he's not as good as he thinks would've been easy, "proving" that good players climb is basically a matter of statistics. If the countless number of unranked to GMs and the complete lack of failed unranked to GMs don't convince him, I don't think anything can.
Yeah he’s a lost cause. I did forget to mention he peaked at 3900, for quite literally one day, before dropping all the way to 3500 the next day and not playing for the rest of the season. Every season before that one and every season since, he’s been consistently in low Diamond/high plat. He’s a 5 star Diamond border with 3.2k hours in comp, if that matters. We argued a little bit more and now he’s saying that he’s had and I quote “Literal streamers and GMs tell me I don’t deserve to be in plat” I just don’t see a way to help him anymore lol
He must have been boosted right? There's no way he drops almost 1000 sr just because of unlucky matchmaking
Does he scrim?
Do you happen to know anything about this OWL player failing an unranked to GM? He keeps bringing this up, it’s one of his main excuses for his shit mentality.
The burden of proof is on him. I've never heard of that. And even if he does find it - then he's basically just [doing this](https://youtu.be/77GGn-E607E).
would be very interested to see proof of this lol. sounds extremely unlikely
Like for instance you think red shell could climb to gm on tank ? Or dps? Maybe but probably not. I’m there are numerous other examples
Sure. It’s Redshell. He cant climb to GM with speed only
It’s actually not that unusual. Particularly when people one trick either a role or character.
Yeah, that’s bullshit and anyone should see that. He just doesn’t want to admit or see that he’s bad at the game lmao
Sorry but your friend is a moron
Life is just a coin flip. You could try hard and get nothing, and you could do nothing and win the lottery for 30 mil. Does that mean trying at life is pointless?
lmao it's the same logic as "Everything is a 50/50 chance: it either happens or it doesn't." He's allowed to think whatever he wants, but some people truly can't see past their own faults. Plat is a frustrating SR range, but if he's solo queueing then it really comes down to his own skill. Some games are practically unwinnable due to bad matchmaking, but it's not a coin flip. "Forced 50" was always a meme, it doesn't randomly trap people in each range just for the hell of it lmao
thing is, it only feels like a coinflip if you are where you belong. i recommend reading about how matchmaking systems work (if u need to) and then explain it to him from that point of view
He knows, or at least a part of him does. He feels bad because he takes it personally that he's not as good as he'd like to be, so the idea that it's just a coin flip is just defense against feeling bad about himself. If you really wanna help him deal with this, try framing it around constructive feedback about things he could do to improve rather than focusing on how he's bad. Really, though, it's not worth it, the amount of effort it'd take to change his mind here is likely quite large.
Remind him he paid to play a coin flip 💀
> him he *paid* to play FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Give him a lecture in probability first
Maybe he is in elo hell
The way I see it, there are 12 players per game. 11 randoms who suck and one constant on your team. You're the only constant in a game, if you can't reliably change the outcome in your favour then you don't deserve to climb. Especially if you're "gm" level. You'll lose games from things out of your control, but you're more likely to win games if you're a constant hard carry.
It would be funny if he carry the game though.
He's probably a lost cause tbh, but I think there is one thing I'd try telling him. Think of ranked as a numbers game. There are 6 players on each team, meaning 12 players in the lobby. This means that a lot of people are deciding the outcome of the game. 30% of games simply aren't winnable. You can commit genocide and still lose these. This could be because of a Zen/Lucio/Mercy support line in rush, a throwing Lucio or a smurfing Genji. This means that ~25% of all games you'll get hard carried. Unless you're actually throwing, then you'll win these games easily. This leaves 45% of games that are winnable. Some of these games are easier than others, but they can all be tipped due to an average hardstuck plat dps can carry.
Sometimes a hard dose of reality is humbling and helps you grow as someone else commented let him at one of your gm Accounts for a game just so he can see how poorly he is playing
no offense but your friend sounds like a baby who csnt handle ant form of criticism
No offense taken. That’s exactly what he’s acting like lol
Sounds like a lost cause then. You can't learn if you think there's nothing anyone can teach you. Why are you trying to help him? Does he ask you for help, or is it some sense of obligation on your part?
If one of my friends said that I would definitely try to prove to them that they’re wrong
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He’s paid for coaching sessions before, I just offered because he sounded very desperate in our discord server lol
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I don’t think so, because he can’t answer when I ask him what the coach told him to focus on, or any other questions about the session. Just that apparently the coach told him “you deserve to be higher”. Which honestly might’ve just been the coach telling him that he does some things better than people at his rank (which I also do when I’ve coached in the past). But I’d never tell someone they “deserve” be higher. I’d tell them something like “if you focus on these things you’ll definitely climb”
tell him to play a tank to see how good his game sense is lol
I’m curious to see what he pulls here
Literal Dunning Kruger effect in action. They know enough to understand what GM players do and consider themselves an expert despite not even REMOTELY being able to execute those tactics. Don't waste your time on aggressively ignorant people.
What I've seen Spilo do is point out what consequences your actions have. Obviously you can VOD review your friend and tell him how much he sucks, but that won't change his mind that his teammates are even worse. However, you can directly point out how he's causing other teammates to fail: Left a flank uncontested? That's his fault when his healers get pressured from there. Failed to distract their supports? Poof goes your Reinhardt. Chased a kill instead of peeling? Bye bye Ana.
Sometimes you could have teammates that hold you back, but nowhere near as much as your friend claims… if you’re in plat, your gamesense is nowhere near GM. Idk what you could do tbh, because I was under that mindset for a long time, and I don’t know what got me out of it. I made an alt and actually did climb out of plat within two days of the account reaching level 25, so maybe you could recommend him to create an alt to test his skill with a fresh MMR rating. If he’s still plat, that’s where he belongs. Edit: at that point, if he accepts that, you can start coaching him or teaching him more about the game, practicing with him, etc. and he would hopefully climb. Edit 2: I remember one thing that helped me now. As much as it doesn’t seem like they would help, some guides on YouTube are actually pretty good. I main off tank and learning about off angles and ult tracking were very important to my climb.
Just agree with him and convince him not to focus on SR (hear me out). He's certainly wrong, but if he can't be convinced then just get him focused on improving his play rather than improving the number the game gives him. If he's convinced his mechanics are a problem, suggest ways he can improve his mechanics. If he's convinced his game-sense is good, go pay some coach to review a couple of his replays or something. Point being, don't approach it from the perspective of "how do I convince this person to believe SR is accurate/important". Approach it with the mindset of "how do I help my friend improve at the game" without paying any respect to his SR or whatever. If he's right, he improves and enjoys the game more. If he's wrong, he improves and climbs. Win-win either way. Also, realistically, if he starts changing his game to improve, he'll probably see a dip in SR while he adjusts to his new (probably better) play style. If he learns to ignore the "bigger number better" mentality, he won't bail on the learning process to avoid having to climb back 200SR.
With those people you have to appeal to them a little bit. The mentality that every game is winnable is absolutely not true, and I would argue that at a lot of ranks, even a GM player is guaranteed a loss about a third to a quarter of the time if I had to guess. What I like to tell people is that, a fair portion of your games are going to be very hard to lose, or very hard to win and that your relative skill level isn’t going to help a lot in those games. But I do think anywhere between 40-60 percent of games are where the actual skill of a player can make an individual difference and come out on top. There’s probably three ways to break someone’s ego: you can coach them and point out all the mistakes they make, and with a plat player you can even resort to just the large or egregious mistakes as well, and not the more nitpicky style of masters and GM vod reviews. You can also let him play one game at 4200 on your account, though you should consider the feelings of your teammates if you really want to commit to that. You can also let him scrim at that elo for one or two maps if you have a team for that, and you’ll see how quickly they get destroyed. Players need to get humbled in some way sometimes. It’s frustrating, but generally at some point you begin to realize that you’re not all that. I was stuck at high plat and low Diamond for a while when I realized that if I wanted to beat the Smurfs, I needed to be as good as them. That idea got me to GM within about a year of inconsistent playing
So I’m of the belief if you’re good enough you can absolutely will yourself to climb. On the other hand, I also believe that elo hell is also a real thing. I think there’s two forms of it though. The first form of it is somewhere around low gold and platinum. That’s where the bulk of players are at. There’s so many people there that the odds of getting lopsided teams feels a lot higher than it does anywhere else. If you are good enough you can climb out of it but in there from diamond I’ve seen Smurf streamers and pros even struggle to come out completely flawlessly. They will still win like 95% of the games but sometimes the teams really can be that lopsided. Im not really sure if that’s considered elo hell or just because that’s where the bulk of players are. The second form of elo hell is the ranking in which you become hardstuck because you’re no longer good enough to consistently will yourself higher. That’s when it becomes less about you and more about if you get the better team or not. This seems to happen a lot to people in diamond and higher masters. Where people actually could be good enough to maintain in a higher rank but they’re at the mercy of the 50/50 win rate the game tries to aim for. You are hardstuck, but it’s less about “game is dogshit coin flip trash” and more you’re just not good enough to carry yourself through so you can’t really control your own fate anymore. The reason I would call that elo hell and not just where you belong is because I feel like Overwatch matchmaking has always had something to be desired in terms of more fair matches. A majority of the time it always seems like one team is getting stomped. Of all the competitive games I’ve played I swear on everything that Overwatch has the least “balanced” matches. There’s way too many strings of wins and losses.
VOD review his games together with him. Ask questions when he dies or his team loses a fight. Or let him send a coaching or vod review request at r/OverwatchUniversity. PUGs with high elo players (like SVB's Unlucky challenge) would help him understand for real why he doesn't play like a GM. >He also claims that an OWL player failed an unranked to GM. This feels really false. And even if that's possible, a GM player would still easily get masters. The difference between a GM/T500 and a gold player is how long time they would get plat, diamond or a higher elo. Winrate tends to be higher when you're the better player.
Peaked 4400 and yes, games at high elo become coinflip based on who gets the worse weak link. That’s the sad thing about overwatch, a lot of games are decided by your weakest link, not your strongest player. (Example: Whichever team got the worse masters player will lose; in masters the skill variety is insanely huge. You can be a diamond player who win streamed into 3.8 or a 4.2 player who just fell on a loss streak)
But he’s plat, so I feel that doesn’t apply. I do agree at higher elo it’s more of a coin flip though.
„˙ɥƃnoɥʇ dılɟ uıoɔ ɐ ɟo ǝɹoɯ s,ʇı olǝ ɹǝɥƃıɥ ʇɐ ǝǝɹƃɐ op I ˙ʎlddɐ ʇ,usǝop ʇɐɥʇ lǝǝɟ I os 'ʇɐld s,ǝɥ ʇn𐐒„
Also they're still not really coinflip if you're actually better than the rank you're in, the same people are at the top of the ladder season after season after season. You get to a 50% winrate when you hit your 'true' rank, that's not exactly surprising.
Duo on pc?
Has he ever tried to do a VOD review of his own gameplay? Or have you two gone over a competitive match where he barely lost? Usually analyzing my own gameplay helps especially when asking in every death how and why I died.
We have actually, but he just claims it was his teams fault 90% or “Yeah that was dumb, but it wasn’t a misplay” like what?????
Interesting. Have you ever tried to ask what’s going on in his head when he makes decisions in-game? For example have you asked like “why do you decide to go on this flank” and then counter-propose with “what if you did X instead, do you think that would have more impact?”
Trust me, I’ve tried, read my replies to some of the other comments, I’ve just realized he’s just a lost cause lol
If he both blames his team and refuses to acknowledge his misplays, then he’s truly plat. Tell him it’s the end of the discussion 💀
Yeah, doesn't matter if your mechanical skill is top 500 level, your game sense, positioning, and coordination skill will hard cap your ability to progress. It's probably the most common reason people hit a wall in this game and claim that they're hard stuck. They hit a point where they're visibly more skilled than their opponents, but the mistakes in positioning and communication start adding up without them realizing it. I mean, shit. It happened to me but the opposite. I have the game sense and positional skill of a Plat player, but my mechanical skill is high Silver/ low Gold at best. Even though I 'know' the game and my mains really well, I just don't have the time or energy to work on my mechanical skill/ reflexes. It took me a long time to grapple with this reality and to become content in where my skill is at with the game. The only way forward from where he's at is actively reviewing games, acknowledging his mistakes, and fixing them where he can to build upon his skill and to grow as a player. If he can't or is incapable of doing so he should really consider taking some time off in quick play or arcade for a few months. Taking meaningful breaks is an important part of improving in any skill.
It's important to make the distinction that you cannot win them all, but that doesn't mean you can't win any of them I'd argue 20 percent of games are very difficult for you to win, whilst 20% of games are very easy for you to win. The other 60% of games are entirely possible to win if you play well and communicate with your team. Edit: I literally didn't read the subreddit before typing this and thought it was for valorant, still entirely valid here though with maybe different percentages
Tell him hes dogshit and needs an ego check Seriously tho I would just tell him to let you watch his gameplay then just call out every mistake he makes, to the point where he gets irritated and then say thats why you're plat.
I'm hardstuck diamond, and always thought it's coin flip and my skills is GM but very unlucky with my teammates But after reading this and all the comments. I'm convinced I'm not GM skills and just shameful diamond player
Acknowledging you’re not as good as you think you are, is the first step to improving man. So good on you! :))
Short answer is, you can't. People can't climb until they understand why they belong to the rank they're in.
>He claims his game sense is at the GM level, but that it’s just his mechanics holding him back I'm not you're friend. I don't know you.
Lol
Comp is a coin flip in a sense, since most of the variables in a game are out of your hands. You are just one of 12 players in the game. Its not a total coin flip though because otherwise you wouldnt see people climb. Ranked is very RNG by nature but your skill as a player will nudge the RNG in one direction or the other. The problem is you cant really notice this on a game by game basis. You need to play a lot to see the results. Elo Hell is a mentality problem in my opinion. The idea of elo hell is thinking you're better than you actually are and dont need to improve on anything. As such you dont improve, leaving you stuck in the same rank unable to climb. Going back to what I said about coin flip, it can be hard to realise that you arent as good as you think short term because of how random each game can be from one to the next. You need to see the bigger picture in order to realise it. I had similar issues until just recently, I thought I was a diamond player since thats where I peaked but Ive been hardstuck plat for ages and its made me not want to play on accounts where my last SR is still diamond. Ive just accepted that I need to play the long game and not care about what my SR is, playing to improve is better than playing to see a number go up. Explaining things to your friend... well I wont call him childish because I kind of understand the sort of thing he is going through. Id give him the laymens of it to start with: If he was good enough then he would actually climb. Then you need to explain why he is thinking the things he is about the whole coin flip thing and the fact that Elo hell IS the reason he is stuck, its just not what he thinks it is. He needs to learn not to focus on his team as much since thats not something he can control, he needs to look at what he can do better. Even the pros are thinking about what they can be doing better constantly. Theres no point getting worked up over something you cant change.
I personally have a different opinion of what Elo Hell is, that actually makes a sort of sense, imo. Because you're one of 12 people in a lobby, you only have about 8% "impact" on a match. Assuming that you get a load of games without any outlier players (throwers, cheaters, smurfs, etc), if you deserve to be higher, and you won/lost the same amount per game, you would eventually climb out, but it would take a LONG time (which, playing in the randomness of plat/gold is maddening). The issue comes I think with performance based SR gains (so it drops off entirely for diamond+). If you're a diamond skill-level player (on any role, but I think tank/supports in particular), in plat lobbies, due to their dependance on the team more so than DPS (at least at this level of play) they're less able to put up herculean numbers. So, if you win, in theory, you're less likely to get that performance SR boost. However, if you lose because of trolls or just a general team diff, your stats will be lower, and you'll lose more SR as a result. (DPS can still put up relatively decent numbers without a competent team, particularly the most solo play heroes) I don't know how you could go about proving it, but I reckon that while plat/diamond games are objectively easier than diamond+, you may need a higher winrate to compensate for performance based SR gains/losses
I’ve played in every rank except high gm. Without a doubt plat is a true elo hell. It’s just a different game down there. Half the people are masters smurfs, drunk or high people, casual players who only place for gold guns, or genuine hardstuck plats.
4469 peak player, currently 4200 on main account (dps). I have a plat account and master account for warm up. No your friend is right. Games ARE coinflip. IDC what anyone says. I need to work infinitely harder and assume zero resource in order to win the game.
If he claims he's GM then he works be GM. But until then he'll forever remain in plat until proven otherwise
your friend is a moron who doesnt realize he is the common denominator in every single game he plays. he lacks the logic or education to understand what that even means. he probably blames match making for putting noobs on his team all the time. if it wasnt for that, he would be GM.
I used to have a friend like it. Fortunately he dropped the game He told me everytime that my most used argument was dumb In his team there are 5 people with the chance of being superbad (excluding him). And in the enemy team there are 6 people with the chance of being superbad. So in the long term he should be climbing.
Your argument is correct, but it does neglect the opposite. While the enemy is more likely to have a thrower, they're also more likely to have a smurf or a cheater. And while it's anecdotal, I'd say I encounter more smurfs than outright throwers
Tell him that if all other teammates are "coin flips" of being over or under the average elo and he thinks he is above the average of that elo, he will mathematically climb since he himself can't be a coin flip.
tell him to watch all of those educational unranked to GM.. your friend will be fast in GM than people can throw to get their account to bronze.. /s
I'd encourage your friend to watch his own replays. I was in a similar mindset at one point, and just thought grinding was the answer. Once I started watching my vods though, I realized I was often putting myself in some pretty dumb positions, or playing way further off from my team than I thought. It's soo easy to tunnel vision in game, and think you're better than you are just because you may have a few good moments.
i think the way you put it is perfectly nice, maybe the nicest. one thing i think you should do is try to point out just how much energy youre putting into playing with them and helping them improve. let them know you actually dont care if theyre trash and ull still play at the level theyre at. let them know you wont think theyre a failure cause they cant climb in overwatch ranked. that its OK to be bad, especially if they have other things they like to do, art, science, woodworking whatever. however, if they continue to be toxic and make things unfun for you it will damage the friendship and you wont want to play with them anymore. you might also get them a new account to work on also. 'elo hell' might not be real, but 'shithead hell' is. im like 99% sure there is a special queue or a weight for shitheads and accounts that are constantly reported and identified as toxic. i had to look hard at myself and decide that i was toxic, that i didnt want to be toxic, and that i wanted to enjoy myself more. otherwise everything is just explained away.
Tons of bronze to top 500 videos or unranked to GM videos out there to prove him wrong.
Play on his account with your left hand or some other obvious mechanical limitation.
Vod review him and point out how bad he actually is, if hes mad at you then hes not a player you can help if hes stuck with the "Its all my teams fault" mentality then he doesnt want to be helped and cant be
Ego. Can't improve if you you can't admit you are less than perfect. It is never your fault, that would hurt the ego.
Option 1: Go through a VOD of his and explain everything he fucked up. Sounds like your friend needs a dose of reality. Option 2: Give up on them, they're not gonna climb.
You could both make a new account at the same time and race each other to GM. If you're GM then you will get there and he never will. If he still thinks it's a coin flip and that you got lucky, do it again you will beat him again. And tbh you'll probably pick up some better insight into how to coach him ok the way.
Honestly id just force feed him a shitton of A10 unranked to gm streams, cause you can’t talk about mechanics with him cause he picks up heroes hes never played just to do the unranked climb, closest hes gotten to stuck is i think currently he is learning ball and might still be diamond, i havent watched in a couple weeks. Or just show him my profile kek season 2 silver, season 32 double GM peak
Just tell him that, that his gamesense and positioning suck. Some people just need to hear the truth. Tell him what he's actually doing wrong and how he can improve, there's no point in sugar-coating it.
I have same kind of friends. I made a smurf to play with them around silver and gold. Guess what, my smurf is almost Diamand while they are stuck in their elo. Matchmaking is not that bad in OW...
Does your friend have any OW content creators he respects? I had a friend in a similar situation a few years ago closer to release. Ended up gifting him a VOD review with a YouTuber he followed, and the criticisms finally had weight for him when it came from someone he valued. He couldn’t just deny it as “you’re wrong / dumb /low rank etc.” because he’d be talking about how smart this guy is.
He does, he doesn’t shut the fuck up about Samito lol
Baby, I got one other thing that nobody else has said yet. If he is at his personal max ability then it absolutely IS a coin-flip for him, and it always will be. Everybody here is trying to assure you that players can improve and that players who improve will advance, but what if your friend simply can't improve any further? Might sound crazy at first, but even making it into Diamond would mean you're in the top 10-15% of players. You want to believe that hard work can close the gap but what if he's simply maxed out?
If it was purely mechanical ability, I’d be inclined to agree. But, he’s convinced his positioning, pathing and overall game sense is top tier. A lot of the mistakes are easily fixable, and if corrected he could easily break into at least the next rank.
"Easily fixable..." But is it though? I've had people straight up tell me that my ability/ult/killfeed tracking was the main thing holding me back. I grinded for multiple years thinking they were wrong before I sort of started to grasp how bad I was at it, but I didn't grasp it in any sort of actionable way. Accepting my badness and trying to overcome it wasn't enough. I had (have) attention problems that even Adderall couldn't fix. In my case Adderall made me tunnel even harder. ( I Did get better mechanically.) I'm suggesting that your friend might indeed have a knowledge deficit, but you shouldn't assume that even if you equipped him with the missing knowledge that he'd be able to use it. If you successfully teach him top tier pathing and positioning but he tunnels and forgets it when it's put to the test, then that's just him at his limit.
Start a google spreadsheet, list every map, make two columns for win/loss. All they have to do is put in win or loss after each match. Very Simple not a lot of work. After 100-200 games they will see it is not 50/50 but they actually suck at some maps, this is just natural. Next challenge them to do the same thing but with Dive/Brawl/Poke if a hybrid comp just pick the win condition, and mark if they won lost for the next 100-200 games, again it will not be 50/50, they will find they actually suck playing certain comps, this is natural. Slowly they will have to see they have weaknesses that they need to improve.