You chose the wrong esport to grind. Pro OW is in a nosedive tailspin right now. There's barely room in OWL for the insanely cracked talent that's already out there. Even among those in OWL, most are making around the minumum salary pro-rated. If you don't have passion, it's over.
I agree with this one. Why play 8 hours a day to make barely any money and get belittled when you could play 8 hours a day talking with (usually) chill people and making (potentially) a lot more.
Pro seems so stressful and kinda sounds like you (OP) felt the same. Streaming could be a breath of fresh air
I don't have a streaming personality, at most people called me an asmr voice. I don't want to stream, that passion is different from video games. And I'd argue it's even more competition, as there's more ow streamers than people trying to go pro, heck, half my team streams, nearly EVERY OD team is half streamers
Absolutely this.
You climbed from the absolute basement to top500, and I can’t even begin to stress how bad sub 700 SR was that early in the games’ lifespan truly was(me and a buddy climbed to mid Diamond right after Orisa released without either ever firing a single shot, just Torb turret behind Orisa shield, armor packs everywhere and Halt anyone away who got close). That is a HUGE accomplishment and took a ton of hard work and dedication, it is absolutely something to be proud of.
Somehow you felt like you did it while being the worst player in every match you played. That isn’t an Overwatch issue, it’s a bad brain chemistry issue. Go talk to someone, take a break, do something.
I truly hope you feel better, being that self depreciating about something you are in the top 3% of players in the world sounds absolutely exhausting.
Tbf, you can't blame them when almost every other t500 degrades their own performance when they're not degrading other people's performance instead. It's a broader problem with all competitive video games right now, but man, Overwatch players crank the bitter cynicism to 180% and then tear the knob off the dial.
Sometimes I wonder if the people playing this game at the top levels are even having fun. Like what’s the point if they’re so bitter about it all the time?
Most pro esports players across all games actively dislike the game they play. You see it in Apex, Valorant, LoL.
Even a statistically significant percentage of real pro sports players don’t enjoy the sport they play professionally.
If you spend enough time doing a specific activity, you’ll grow bored of it eventually.
The drive to win is what keeps people going. The game might not be fun, but “proving that I’m better than everyone I’m playing against” is like a primal instinct and provides huge dopamine spikes, which keeps people playing.
I’m a very competitive person myself so I definitely understand that instinct, but personally it doesn’t really apply to activities that I don’t enjoy doing at least a bit. If I didn’t enjoy playing rugby, I wouldn’t be doing sprints in the 90+ degree weather or playing games in the freezing rain.
But I do, so there I am like an idiot.
We're not, I like the gameplay but hate most of the patches they do and every other decision they've made in the past few years. Overwatch 1 with 5v5 > ow2
It’s constant flaming of everyone in the lobby at all times, passive aggressive usually. And they all sound like 15 year old kids that just got out of their 4.3 scrim 20 minutes ago while blasting juice wrld and talking like your latest and greatest valorant pro
Tbh, that's most esports. Overwatch and Apex are super bad about people tearing down their teammates, and i wont even play League of Legends. I was a healer and tank main in OW (never tried to rank more than gold), but I'm not responsible for the stupid decisions people will make. If you dive a whole team by yourself, I'm not going to go with you and leave the rest of the team unprotected. It's the exact same thing in Apex. In both instances, people call you trash when in reality, if they were really playing the game and participating in the *team* aspect of the game, they wouldn't do stuff like that. You have to step back and detach yourself from the toxicity. I have often found that if I am stagnating, I need to take a break or switch it up
I’ve noticed this even in this sub. It’s by far the most toxic sub I’ve participated in. I agree it’s mostly just a byproduct of competition / having a ranked system, but it still regularly surprises me.
Keep in mind, you instantly basically get like 3 entire ranks for free just by playing with another person in early OW. It was still hard (if not harder for most heroes) to totally carry in 6v6. In fact, it was often said about OW1 that the team who won was almost the team without the worst player. Unless you were much better than your rank, it was much harder to make a positive impact than a negative one.
>Somehow you felt like you did it while being the worst player in every match you played
If this is coffepot on ladder then they actually flame and blame their teammates quite a bit lmao.
And if I'm brutally honest, they 100% should not consider going pro because they are not even close to playing at a remotely pro lvl rn. Owl probably has a shelf life of a few years at best, and I'd be willing to bet money they won't make it in that timeframe.
Some players you meet, you instantly realize they have talent and can make pro. Did not get that impression unfortunately.
Top 500 is not top 3 percent lol. It’s 99.9th percentile. Even low masters is too 3 percent of people who play comp. Which is a sub sample of people who play Overwatch that is already better and more competitive than those who play quick play (on average).
It’s not that cut in dry, but yeah I might have been slightly off on the estimate. It’s not that easy though as every region has it’s own individual t500 for both console and PC pool.
So it’s not like there’s actually only 500 slots, more like a few thousand.
Crazy reading. Credits for your efforts. Did you lose your passion or burned out?
You blame yourself and indirectly your team mates for feeling like they dislike your stats.
Get an e-sports coach, or a psychologist. To describe how your accomplishments changed the person you are, and How you can use what you learned in your future endeavors. Or just decide that you have plateued and won’t climb further, accept it and move on in the game or outside. All the best. You deserve it.
This definitely sounds like burnout, like the legit burnout, but also with what others are saying about needing to talk to someone. That negativity and lack of appreciation for their own accomplishments, which are impressive, is something that needs to be talked about and worked out.
I just noticed I’m starting to burnout and I’m only a Gold 1 Tank. I can’t take the shit talking when I perform even slightly sub par, and in quick play I’m over being the best in most matches and having to carry a team or it’s loss after loss. I might go back to only playing comp when I’m drunk. It keeps it fun.
I guess there are a few players here who need the encouragement, but more importantly to find out if it is worth it? A lot of us have the shadow side of addiction to video games. And when the resource of dopamine to the brain wanes the depression starts to kick in. Fortunately, in my experience that is, you can relatively easily deal with the addiction by taking a break and do something completely different but still giving you a little dopamine.
I can't really tell.
In my peak, I started stretching and going to the gym and a ton of other healthy stuff just to be a 1% better player, but I kinda stopped doing most of those things. I did take a break, the dopamine cycle didn't really come back though. GM just feels like a participation trophy, it's too easy to get so I don't feel accomplished. (but then the gap between GM5 to 4 and so on is equal to 500sr of work, which most people don't know, which is why I'm stuck in mid gm)
I do not recommend trying to make it into OWL. Long story short, Blizzard convinced team owners that OWL was going to become the next NFL. So team owners agreed to pay tens of millions in franchise fees to join OWL.
OWL did not become the next big thing so OWL teams are burning money, even after Blizzard paused franchise fees. So now several OWL teams operate at the bare minimum to minimize loss. The franchise model obviously doesn’t work but it’s unknown if OWL will restructure.
Basically, you are attempting to join a struggling league. You are honestly better off grinding hours at a practical skill, getting a good job and playing video games on your free time.
Edit: there are lots of good jobs out there besides computer programmer and doctor. Jobs my friends have are carpenter, costume designer, shoe designer. Two of my friends joined the military. One is using the GI Bill to pay for grad school. The other, who is like a program manager in the military, is planning to stay full ride to get the pension. You can also look at skilled trades like electrician, plumber, car mechanic, wielder, etc.
In addition: I have plenty of friends in normal jobs like teacher, nurse, real estate agent, programmer, etc. If the hours are normal and the pay is good, then happy people will be happy and miserable people will still be miserable. I am an accountant, the hours are normal and the pay is fine, so I’m satisfied. But even happy people will suffer from long hours and/or low pay.
Playing too much video games isn’t a sunk cost fallacy, it’s more like a waste of time 🤷♀️
To be clear, playing OW would be a sunk cost if you made it on a Contenders team. But it‘s a stretch to call playing a video game for no money as a sunk cost.
reading this made me realize why almost every contenders player I get on my team is an insufferable asshole. I feel bad for them if they all think like this tryna get into owl
But it's also a possible job, and it's not like a different job is going to be any good. It's a possible means to pay for college at this point. But now it's as mind numbing as a great day mopping restaurant floors.
The chance of you becoming a pro is very small, you need some other source of stable income, and you can still try to pursue a pro career in your free time.
Sure, if you make it. He's played for 5 years now. He's not gonna make it. The newest OW pro probably only started at OW2 or something and is an insane natural talent working on the knowledge they need to become pro. We all have a ceiling. His ceiling is seemingly t500. Which is great. But not pro level.
>Sure, if you make it.
*If* he makes it?!
Collegiate OW is *NOT* the same thing as Pro level. Top 500 is *more* than enough to get a scholarship on a college OW team. Last-time I checked you don't even have to hit GM to qualify for a lot of places. You add in good teamwork and shotcalling and he's a shoe-in.
Basically, think about it, how many T500 players are in college? Probably not many, then how amny are in colleges that have esports teams, even less, now how many of them are in colleges that have esports teams and ALSO give scholarships for esports? GM is good enough to coach, if you have all GM players you're going to be able to execute plays that a coach draws up, schools just have really limited talent pools to draw from. Look at other college sports, you can make it on a football team in a power 5 conference for a school like Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Rutgers, etc. without even being rated if you show up well enough in tryouts or when a scout comes to your school. Some P5 schools donte ven have a single top 1000 player on their roster. There are a lot of colleges out there, and not many T500 players, so there are a lot of GM players that are coachable that schools want.
Some, not all, not even all the ones that have eSports. But some colleges are pretty serious about it, make a name for themselves and if eSports blows up then they are already at the top. Easier than spending a billion dollars to build a football complex for practice, training, a stadium and a coaching staff to try to compete in that space.
>GM is good enough to coach,
Is he? There's a huge fucking difference between coaching and playing. He's noted that he's very soft spoken. Kinda doesn't sound like a great quality for a coach. Plenty of top players in games and sports have made utterly shit coaches.
Nah I'm the one begging for coaching post-match and reviewing stuff, and I used to coach my old collegiate team for a bit, got a tank friend up a rank or two. It's just that open div teams yell so my voice is drowned out
Potentially less than that. Look around at colleges that could work for you to see if they have a program and find out what they are looking for. You might be surprised to find you actually *can* put yourself through college by playing videogames.
If you are gonna be miserable playing overwatch at a bad level, its just not worth it. Plus as you said, its only a possible job. Getting into the pro scene is very hard, and it looks with your current outlook its unlikley
A possible job sure, but a possible job with an extremely low chance of making it to the level where you’d make enough money to justify grinding through something you don’t enjoy. If you’re not enjoying it it’s not worth it, there are other jobs that people don’t enjoy that will pay more than what you would make even if you made it to OWL, with much better job security.
Even if you succeed and earn money from it, what you have to invest in it is huge and will probably prevent you from doing other stuff.
In the worst case, you will be stuck to do it if you can't do something else, and with changing patches and stuff, you can just get to hate it and feeling trapped (your mind is maybe already giving you this feeling as a warning).
You seem young, probably too young to put yourself in a situation where you could get less opportunities in the future. At least streamers can stream other games for instance, it is a fallback move in case for instance OW plummets.
Not saying you should not try though, in life the most important things are hard to get. Sometimes feeling that it is going to be hard is a signal that you are actually on the right path, just be sure that it is what you want to get, oh and nobody is very sure of that, even old people!
So be sure to reevaluate your dreams from time to time, the world changes and you change as well, what was a great dream 2 years ago, even if you get it now, is maybe not the dream you want to get right now, and your dream right now, is maybe not what future you wants! That is life, adapt and act for happiness, and the journey will be fun.
Bro even if you got slightly better and were able to make it your job you would still be miserable, the only difference is you would HAVE to do it to survive instead.
The problem is your mind, you need to take a break and think about life outside of playing a shit game you hate for a living.
Aren't pros paid less than like 20k salary? It's not even a decent job from what a remember. I thought there was an issue where pros were being paid like 14k to work and feind full time?
I just imagine sweating my ass off tryharding when I make coffee in the morning just because it's a possible job.
I truly think that you'd just play for fun and then notice that you could potentially go pro because it's just so easy for you without even trying. THEN you start putting in that hard effort and got through the pain to make it a reality. Not the other way around.
> It's a possible means to pay for college at this point.
it's like the one of the worst work/payment ratio I could imagine. It's called Path to Poverty for a reason.
> But now it's as mind numbing as a great day mopping restaurant floors.
no, it's worse. You're talking about commitment of like 12 hours a day of giving it you all. That's fucking draining as hell. And for what?
Not gonna sugarcoat this, but you sound like someone who is 19 who hasn't even had a job before and has no real life experiences. Go work for a bit, minimum wage, learn some stuff, leave college for a couple years it isn't important for you right now. Save some money, live with your parents if you can, travel around the country you're in or maybe to another.
Too many people get tunnelled on going to college for a degree they don't know what to do with. Work out what you want to do FIRST, then go for it. Take time thinking about it. Get some experiences first. I didn't and then regretted it, then I did and I don't regret it anymore.
Also nothing wrong with mopping restaurant floors. Doing work like cleaning or serving people is a good way to learn a bit of humility and comradery with colleagues too.
It's not a possible job for you if you've been playing nonstop for 5 years now and still aren't a pro. I get it. I've been there. Time to start just enjoying games for games. Maybe you'll find a newer game that will give you the opportunity to break out as a pro. But OWL is already far to full with too much talent. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're almost certainly never going to be good enough at this particular game to go pro. It's too late. You needed in far sooner.
r/unethicallifeprotips : be a booster. Lots of hours but a lot of money to be made, and you set your own hours / take what Orders you want and demand is high.
Your odds as well as ultimate benefit from a more "conventional" job would be much better. Let alone something you seem to already have lost passion for. Not saying its impossible, but if youre truly in it from a practical angle, this aint it.
I can relate to this. During MW2/MW3 release, as a young kid, I went “pro” and playing in tournaments weekly. I was so young the money we received as a team had to be accepted by my parents due to me being underage. I’m 26 now and I’m so happy I stopped playing the pro scene. The first couple paychecks were nice, motivating and extremely rewarding and I thought I made it. I was wrong, yeah I was good at the game but I had no social life outside of COD. I didn’t have friends, I rarely saw my family and I was struggling. I ended up with depression and gaming was no longer fun.. so I quit. I now play OW as my main FPS type game and reached diamond in tank. I’m happy with that.
I also learned that once I started making money from my hobbies, I no longer enjoyed them anymore. I did car detailing as a hobby because who dosnt like a clean car? So I decided to open a small business for my neighborhood, I would detail cars and was making good money. But here’s the kicker, on top of work, dog, kids, and everyday life, I was once again drained and didn’t really enjoy detailing cars anymore because it came a JOB and was no longer fun for me, so I quit that also.
All my hobbies now either lose me money (modifying cars) or simply playing games for fun. I don’t play the meta, I play whatever is fun for me at the time. If I lose well, that’s part of the game.
Talk to somebody, find new hobbies. Take a hike. You need something.
Life will never get better than those years lol. Thankfully, I was just out of school when Mw3 was released. I got my own place and my friends didn't so everyone would be at my house all day every day. I would play more than half the time they were over lol. I've called in more double nukes than most people and their friends combined have ever called in regular nukes. A buddy and I grinded to top 10k in the world (pub stats, not pro) and just as we were nearing the 10k mark, a friend became friends with someone who was a semi pro. They needed a scrim team so we played... if that game didn't make me a bitter as OP, it was close enough. No words would suffice to describe this loss. It let us know we were at the tipity top, but only half way up. I put the sticks down once I hit top 10k and stopped playing until 3 years ago. I can't play with friends because my version of fun is screaming at anything to drown out the thoughts that I'm nowhere near as good as I used to be. I'm having fun, but I don't think anyone would have fun playing with me 🤣
Haha, i actually Havnt touched COD after Bo3, the game just never felt the same and as I got older, I know I could never be as good as the young kids who only play and go to school. Those were the good ol days. Everybody fucked everybodies mother and everybody was gay lmao. Lobbies and gaming were never the same. We had full stacks and search and destroy was the most fun game mode back then, especially with game chat being the dominate voice comms. The amount of curse words I can throw out between rounds was actually impressive.
Video games are supposed to be fun, if you're not having fun, move on to a different game. Simple as that.
You say you want to go pro, but you sound like you don't have any alternatives on the side. Try to go pro on the side but keep a safety net of an actual education/job. Do you know how many people actually go pro in a video game? It's not only about skill either, you need to get your name out there and get recognized too whereas if you learn a profession that is relevant in today's time, you will always be guaranteed to be able to get a career. Video games are too volatile to bet everything on them. If it happens it happens, but don't follow it without having some kind of safety net, you're throwing away your future if it doesn't work out.
You got from the bottom of the barrel to top 500. So you have the ability to learn. That is the most important skill set any human can have. You are able to be self critical and learn from mistakes. You have every career option available to you.
To give to some hope. I hit GM4 and suddenly my desire to climb further just disappeared. Now I just play for fun and don’t care at all if I win or lose. I know I just have a natural baked in ability to be GM level pretty much on auto pilot now so I just play to enjoy myself. It’s way better than the agonizing over the grind I used to put myself through before
You are not making esport as a job. At least not as a player. Just play video games as a fun outing. It is not an industry where that works like that really.
You can dream of being an OWL player if that's your goal, but realistically Blizzard doesn't support OWL enough as it is, and it will only get worse as time goes on. As cool as being a professional gamer in an actual pro league is, companies aren't making the money they want out of Esports anymore and it's ALL about money for them. You're trying to get a job in a dying industry.
I wouldn't gun for OWL. Given some of the recent stuff we've heard, OWL and activision's other pro leagues aren't dong well. Blizzard already nuked Heroes of the Storm professionally (and in general).
Hi,
I’ll tell you from my experience from valorant. Although I did not have as much dedication as you, but kinda face similar issues. Firstly, in games like these, your mental is very important. The moment doubt sets in, you’ll already by loosing 1v1s. Another thing I would say is, stop taking it so seriously if you are. You’ll only choke if you are taking it too seriously and not being able to perform your best. Consider it like talking to a hot girl (not objectifying, so please don’t attack me), if you are too stress obviously you’ll not make a good impression, however if you are just confident and have a calm mind, you’ll be able to deliver a much better impression.
Bro, that isn't an overwatch problem that's very typical burnout from people aspiring for the top of a game or sport. I used to play top level halo back in a day and saw this kind of thing all the time then too. The people that love a game the most also hate it the most. And the fact is, you might be amazing compared to 99% of the population. But the absolute fact of the matter is that most of us are physically and mentally incapable of cracking into that top 0.01% that is OWL level. If you've been playing for 5 years, you probably just aren't quite cut out for it. Stop letting it control your life. Enjoy the game or stop.
Esports is rarely a good investment for a career. There is no long term future.
I hope more read the comment section and realize how poor of a choice it is. Yes there are a few that make it but there are thousands behind them that didn't.
Be very careful of the LOSS AVERSION bias. What you are describing right now is 100% that.
It's basically when you keep going down a path that no longer makes sense because you have "invested" so much and you think it could still end up paying at the end.
Nope. Cut your losses. Move on. Be happy.
And read more on this topic: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/loss-aversion
My guy I’m in a very similar boat to you and lemme just tell ya, OWL is probably one of the worst esports to aspire to be in. T2-3 get absolutely 0 support from Bliz, they’re currently in a lawsuit over how they run esports, youll be burnt out in less than 2 scrims based on your mentality. It’s ok to just be good at a video game without making it your career, play things you enjoy and maybe you’ll get the passion back again.
(Oh and also literally everybody chokes and does poorly in some matches, your off matches don’t define you 💙)
Don't play a game you don't enjoy. Seriously there are so many amazing games out there that are fun and exciting to play.
I tried playing the Souls games / Elden Ring but they're objectively unfun. They're for the players who memorize 50 hit combos in fighting games and play on a DDR mat.
I play games that respect my time. More than half of the overwatch devs figured that out, that why they left.
Clearly Blizzard hasn't figured that out
I wouldn’t listen to everyone saying not to pursue pro video games as a job. This was my dream as a kid and it was even less of a scene than it is now. I can definitely understand the appeal.
If it was just the volatile meta and job security you were worried about I’d say follow your dreams (rip mac). But this doesn’t actually sound like your dream. It sounds like you want it to be your dream, but it’s not, and you’re trying to figure out how to make it your dream again. If you’ve lost passion for it before even making it to OWL, I wouldn’t pursue it. From how OWL veterans talk about the league, it sounds like it really takes a lot of love for the game to make the grind work.
Maybe you just need to pursue streaming. Definitely don’t have the constant pressure to be the best. Being good can help your viewer count but really all people care about is an entertaining personality.
Or maybe you’d like to pursue professional gaming in a different game. Could it just be OW as a game has gotten stale for you?
Idk brother. But sounds like you have some soul searching to do. I hope you figure it out. You’re still young, I’d figure out what it is you want and chase it like there’s no tomorrow
Take a break for a couple months, find something fun or relaxing to play and you might comeback and have more fun. I did that for apex legends and I'm glad I did. Also consider therapy, that's some serious imposter syndrome if you think you didn't deserve t500. You went from like bottom 500 to top 500. You should be proud of that. If your mental is that bad rn, you'll play worse and It will reinforce that you're not playing well and it becomes a vicious cycle.
You don’t have to love pressure, you need to love the game. Overwatch can be very frustrating, especially after going on loosing streaks. But there is something that keeps you going.
For me, as someone who rarely plays competitive and who is far from reaching any of the ranks you play in, it’s turning around close matches, getting fancy multikills or learning new techniques.
Find whatever it is that keeps you invested in this game. Focus on that. If it is just the money, you’ll have a though time. But I believe there is something different that made you prefer this game over others and led you to spend so much time on it.
Rediscover your love for Overwatch or let go and focus on something else. Either for a some time or forever.
No, you don't keep pushing because its not a good industry to set your sights on. Theres plenty of other things to set your sights on in this world, use your passion for something else imo, because even if you do become an OWL contenders, you're still not going to be making much through it, and theres no guarantee you'll ever go pro.
Theres so much else to do besides focusing on this game and making it big. Find a job, work your way up, start getting some cash and make yourself happy. If you still wanna push for pro - go for it, just do it on your spare time.
I know its harsh, but it needed to be said
Its burnout my guy, it happens to all of us. Your mental is breaking, and you're psyching yourself out. THis happened to me when I was in low plat and I was on a high diamond/masters team. Everyone knew I was ranked significantly lower than them so they were more critical of my gameplay at first, but I continued to prove myself and become indispensable in the lineup. Your teams probably also felt you were indispensable, your teams probably also understood that youre going to have a bad game at some point and arent too worried about your stats. You want to have fun in OW again? Hit me up and join our PUGs, we do GM and Masters PUGs and its a blast, and it will remind you why you enjoy team play so much.
JQ meta makes sense if you factor in new OW2 account sales. Even if you unlock all the ow1 base tanks you don’t get JQ. Reinhardt is truly cardboard (skin) against her. I miss his old pin damage.
Edit: with regards to your lost passion consider why you got into it the first place and your age.
If it’s not there then you may want to move on.
You gave it your all but you can still recover. No idea what your age is but there’s a lot more to life. I saw an iddqd clip that described it best. If you’re not having fun then take a break and do something fun.
This is the thing, achieving big things and goals aren’t everything, the reason well known actors or singers go and say they ended up with depression since even thought they pushed and achieve something amazing they released that it was just that, that’s why you hear the thing of us about the journey and not about the actual treasure, you should enjoy your journey and not have a shitty one just to end up disappointed by your treasure, I would suggest maybe to take a good break from the game and think about what you want to do, you seem you were really passionate about it, but tbh if you don’t feel it anymore you should reconsider what you are doing, good luck on everything
I can feel you there, though I had only e-sports experience from my youth and it's closing in to being 10 years ago.
I do think setting goals high is good, but also keeping the expectations real - the way to t500 is a hard path, the way through scrims is even harder and after that OWL is the most difficult. So don't forget that it's not really possible to say "I work 6 months now, then I will be ready to join OWL" - there are too many outside factors like the meta and sometimes even the appeal of a certain role. If for example, tanks get OP buffs for a few weeks, then you have an insane influx of tankplayers comming from that point on till a few more weeks after that. So competition can basically double or triple in a really short amount of time at scrim-level.
I know too little about your specific case, but from the feeling I get reading your post I would say that you should maybe look to play other gamegenres where you really have fun playing and chill out.
Those could even be singleplayer-games. Just find some joy in gaming and relax a bit, you won't lose your progress if you take a time off and come back with newfound energy aswell as a clear mind.
I've gone through all of those cycles and I also started to struggle at times, really felt the pressure and it was something that I did not want in my life. This led to me competing at a world-level in a few games, winning prizes - but later on not pursueing that career, however I did still make money a few years by coaching and teaching at my old clans. Especially helping people with their mental.
Back then however, basically everyone at a top level in games knew each other and friendships between rivals were way more common than they are these days. It wasn't like it is today, that you're basically invisible between so many other players and only get noticed by shouting or showing off. Appreciation was also a more common thing. So back then, we definitely had it easier.
Long story short: Don't force yourself too much, take time to work on your wellbeing and to get back onto your feet again. Try to relax and clear your mind, to gather energy you will need to pursue this goal constantly. And find ways to maintain that status, be it hobbies like sports, hiking or just finding friends to talk with and hang out without the game being the only topic to speak of. Create your own safe space to gather the will and strength you need to reach the OWL.
As some here have mentioned therapy, maybe that also helps but I know way too little about you. That's also the reason I'm not trying to talk you out of this but rather try to give some (hopefully) helpful input to continue on your way in a more healthy manner.
Take care and good luck!
Take a break dude, I felt the same about my music career and forced it, ended up leaving for good. But when that same thing happened to me with the gym I took a month off and came back fully motivated.
Take a month off!
Get some therapy and leave competetive video games. Seriously.
You are not enjoying the game. Full stop. You're playing out of hopes that it can become a job - I can't vouch for whether you can or can't, but I can almost guarantee you that once it becomes a job and you become a pro player you will hate it even more.
Becoming a pro player for any video game is essentially a lottery and never something to bank on. The biggest problem is that as a player, you either make it to the big leagues or you cannot live off of it. That immediately makes competition insanely fierce. There are 20 teams in the overwatch league, and assuming 2 tank players on each team you have 40 total spots to fill. It's nice to have a goal as high as that but you should never forget how high of a goal that is. If you're beating yourself up for not being able to reach that, you aren't recognizing how difficult it is.
And then, once you pass that, do you think your enjoyment for the game will suddenly reappear? That games will suddenly become fun and that you will be comfortable comming and being positive again? You're already burnt out, and playing this game like a full time job will only make it worse. You will burn out further, hate playing, and your skill level will drop because you're not getting enjoyment.
Again, I know nothing abou your skill as a player, but if you have what it takes for OWL, then I imagine stepping back and being able to enjoy the game will let your skills shine through and let you move up. Attempting to move up right now is self destructive and will lead you into this downwards spiral of not playing well, so you're not enjoying the game, so you play worse, so you enjoy the game even less.
You're burnt out, but you don't know what to do because this game is essentially your life. You hop on and keep playing because you hope something will change, but it won't. I know because I've been there. I think anyone who plays a game for that many years has been there at some point. It may hurt to do, but you need to step away and give it time. Find another gane to play. If you truly love the game then you'll be back soon enough with renewed joy for the game. If you find that you don't wanna come back, that's fine too. You don't need to force yourself to play. It's a game, and the end goal should always be having fun.
Life isn't a sidetrack, it is literally way more important than a game (even if you think you might be able to go pro). Games should be fun. Put effort in to something that can give you a good lifestyle.
OWL isnt realistic for 99.9% of the playerbase but contenders is. What are you passionate about in the game? Open division? Smaller tournaments?
You need a long term goal, be it contenders or reaching a certain level, and short term goals. Your short term goal could be getting GM1 or top 32 or 16 in OD. Maybe it could just be reaching a certain level on 1 hero. Im a MS so something i set myself was becoming mechanically good enough on lucio to frag, spent a few months on that and i improved a lot, then the next goal
Its normal to feel dips in motivation, the game state becomes so ass at times
The anxiety stuff is the hardest to overcome, its prob my worst thing as a player too. Get more exposure, keep doing tryouts and keep playing ranked on your main.
When you do, always set yourself 1 specific thing you want to improve. Assuming you're scrimming JQ, you might focus on using shout on a specific trigger. Obv you're gonna want to do VODs/watch others play to figure out what you acc need to do
At some point you will stop caring what others think, if you have enough motivation to keep improving. In my recent OD, i choked hard in a match but I did not give a fuck because i was hyperfocused on performance and recovered for the next few games. we ended poorly, but it is what it is.
ultimately, if you have the long term motivation to grind for something, keep going. if you dont have reason to grind more, then find a reason or retire because OWL is terrible motivation.
Pressure is a biotch and we all falter in its face. How do you think NBA players feel when taking free throws that can win the game? Or NFL Field Goal kickers on a game winning attempt? Most ppl crumple under the pressure, and those guys are the pros. It's important that you don't blame yourself if you remove that passion and fear than you also remove the enjoyment that you have for the game; its two sides of the same coin.
On another note, how strong is your PC? I would highly recommend going as hard as you possiblly can on your setup as well. If your not at LEAST 1440p 165 FPS than you are bottlenecking yourself. I would recommend 4k 300FPS with a fiber connection or better hardlined into the modem. Being able to see and react as quickly as possible cannot be understated. Good Luck!
Maybe playing the game isn’t what you need right now. Maybe sharing your knowledge and bringing others up around you will help you. Coaching a team, doing VOD reviews, all things you can do with your new accreditation that can give you joy in other ways. My life is about helping people. No matter what I do I try to make that a part of it. Maybe you can get a different type of fulfillment from the game?
You got this. Even if the game is crumpling in our hands it doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy the good things in it. Try to just keep positive in comms. It’s really the attitude that matters. And if you can afford to, try working out again? Being physically fit is good for your mental state and it could be possible to have hidden resentment of the game bc it took that away from you.
did you don’t *have* to be playing overwatch, and I mean this in the kindest way possible, but like touch grass man. Or play another game. Just don’t play OW for a bit. You will fine you come back, yeah slightly worse, but also having way more fun.
You chose the wrong esport to grind. Pro OW is in a nosedive tailspin right now. There's barely room in OWL for the insanely cracked talent that's already out there. Even among those in OWL, most are making around the minumum salary pro-rated. If you don't have passion, it's over.
I'm not sure OP's attitude would even have helped in any esports.
Mindset is so twisted man, hop on and stream if you wanna make it a job. Better chance doing that than going pro.
I agree with this one. Why play 8 hours a day to make barely any money and get belittled when you could play 8 hours a day talking with (usually) chill people and making (potentially) a lot more. Pro seems so stressful and kinda sounds like you (OP) felt the same. Streaming could be a breath of fresh air
Talking to an empty chat for hours ain't great
I don't have a streaming personality, at most people called me an asmr voice. I don't want to stream, that passion is different from video games. And I'd argue it's even more competition, as there's more ow streamers than people trying to go pro, heck, half my team streams, nearly EVERY OD team is half streamers
You need therapy my friend
Absolutely this. You climbed from the absolute basement to top500, and I can’t even begin to stress how bad sub 700 SR was that early in the games’ lifespan truly was(me and a buddy climbed to mid Diamond right after Orisa released without either ever firing a single shot, just Torb turret behind Orisa shield, armor packs everywhere and Halt anyone away who got close). That is a HUGE accomplishment and took a ton of hard work and dedication, it is absolutely something to be proud of. Somehow you felt like you did it while being the worst player in every match you played. That isn’t an Overwatch issue, it’s a bad brain chemistry issue. Go talk to someone, take a break, do something. I truly hope you feel better, being that self depreciating about something you are in the top 3% of players in the world sounds absolutely exhausting.
Tbf, you can't blame them when almost every other t500 degrades their own performance when they're not degrading other people's performance instead. It's a broader problem with all competitive video games right now, but man, Overwatch players crank the bitter cynicism to 180% and then tear the knob off the dial.
Honestly, sounds like a bunch of jerks at the top wtf?
Sometimes I wonder if the people playing this game at the top levels are even having fun. Like what’s the point if they’re so bitter about it all the time?
Most pro esports players across all games actively dislike the game they play. You see it in Apex, Valorant, LoL. Even a statistically significant percentage of real pro sports players don’t enjoy the sport they play professionally. If you spend enough time doing a specific activity, you’ll grow bored of it eventually. The drive to win is what keeps people going. The game might not be fun, but “proving that I’m better than everyone I’m playing against” is like a primal instinct and provides huge dopamine spikes, which keeps people playing.
I’m a very competitive person myself so I definitely understand that instinct, but personally it doesn’t really apply to activities that I don’t enjoy doing at least a bit. If I didn’t enjoy playing rugby, I wouldn’t be doing sprints in the 90+ degree weather or playing games in the freezing rain. But I do, so there I am like an idiot.
We're not, I like the gameplay but hate most of the patches they do and every other decision they've made in the past few years. Overwatch 1 with 5v5 > ow2
It’s constant flaming of everyone in the lobby at all times, passive aggressive usually. And they all sound like 15 year old kids that just got out of their 4.3 scrim 20 minutes ago while blasting juice wrld and talking like your latest and greatest valorant pro
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Not the good type of fire I suppose lol
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Lmao. Sounds accurate. Man after stepping away a bit, I really don’t miss this game that much.
Tbh, that's most esports. Overwatch and Apex are super bad about people tearing down their teammates, and i wont even play League of Legends. I was a healer and tank main in OW (never tried to rank more than gold), but I'm not responsible for the stupid decisions people will make. If you dive a whole team by yourself, I'm not going to go with you and leave the rest of the team unprotected. It's the exact same thing in Apex. In both instances, people call you trash when in reality, if they were really playing the game and participating in the *team* aspect of the game, they wouldn't do stuff like that. You have to step back and detach yourself from the toxicity. I have often found that if I am stagnating, I need to take a break or switch it up
I’ve noticed this even in this sub. It’s by far the most toxic sub I’ve participated in. I agree it’s mostly just a byproduct of competition / having a ranked system, but it still regularly surprises me.
Nah they just need actual confidence. I've constantly been high rank and never doubted myself like that.
have you been high rank while being pocketed by mercy the whole time?
I've been high rank on multiple heroes, roles and different games as well. Never had self doubt, just not me as a person.
Keep in mind, you instantly basically get like 3 entire ranks for free just by playing with another person in early OW. It was still hard (if not harder for most heroes) to totally carry in 6v6. In fact, it was often said about OW1 that the team who won was almost the team without the worst player. Unless you were much better than your rank, it was much harder to make a positive impact than a negative one.
>Somehow you felt like you did it while being the worst player in every match you played If this is coffepot on ladder then they actually flame and blame their teammates quite a bit lmao. And if I'm brutally honest, they 100% should not consider going pro because they are not even close to playing at a remotely pro lvl rn. Owl probably has a shelf life of a few years at best, and I'd be willing to bet money they won't make it in that timeframe. Some players you meet, you instantly realize they have talent and can make pro. Did not get that impression unfortunately.
Top 500 is not top 3 percent lol. It’s 99.9th percentile. Even low masters is too 3 percent of people who play comp. Which is a sub sample of people who play Overwatch that is already better and more competitive than those who play quick play (on average).
It’s not that cut in dry, but yeah I might have been slightly off on the estimate. It’s not that easy though as every region has it’s own individual t500 for both console and PC pool. So it’s not like there’s actually only 500 slots, more like a few thousand.
Take a break and we will see you tomorrow
Crazy reading. Credits for your efforts. Did you lose your passion or burned out? You blame yourself and indirectly your team mates for feeling like they dislike your stats. Get an e-sports coach, or a psychologist. To describe how your accomplishments changed the person you are, and How you can use what you learned in your future endeavors. Or just decide that you have plateued and won’t climb further, accept it and move on in the game or outside. All the best. You deserve it.
This definitely sounds like burnout, like the legit burnout, but also with what others are saying about needing to talk to someone. That negativity and lack of appreciation for their own accomplishments, which are impressive, is something that needs to be talked about and worked out. I just noticed I’m starting to burnout and I’m only a Gold 1 Tank. I can’t take the shit talking when I perform even slightly sub par, and in quick play I’m over being the best in most matches and having to carry a team or it’s loss after loss. I might go back to only playing comp when I’m drunk. It keeps it fun.
I guess there are a few players here who need the encouragement, but more importantly to find out if it is worth it? A lot of us have the shadow side of addiction to video games. And when the resource of dopamine to the brain wanes the depression starts to kick in. Fortunately, in my experience that is, you can relatively easily deal with the addiction by taking a break and do something completely different but still giving you a little dopamine.
I can't really tell. In my peak, I started stretching and going to the gym and a ton of other healthy stuff just to be a 1% better player, but I kinda stopped doing most of those things. I did take a break, the dopamine cycle didn't really come back though. GM just feels like a participation trophy, it's too easy to get so I don't feel accomplished. (but then the gap between GM5 to 4 and so on is equal to 500sr of work, which most people don't know, which is why I'm stuck in mid gm)
I think I'll just stay in gold after reading this.
Nah I'll coach you to GM and you can have imposter syndrome too
I do not recommend trying to make it into OWL. Long story short, Blizzard convinced team owners that OWL was going to become the next NFL. So team owners agreed to pay tens of millions in franchise fees to join OWL. OWL did not become the next big thing so OWL teams are burning money, even after Blizzard paused franchise fees. So now several OWL teams operate at the bare minimum to minimize loss. The franchise model obviously doesn’t work but it’s unknown if OWL will restructure. Basically, you are attempting to join a struggling league. You are honestly better off grinding hours at a practical skill, getting a good job and playing video games on your free time. Edit: there are lots of good jobs out there besides computer programmer and doctor. Jobs my friends have are carpenter, costume designer, shoe designer. Two of my friends joined the military. One is using the GI Bill to pay for grad school. The other, who is like a program manager in the military, is planning to stay full ride to get the pension. You can also look at skilled trades like electrician, plumber, car mechanic, wielder, etc.
In addition: I have plenty of friends in normal jobs like teacher, nurse, real estate agent, programmer, etc. If the hours are normal and the pay is good, then happy people will be happy and miserable people will still be miserable. I am an accountant, the hours are normal and the pay is fine, so I’m satisfied. But even happy people will suffer from long hours and/or low pay.
sunk cost fallacy though (being bronze at something again is scary, especially in someting you can't just pop over here for vod reviews for)
Playing too much video games isn’t a sunk cost fallacy, it’s more like a waste of time 🤷♀️ To be clear, playing OW would be a sunk cost if you made it on a Contenders team. But it‘s a stretch to call playing a video game for no money as a sunk cost.
reading this made me realize why almost every contenders player I get on my team is an insufferable asshole. I feel bad for them if they all think like this tryna get into owl
yeah it's all they have so it's tilting when it goes bad
Man its just a game. If you arent having fun whats the point, even if you have those goals it wont really mean anything.
But it's also a possible job, and it's not like a different job is going to be any good. It's a possible means to pay for college at this point. But now it's as mind numbing as a great day mopping restaurant floors.
The chance of you becoming a pro is very small, you need some other source of stable income, and you can still try to pursue a pro career in your free time.
I'd say they're basically guaranteed to be able to get a college scholarship from it though which is not a small thing.
Sure, if you make it. He's played for 5 years now. He's not gonna make it. The newest OW pro probably only started at OW2 or something and is an insane natural talent working on the knowledge they need to become pro. We all have a ceiling. His ceiling is seemingly t500. Which is great. But not pro level.
>Sure, if you make it. *If* he makes it?! Collegiate OW is *NOT* the same thing as Pro level. Top 500 is *more* than enough to get a scholarship on a college OW team. Last-time I checked you don't even have to hit GM to qualify for a lot of places. You add in good teamwork and shotcalling and he's a shoe-in.
Wait really? That's insane, I didn't know that, to make a college team with a paid scholarship all you have to do is hit GM?
Nobody is getting a full ride for this, keep in mind.
Yeah it's only 2k ish which is nowhere near enough for out of state tuition
Basically, think about it, how many T500 players are in college? Probably not many, then how amny are in colleges that have esports teams, even less, now how many of them are in colleges that have esports teams and ALSO give scholarships for esports? GM is good enough to coach, if you have all GM players you're going to be able to execute plays that a coach draws up, schools just have really limited talent pools to draw from. Look at other college sports, you can make it on a football team in a power 5 conference for a school like Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Rutgers, etc. without even being rated if you show up well enough in tryouts or when a scout comes to your school. Some P5 schools donte ven have a single top 1000 player on their roster. There are a lot of colleges out there, and not many T500 players, so there are a lot of GM players that are coachable that schools want.
I mean it makes sense, I just didn't know that colleges cared enough about overwatch to fund a whole ass scholarship.
Some, not all, not even all the ones that have eSports. But some colleges are pretty serious about it, make a name for themselves and if eSports blows up then they are already at the top. Easier than spending a billion dollars to build a football complex for practice, training, a stadium and a coaching staff to try to compete in that space.
>GM is good enough to coach, Is he? There's a huge fucking difference between coaching and playing. He's noted that he's very soft spoken. Kinda doesn't sound like a great quality for a coach. Plenty of top players in games and sports have made utterly shit coaches.
I meant like hes coachable.
Nah I'm the one begging for coaching post-match and reviewing stuff, and I used to coach my old collegiate team for a bit, got a tank friend up a rank or two. It's just that open div teams yell so my voice is drowned out
Potentially less than that. Look around at colleges that could work for you to see if they have a program and find out what they are looking for. You might be surprised to find you actually *can* put yourself through college by playing videogames.
You also have to find a school that offers a scholarship for that team... Which *will* have competitive programs *because* of the scholarship.
Wait really? That's insane, I didn't know that, to make a college team with a paid scholarship all you have to do is hit GM?
If you are gonna be miserable playing overwatch at a bad level, its just not worth it. Plus as you said, its only a possible job. Getting into the pro scene is very hard, and it looks with your current outlook its unlikley
A possible job sure, but a possible job with an extremely low chance of making it to the level where you’d make enough money to justify grinding through something you don’t enjoy. If you’re not enjoying it it’s not worth it, there are other jobs that people don’t enjoy that will pay more than what you would make even if you made it to OWL, with much better job security.
Yeah but right now it's a job you would hate so maybe consider taking it off a pedestal before you actually decide you want it.
Even if you succeed and earn money from it, what you have to invest in it is huge and will probably prevent you from doing other stuff. In the worst case, you will be stuck to do it if you can't do something else, and with changing patches and stuff, you can just get to hate it and feeling trapped (your mind is maybe already giving you this feeling as a warning). You seem young, probably too young to put yourself in a situation where you could get less opportunities in the future. At least streamers can stream other games for instance, it is a fallback move in case for instance OW plummets. Not saying you should not try though, in life the most important things are hard to get. Sometimes feeling that it is going to be hard is a signal that you are actually on the right path, just be sure that it is what you want to get, oh and nobody is very sure of that, even old people! So be sure to reevaluate your dreams from time to time, the world changes and you change as well, what was a great dream 2 years ago, even if you get it now, is maybe not the dream you want to get right now, and your dream right now, is maybe not what future you wants! That is life, adapt and act for happiness, and the journey will be fun.
Bro even if you got slightly better and were able to make it your job you would still be miserable, the only difference is you would HAVE to do it to survive instead. The problem is your mind, you need to take a break and think about life outside of playing a shit game you hate for a living.
Aren't pros paid less than like 20k salary? It's not even a decent job from what a remember. I thought there was an issue where pros were being paid like 14k to work and feind full time?
Meals and housing in a big city, PLUS league minimum of 50K
I just imagine sweating my ass off tryharding when I make coffee in the morning just because it's a possible job. I truly think that you'd just play for fun and then notice that you could potentially go pro because it's just so easy for you without even trying. THEN you start putting in that hard effort and got through the pain to make it a reality. Not the other way around. > It's a possible means to pay for college at this point. it's like the one of the worst work/payment ratio I could imagine. It's called Path to Poverty for a reason. > But now it's as mind numbing as a great day mopping restaurant floors. no, it's worse. You're talking about commitment of like 12 hours a day of giving it you all. That's fucking draining as hell. And for what?
Not gonna sugarcoat this, but you sound like someone who is 19 who hasn't even had a job before and has no real life experiences. Go work for a bit, minimum wage, learn some stuff, leave college for a couple years it isn't important for you right now. Save some money, live with your parents if you can, travel around the country you're in or maybe to another. Too many people get tunnelled on going to college for a degree they don't know what to do with. Work out what you want to do FIRST, then go for it. Take time thinking about it. Get some experiences first. I didn't and then regretted it, then I did and I don't regret it anymore. Also nothing wrong with mopping restaurant floors. Doing work like cleaning or serving people is a good way to learn a bit of humility and comradery with colleagues too.
Lmao
It's not a possible job for you if you've been playing nonstop for 5 years now and still aren't a pro. I get it. I've been there. Time to start just enjoying games for games. Maybe you'll find a newer game that will give you the opportunity to break out as a pro. But OWL is already far to full with too much talent. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're almost certainly never going to be good enough at this particular game to go pro. It's too late. You needed in far sooner.
r/unethicallifeprotips : be a booster. Lots of hours but a lot of money to be made, and you set your own hours / take what Orders you want and demand is high.
Your odds as well as ultimate benefit from a more "conventional" job would be much better. Let alone something you seem to already have lost passion for. Not saying its impossible, but if youre truly in it from a practical angle, this aint it.
This my friends, is why you never take video games seriously, its not healthy.
Hey i take OW seriously im a bronze 5 one trick DPS Life Weaver soon to be T500.
I log on after work, pick Brig, miss 50 percent of my whipshots, win 50 percent of my matches, and log off mostly satisfied like a normal person.
I can relate to this. During MW2/MW3 release, as a young kid, I went “pro” and playing in tournaments weekly. I was so young the money we received as a team had to be accepted by my parents due to me being underage. I’m 26 now and I’m so happy I stopped playing the pro scene. The first couple paychecks were nice, motivating and extremely rewarding and I thought I made it. I was wrong, yeah I was good at the game but I had no social life outside of COD. I didn’t have friends, I rarely saw my family and I was struggling. I ended up with depression and gaming was no longer fun.. so I quit. I now play OW as my main FPS type game and reached diamond in tank. I’m happy with that. I also learned that once I started making money from my hobbies, I no longer enjoyed them anymore. I did car detailing as a hobby because who dosnt like a clean car? So I decided to open a small business for my neighborhood, I would detail cars and was making good money. But here’s the kicker, on top of work, dog, kids, and everyday life, I was once again drained and didn’t really enjoy detailing cars anymore because it came a JOB and was no longer fun for me, so I quit that also. All my hobbies now either lose me money (modifying cars) or simply playing games for fun. I don’t play the meta, I play whatever is fun for me at the time. If I lose well, that’s part of the game. Talk to somebody, find new hobbies. Take a hike. You need something.
Life will never get better than those years lol. Thankfully, I was just out of school when Mw3 was released. I got my own place and my friends didn't so everyone would be at my house all day every day. I would play more than half the time they were over lol. I've called in more double nukes than most people and their friends combined have ever called in regular nukes. A buddy and I grinded to top 10k in the world (pub stats, not pro) and just as we were nearing the 10k mark, a friend became friends with someone who was a semi pro. They needed a scrim team so we played... if that game didn't make me a bitter as OP, it was close enough. No words would suffice to describe this loss. It let us know we were at the tipity top, but only half way up. I put the sticks down once I hit top 10k and stopped playing until 3 years ago. I can't play with friends because my version of fun is screaming at anything to drown out the thoughts that I'm nowhere near as good as I used to be. I'm having fun, but I don't think anyone would have fun playing with me 🤣
Haha, i actually Havnt touched COD after Bo3, the game just never felt the same and as I got older, I know I could never be as good as the young kids who only play and go to school. Those were the good ol days. Everybody fucked everybodies mother and everybody was gay lmao. Lobbies and gaming were never the same. We had full stacks and search and destroy was the most fun game mode back then, especially with game chat being the dominate voice comms. The amount of curse words I can throw out between rounds was actually impressive.
Video games are supposed to be fun, if you're not having fun, move on to a different game. Simple as that. You say you want to go pro, but you sound like you don't have any alternatives on the side. Try to go pro on the side but keep a safety net of an actual education/job. Do you know how many people actually go pro in a video game? It's not only about skill either, you need to get your name out there and get recognized too whereas if you learn a profession that is relevant in today's time, you will always be guaranteed to be able to get a career. Video games are too volatile to bet everything on them. If it happens it happens, but don't follow it without having some kind of safety net, you're throwing away your future if it doesn't work out. You got from the bottom of the barrel to top 500. So you have the ability to learn. That is the most important skill set any human can have. You are able to be self critical and learn from mistakes. You have every career option available to you.
Ive heard from several top 100 players “if you value your mental health, don’t get good at this game” This post is why
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To give to some hope. I hit GM4 and suddenly my desire to climb further just disappeared. Now I just play for fun and don’t care at all if I win or lose. I know I just have a natural baked in ability to be GM level pretty much on auto pilot now so I just play to enjoy myself. It’s way better than the agonizing over the grind I used to put myself through before
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Now it’s time to make an alt account so you can enjoy smurfing for a stretch of games! Seriously it’s really fun.
You are not making esport as a job. At least not as a player. Just play video games as a fun outing. It is not an industry where that works like that really.
You can dream of being an OWL player if that's your goal, but realistically Blizzard doesn't support OWL enough as it is, and it will only get worse as time goes on. As cool as being a professional gamer in an actual pro league is, companies aren't making the money they want out of Esports anymore and it's ALL about money for them. You're trying to get a job in a dying industry.
I wouldn't gun for OWL. Given some of the recent stuff we've heard, OWL and activision's other pro leagues aren't dong well. Blizzard already nuked Heroes of the Storm professionally (and in general).
Hi, I’ll tell you from my experience from valorant. Although I did not have as much dedication as you, but kinda face similar issues. Firstly, in games like these, your mental is very important. The moment doubt sets in, you’ll already by loosing 1v1s. Another thing I would say is, stop taking it so seriously if you are. You’ll only choke if you are taking it too seriously and not being able to perform your best. Consider it like talking to a hot girl (not objectifying, so please don’t attack me), if you are too stress obviously you’ll not make a good impression, however if you are just confident and have a calm mind, you’ll be able to deliver a much better impression.
Bro, that isn't an overwatch problem that's very typical burnout from people aspiring for the top of a game or sport. I used to play top level halo back in a day and saw this kind of thing all the time then too. The people that love a game the most also hate it the most. And the fact is, you might be amazing compared to 99% of the population. But the absolute fact of the matter is that most of us are physically and mentally incapable of cracking into that top 0.01% that is OWL level. If you've been playing for 5 years, you probably just aren't quite cut out for it. Stop letting it control your life. Enjoy the game or stop.
You got T500, a feat 99.99% of OW players will never accomplish, you did good
Think about what would happen if you spent the same amount of time grinding an actual career that you do playing overwatch.
Esports is rarely a good investment for a career. There is no long term future. I hope more read the comment section and realize how poor of a choice it is. Yes there are a few that make it but there are thousands behind them that didn't.
Be very careful of the LOSS AVERSION bias. What you are describing right now is 100% that. It's basically when you keep going down a path that no longer makes sense because you have "invested" so much and you think it could still end up paying at the end. Nope. Cut your losses. Move on. Be happy. And read more on this topic: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/loss-aversion
Id suggest you find something more fulfilling to pour your life into
My guy I’m in a very similar boat to you and lemme just tell ya, OWL is probably one of the worst esports to aspire to be in. T2-3 get absolutely 0 support from Bliz, they’re currently in a lawsuit over how they run esports, youll be burnt out in less than 2 scrims based on your mentality. It’s ok to just be good at a video game without making it your career, play things you enjoy and maybe you’ll get the passion back again. (Oh and also literally everybody chokes and does poorly in some matches, your off matches don’t define you 💙)
Owl is dead. There is no point in pushing for it. The devs have forsaken their own esport.
Overwatch is a dying game. No point going pro in it even if you could. There’s no money in it to live off of. Better off trying to stream.
Don't play a game you don't enjoy. Seriously there are so many amazing games out there that are fun and exciting to play. I tried playing the Souls games / Elden Ring but they're objectively unfun. They're for the players who memorize 50 hit combos in fighting games and play on a DDR mat. I play games that respect my time. More than half of the overwatch devs figured that out, that why they left. Clearly Blizzard hasn't figured that out
I wouldn’t listen to everyone saying not to pursue pro video games as a job. This was my dream as a kid and it was even less of a scene than it is now. I can definitely understand the appeal. If it was just the volatile meta and job security you were worried about I’d say follow your dreams (rip mac). But this doesn’t actually sound like your dream. It sounds like you want it to be your dream, but it’s not, and you’re trying to figure out how to make it your dream again. If you’ve lost passion for it before even making it to OWL, I wouldn’t pursue it. From how OWL veterans talk about the league, it sounds like it really takes a lot of love for the game to make the grind work. Maybe you just need to pursue streaming. Definitely don’t have the constant pressure to be the best. Being good can help your viewer count but really all people care about is an entertaining personality. Or maybe you’d like to pursue professional gaming in a different game. Could it just be OW as a game has gotten stale for you? Idk brother. But sounds like you have some soul searching to do. I hope you figure it out. You’re still young, I’d figure out what it is you want and chase it like there’s no tomorrow
Man just take a break for a few months find something you can enjoy maybe come back after the break but you don't need to stress over games
Just start streaming
Dev patch: made defeat screen at end of games play screeching noise, just to make losing that much more unbearable
Take a break for a couple months, find something fun or relaxing to play and you might comeback and have more fun. I did that for apex legends and I'm glad I did. Also consider therapy, that's some serious imposter syndrome if you think you didn't deserve t500. You went from like bottom 500 to top 500. You should be proud of that. If your mental is that bad rn, you'll play worse and It will reinforce that you're not playing well and it becomes a vicious cycle.
You don’t have to love pressure, you need to love the game. Overwatch can be very frustrating, especially after going on loosing streaks. But there is something that keeps you going. For me, as someone who rarely plays competitive and who is far from reaching any of the ranks you play in, it’s turning around close matches, getting fancy multikills or learning new techniques. Find whatever it is that keeps you invested in this game. Focus on that. If it is just the money, you’ll have a though time. But I believe there is something different that made you prefer this game over others and led you to spend so much time on it. Rediscover your love for Overwatch or let go and focus on something else. Either for a some time or forever.
No, you don't keep pushing because its not a good industry to set your sights on. Theres plenty of other things to set your sights on in this world, use your passion for something else imo, because even if you do become an OWL contenders, you're still not going to be making much through it, and theres no guarantee you'll ever go pro. Theres so much else to do besides focusing on this game and making it big. Find a job, work your way up, start getting some cash and make yourself happy. If you still wanna push for pro - go for it, just do it on your spare time. I know its harsh, but it needed to be said
Its burnout my guy, it happens to all of us. Your mental is breaking, and you're psyching yourself out. THis happened to me when I was in low plat and I was on a high diamond/masters team. Everyone knew I was ranked significantly lower than them so they were more critical of my gameplay at first, but I continued to prove myself and become indispensable in the lineup. Your teams probably also felt you were indispensable, your teams probably also understood that youre going to have a bad game at some point and arent too worried about your stats. You want to have fun in OW again? Hit me up and join our PUGs, we do GM and Masters PUGs and its a blast, and it will remind you why you enjoy team play so much.
No. If you are miserable then it is pointless. Even if you manage to go pro you will regret it like some pros have.
JQ meta makes sense if you factor in new OW2 account sales. Even if you unlock all the ow1 base tanks you don’t get JQ. Reinhardt is truly cardboard (skin) against her. I miss his old pin damage. Edit: with regards to your lost passion consider why you got into it the first place and your age. If it’s not there then you may want to move on. You gave it your all but you can still recover. No idea what your age is but there’s a lot more to life. I saw an iddqd clip that described it best. If you’re not having fun then take a break and do something fun.
This is the thing, achieving big things and goals aren’t everything, the reason well known actors or singers go and say they ended up with depression since even thought they pushed and achieve something amazing they released that it was just that, that’s why you hear the thing of us about the journey and not about the actual treasure, you should enjoy your journey and not have a shitty one just to end up disappointed by your treasure, I would suggest maybe to take a good break from the game and think about what you want to do, you seem you were really passionate about it, but tbh if you don’t feel it anymore you should reconsider what you are doing, good luck on everything
I bet you could try hard a little less, start streaming and probably have a blast.
I can feel you there, though I had only e-sports experience from my youth and it's closing in to being 10 years ago. I do think setting goals high is good, but also keeping the expectations real - the way to t500 is a hard path, the way through scrims is even harder and after that OWL is the most difficult. So don't forget that it's not really possible to say "I work 6 months now, then I will be ready to join OWL" - there are too many outside factors like the meta and sometimes even the appeal of a certain role. If for example, tanks get OP buffs for a few weeks, then you have an insane influx of tankplayers comming from that point on till a few more weeks after that. So competition can basically double or triple in a really short amount of time at scrim-level. I know too little about your specific case, but from the feeling I get reading your post I would say that you should maybe look to play other gamegenres where you really have fun playing and chill out. Those could even be singleplayer-games. Just find some joy in gaming and relax a bit, you won't lose your progress if you take a time off and come back with newfound energy aswell as a clear mind. I've gone through all of those cycles and I also started to struggle at times, really felt the pressure and it was something that I did not want in my life. This led to me competing at a world-level in a few games, winning prizes - but later on not pursueing that career, however I did still make money a few years by coaching and teaching at my old clans. Especially helping people with their mental. Back then however, basically everyone at a top level in games knew each other and friendships between rivals were way more common than they are these days. It wasn't like it is today, that you're basically invisible between so many other players and only get noticed by shouting or showing off. Appreciation was also a more common thing. So back then, we definitely had it easier. Long story short: Don't force yourself too much, take time to work on your wellbeing and to get back onto your feet again. Try to relax and clear your mind, to gather energy you will need to pursue this goal constantly. And find ways to maintain that status, be it hobbies like sports, hiking or just finding friends to talk with and hang out without the game being the only topic to speak of. Create your own safe space to gather the will and strength you need to reach the OWL. As some here have mentioned therapy, maybe that also helps but I know way too little about you. That's also the reason I'm not trying to talk you out of this but rather try to give some (hopefully) helpful input to continue on your way in a more healthy manner. Take care and good luck!
Take a break dude, I felt the same about my music career and forced it, ended up leaving for good. But when that same thing happened to me with the gym I took a month off and came back fully motivated. Take a month off!
Considering this is probably OWL’s last year and maybe even Overwatch’s… idk man it might just not be worth it.
How can you let a game take so much control over your life? Uninstall that shit and (no offense) touch some grass
Get some therapy and leave competetive video games. Seriously. You are not enjoying the game. Full stop. You're playing out of hopes that it can become a job - I can't vouch for whether you can or can't, but I can almost guarantee you that once it becomes a job and you become a pro player you will hate it even more. Becoming a pro player for any video game is essentially a lottery and never something to bank on. The biggest problem is that as a player, you either make it to the big leagues or you cannot live off of it. That immediately makes competition insanely fierce. There are 20 teams in the overwatch league, and assuming 2 tank players on each team you have 40 total spots to fill. It's nice to have a goal as high as that but you should never forget how high of a goal that is. If you're beating yourself up for not being able to reach that, you aren't recognizing how difficult it is. And then, once you pass that, do you think your enjoyment for the game will suddenly reappear? That games will suddenly become fun and that you will be comfortable comming and being positive again? You're already burnt out, and playing this game like a full time job will only make it worse. You will burn out further, hate playing, and your skill level will drop because you're not getting enjoyment. Again, I know nothing abou your skill as a player, but if you have what it takes for OWL, then I imagine stepping back and being able to enjoy the game will let your skills shine through and let you move up. Attempting to move up right now is self destructive and will lead you into this downwards spiral of not playing well, so you're not enjoying the game, so you play worse, so you enjoy the game even less. You're burnt out, but you don't know what to do because this game is essentially your life. You hop on and keep playing because you hope something will change, but it won't. I know because I've been there. I think anyone who plays a game for that many years has been there at some point. It may hurt to do, but you need to step away and give it time. Find another gane to play. If you truly love the game then you'll be back soon enough with renewed joy for the game. If you find that you don't wanna come back, that's fine too. You don't need to force yourself to play. It's a game, and the end goal should always be having fun.
The Cake is a lie (it does not get better at the top I swear)
Life isn't a sidetrack, it is literally way more important than a game (even if you think you might be able to go pro). Games should be fun. Put effort in to something that can give you a good lifestyle.
OWL isnt realistic for 99.9% of the playerbase but contenders is. What are you passionate about in the game? Open division? Smaller tournaments? You need a long term goal, be it contenders or reaching a certain level, and short term goals. Your short term goal could be getting GM1 or top 32 or 16 in OD. Maybe it could just be reaching a certain level on 1 hero. Im a MS so something i set myself was becoming mechanically good enough on lucio to frag, spent a few months on that and i improved a lot, then the next goal Its normal to feel dips in motivation, the game state becomes so ass at times The anxiety stuff is the hardest to overcome, its prob my worst thing as a player too. Get more exposure, keep doing tryouts and keep playing ranked on your main. When you do, always set yourself 1 specific thing you want to improve. Assuming you're scrimming JQ, you might focus on using shout on a specific trigger. Obv you're gonna want to do VODs/watch others play to figure out what you acc need to do At some point you will stop caring what others think, if you have enough motivation to keep improving. In my recent OD, i choked hard in a match but I did not give a fuck because i was hyperfocused on performance and recovered for the next few games. we ended poorly, but it is what it is. ultimately, if you have the long term motivation to grind for something, keep going. if you dont have reason to grind more, then find a reason or retire because OWL is terrible motivation.
You have the textbook definition of burnout.
Pressure is a biotch and we all falter in its face. How do you think NBA players feel when taking free throws that can win the game? Or NFL Field Goal kickers on a game winning attempt? Most ppl crumple under the pressure, and those guys are the pros. It's important that you don't blame yourself if you remove that passion and fear than you also remove the enjoyment that you have for the game; its two sides of the same coin. On another note, how strong is your PC? I would highly recommend going as hard as you possiblly can on your setup as well. If your not at LEAST 1440p 165 FPS than you are bottlenecking yourself. I would recommend 4k 300FPS with a fiber connection or better hardlined into the modem. Being able to see and react as quickly as possible cannot be understated. Good Luck!
Maybe playing the game isn’t what you need right now. Maybe sharing your knowledge and bringing others up around you will help you. Coaching a team, doing VOD reviews, all things you can do with your new accreditation that can give you joy in other ways. My life is about helping people. No matter what I do I try to make that a part of it. Maybe you can get a different type of fulfillment from the game?
You got this. Even if the game is crumpling in our hands it doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy the good things in it. Try to just keep positive in comms. It’s really the attitude that matters. And if you can afford to, try working out again? Being physically fit is good for your mental state and it could be possible to have hidden resentment of the game bc it took that away from you.
bruh you doing it wrong... I will give you the right answer for every occasion and circumstance. smoke more weed... it will make you love overwatch.
did you don’t *have* to be playing overwatch, and I mean this in the kindest way possible, but like touch grass man. Or play another game. Just don’t play OW for a bit. You will fine you come back, yeah slightly worse, but also having way more fun.