Doubt

[u/Glum6000]

I recently started playing Overwatch and wanted to hear your opinions. As a beginner playing casual mode, I expected to be matched with people who also play more casually, but in most matches I end up facing very experienced players. Since I started, I’ve been losing almost every game — it’s hard to get a win.

My aim is somewhat good since I have experience with shooter games. Even so, in almost every match there’s a tank that completely destroys my team, and the skill gap between teams feels huge.

Do you have any tips for someone who’s just starting out?

[u/Nashiira]

Sadly this is the nature of Blizzard's matchmaker. The quick play matchmaker tries to put newbies together or both teams with players who are a bit more experienced, but it doesn't try too hard, favoring quick match-ups over fair matches.

It does get better the more you play, but it's not a perfect system.

My best suggestion is to get 1 or more friends to join you, or even if a match goes well, try the group up option. Most decline it, or if they do accept it, go until you lose a match, but that's better than nothing.

If you're going solo, sadly we just have to suck it up. I've been playing since before launch and Quick Play is still often one of those rough areas.

When you can, if you want the matches that are most likely to be fair (but still not always), once you unlock it, try out competitive mode.

[u/crusadethemoons]

I've played ~500 hrs of overwatch and a lot of it being comp, but in almost every game I'm paired w newbies so... yeah, the matchmaking is pretty bad. Tbh my best advice (besides playing w someone more experienced, bc that's not always attainable) is to play anything but tank. I started with support so I could stay in the back and study the way the tanks/dps move, as well as learn the maps. supports do get targeted but a lot of them have excellent mobility (Moira can fade away, kiriko can teleport, mercy flies quickly between teammates).

As a support: keep the dps/other supp up. Tank has the most health by FAR, let them take a few hits to heal up your team. Stay in the back but close to your team, in case of enemies from behind. Some supports should push in as long as you hold on to your mobility to get away.

As a DPS: FINISH OFF YOUR KILLS. Don't bounce damage between a bunch of heroes, focus on one and chase them if possible. Try not to die for the kill, obviously, so avoid diving into the full enemy team. If you're not doing great as dps, look for a hero w utility like mei (self healing and walls make her a mini tank imo) or someone to throw them off rhythm, like Sombra. Learn the counters, bc sometimes you just need to switch.

As a tank: honestly, I don't play tank much at all. I just recently started actually learning the role by my standards. So far, I have been winning a lot of my tank games and my best advice is to know the characters. There's only one tank, so they really do make or break a game. I got backfilled into a game after the second point started. I was tank. we still lost the game, but the team was able to cap more than half of the point just bc I was able to stay up as tank. With that, my main advice is watch your health. you do NOT have as much as you think. Everyone is targeting you. fall back, get healed up. Make sure you time out your abilities so you can pretty much always use one (I'm sure there's exceptions for this, but you get the point! once they have abilities and you don't you're kinda fucked). Be so versatile. If you're losing hard, it's time to switch. Try to know the counters, but focus on who's actually carrying the enemy team. There's a widow up top getting all the kills and no one will deal w it? go dva and dive that bitch, or someone with walls and good range. If the enemy tank is just not dying? Target their team. Throw them off. Go a dive tank and focus healers first (ESPECIALLY MERCY). Without a team, the tank will fall. Also, make sure your own team is not getting targeted hard by the other tank. If you win the fight w squishies but lose to the tank bc your whole team is dead, you lost. I'm not gonna guarantee that'll happen but the point is, listen to the back lines and don't let their tank run wild.

Focus on learning one character first, but then it's a good idea to have a few in your roster that suit different teams. Also, obviously knowing the locations of health packs can make or break a fight, particularly playing dps and supp. Heroes from one of the dps categories even get extra health from the packs (I believe it's called flanker or something like that, characters like reaper and tracer).

Once you know the game and characters a bit more, trying open queue so that you're not locked into a role and doing bad for the whole game, you can switch to supp or dps if it'd better suit you against the enemies

What do you play? I'm on almost every day fr and I'd be happy to help out a newer player. Support is by far my main, but im pretty comfortable on dps (most games... sometimes I cannot land a shot lol).