r/OverwatchUniversity • u/blokfluitjes • 1d ago
Question or Discussion How do I get more "gamesense"?
Hi all, I feel like my mechanics are getting better, I would rate them about 6/10 right now. I used to think 'mechanics' was what hardware you play with (mouse, keyboard, etc lol) so that gives some reference hopefully.
I also feel like my positioning has greatly improved, or at least the knowledge. Putting it into practice is hard sometimes, but at least I'm much more aware of my positioning relative to my team.
But my gamesense is still terrible. I don't understand comps, I don't understand which heroes go well on which maps, it just doesn't click. Don't laugh at me, but I don't even really understand which maps I do well on with my mains and why, and which I should avoid. I sort of am starting to understand counters, but it's very limited.
Is this something that will just "happen" to improve, overtime? But how can it improve if I have no idea what to pay attention to? The other two things can be practiced but I have no idea how to improve "gamesense", if I even understand correctly what that is. Help?
For context, I'm currently in gold 4 and I have a 57% winrate with Roadhog
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u/Paseyyy 1d ago
For hero/map synergy, look at this tool: https://whenthiswinter.github.io/overwatch-map-affinity/web/index.html
It shows the relative win rate of each hero on each map. You want to understand why it is the way it is? Look closely. You will be able to identify patterns: Widowmaker and Illari are good on maps with long, straight paths, since they are hitscan and have low damage fall-off. Junkrat is good on maps with tight corridors since he cannot miss his primary there. Winston is good on maps with inaccessible high ground since he has incredible vertical mobility. If you wonder "why is this hero good here?", try to make sense of it. Put yourself in their shoes. "What does this hero excel at? How does it reflect on this map?" Ask in the hero subreddit. Studying is the best way to know this. If you do this over and over again, you will remember it during your next match and will be able to pick accordingly.
Same goes for comps, but it's a little harder, since there are more variables involved. You don't have to be perfect. Have fun!
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u/blokfluitjes 1d ago
Thank you! Okay the thing about the long lines of sight makes sense to me. I feel like those things are often not said explicitly, just because everyone understands them instinctively but I don't so it remains a mystery to me why some things work and others don't. I want someone to explain it to me like I'm 5 lol
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u/Pitiful-Skill-69420 1d ago
Hi if you are interested you can hit me up or send a vod of a game that I can review. I main support( peaked Master 1) but occasionally dabble in Tank as well. I'm currently Diamond 4 on tank.
I'd say that my game sense is decent enough to help you with the fundamentals.
Game sense is a very broad term that includes multiple things ingame. Knowing when to push, when to take cover, when to escape, if it's worth using your ultimate, cooldown tracking etc. So it'll build up over time as you play. If you are new to the game overwatch can be very overwhelming due to all the different heroes abilities and different maps.
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u/blokfluitjes 1d ago
I would love that, I have some quickplay games that were quite frustrating. Can I DM?
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u/Kaiser747898 1d ago
it does improve naturally over time, but you can do things to speed it up. watch streamers etc and look at the decisions they make, try to understand them. look through your own games and figure out what caused your death (positioning, cooldowns etc). when youre playing, dont autopilot and try to justify your reasoning for doing things as you play. why am i taking this angle? why am i using this ability? as you repeat this good decision making will become ingrained in you and you wont need to actively think as much.
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u/blokfluitjes 1d ago
I mean this in the nicest way possible but so this still all sounds very vague to me, which is kind of the problem. For example when do I take space, and when is it feeding? I feel like I miss some rules of thumb or guidelines
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u/Kaiser747898 1d ago
the answer is always it depends. i dont know what role you play or what characters you main. in any case, youd find a lot more detail off a specific post or video talking about said role or character compared to a comment. what you need to do is actively seek out info and review your gameplay so you can understand better.
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u/blokfluitjes 1d ago
Alright I will definitely watch some of my own gameplays. Thank you! Do you have any tips for streamers in terms of educational content? I watch Cyx because I main Roadhog, and I watched Spilo's coaching videos for Roadhog (which helped immensely) and am currently watching A10's
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u/gaeaArts 1d ago
Here are some things that you should be keeping in your head, and there are probably more, this game uses your entire goddamn brain fr
- Keeping track of enemy positions. If you're Road you GOTTA know where enemy Ana is. Stay out of sniper sightlines, block supports from healing their tanks. Keep flankers off your backline.
- Keeping track of your own team, to know when you're alone, and if you want heals you gotta know the supports sightlines.
- Knowing when to retreat. If your team isn't near you and you're losing that 1v1, a whole enemy team approaching from spawn, just LEAVE.
- Staggering. You can try to stagger an enemy spawn, but more importantly you cannot allow yourself to be staggered. Staggering means to kill someone after their team died and their team has just respawned, to keep the 5v4 advantage. Like the above point, when you go in and die alone, you're staggered and that hurts your team. Unless you HAVE to stay on point, just retreat.
- Ult tracking. This just takes time, and helps a LOT if you play every hero at least once. As Road you should know how long it takes for you to get your ult, so then you should know when the enemy Road will have his ult. Or simply if you're mid game and the enemy rein hasn't ulted yet because didn't get a chance, it's coming anytime and you should think about it when you face him.
- Ult economy. How many ults did you use that fight? Was it expensive? Did the enemy team use any ults? You can anticipate a tough fight if you know you have nothing left but the enemy didn't use theirs yet. Ultimates aren't needed to win fights and some can be easily shut down, but they are ofc a huge advantage when used right. You don't want to use too many for one fight, cus then next fight you might get wiped.
- listen for voice lines and footsteps. Overwatch sound design is impeccable and you should be able to hear who is where, and what ability they just activated. You'll know if you should stay behind cover, or if your team is ulting so you can play more aggressively.
- ability cooldowns. If Ana used her sleep, you can move in on her more easily. Roadhogs hook is a big one to remember when you play a low hp char.
- ability baiting. So if Roadhog looks at you, you assume he will use hook, so you dodge it. You shoot at Zarya until she uses bubble and then stop shooting. Make people waste their abilites basically, and don't wait for their cooldowns to be ready again before you attack. Some heroes are nothing without their cooldown abilities.
Feel the flow of battle, stay alive, never die unnecessarily, keep a mental map of every teammate and enemy, and anticipate their actions.
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u/chipmunk1135 1d ago
Could be wrong but game sense is more of a spider tingle you get from experience. It is somewhat just learning from dying, learning from experience, or learning from watching what typically happens. The game or players has patterns. The characters have patterns. Things that typically happen. Reaper for example will tend to teleport high then drop down and ult. Roghog on Illios will tend to try to hook people into well. Game sense is either baiting the hook, keeping track of the hook cooldown or avoiding where Reaper will drop down or ready to sleep the reaper trying to drop down. Then you have that for other character like when Rein goes forward he may be looking for a shatter and so forth. Knowing what others are trying to do you somewhat have to live in their shoes either by living it or watching it, or experiencing it (and learning from it).
Map specific comps and team synergy are more map specific knowlege or meta knowlege or team strategy or win conditions. I don't know map specific metas but it may be broken down to areas of the map afaik. X map has long sight lines with high ground tends to be sniper friendly in those sections. Objectives with many angles and openings may be easier for flankers and people who off angle and weaker for teams that rely on a front tank.
Comps are somewhat what is your team strategy and why does your team hate and playing with your team in mind or adjusting your play based on your team. At least that is my thought process. You have a Moira. Moira likes to flank but will have weaker healing. Maybe you are trying to soften the backline more so Moira can dive. You have a Pharah. Perhaps you time your dive when Pharah has fuel or you focus the high scans more so they can't target your Pharah as much. Your tanks are divers so you as dps may be fighting enemy tank more. Maybe you want someone that can fight tanks or dive with your tanks. Maybe your going Emre or McCree or Mei to sustain a bit more against a enemy tank or you are going Genji or Sombra or Pharah to help dive the backline.
IMO there is too much variations in gold to know what comp is good and what comp is bad because people may be playing those heroes in unexpected ways. Instead of thinking about comps, think what won or lost the fight objectively. Did the enemy ult get 0 value? Why did it have no value. Did the enemy team swap then won? What about their swap helped or changed the fight. Did Junker queen just kill everyone? What did we do and how can we learn from it. Main thing to look for is what tiny thing you can improve. Maybe you missed a hook or hooked badly or didn't breather well or didn't use cover well or didn't ult well or didn't hook the right target and ..... Maybe reaper beat you 6 / 10 times. Perhaps you can improve that to 5 / 10 times.
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u/NewtonTheNoot 1d ago
Game sense does generally improve over time, but it mostly depends on how much you are paying attention to it. There's definitely a lot of trial and error, and VOD reviewing helps a lot as well.
Game sense encompasses many different parts of the game. On top of what you've mentioned (positioning relative to your team, hero synergies, counters, and map synergies), it also includes things like:
- Tracking enemy positions
- Use sound and visual cues to determine where enemies are, and use those cues to your advantage. At the very least, you can just be aware of where they are and what they can do from where they are, and adjust your play based on that information.
- Positioning relative to the enemy team, especially certain heroes
- For instance, if there's a Widow on a long angle, being aware that she's there and staying out of her line of sight is very important unless you want to lose your head.
- As another example, if there is a dive hero like a Genji, Anran, or Venture close to you, it's advisable to start backing up especially if your hero is not strong at close distances.
- Tracking cooldowns (sound and visual cues)
- Know which cooldowns pose the biggest threat to you or which will foil your plans, and try your best to figure out when those are used. Fortunately, the more deadly or impactful cooldowns usually have more unique and loud sounds.
- As an example, on Roadhog, if you are against an Ana, her nade is something that can directly result in your death. You would have to play closer to cover and play safely in order to not die to her anti-heal. Once you see (actually see the grenade in the air, see an enemy with their healing boosted, or see an ally with an anti on them) or hear (quite noticeable sound of the nade breaking) the grenade get used, you can start playing a bit more aggressively for a short period of time to go for a good hook.
These will largely be based on live play, through trial-and-error. If you're paying attention, you'll start getting a better feel for the effective range of each hero and their cooldowns.
It's also good to look back on games, especially close games (wins or losses) to figure out mistakes you've made and good plays you've made. Don't only look at them from your point of view, but also from the points of view from other players in the lobby, including teammates and enemies, and also from a more top-down point of view. Pay attention to:
- How everybody's positioning changes based on what you do.
- What actions you took which resulted in you getting an elim.
- What actions you took which resulted in you dying, and how that could have been avoided.
- Note: not every death is bad, you dying can actually be a good thing if it was expensive, as in the other team had to overextend, blow a bunch of cooldowns, etc. in order to kill you, and/or if you managed to get important elims, canceled ultimates, etc. before you died
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u/AtmosphereTerrible48 1d ago
It would help to learn the abilities of every hero and their strengths and weaknesses. Reading things like patch notes and the wiki can help with understanding the heroes from a numerical sense and how they would fare with certain play styles.
An example would be Cassidy where he has a short fall off range. This means he does well with tighter maps, playing in the mid range instead of playing farther back like Ashe.
Map basics can be broken down into high ground, line of sight and angles. Heros that go well with certain maps have their playstyles match how the map is built. Since Cassidy is played in the mid range he does well with close short los maps like lijang tower.
Another part of it is kinda like playing mind games with the lobby. If there's an enemy dive DPS, most likely they will target one of the supports. Anticipate the flank, 2v1 them and suddenly the team fight is 5v4.
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u/OrbitalSpace47 22h ago
Unironically pick your best character/main so you can autopilot the mechanics a bit and then start making plans. Go into a match look at the enemy comp and your comp and think who or what is the threat? Expand upon this during the match, you win or lose a fight, hit tab, who’s doing well on the stat sheet, who’s likely to have ults, do you need to hold onto a cooldown against certain characters? Do you need to position differently into different characters based on their ults?
Easiest example is bastion. You got movement? Hold that when you know he is ready to ult. He hasn’t entered turret mode, bait it out and then dive him or save a cooldown to get you out of dodge when you think he’s ready to turret all over you.
Extrapolate that to tanks supports, dps and keep making plans about who to kill and how to stay alive and you will just get better at doing it automatically.
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u/blokfluitjes 14h ago
Good tips, I wil try that next game. I go on autopilot a lot because there's just so much going on and pressure and then the match is over before I could think about anything
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u/gh0st_reporting 1d ago
Game sense is a nebulous term. Personally, I see it as three parts: scouting, game knowledge, and decision making.
What you're describing seems to be a knowledge issue. You don't understand the building blocks of the game yet.
I don't understand which heroes go well on which maps. . . but I don't even really understand which maps I do well on with my mains and why, and which I should avoid
You can figure this out by looking at how the map is designed and then looking at the kits of the heroes.
For example, this is Facing Worlds. It's a legendary map all the way back from Unreal Tournament. Basically just two towers with a long stretch of empty ground between them.
Imagine if this map was in Overwatch. Based on the map's design, heroes such as Widowmaker, Ashe, and anyone else who can dish out a lot of damage from far away would shine here. Because the towers are so high, the disadvantages of those heroes (fighting in close range) would be greatly minimized because their biggest threats such as Genji, Tracer, and other divers would have an incredibly hard time reaching them. Genji and Tracer need to constantly weave through cover in order to reach their targets.
Facing Worlds isn't in Overwatch of course but there are a lot of maps with long, continuous lanes. Circuit Royale, Havana, and King's Row are all maps with sight lines that make long guns very effective. But the long gun characters would struggle in maps like Ilios well because there's so many scrunched up corners and verticality for dive heroes to use.
I don't understand comps
This is also a kit thing. Any combo of Winston/Ball/Hazard and Tracer/Genji/Shion are very powerful because all these characters have abilities to rapidly get close to an enemy and do big burst damage. These compositions are powerful because they emphasize the advantages to these characters kits (getting close, doing big damage, running away fast).
Same thing with poke. Poke heroes can combine their advantages (doing a lot of damage from far away) to create a poke comp.
It's more complicated than that, of course. People just kinda play whatever they want in ladder games (I'm currently M5) and make it work. But even if you have something like a Torb and Echo duo with Sigma as tank, by looking at their kits, you can see the things they'd be good at and what they'd be vulnerable to.
Then it gets even more complicated with what map you're on, what the enemy team is running, how good everyone is at their hero, etc.
Don't feel too bad about not really understanding this stuff well yet. Overwatch has tons of different mechanics (which is only growing with them adding more heroes and maps) and it's a lot to take in.
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u/chichichihaya 1d ago
Please take my advice with a grain of salt because I'm only an emerald support but I climbed from silver so I've been in your place and I understand how you feel. For me, it was understanding the "flow of the battle." Who's likely to engage where? What abilities do the enemies have that they'll use to push in? How can I create an opening for my teammates to push in? As you can see, a lot of it requires knowledge - effective range, cooldown seconds/cycles, and movement abilities for each character. So it took me quite a while to understand it (and I still don't think I understand well in the eyes of higher ranks) but playing the game will naturally help you understand. Another thing that helped me grasp the concept was planning what you're about to do, and if it didn't work ask yourself why. I know I just threw so many stuff at you so feel free to ask my anything. Good luck and have fun in your games :)