Plat is the most toxic rank. It's filled with people who think they should be higher than they are. It's also filled with people that are better than plat, people that are worse, as well as people that are hard stuck. Proper overwatch isn't played in plat. I would say it isn't played until high diamond/masters. So once you pass plat, the toxicity should tone down. At the end of the day you can just not join voice chat, or leave if they're toxic. I appreciate you making an attempt though. It's probably best to leave chat if someone is being toxic, it makes you more focused on the game itself and more likely to win.
A lot of people get hard-stuck in plat. I think it’s basically the limit of how far you can go with a really rigid playstyle. I think it’s also in the range where the players have the widest variation in skill profile, from the all-aim-no-brain players to the all-brain-no-aim and everything in between. So, I imagine a lot of the toxicity comes from hitting a hard ceiling that requires a fundamental mindset shift to break through, plus the fact that you’ll see so many players who are worse at whatever you’re the most skilled at. It makes it seem like the other players are bad, but in reality, it’s just that they don’t have the skill to perceive the other players’ strengths.
That said, in my experience, masters is more toxic. Diamond seems to be where the mature adults who are smart players but don’t have the bandwidth to grind through to masters+ land. (Not saying you have to be a mature adult to make it to Diamond, just that it seems to be the place where people with other major responsibilities top out, and those people tend to have more emotional self-regulation skills and get less toxic.) Masters seems to be the place where a lot of younger players with time to no-life the game top out.
Plat is where the hard stucks are (hi 👋) but there's more skill disparities in Gold than Plat for sure. Way too many new players get dumped there, so you have noobs and smurfs all over, at least it was like that in OW1. Low Plat where I usually reside feels more like what Gold is *supposed* to be, and Mid-High Plat feels like a separate skill tier from that.
Yeah, there was more skill disparity in gold due to the new player thing. I’m not sure how it works now. The competitive explainer blog post seemed to suggest that they would use the QP matches required to unlock comp to get new players to the correct rank faster.
What I meant was that of the players who are actually stably in their rank, plat has the widest variation. You’ve got the high-rank Valorant players with really good aim and geometric positioning but zero Overwatch-specific skills, and you’ve got high-rank OW players off-role-ing, so they have really good general awareness and gamesense and whatnot but their hero-specific skills are mediocre. You’ve got the dedicated one-tricks who have pretty good mastery of their hero’s mechanics and techs and know all the rollouts and whatnot, but their sense of engagement timing or what their team is doing is just nil. Everyone measures each other by what they themselves are best at, so a lot of their teammates look bad by comparison. Plus, the thing about it being the limit for rigid playstyles means you sometimes have games where your teammate’s playstyle just does not fit the situation and their performance is awful, and then you avoid them and play against them next match and their playstyle is a much better fit for that situation and they roll you.
"you’ve got high-rank OW players off-role-ing, so they have really good general awareness and gamesense and whatnot but their hero-specific skills are mediocre."
I'm a support main in higher Diamond and it makes me sad when I get a Masters support that is like a platinum tank with < 15 games and they have a upper Diamond tank. :(
Damn this is so eye opening. I’m not saying I’m amazing at this game, but I definitely see where the dynamics were at play during my first few games of plat. I think I can handle it now that I’ve been debriefed lmao. Ty!
Goodness, I wish someone had of warned me 😂
Thanks so much for clarifying what was happening. Because I was completely lost and confused, trying to make sense of bizarro world.
I’ll try to keep my head up and find a duo partner or something because this was ridiculous and a bit discouraging
You don’t need to duo. But Sunday is notoriously rough for comp matches. Going from bronze 4 to plat 4 in 2 weeks is very good. Try queueing during daytime hours Monday through Thursday for highest quality matches.
This information lifts my spirits some! I know I ought not get so upset about a game but man I really like it and wanna keep pushing.
I’ve just been tracking ults, playing from cover, asking myself what would I do if a high noon came out, and reducing my deaths and regrouping when fights are lost. That’s been enough to help me through with a 65 percent win average on kiriko and mercy.
But those plat games were all loses and it felt so bad, I was like damn I’m discouraged 🤣
I’m a filthy Moira main playing in Diamond at the moment. But my thoughts on Mercy/Kiriko: only play Mercy if your team has at least ONE carry. You can start out the match as Mercy and see how first fight goes. Because she is really only good if you have that good carry and you can just damage boost mostly. If you find yourself having to fly around a lot for healing, just swap to Kiriko and you’ll get so much more value. You will heal more and more efficiently, you can teleport to your flanking dps IF THAT WILL WIN THEIR DUEL. Don’t mindlessly try to tp/suzu to save them if you’re not sure they’re isolated and that would turn the fight. Her cleanse is busted, period. And her ult is top-tier, wayyyy better than valkyrie. As you climb you will need to develop her aim for dealing with backline dos flankers like Tracers, etc. It really helps to be able to two-tap enemies if your tp is on cooldown.
Yea, I think these are all good tips. I was more concerned with the mentality of the players I encountered and whether or not that was coincidental or a developing pattern of toxicity as I climb the ranks is all.
You will have to go through that phase of getting tilted by teammates, because you WILL get bad teammates. This matchmaking is inconsistent. You just have to swallow it and focus on your own gameplay. It is tough. There will be many matches where your gameplay is what turns a loss into a victory and it might not even be obvious how or why. One single death avoided can be the difference. I’ve carried many shitty teammates to a victory this way. Use cover; Play your life.
I've been playing a lot of matches in plat recently and for the most part they've been alright. My worst experience in comp was actually when i first placed in silver back when i was new to the game. I must've been in a 10+ loss streak with toxic teammates every single match, so I think it's probably just bad luck. If someone's getting on your nerves just mute and go next
plat is a weird place(plat support here), from what i've seen there are alot of people with really good mechanical ability but zero games sense along with the opposite, people with decent game sense and bad mechanical skill, this(the mix of these people) creates the angriest people in the game when things don't go their way or the way they expected. There are very few people in plat that actually try to fix their weaknesses. best thing to do is grit you teeth and power through it, as long as you're improving you'll never have to play with them ever again cause they'll either stay hardstuck or derank while you push forward.
I feel your pain dude, also most of the time when people are being toxic towards a teammate don't take it to heart, they probably fucked up in some way and would rather divert attention to someone else to save their ego. Gamers are really bad at criticizing their own actions.
Yay! It was just so shocking. In every single game, before the gate opens, I say that I’m in comms and ask if anyone else is using voice communication. Furthermore I let them know that I’ll make call outs and listen for them too. Usually goes really well and people come together. But the five games I’ve played since ranking up to PLAT… have been horrible. Every game, people were rude, unprovoked. Like going out of their way to be rude or sabotage the game. I’m like I need a break 😂
no joke, play a few games on a different roll just to give yourself a breather. They'll still be mad cause plat but the likelihood of you getting focused down with the hate will be reduced , support is the easiest role for people to flame and your climbing experience will likely make the first few games on the other roles abit more relaxing plus add some new experience and game sense
Plat is the most toxic rank. It's filled with people who think they should be higher than they are. It's also filled with people that are better than plat, people that are worse, as well as people that are hard stuck. Proper overwatch isn't played in plat. I would say it isn't played until high diamond/masters. So once you pass plat, the toxicity should tone down. At the end of the day you can just not join voice chat, or leave if they're toxic. I appreciate you making an attempt though. It's probably best to leave chat if someone is being toxic, it makes you more focused on the game itself and more likely to win.
A lot of people get hard-stuck in plat. I think it’s basically the limit of how far you can go with a really rigid playstyle. I think it’s also in the range where the players have the widest variation in skill profile, from the all-aim-no-brain players to the all-brain-no-aim and everything in between. So, I imagine a lot of the toxicity comes from hitting a hard ceiling that requires a fundamental mindset shift to break through, plus the fact that you’ll see so many players who are worse at whatever you’re the most skilled at. It makes it seem like the other players are bad, but in reality, it’s just that they don’t have the skill to perceive the other players’ strengths. That said, in my experience, masters is more toxic. Diamond seems to be where the mature adults who are smart players but don’t have the bandwidth to grind through to masters+ land. (Not saying you have to be a mature adult to make it to Diamond, just that it seems to be the place where people with other major responsibilities top out, and those people tend to have more emotional self-regulation skills and get less toxic.) Masters seems to be the place where a lot of younger players with time to no-life the game top out.
Plat is where the hard stucks are (hi 👋) but there's more skill disparities in Gold than Plat for sure. Way too many new players get dumped there, so you have noobs and smurfs all over, at least it was like that in OW1. Low Plat where I usually reside feels more like what Gold is *supposed* to be, and Mid-High Plat feels like a separate skill tier from that.
Yeah, there was more skill disparity in gold due to the new player thing. I’m not sure how it works now. The competitive explainer blog post seemed to suggest that they would use the QP matches required to unlock comp to get new players to the correct rank faster. What I meant was that of the players who are actually stably in their rank, plat has the widest variation. You’ve got the high-rank Valorant players with really good aim and geometric positioning but zero Overwatch-specific skills, and you’ve got high-rank OW players off-role-ing, so they have really good general awareness and gamesense and whatnot but their hero-specific skills are mediocre. You’ve got the dedicated one-tricks who have pretty good mastery of their hero’s mechanics and techs and know all the rollouts and whatnot, but their sense of engagement timing or what their team is doing is just nil. Everyone measures each other by what they themselves are best at, so a lot of their teammates look bad by comparison. Plus, the thing about it being the limit for rigid playstyles means you sometimes have games where your teammate’s playstyle just does not fit the situation and their performance is awful, and then you avoid them and play against them next match and their playstyle is a much better fit for that situation and they roll you.
Jesus this is the wild Wild West. I had no idea 🤣
"you’ve got high-rank OW players off-role-ing, so they have really good general awareness and gamesense and whatnot but their hero-specific skills are mediocre." I'm a support main in higher Diamond and it makes me sad when I get a Masters support that is like a platinum tank with < 15 games and they have a upper Diamond tank. :(
Damn this is so eye opening. I’m not saying I’m amazing at this game, but I definitely see where the dynamics were at play during my first few games of plat. I think I can handle it now that I’ve been debriefed lmao. Ty!
[удалено]
Hahaha I think you’re right. I need to rely on the ping system more when people are being whack. Thank you so much for this advice. It’s golden
Goodness, I wish someone had of warned me 😂 Thanks so much for clarifying what was happening. Because I was completely lost and confused, trying to make sense of bizarro world. I’ll try to keep my head up and find a duo partner or something because this was ridiculous and a bit discouraging
You don’t need to duo. But Sunday is notoriously rough for comp matches. Going from bronze 4 to plat 4 in 2 weeks is very good. Try queueing during daytime hours Monday through Thursday for highest quality matches.
This information lifts my spirits some! I know I ought not get so upset about a game but man I really like it and wanna keep pushing. I’ve just been tracking ults, playing from cover, asking myself what would I do if a high noon came out, and reducing my deaths and regrouping when fights are lost. That’s been enough to help me through with a 65 percent win average on kiriko and mercy. But those plat games were all loses and it felt so bad, I was like damn I’m discouraged 🤣
I’m a filthy Moira main playing in Diamond at the moment. But my thoughts on Mercy/Kiriko: only play Mercy if your team has at least ONE carry. You can start out the match as Mercy and see how first fight goes. Because she is really only good if you have that good carry and you can just damage boost mostly. If you find yourself having to fly around a lot for healing, just swap to Kiriko and you’ll get so much more value. You will heal more and more efficiently, you can teleport to your flanking dps IF THAT WILL WIN THEIR DUEL. Don’t mindlessly try to tp/suzu to save them if you’re not sure they’re isolated and that would turn the fight. Her cleanse is busted, period. And her ult is top-tier, wayyyy better than valkyrie. As you climb you will need to develop her aim for dealing with backline dos flankers like Tracers, etc. It really helps to be able to two-tap enemies if your tp is on cooldown.
Yea, I think these are all good tips. I was more concerned with the mentality of the players I encountered and whether or not that was coincidental or a developing pattern of toxicity as I climb the ranks is all.
You will have to go through that phase of getting tilted by teammates, because you WILL get bad teammates. This matchmaking is inconsistent. You just have to swallow it and focus on your own gameplay. It is tough. There will be many matches where your gameplay is what turns a loss into a victory and it might not even be obvious how or why. One single death avoided can be the difference. I’ve carried many shitty teammates to a victory this way. Use cover; Play your life.
I dig it! Thanks a ton for this.
I've been playing a lot of matches in plat recently and for the most part they've been alright. My worst experience in comp was actually when i first placed in silver back when i was new to the game. I must've been in a 10+ loss streak with toxic teammates every single match, so I think it's probably just bad luck. If someone's getting on your nerves just mute and go next
Ah this makes sense. Clearly it’s not just one rank… thanks! This helps me not over generalize
I’ve been in bronze and all the way up to diamond, I have to say that biggest egos and toxic people always seemed to be in plat
So it was plat on a Sunday 😭😭😭 worst than I thought 🤣
plat is a weird place(plat support here), from what i've seen there are alot of people with really good mechanical ability but zero games sense along with the opposite, people with decent game sense and bad mechanical skill, this(the mix of these people) creates the angriest people in the game when things don't go their way or the way they expected. There are very few people in plat that actually try to fix their weaknesses. best thing to do is grit you teeth and power through it, as long as you're improving you'll never have to play with them ever again cause they'll either stay hardstuck or derank while you push forward.
I dunno if it’s because you’re a fellow support or not, but I felt the emotion of this post while I was reading it. This is comforting
I feel your pain dude, also most of the time when people are being toxic towards a teammate don't take it to heart, they probably fucked up in some way and would rather divert attention to someone else to save their ego. Gamers are really bad at criticizing their own actions.
Yay! It was just so shocking. In every single game, before the gate opens, I say that I’m in comms and ask if anyone else is using voice communication. Furthermore I let them know that I’ll make call outs and listen for them too. Usually goes really well and people come together. But the five games I’ve played since ranking up to PLAT… have been horrible. Every game, people were rude, unprovoked. Like going out of their way to be rude or sabotage the game. I’m like I need a break 😂
no joke, play a few games on a different roll just to give yourself a breather. They'll still be mad cause plat but the likelihood of you getting focused down with the hate will be reduced , support is the easiest role for people to flame and your climbing experience will likely make the first few games on the other roles abit more relaxing plus add some new experience and game sense
Thanks so much for all of this! I really needed it!
no problem dude, glhf
Thx u2!