Source
r/Overwatch•
Writerblock17

Discussion regarding medals and skill

News & Discussion

I know there's been a lot of discussion regarding medals and how they relate to the actual skill of a player. This current season, however, I'm finding myself getting frustrated with the number of gold medals I'm achieving and the amount of wins/losses. A few things:

-I'm achieving three or four gold medals about 90% of the time (the only exceptions being when I'm playing support, but even my Lucio often does the same thing. Elims, Objective kills, Objective Time, and Damage.

-To add to that, I'm primarily playing as D.Va, but I run into this with most DPS or Tanks I play.

-I'm on a winning team about 40% of the time, and my rank hovers around 1500-1600, so I'm definitely no pro (or think I am)

What's happening here? Am I not playing well as a teammate? Am I consistently getting paired with less-skilled people (the narcissist in me says yes, the realist says that's unlikely)?

I want to move up in the rankings, so I'm trying my best to win each game and contribute to the team as much as I can. I listen to criticisms, and, if anyone asked me to switch, I would (though, again, with four golds, it can be tough to mentally justify a switch).

What do I do? What do I look at? I get more and more frustrated with each loss where I have four golds, because there's clearly a disconnect happening somewhere.

Finally, to clarify, this totally isn't meant to be a humble brag. I love games where I'm not the "gold medalist" because I learn more from those who are. I just feel stuck.

Thanks for listening.

Posted Dec 6, 2016, 7:17 PM UTC

15
drdisappearTrick-or-Treat Mercy•

Getting gold's USUALLY correlates with doing good things I find, but at that SR I wouldn't put much weight into it at all, if any. What you should really be focusing on is picking the correct hero for the situation. Even if you usually get all golds on XX hero, it might be much more effective to play something else - simply because of your own team comp, or the enemy's.

If you're 'maining' D'Va for instance, its quite easy to get a ton of golds with her but still not be that effective, since she is so difficult to kill, you really need to focus on pushing properly and targeting the correct enemies to help your team (as well as shield, ect.)

Try not to get too discouraged/down, comp can be an nothing but an exercise in frustration at any SR at times, if I go on a losing streak I always try to take a break and collect myself, even out my mood. One thing many people don't realize is how much mood effects play, tilting is a real thing.

One last thing I would say try to focus on if you can, since you seem like the type that would be willing to make callouts/lead a bit, do that. Even if nobody else is on comms, if you're confident in making the correct calls then do it, people will usually hear you and follow direction more often than not I find.

2
FinioussTrick-or-Treat Zenyatta•

Hard to answer as you seem to accept reality and possibilities. Finding a group to run with and using good coms makes all the difference as I am sure you are aware. Your whole team could be doing good individually but if there's no coordination and coms against a team that is coordinated then you're screwed. I find myself in your shoes a lot when I solo Q but even if I have 4 gold running at Lucio I try to look at our comp and the enemy comp and ask myself "Where is the biggest issue?" Oh look, the enemy Pharah is shutting our Reinhardt down completely. We also have a Mercy on our team. Im going to switch to Zen or Soldier and dedicate my time to shutting down that pharah. Now that bitch is in check, our Rein is surviving, and im still able to add some alt healing. My Lucio game might have been top notch and out surviving everyone, but in the end that enemy pharah was the root of our issue. In short, you may be doing amazing, but what ever it is your doing may still not be what's best for the team. Try to consider what you can do to take that skill and use it more as a counter to their strongest players on the opposing team.

Hope this helps.

2
EdmanFTWTrick-or-Treat Lúcio•

"but even my Lucio often does the same thing. Elims, Objective kills, Objective Time, and Damage."
The only thing Lucio should have golds for is healing (and maybe even Obj Kills). Lol, If you have gold medal for Damage and not Healing as Lucio something's not right.
I think the medals just show basically how effective you were in said match, not necessarily your skill level.

1
Deemer15Zenyatta•

Have you seen DSPspanky? Your perception will change.

1
H00L1GAN419Trick-or-Treat Reinhardt•

I have a really blunt basic opinion. there's one time when medals really matter.

Objective kills + Objective Time + MATCH WIN.

To me this means that you actually helped the team win by peeling reds off the payload / point. without the match win the medals mean zero

damage can just as well be spam and elims can be chip assists.

1