This episode was recorded on 27th January 2024. Podcast links below! If you're enjoying this content, why let SVB know on his stream where he would really appreciate your subs while he is trying to get into the Partner Plus Programme (www.twitch.tv/svb_ ) or his second channel The Soak (youtube.com/@TheSoak ) where he does movie, TV & anime breakdowns! The best way to support the podcast is still www.patreon.com/svb Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/ow_svb/the-metal-rank-debate Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/6sRWutKTc0gnWuguo62Vpa Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/svbs-group-up/id1490256265
Idk if this means anything but I appreciate you speaking about the blizzard lay-offs immensely because well gamers only get mad when their games go to sh*t but not much further than that...
Suggestions for getting more "random" metal rank players, perhaps try reaching out to trusted content creators who might have their own trusted discord mods or community members who are metal ranked.
I just say this. You might be a higher rank with one character. But it shouldn't mean you have to switch to diff always. Especially in qp. Because you need experience to actually get better
For SVB reference in future: blizzard released overwatch 2 season 1 2 and 3 player distributions and noted diamond is top 20%, masters is top 5%, and gm is top 1%. Meaning a majority of the playerbase 80%~ is "metal" or if we're going by scientific definition of metal its closer to 95%~.
as a person that ques with friends in plat diamond. smurfing is very common, less then a 100 hours controlling the lobby with a mercy pocket duo. I think its due to smurfs grouping for rank restrictions and not solo queing, not for unranked to gm streams
I think the older millenial / x'r did a good job sobering people up at the start about the fact that all these people who lost their jobs had like 100k salaries and are going to be fine, even stating how he as a middle classmen has recovered from 4 sudden layoffs. It's not right but its not worth manufactured outrage.
I mean it's not suprising that MS is firing people left and right. In the case of Blizzard thats what they HAVE TO do. They proved that they have more skill in insulting, mistreat, rape... etc. that in making good games. Yes it's a minority, but if most of the employees at Blizzard were skilled enough at their Job to compete, they would have a better reputiation for "making good games". They don't. Basically all of their brands went down the gutter and the only thing keeping ABK alive was A and K. Also: These people are likely to earn a decent wage at their next employment...
I have played since release. In OW1 I was in high silver/low gold. But in OW2 I struggle to stay in low silver and have deranked to bronze 5 several times. It's kind of cool to finally see some perspectives that may be relatable (spoiler: not really). I think the cast tries to do a decent job for the most part even though they are still a bit removed from where I personally play. The fact that at least two of them that I know of have been GM already and plat is barely a metal rank takes away a lot. But like SVB said, bronze doesn't have a great spokesperson yet so it is what it is. The first topic I wanted to touch on personally was the "unranked to gm" or smurfs as I would call it at my rank as unranked to gm is not a thing. You never see unranked to gm in bronze or low silver. That does not exist. But smurfs are a huge issue in the very lowest of ranks. I actually quit OW1 for it's final 2-3 years because it was so bad. At the time I could only play at late night and it was every other game. The first 4 seasons of OW2 I could count on one hand the number I saw and I consider that the golden era. However, it's starting to get really bad in OW2. You have one in maybe 3-4 games and I have played late night some and it's 2-3 games there. In OW1 content creators buried their heads in the sand about the issue. And everything the panel is saying about this topic just doesn't apply and is out of touch as unranked to gm mostly affects diamond and master players. When you have a smurf in OW2 on your team you are 50% likely to lose. They usually hard carry for a bit then hard throw the end. Sometimes they carry the whole game. Sometimes they will group up with other smurfs and have several games where they barely walk out of spawn to derank. This argument of trying to "learn something" or "use communication" to deal with players who are, in their words, playing a different game is nonsense. It's like saying just accept that a portion of your games are a waste of time. Sounds like it's an issue that will once again have a blind eye turned to it. And to Lemonkiwi, Flash is the greatest esports player of all time. Not even close. Next, Elo Hell. In bronze, yes. It totally exists. And a bit in silver. Just based on what I said before about the smurf issue. You combine that with natural throwers and toxic people a great chunk of games are out of your hands. Unless you can play and carry consistently on a level of 2-3 major ranks above bronze (gold and plat level). If a player can make it out of bronze to silver and then stay in silver without deranking back to bronze they are already gold from my perspective. Because you absolutely need to win the games that are "fair" - without smurfs, throwers and toxic buttholes. I can't personally do that because I am a silver player at best through and through. I have no illusions of who I am and where my skill is at. It is the most difficult climb in the game because the skill required to get out far exceeds what should be required. Bame1 has the best take here having actually been in low ranks. But his climb was a while back before smurfs in OW2 have started to become a problem. Elo Hell in the other ranks is a red herring in comparison to bronze. In Street Fighter 6, once you make it to a milestone rank you cannot derank back down. Example if you make it from bronze to silver you cannot derank back into bronze. The lowest you can now go is silver 5. And this only pertains to the metal ranks. You can derank from diamond back into plat ect. I think this would be a great change for OW to do on a seasonal basis to help combat the frustrations of smurfs. And what I mean by seasonal basis is lets say you finish the current season in gold. When you place next season, however, you could get placed in bronze after placements. The only thing balance wise that is egregious in the lower ranks atm is Sombra. Before the rework she was, in my eyes anyway, perfectly balanced for bronze and silver. Post rework she is a menace and total nuisance. It's worse than how everyone felt about release Mauga. And no one is talking about it because we have no representation from folks at the bottom. It's so bad that if I don't see nerfs in season 9 I will probably be leaving the game until the character is addressed. All the other topics are either nothing burgers or just really don't matter to me.
I agree that sombra can be so frustrating to play into right now, I think having a visual indicator of being hacked before you actually get hacked- like an arrow indicator for which direction maybe.
Even plat and gold is way different than bronze and silver. My main is silver/gold, but after 800 hours I made an alt I placed low diamond all roles. Even those queues are different. The biggest problem with metal ranks is all of the players that don't belong being stuck here. In metal ranks there's way more of these players than there are smurfs and cheaters. The ranked system should take more into account than just wins or vague stats. I don't think hours, performance during lost games, or skill gain in general are considered, in queues and rank placements. There should be a hard rank/soft elo reset a couple times a year, maybe every other season or something. I don't think this new system will be enough.
My main account is bronze 5 for life lol, and i agree in how crazy matches are, so i decided to make a new account just for my Comp when i feel like, and been living in gold lobbies and it's were i have the most fun, i haven't derank which means i guess i've been doing alright lol
without having watched the end, glad to see this topic represented. GM streamers talking about other ranks is one thing, but I didn't even know there were dedicated streamers closer to my rank and progression, and now I have new people to follow!
They exist, but of course with us being in low ranks and our games not looking as flashy it's more on our personalities to get people to come hang out and not the gameplay 😂. Least that has been my experience lol
I'm hoping this new rank system and rank reset allows all of the hardstucks to finally escape the elo trap, and not just place metal again and stay there.A lot of these lower rank streamers I could see belonging in masters and up. They need to get there first before learning how to play in those queues, but should be there now nontheless..
@@texdoc89same honestly. I just recently hit Masters the last time I streamed OW. Honestly I'm not sure what to do in terms of even bringing people in. I can't be funny 24/7, so I'm sure a lot of people might look and be like "he's not this rank" and click off.
@@tigerfalco I'm sure there are some who do and I wouldn't fault them for it if they said it about me. I used to be Masters in OW1 but that was on console and now I'm on PC. I just try my best to be the best me and whether people like that or not is out of my control.
SVB, I really appreciate that you brought up Kotick's $400 million USD payout that would've more than paid for all of the laid off employees' salaries. That single sentence really distills the issue down to its horrifying reality. Which is that the bad guy won and nearly 2000 people lost their livelihoods this week. A solid chunk of them are financially struggling this week as a result of this. It's disgusting and infuriating.
The egos on these plats & diamonds is unreal.........my guy has the best mental on ball, have fun & let people have fun. These 2 doesn't realise if they were sooooo good & had such a good understanding of this game, they wouldn't have been on this podcast😂, they would have been with flats & others😂. I am also a diamond btw but subscribe to the mental of my ball guy on the comfy chair....I see the hypocrisy in my statement but I am not the one telling others to play good in order to climb. I don't see why can't they just humble themselves & listen to the top 500 who has climbed out of you peak. My guy Bame has the best mental out of these 3. Strive to be Kev in order to climb rather than depend on Kev to climb.
I think the biggest mistake in metal play is that so many people spend SO MUCH TIME flaming their team when they could just... Shoot the enemy team and get better results lmfao. Like, dude if you're on Soldier and you're typing away, that's 171 DPS you're literally wasting with every word/two words depending on how fast you type. You're literally just standing still lol.
Immediately the first point of the metal rank experience is bullshit. People peak when they onetrick, why would you want someone to play a character theyre trash at???
I like to look at the roster as a set of tools good for different jobs. If I’m playing genji into mei, pharmercy, moira, and kiriko, I would have to try so incredibly hard to achieve the same value a character like soldier would get with relative ease. Obviously having experience on a character makes you perform better, but there will always be a situation where forcing yourself to play the same character, into a comp that is working against you, is a significant disadvantage.
@@richardhandler8606 if you're playing genji in Mei, pharah mercy, Moira, and kiriko I would say stop playing open queue :p But no I still disagree with the basic statement. If you're a good genji and a shit widow I don't care how much more.value you can get on widow, you're not gonna get any value if you suck at the character
@@richardhandler8606 by having more playtime on one hero (such as by one tricking) that disadvantage not only isn't very significant, but many of those disadvantages disappear completely. One-tricking also lets you focus on your overwatch skills to improve much more rapidly than spreading thin, as you actually need to be good at the game to win instead of just picking the easy path that'll win you some games.
@@SizzylIf not one tricking and you enjoy playing multiple heroes - A way to optimize this is by playing for synergy with the better performers of the team For Instance - My Moira is on Fire ! but getting held down by a sombra I switch to Dva to bodyguard her a lil bit
I'll be honest, lemon, I'm the kind of person that's not going to join voice and generally will become more resistant to swapping if someone asks me to. I straight up play better when I'm not thinking about what other people think of me. I play better when I can focus on my own gameplay rather than being in voice and getting flamed. I'll even turn off text chat if it gets bad enough. No amount of "help" the randos in plat try to give me is going to make me a better player. I'd rather watch gm+ streamers and learn from them and slowly try to implement what they're saying. Yes that means I'll have some rough games, but I'm in that rank for a reason.
For lemonkiwi's software point I think it was called Visor and blizzard banned it. It was a program that gave real time coaching advice using ai but I think the nail in the coffin was it was able to ult track by itself
That's exactly wha lower ranks need. Blizzard is so out of touch, they have all of these rare great ideas (this, lfg, hero bans, etc.) and do little to nothing with it. They're too afraid of change, even despite season 9. Every season should have changes like season 9.
Silver 2 here. I feel like the girls are too focused on the meta. I believe the other content creators I've heard say that us in the metal ranks don't\can't play the meta correctly, and it's more important to just play your hero well.
1:09:23 I get what she’s saying. It’s like a place where you can set rules and find “like-minded” players who have the same end-goal. Whether it be have fun, or sweat and climb, or practice comps. Oh wait, we did have that. It was the LFG feature they erased.
I like how Lemon says she's comfortable with her rank but she's so salty when talking about the unranked to gm thing. Like you **can** beat them and yet she's happy when they're on her team lmao. Pretty contradictory, is she comfortable in plat or not?
Enjoy the podcast, but I kinda hoped fellow metal tankers would have a bit more solidarity us. Just felt kind of… looked down on and disparaged the whole time?
LOL look at SVB's face at some of the comments of his guests! He's like "OMG..." - love the guests btw - But given their questions, it's obvious they really know very little how to play the game...so their rank makes sense. These guest often times blame their teammates instead of taking accountability. It's always their teammates fault, or someones smurfing, or its their lack of mechanical skills or no communication. And they flame others for wanting to rank up and do better. It's insane that most players think like this. This is ALL COPE. Plus that Lemon kiwi girl is really rude to be on her phone or doing whatever she is doing as he is conducting an interview.
2013 (I think) Satoru Iwata from Nintendo refused to lay off employees because it would reduce a lot the moral of the ones that were still there (that will not know their jobs are secure)
1:11:30 my impression from the dev saying "quickplay is serious so dont leave games" was less about it being the same as ranked and more-so that people leaving games simply hurts the experience of other players. there are times when its outside circumstances that force you to leave but choosing to leave games because its not going your way is hurting that teams outcome and morale. ive had games where people leave BECAUSE they backfilled into a losing game. that feels awful. I'd rather finish a game trying, than become a backfill or get backfills. it doesnt matter if this is qp or ranked. if im constantly getting leavers in my qp games, my desire to play crashes down. i believe playing a game through to its finish is the least people can do even if they arent doing well because youre still giving yourself & your team that time to learn from mistakes.
The thing that drives me crazy is the amount of games that start with at least 1 person afk. Last time I played this occurred 5 matches in a row. In most of those matches by the time the person picked a character an engagement or 2 had already been lost ect ect. Games tend to snowball after that. Those used to be the matches I would leave. I would do it early too when I noticed we weren't going to have a full team by the time the doors opened. Now I have to endure it while there's 0 punishment for these people who are late to the game.
@@rosssivertson6339 i think of it like this: if i have an afk at the start, i just play safe until we get a fill. if i leave & requeue i might be just wasting my own time. you can still get kills as a 4v5 and have a comeback with backfill. or if i get rolled then its just a fast match and i accept it, oh well.
Those players who watch gm one tricks and try to mimic their playstyle will get ranked accordingly tho. If someone wants to one trick DPS Moira, they will provide a certain level of value. If it is less than the average support at that rank, the DPS Moira player will de rank until an equilibrium is reached where they are providing an appropriate amount of value for the rank they are in. So it doesn't make sense to criticize those players because they will be ranked exactly where they need to be
Thanks for the representation everyone! I'm also glad to see the respect and sorrow expressed for all of the layed off devs jobs. Seeing some of the comments from the call of duty side are so sad. They're people too who probably have families to support. They don't deserve to get shit on like that.... Great episode SVB
Loved this podcast. As a quick note about LFG - honestly, I loved the idea of it, I really miss playing in stacks from early OW1. However, my general experience with LFG is that a lot of the time, it was like you'd get in there and have to essentially interview (super lame after a long day of work) and it was just really not that enjoyable. Also, as a mid-rank female player, there were some really weird people in there. Like really weird. The hill I will die on is they should've, literally years ago, worked on creating a guild system. Like I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel and meet new people and have them judge me every time I want to play 3 games or so stacked.
Love the podcast. But I can’t wrap my head around complaining about 1-tricks while admitting to 1-tricking Ana in the same sentence? It honestly just sounds like they want others to swap so they can 1-trick?
Bronze is like 1-1499. It's basically a bottomless pit. You now how in the ocean if you go deep enough, the pressure just pushes you down and you can no longer just float to the top? Like that. So, basically the skill range in Bronze is very large.
Glad we had this podcast to say we had it but probably the worst episode to date. Garbage takes and it reveals the issue I have with ranked. There are many players that are CONTENT with staying in their rank but the fundamental idea of the mode is to compete and climb.
1:10:00 I think people who want a competitive mode should just play competitive. This type of mentality should be discouraged heavily in the community, if you want to be competitive go play with a ranking system so the matches can be as fair as possible. That's it.
1:20:20 By this point I've disagreed with every take by Lemon so far but this one is so mind boggling to me. Like, yes, the good players are inspiring lower ranks and proving to them that it's possible to climb with some hero, some playstyle, or whatever. THAT IS THE POINT. THAT'S A GOOD THING. What they are trying to prove is that if you're good, anything is possible, and the next step is to practice and become good.
@@cheesyburger2944I got mad too because I one tricked Ball in gold and recently climbed to GM after 2 years and had people telling me the same shit in so many games. "This hero isn't for you", "You're not chazm", etc. Obviously I wasn't good back then, but I was playing with the intention of becoming good and I'm really proud of where I am now. Keep on dropping those beats and good luck on your journey wherever you are!
Even people on this call showing elitism and being super defensive while harshly critiquing others in THEIR rank. It's okay to be bronze or diamond and admit there are things you could do to improve. No need to put people down or be so prickly, but I suppose the culture around 'rank' leads to that defensive nature. Wish people broke the trend with better and more introspective takes.
Spoken like a gold (I kid, I kid, I’m gold too). That’s the weirdest thing to me about OW flaming its like man everyone seems personally offended by the idea that a human being can make a mistake or have a gap in their knowledge meanwhile they’re all making mistakes of their own
Haha im diamond/plat but agreed. I can admit I am not leaps and bounds above a gold player, and I make a lot of positioning mistakes, get tunnel vision, can work on my mechanical skill, etc. Some of the points made on the call come off as like 'im diamond, ive neeeeever been as low as bronze, im not a trash idiot" like heaven forbid 🙃
Love these takes, but the ability to cast an ow league match isnt exactly one to one with knowing what youre doing all the time in game. Castors get roasted by pros in every franchise with a pro scene lmao. Its not a pass to understanding all the bigger nuances of the game.
My thing about unranked to GM, wouldn’t it effect gm queue times? Filling up GM with basically bot accounts? Bc you can only play on 1 at a time. Like awkward has 8 accounts sitting in gm not being played on.
That’s not how queue times work but I see your question. Queues are just pulling from currently-online players who are looking for a game, it doesn’t matter how many inactive accounts there are or how many alt accounts someone has, they aren’t affecting queues at all unless someone is actively playing it, which in theory only shortens queue times
@@mamboonthetube7652No, I think they may have a point. If there's a lot of inactive accounts in GM, this effectively shrinks the player base even further. Essentially these inactive accounts are taking the place of someone who may be on the edge of masters/GM. I don't think it makes a big difference, but the more inactive accounts in GM the longer the queue will be theoretically due to a decreased number of active, available players.
I've never really tried to climb and I've been Gold Console for the last 6 years. Its honestly the best rank, you can just play whatever Hero you want.
I’d have to agree. OW1 I was always focused on trying to rank up. Was Plat for the majority and touched Diamond for a lil while. Let me tell you, Diamond is STRESSFUL. A complete different world to Plat. Plat is like Gold with more flamers and more people who think they’re solo carrying when they’re really not. OW2 I’m “hard stuck” Gold because 1) I don’t have much desire to put too much effort anymore 2) it’s a way more chill/fun experience. The only thing I miss is at least the ATTEMPT as some synergy and coordination. But you get more plays yourself so it’s a worth it trade.
Why are you playing comp then? If youre just playing what you want regardless of situation/meta youre soft throwing other peoples games who do want to climb.
@@buffhorses3632 if someone is genuinely good enough to climb out of a rank, they’ll climb regardless of other players and who they’re playing. To say it’s soft throwing is ridiculous
"this is going to be average players" (gets a masters player and 2 diamond players). PLEASE get some actual low and middle ranked players next time. I would love to see that. Still a good podcast though.
Not a huge fan of this one. Bame was legit the only metal rank player, and I feel like he didn't get to contribute as much to the conversation. You have 2 gms that have dropped to diamond/plat because they don't want to sweat to keep their high ranks. And I understand part of it comes from there not being many OW streamers in metal ranks, but someone who's never been gold, or started plat and immediately climbed to GM doesn't count. Bames the goat though.
I'll never understand the "in between mode" idea. Like comp is for points so people play to win, and qp is not for points so people play how they like (people still generally like to win but there's no incentive for your teammates to conform to that or not get the practice they want to) What does that leave for a third mode? How can you get rid of those who don't like to win when there's no incentive to do so? Playing balanced games just takes longer and what's the point of a balanced match if there's no reason for anyone to be competitive? It's such a half-baked idea and complaint to have about a fundamentally sound division between casual and hardcore modes...
I'm someone who's been from bronze to Plat in Tank support n DPS and I can tell you. The main problem is that majority of people do not care to try to rank up in lower ranks. Half the time you feel like you are fighting agaisnt your own team. They play like they do not care. And the only way to really rank up is to play your hardest. Even when it looks like you're going to lose. because you will pull some of the games out and win. The problem is sometimes you don't pull the games out, and even though you try so hard. Even though someone on your team is just giving no care. Not swapping, constantly feeding etc. Even if your in coms and asking them to please help. They just dont care about even trying. So you have to try extremely hard and then still lose. All the while, some of your teammates dont care. It feels self Defeating, and pointless. you lose all hope you don't feel like playing and it's not fun, and so you give up. Or you play hundreds of games. At which point it's better to create an alt account and just place at a higher rank.
Agreed, people act like oh although account won't save you, but it does, give you another chance after years of sadness lol this game was meant for teamplay and they've forced individualism, this is the result
@@OO-il6sl Agrees. Took so many games to get to plat from bronze. And had terrible losing streaks. Even though i did well as i could. Took me a 4th of the time to create an alt account and place plat out of placement matches in a 4th of the time.
You laid out your biggest problem and I couldn't help but notice that it totally reflects cuppcaakes mental on the game that she laid out at the beginning of the podcast
@jaedengarcia8249 It's not "my" biggest problem. It's the problem with the comp design and match making. People can play how they want. Some one wants o play mercy for example and not heal and run around with their gun is there any consequences? No there is not. So what does that Mean for you? Well, it means that you can try you absolute hardest to compensate and still win. And as slim as that chance is its possible. However, the feeling of losing and feeling like no matter how hard you tried it didn't matter because your mercy ran around with their pistol is not fun nor does it inspire most people to get better. What it does is frustrate you. There is a reason some one like myself. Who's gone to bronze to Plat in all roles. On a hard stuck account for years finally decided to just play through it, and climbed. After countless hours. Yet I can make an alt account and place plat in a quarter of the time. That's an inherently bad game and comp design.
beautifully put and well-said, I agree wholeheartedly, I was hard stuck Gold OW1 on Hanzo getting all the picks, Hard stuck Plat in OW2, made a few new accounts became hard stuck Diamond, made one more, now Masters lol, it's a numbers game bc of the devs not pushing teamplay, but bullshit randomized luck involved based on who you get individualid solo Q's. Yes GM's get to their rank eventually because theyre that much better, but that means whoever isn't the top 1% deals with this shit due to simply not being able to carry EVERYONE.@@willywonka00
as a main tank in metal ranks i find LemonKiwi to be way off on the ppl expect the tank to hold W, usually what happens is i hold W my team holds S and i get flamed for feeding when my team wont move passed a choke and as i tank im moving passed the choke to make space for my team to then pass thru, no one wants me to hold W then want me to me their bullet sponge
When I hear a person say "I used to be GM/Master but games are more fun down in Plat," it just sounds like they want easier games. Of course, the poor bastard who has to legit sweat just to get to Plat has to sit there and suffer through GM's halfassing in their games for "fun," and then a lot of times, when they don't just bully the board by existing, they get mad and then they jump on their GM main and destroy people. If you don't want to sweat and you don't want to play against people in your peak rating, just stick to QP. Stay out of lower ranked games. No one wants you or needs you there.
@@goldfishtoast Knowing a bunch of the people who played OW1 in those early days, I have to laugh. Lot of people who were on actual teams in other games came to Overwatch and tons of them did stuff to play on beta like buying/renting keys. It wasn't 100% solved, but the skill level was MUCH MUCH higher than Gold today.
I'm just suggesting Maybe if losses didn't have any effect on ranking up and just putting players with as accurate as possible mmr then we be more calm since loses aren't a problem with mmr rank ups
Biggest issue in metal ranks is trickling dude and its not even close. I cant tell you how many times people run straight in on respawn when the whole fight just ended and bam they are dead like legit they give up 3 to 5 deaths in a game that are just them 1 v 5 because they sprint out of spawn 😊
Haven't even watched it yet and kiwi is quite possibly the worst choice svb could've made for this podcast. We will NEVER FORGET rein Hammer doing less damage than torb Hammer. Smh Edit: look I'm not a fan of unranked to gm either, but Bogurs unranked to gm on life weaver was INSPIRATIONAL. kiwi did NOT need to call him out like that. Poor taste kiwi. Poor taste. Not to mention she put "brig" and "bad heros" in the same sentence. Literally never cook again.
I remember when that pro experimental argument was streamed and it was suggested Mei should get an increase in her secondary ammo because no one on the stage had ever touched Mei or knew her abilities. Then they set themselves up as arbiters of balance. GTFOOH.
Hmmm I don’t think she was a bad choice. I mean the point was to get the perspectives of metal rank players right? If anything her balance changes back then are the perfect example of why balance is so difficult. Players from all different ranks are gonna give you all different answers. A lot of them are not good. Personally I miss the experimental card to try more shit like that. Also to be fair she didn’t directly call out Bogur she just said lifeweaver. She’s also not wrong, he was so weak at the time that even a player as good as Bogur had such a difficult time with UR2GM. Now imagine other people not as good trying to do it. I think that’s the point she was getting at. At least that’s how I interpreted it. Players do try to emulate higher rank players and brig is also a perfect example of a hero that lower rank players throw on. She’s definitely not a bad hero though lol.
so some differences I didnt hear mentioned about the lower ranks is the speed, of the game is slower, through time to kill being longer because of poorer aim as well as reaction time to plays and positioning. the hell that is bronze in particular comes from being mixed in with players that play and dont care, smurfs and leavers have the greater impact. solo groups vs a co-ordinated stack, combined with a match loss feeling more punishing than a win does. so it might take 60 wins to get out of b5 but just 5 losses straight to dump you back down to start over. unless you are a natural fps god. once you get out of bronze its like a weight is lifted, games feel much better cue time quicker, as you feel like you are with people that want to be there. the side effect i think is having experienced it, It must corrupt you as you have to train yourself to not get tilted, at a loss.
I completely disagree with Cupcakee's experience in regards to toxicity when playing on ladder. I found it to be way more relaxing and chill when I managed to climb to high elo lobbies than in the metal ranks where everyone thinks they know better but they don't.
the problem about average stats in any rank is that the stats of a single game is not representive for anyone cause if you have a rein as a ana you can farm the healstats pretty damn good if you have a ball in your game - your heal numbers would be probably not the same and have more dmg you would have both numbers and its the situation which tells the secret of the number so its kinda hard to average out a single game sadly also i actually dont think "Guides" would really help cause Overwatch is so situational thats pretty damn hard i mean you have basic stuff like highground and so but thats also kinda situational (against widow/hanzo *cough*)
Bane is right. I was laid off once and it sucked. This is no surprise though given the merger. Those in positions of responsibility need to go through the list of employees and determine areas of overlap and duplication and then rank the performance of all to try and make the best decision possible. I have had to do this and it is always hard.
Why are these people playing Comp if they want fun? You can't balance every hero for fun. I can't find a podcast group that I've disagreed with most than this one here.
I wish the guests had stronger opinions on balance. I think often those at lower ranks are hesitant to have balance takes because they always get shouted down with "get good". I just wish there was more talk about remakes like Mercy. Bame1 touched on it a bit but the goal for metal ranks should be a fun game. In order to get there I think you need to prioritize skills that are fun being the ones that win you games. Just to show the contrast, on Plat Chat Johnny and Hawk thought group respawn was a super dumb idea. However that has the potential to just significantly make fights more fun for lower ranks. Grouping up isn't really a fun skill to get better at. I believe it is the same with ultimate tracking. There are all these kind of tedious garbage 'skills' that I don't think should be core the gameplay for low level players. If higher level players like not being able to see their opponents ults or spawning separately fine add a cutoff. Diamond or Masters and above they have the current system. I think it is kind of dumb to dump all these mechanics on your average Joe.
Grouping up IS the game though. I see both sides. Metal ranks that lose games solely because they don't reset probably don't need more handholding mechanics. Overwatch maps are pretty textbook. The Art of War is thousands of years old and easy to read.
@@josephreynolds2401 I think you kind of made my point for me. Grouping up has become the game. Do you find that fun? I got to say I really don't find it all that fun. I just disagree with you on Overwatch map complexity completely. The sheer amount of modes and maps in the game asks a ton from players, maybe more than any other shooter. As for The Art of War, reading it confirmed my beliefs about it. It is basically an empty authority vessel with enough platitudes so that people can use them however they like. If The Art of War didn't exist and came out 5 years ago not a single person would know of it. The only reason it is relevant is its age and the perceived authority that comes from it. It is similar to people using what the game is to justify what is should be. The old philosophy chestnut is right here. You can't derive and ought from an is.
@@SlipperySnake321 Grouping up IS the game. It's a team game. Always has been. Always will be. When it's free for all deathmatch as standard, then it will no longer be a team game. Mechanics ARE the game. You're saying you play the team game like it's not a team game. So you're knowingly not interfacing with 4 of the people. You think the mechanics are too hard or too tricky for the majority of players. Do you realize what position that puts you in? You're projecting your mental mode onto a host of people that mostly disagree with you. Your stance contradicts the entire game. If people can learn Lucio rollouts they can learn to look at their teammates IN A TEAM GAME!!! Put away the sado-masochism, please. You're not a tough guy. You're just lonely.
@@josephreynolds2401 Lol that got weirdly personal fast. Are you trying to reply to someone else? You are backwards on so many things it is kind of hard to know where to start. Here is a quick list: 1. Group Respawn wouldn't make Overwatch more deathmatchy it would do the opposite. 2. Group Respawn wouldn't make Overwatch less of a team game, you would be with you team more not less. 3. Plenty of team games already have group respawn. Is English not your first language? Are you high responding here? What's going on?
I can see where LemonKiwi is coming from when she says she has to "explain" matchups to teammates or how the game works and whatever. There is a side of it which is how Overwatch's design is flawed and not clear in what you "have" to do. I think it wouldbe better if they actually were more specific in the instructions of the game for all types of players to have a common ground. I will say though that once you climb to a higher rank you realize elo hell is bullshit and it was really you who couldn't climb. Because you don't need your teammates to be good in order to get out of gold. At least not over a period of time and several games. Don't judge the ladder by your low quality games or streak. The idea that Comptetitive is only for "serious" gameplay (as in, you have to SWAP your one trick) is not something I agree with, if I have a 9-5 and want to play Junkrat in competitive, why can't I? The reality is that most one tricks in low ranks are better than swappers, because they can learn the mechanics of a hero well instead of putting on a bunch of bad performances with several other heroes... it is competitive, yes, but not pro, so I don't see the need for any rules, which is why the game itself doesn't enforce them (i.e. ban one tricking?)
Loved hearing from people who are in metal and actually seeing what most people see. Feel bad for bame being stuck playing ball in metal. Hopefully the rework is good for ball.
Im gonna be honest, as someone who was in the metal ranks for a good time as well, i dont relate to a lot of these. But i understand them. Personally, what i hate the most about the metal ranks, is how RNG they are. Plat is literally a mix and match of silver and masters players, and everything in between. And thousands of GMs off-roling too. I wish the matchmaker was narrower, but then the queue times would suffer.
This is just wrong. Plat matchmaking is not silvers and masters. its one of the most populated ranks therefore its the easiest to matchmake equal ranks.
I’d have to agree. OW1 I was always focused on trying to rank up. Was Plat for the majority and touched Diamond for a lil while. Let me tell you, Diamond is STRESSFUL. A complete different world to Plat. Plat is like Gold with more flamers and more people who think they’re solo carrying when they’re really not. OW2 I’m “hard stuck” Gold because 1) I don’t have much desire to put too much effort anymore 2) it’s a way more chill/fun experience. The only thing I miss is at least the ATTEMPT at some synergy and coordination. But you get more plays yourself so it’s a worth it trade. Although it does seem you only win a game if you carry it.
06:00 I think the most frequent comment I got (in plat) was "hang yourself on the ceiling". And guess what: Not a single player got banned, because in reality Blizzard doesn't really care about toxicity, which is ultimately why I switched to FF 14. The community in FF is the exact opposite of LoL, Overwatch, WoW etc. The difference is so enormous, FF14 doesn't even have an ingame report button to report "toxicity". If someone gets toxic in FF14, that person gets bullied for beeing toxic by other players...
Next podcast should be with quick play warriors and reflect on how the current rank system make some players not really want to play ranked. And then redo the same topic and see how it changed a couple weeks into season 9 after the ranked changes.
Ive been watching groop up for a while and i absolutely find it intresting to listen to really good players opinions but they are hard to relate to because top 500's and gms are the rarest people so bringing people that are lower down on the ladder were verry relatable in my opinion, also the game is verry one sided always when you come up against someone who is clearly not ment to be in the rank that you que up in but thats the least of your problems. The amount of losses i have just because the tank left and we just insta loose is insane thats an issue of 5v5 or more like an issue of the developers that havent made some sort of compenasation for players that loose a tank ... for example you could have a system in place that when you do loose a tank the game just ends automaticaly and you get like a draw or something cause its really unfair to just get a loss without even having a chance. SVB these podcasts make some good points and i find them really intresting so thank you for it. looking forward to the next one :)
Cuppcaake talking about a new mode has already been tried by Valve with CS2. CSGO had casual and competitive, but CS2 introduced a new mode called Premier. Normal comp is now the more casual mode, and "Casual" is even more casual. It seems to be working well, CS2 is also 5v5 and queue times don't seem too bad despite the game using maps for queue instead of rotating map pools like OW2. Wouldn't surprise me if OW2 gets a similar queue system in the future.
I still say the people on this episode are ranked too high to represent the "Metal Ranks" and more represent the in-between Metal Ranks and high-level GM play. When most of them have been up to masters that does not count. Only one person here has even been in bronze, so they don't represent me or the rank I play at. (Note: i'm not in bronze now but use to be)
Ty for the content SVB I was wondering when the next group up was coming and I got surprised last night. Saved it for my chore day today. Is there a schedule for group up or is it vaguely twice-once ish a month?
![CAMPปลิ้น | EP.82[1/2] แก๊ง 3 สาวเพื่อนซี้บุก CAMPปลิ้นครั้งนี้ห้ามเสียอาการ](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_6WUjXHe1TM/mqdefault.jpg)
This episode was recorded on 27th January 2024. Podcast links below! If you're enjoying this content, why let SVB know on his stream where he would really appreciate your subs while he is trying to get into the Partner Plus Programme (www.twitch.tv/svb_ ) or his second channel The Soak (youtube.com/@TheSoak ) where he does movie, TV & anime breakdowns!
The best way to support the podcast is still www.patreon.com/svb
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Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/svbs-group-up/id1490256265
Wait what?
*2024
Idk if this means anything but I appreciate you speaking about the blizzard lay-offs immensely because well gamers only get mad when their games go to sh*t but not much further than that...
@darrionrobinson8553 that would be impossible or a typo 😅
This is the Dr Seuss group...
Red hair, Green Hair; Grey Hair, No Hair.
Red shirt, comfy chair
Large fry, chocolate shake!
Lemon Kiwi, svb, and banana cake!
Suggestions for getting more "random" metal rank players, perhaps try reaching out to trusted content creators who might have their own trusted discord mods or community members who are metal ranked.
If hamster was meta, ppl would complain. It's kind of like making doomfist meta. People would throw a fit.
I just say this. You might be a higher rank with one character. But it shouldn't mean you have to switch to diff always. Especially in qp. Because you need experience to actually get better
For SVB reference in future: blizzard released overwatch 2 season 1 2 and 3 player distributions and noted diamond is top 20%, masters is top 5%, and gm is top 1%. Meaning a majority of the playerbase 80%~ is "metal" or if we're going by scientific definition of metal its closer to 95%~.
as a person that ques with friends in plat diamond. smurfing is very common, less then a 100 hours controlling the lobby with a mercy pocket duo. I think its due to smurfs grouping for rank restrictions and not solo queing, not for unranked to gm streams
Loving the podcast! Sadly, a lot of tech companies have been doing layoffs recently throughout the past year.
The introduction aways cracks me up 😂😂😂😂😂
I think the older millenial / x'r did a good job sobering people up at the start about the fact that all these people who lost their jobs had like 100k salaries and are going to be fine, even stating how he as a middle classmen has recovered from 4 sudden layoffs. It's not right but its not worth manufactured outrage.
lol
I mean it's not suprising that MS is firing people left and right. In the case of Blizzard thats what they HAVE TO do.
They proved that they have more skill in insulting, mistreat, rape... etc. that in making good games.
Yes it's a minority, but if most of the employees at Blizzard were skilled enough at their Job to compete, they would have a better reputiation for "making good games".
They don't. Basically all of their brands went down the gutter and the only thing keeping ABK alive was A and K.
Also: These people are likely to earn a decent wage at their next employment...
I have played since release. In OW1 I was in high silver/low gold. But in OW2 I struggle to stay in low silver and have deranked to bronze 5 several times. It's kind of cool to finally see some perspectives that may be relatable (spoiler: not really). I think the cast tries to do a decent job for the most part even though they are still a bit removed from where I personally play. The fact that at least two of them that I know of have been GM already and plat is barely a metal rank takes away a lot. But like SVB said, bronze doesn't have a great spokesperson yet so it is what it is. The first topic I wanted to touch on personally was the "unranked to gm" or smurfs as I would call it at my rank as unranked to gm is not a thing.
You never see unranked to gm in bronze or low silver. That does not exist. But smurfs are a huge issue in the very lowest of ranks. I actually quit OW1 for it's final 2-3 years because it was so bad. At the time I could only play at late night and it was every other game. The first 4 seasons of OW2 I could count on one hand the number I saw and I consider that the golden era. However, it's starting to get really bad in OW2. You have one in maybe 3-4 games and I have played late night some and it's 2-3 games there. In OW1 content creators buried their heads in the sand about the issue. And everything the panel is saying about this topic just doesn't apply and is out of touch as unranked to gm mostly affects diamond and master players. When you have a smurf in OW2 on your team you are 50% likely to lose. They usually hard carry for a bit then hard throw the end. Sometimes they carry the whole game. Sometimes they will group up with other smurfs and have several games where they barely walk out of spawn to derank. This argument of trying to "learn something" or "use communication" to deal with players who are, in their words, playing a different game is nonsense. It's like saying just accept that a portion of your games are a waste of time. Sounds like it's an issue that will once again have a blind eye turned to it. And to Lemonkiwi, Flash is the greatest esports player of all time. Not even close.
Next, Elo Hell. In bronze, yes. It totally exists. And a bit in silver. Just based on what I said before about the smurf issue. You combine that with natural throwers and toxic people a great chunk of games are out of your hands. Unless you can play and carry consistently on a level of 2-3 major ranks above bronze (gold and plat level). If a player can make it out of bronze to silver and then stay in silver without deranking back to bronze they are already gold from my perspective. Because you absolutely need to win the games that are "fair" - without smurfs, throwers and toxic buttholes. I can't personally do that because I am a silver player at best through and through. I have no illusions of who I am and where my skill is at. It is the most difficult climb in the game because the skill required to get out far exceeds what should be required. Bame1 has the best take here having actually been in low ranks. But his climb was a while back before smurfs in OW2 have started to become a problem. Elo Hell in the other ranks is a red herring in comparison to bronze.
In Street Fighter 6, once you make it to a milestone rank you cannot derank back down. Example if you make it from bronze to silver you cannot derank back into bronze. The lowest you can now go is silver 5. And this only pertains to the metal ranks. You can derank from diamond back into plat ect. I think this would be a great change for OW to do on a seasonal basis to help combat the frustrations of smurfs. And what I mean by seasonal basis is lets say you finish the current season in gold. When you place next season, however, you could get placed in bronze after placements.
The only thing balance wise that is egregious in the lower ranks atm is Sombra. Before the rework she was, in my eyes anyway, perfectly balanced for bronze and silver. Post rework she is a menace and total nuisance. It's worse than how everyone felt about release Mauga. And no one is talking about it because we have no representation from folks at the bottom. It's so bad that if I don't see nerfs in season 9 I will probably be leaving the game until the character is addressed.
All the other topics are either nothing burgers or just really don't matter to me.
I agree that sombra can be so frustrating to play into right now, I think having a visual indicator of being hacked before you actually get hacked- like an arrow indicator for which direction maybe.
Even plat and gold is way different than bronze and silver. My main is silver/gold, but after 800 hours I made an alt I placed low diamond all roles. Even those queues are different.
The biggest problem with metal ranks is all of the players that don't belong being stuck here. In metal ranks there's way more of these players than there are smurfs and cheaters.
The ranked system should take more into account than just wins or vague stats. I don't think hours, performance during lost games, or skill gain in general are considered, in queues and rank placements.
There should be a hard rank/soft elo reset a couple times a year, maybe every other season or something. I don't think this new system will be enough.
My main account is bronze 5 for life lol, and i agree in how crazy matches are, so i decided to make a new account just for my Comp when i feel like, and been living in gold lobbies and it's were i have the most fun, i haven't derank which means i guess i've been doing alright lol
Greatest pod ever
without having watched the end, glad to see this topic represented. GM streamers talking about other ranks is one thing, but I didn't even know there were dedicated streamers closer to my rank and progression, and now I have new people to follow!
They exist, but of course with us being in low ranks and our games not looking as flashy it's more on our personalities to get people to come hang out and not the gameplay 😂. Least that has been my experience lol
I'm hoping this new rank system and rank reset allows all of the hardstucks to finally escape the elo trap, and not just place metal again and stay there.A lot of these lower rank streamers I could see belonging in masters and up. They need to get there first before learning how to play in those queues, but should be there now nontheless..
@@texdoc89same honestly. I just recently hit Masters the last time I streamed OW. Honestly I'm not sure what to do in terms of even bringing people in. I can't be funny 24/7, so I'm sure a lot of people might look and be like "he's not this rank" and click off.
@@tigerfalco I'm sure there are some who do and I wouldn't fault them for it if they said it about me. I used to be Masters in OW1 but that was on console and now I'm on PC. I just try my best to be the best me and whether people like that or not is out of my control.
Great start, have to say bame is looking super healthy since I last saw him. Solid effort chief
Yes! I noticed too! 😊 He's also just chill and knows what he wants to do which I really respect
Omg right! Dudes looking better every time I see him
Bame is the coziest man I have ever seen in my life with a rock solid mental to boot
overwatch dad
Bame 1v2s Chazm and Yeatle on ball every day of the week with his monitor turned off
Bame once saw these two kids playing overwatch, so he gave them some wrecking ball tips. Those kids were Yeatle and Chazm.
SVB, I really appreciate that you brought up Kotick's $400 million USD payout that would've more than paid for all of the laid off employees' salaries. That single sentence really distills the issue down to its horrifying reality. Which is that the bad guy won and nearly 2000 people lost their livelihoods this week. A solid chunk of them are financially struggling this week as a result of this. It's disgusting and infuriating.
Welcome to life.
BAME IS THE GOAT
Dude he's thrown so many of my games
@@jacobbrady173goat behavior
Yep
@@jacobbrady173 if you're good enough you could've carried those games anyway. adapt
The Goldest of All Time?
The egos on these plats & diamonds is unreal.........my guy has the best mental on ball, have fun & let people have fun. These 2 doesn't realise if they were sooooo good & had such a good understanding of this game, they wouldn't have been on this podcast😂, they would have been with flats & others😂. I am also a diamond btw but subscribe to the mental of my ball guy on the comfy chair....I see the hypocrisy in my statement but I am not the one telling others to play good in order to climb.
I don't see why can't they just humble themselves & listen to the top 500 who has climbed out of you peak.
My guy Bame has the best mental out of these 3. Strive to be Kev in order to climb rather than depend on Kev to climb.
If Kev & I are on a team, we win every game .....not because I am cracked on Tracer but because Kev is the Goat.
Idk who Bame even is but I’m watching him after this though, love the mental of just chilling and having a good time
Thank you, Bame for representing for bronze players! It is hell trying to climb sometimes ☠️
I think the biggest mistake in metal play is that so many people spend SO MUCH TIME flaming their team when they could just... Shoot the enemy team and get better results lmfao. Like, dude if you're on Soldier and you're typing away, that's 171 DPS you're literally wasting with every word/two words depending on how fast you type. You're literally just standing still lol.
Immediately the first point of the metal rank experience is bullshit. People peak when they onetrick, why would you want someone to play a character theyre trash at???
I like to look at the roster as a set of tools good for different jobs. If I’m playing genji into mei, pharmercy, moira, and kiriko, I would have to try so incredibly hard to achieve the same value a character like soldier would get with relative ease. Obviously having experience on a character makes you perform better, but there will always be a situation where forcing yourself to play the same character, into a comp that is working against you, is a significant disadvantage.
@@richardhandler8606 if you're playing genji in Mei, pharah mercy, Moira, and kiriko I would say stop playing open queue :p
But no I still disagree with the basic statement. If you're a good genji and a shit widow I don't care how much more.value you can get on widow, you're not gonna get any value if you suck at the character
@@richardhandler8606 by having more playtime on one hero (such as by one tricking) that disadvantage not only isn't very significant, but many of those disadvantages disappear completely. One-tricking also lets you focus on your overwatch skills to improve much more rapidly than spreading thin, as you actually need to be good at the game to win instead of just picking the easy path that'll win you some games.
@@SizzylIf not one tricking and you enjoy playing multiple heroes - A way to optimize this is by playing for synergy with the better performers of the team
For Instance - My Moira is on Fire ! but getting held down by a sombra I switch to Dva to bodyguard her a lil bit
why is half this podcast just complaining about team mates 💀
I'll be honest, lemon, I'm the kind of person that's not going to join voice and generally will become more resistant to swapping if someone asks me to. I straight up play better when I'm not thinking about what other people think of me. I play better when I can focus on my own gameplay rather than being in voice and getting flamed. I'll even turn off text chat if it gets bad enough. No amount of "help" the randos in plat try to give me is going to make me a better player. I'd rather watch gm+ streamers and learn from them and slowly try to implement what they're saying. Yes that means I'll have some rough games, but I'm in that rank for a reason.
I love that Bame is just being a comfy older man
For lemonkiwi's software point I think it was called Visor and blizzard banned it. It was a program that gave real time coaching advice using ai but I think the nail in the coffin was it was able to ult track by itself
This is the answer.
That's exactly wha lower ranks need. Blizzard is so out of touch, they have all of these rare great ideas (this, lfg, hero bans, etc.) and do little to nothing with it. They're too afraid of change, even despite season 9. Every season should have changes like season 9.
Silver 2 here. I feel like the girls are too focused on the meta. I believe the other content creators I've heard say that us in the metal ranks don't\can't play the meta correctly, and it's more important to just play your hero well.
1:09:23 I get what she’s saying. It’s like a place where you can set rules and find “like-minded” players who have the same end-goal. Whether it be have fun, or sweat and climb, or practice comps. Oh wait, we did have that. It was the LFG feature they erased.
I like how Lemon says she's comfortable with her rank but she's so salty when talking about the unranked to gm thing. Like you **can** beat them and yet she's happy when they're on her team lmao. Pretty contradictory, is she comfortable in plat or not?
Enjoy the podcast, but I kinda hoped fellow metal tankers would have a bit more solidarity us. Just felt kind of… looked down on and disparaged the whole time?
LOL look at SVB's face at some of the comments of his guests! He's like "OMG..." - love the guests btw - But given their questions, it's obvious they really know very little how to play the game...so their rank makes sense. These guest often times blame their teammates instead of taking accountability. It's always their teammates fault, or someones smurfing, or its their lack of mechanical skills or no communication. And they flame others for wanting to rank up and do better. It's insane that most players think like this. This is ALL COPE. Plus that Lemon kiwi girl is really rude to be on her phone or doing whatever she is doing as he is conducting an interview.
2013 (I think) Satoru Iwata from Nintendo refused to lay off employees because it would reduce a lot the moral of the ones that were still there (that will not know their jobs are secure)
1:11:30 my impression from the dev saying "quickplay is serious so dont leave games" was less about it being the same as ranked and more-so that people leaving games simply hurts the experience of other players. there are times when its outside circumstances that force you to leave but choosing to leave games because its not going your way is hurting that teams outcome and morale.
ive had games where people leave BECAUSE they backfilled into a losing game. that feels awful. I'd rather finish a game trying, than become a backfill or get backfills. it doesnt matter if this is qp or ranked. if im constantly getting leavers in my qp games, my desire to play crashes down. i believe playing a game through to its finish is the least people can do even if they arent doing well because youre still giving yourself & your team that time to learn from mistakes.
The thing that drives me crazy is the amount of games that start with at least 1 person afk. Last time I played this occurred 5 matches in a row. In most of those matches by the time the person picked a character an engagement or 2 had already been lost ect ect. Games tend to snowball after that.
Those used to be the matches I would leave. I would do it early too when I noticed we weren't going to have a full team by the time the doors opened.
Now I have to endure it while there's 0 punishment for these people who are late to the game.
@@rosssivertson6339 i think of it like this: if i have an afk at the start, i just play safe until we get a fill. if i leave & requeue i might be just wasting my own time. you can still get kills as a 4v5 and have a comeback with backfill. or if i get rolled then its just a fast match and i accept it, oh well.
I get where your coming from but it's very frustrating to say the least and it happens fairly frequently
@@rosssivertson6339 yeah its very frustrating. im just saying ive learned to go with it than make it worse
Those players who watch gm one tricks and try to mimic their playstyle will get ranked accordingly tho. If someone wants to one trick DPS Moira, they will provide a certain level of value. If it is less than the average support at that rank, the DPS Moira player will de rank until an equilibrium is reached where they are providing an appropriate amount of value for the rank they are in. So it doesn't make sense to criticize those players because they will be ranked exactly where they need to be
SVB has gotta do the 2 metal ranks and 2 gms now, lemonkiwi gave him a free 3 video ideas with 1 suggestion
Thanks for the representation everyone! I'm also glad to see the respect and sorrow expressed for all of the layed off devs jobs. Seeing some of the comments from the call of duty side are so sad. They're people too who probably have families to support. They don't deserve to get shit on like that.... Great episode SVB
As someone new I really wish they had looking for a group
even the podcast was way more chilled lol. Loved the change of pace.
Loved this podcast. As a quick note about LFG - honestly, I loved the idea of it, I really miss playing in stacks from early OW1. However, my general experience with LFG is that a lot of the time, it was like you'd get in there and have to essentially interview (super lame after a long day of work) and it was just really not that enjoyable. Also, as a mid-rank female player, there were some really weird people in there. Like really weird.
The hill I will die on is they should've, literally years ago, worked on creating a guild system. Like I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel and meet new people and have them judge me every time I want to play 3 games or so stacked.
Love the podcast. But I can’t wrap my head around complaining about 1-tricks while admitting to 1-tricking Ana in the same sentence? It honestly just sounds like they want others to swap so they can 1-trick?
Bronze is like 1-1499. It's basically a bottomless pit. You now how in the ocean if you go deep enough, the pressure just pushes you down and you can no longer just float to the top? Like that.
So, basically the skill range in Bronze is very large.
Glad we had this podcast to say we had it but probably the worst episode to date. Garbage takes and it reveals the issue I have with ranked.
There are many players that are CONTENT with staying in their rank but the fundamental idea of the mode is to compete and climb.
1:10:00 I think people who want a competitive mode should just play competitive. This type of mentality should be discouraged heavily in the community, if you want to be competitive go play with a ranking system so the matches can be as fair as possible. That's it.
finally someone with a brain
1:20:20 By this point I've disagreed with every take by Lemon so far but this one is so mind boggling to me. Like, yes, the good players are inspiring lower ranks and proving to them that it's possible to climb with some hero, some playstyle, or whatever. THAT IS THE POINT. THAT'S A GOOD THING. What they are trying to prove is that if you're good, anything is possible, and the next step is to practice and become good.
as a reddit lucio one trick i got really mad when she said that.
I want you to know that I think you're precious, and you should never stop.
@cheesyburger2944
@@cheesyburger2944tbh I want you to stop lmao
yeah holy shit, i cant listen to her. respectfully.
@@cheesyburger2944I got mad too because I one tricked Ball in gold and recently climbed to GM after 2 years and had people telling me the same shit in so many games. "This hero isn't for you", "You're not chazm", etc. Obviously I wasn't good back then, but I was playing with the intention of becoming good and I'm really proud of where I am now. Keep on dropping those beats and good luck on your journey wherever you are!
Even people on this call showing elitism and being super defensive while harshly critiquing others in THEIR rank. It's okay to be bronze or diamond and admit there are things you could do to improve. No need to put people down or be so prickly, but I suppose the culture around 'rank' leads to that defensive nature. Wish people broke the trend with better and more introspective takes.
I love you
@@Furawa95 love you too ❤️ unless you're a Zen main...
Spoken like a gold (I kid, I kid, I’m gold too). That’s the weirdest thing to me about OW flaming its like man everyone seems personally offended by the idea that a human being can make a mistake or have a gap in their knowledge meanwhile they’re all making mistakes of their own
Haha im diamond/plat but agreed. I can admit I am not leaps and bounds above a gold player, and I make a lot of positioning mistakes, get tunnel vision, can work on my mechanical skill, etc. Some of the points made on the call come off as like 'im diamond, ive neeeeever been as low as bronze, im not a trash idiot" like heaven forbid 🙃
Love these takes, but the ability to cast an ow league match isnt exactly one to one with knowing what youre doing all the time in game. Castors get roasted by pros in every franchise with a pro scene lmao. Its not a pass to understanding all the bigger nuances of the game.
They could add more info to the progression screen and use that as a way to compare to the other players of your rank.
My thing about unranked to GM, wouldn’t it effect gm queue times? Filling up GM with basically bot accounts? Bc you can only play on 1 at a time. Like awkward has 8 accounts sitting in gm not being played on.
That’s not how queue times work but I see your question. Queues are just pulling from currently-online players who are looking for a game, it doesn’t matter how many inactive accounts there are or how many alt accounts someone has, they aren’t affecting queues at all unless someone is actively playing it, which in theory only shortens queue times
@@mamboonthetube7652No, I think they may have a point. If there's a lot of inactive accounts in GM, this effectively shrinks the player base even further. Essentially these inactive accounts are taking the place of someone who may be on the edge of masters/GM. I don't think it makes a big difference, but the more inactive accounts in GM the longer the queue will be theoretically due to a decreased number of active, available players.
@Cms7899 they should just do a mail system, gotta verify through mail like you're a business 😂
@@Cms7899 oooh I see it now. I still don’t think it’d affect queue times though, but it does limit rank distribution I guess yeah
cuppcaake copium abt plat is sending me i cant take this srsly
45 min in and ive heard no debate, just metal players whining about teammates.
Just wanted to say I loved hearing from Cuppcaake and agreed with a lot of her points.
I've never really tried to climb and I've been Gold Console for the last 6 years. Its honestly the best rank, you can just play whatever Hero you want.
I’d have to agree. OW1 I was always focused on trying to rank up. Was Plat for the majority and touched Diamond for a lil while.
Let me tell you, Diamond is STRESSFUL. A complete different world to Plat.
Plat is like Gold with more flamers and more people who think they’re solo carrying when they’re really not.
OW2 I’m “hard stuck” Gold because 1) I don’t have much desire to put too much effort anymore 2) it’s a way more chill/fun experience.
The only thing I miss is at least the ATTEMPT as some synergy and coordination. But you get more plays yourself so it’s a worth it trade.
Imo you can play anything you want up until low top 500, very high top 500 is where meta picks are almost always a must pick
Why are you playing comp then? If youre just playing what you want regardless of situation/meta youre soft throwing other peoples games who do want to climb.
@@buffhorses3632 how tf is it throwing to play at the level you’re ranked as?
@@buffhorses3632 if someone is genuinely good enough to climb out of a rank, they’ll climb regardless of other players and who they’re playing. To say it’s soft throwing is ridiculous
If cupcake wanted to she could get out of plat if you guys didnt know
"this is going to be average players" (gets a masters player and 2 diamond players). PLEASE get some actual low and middle ranked players next time. I would love to see that. Still a good podcast though.
I’m literally plat tho 😂
@@cuppcaake Haha, alright you passed the vibe check then.
Not a huge fan of this one. Bame was legit the only metal rank player, and I feel like he didn't get to contribute as much to the conversation. You have 2 gms that have dropped to diamond/plat because they don't want to sweat to keep their high ranks.
And I understand part of it comes from there not being many OW streamers in metal ranks, but someone who's never been gold, or started plat and immediately climbed to GM doesn't count. Bames the goat though.
diamond higher than about 82% of the rest of player base, so top 18% of players
Great to see how spread out ur guests are, Bame1 the legend himself
I'll never understand the "in between mode" idea. Like comp is for points so people play to win, and qp is not for points so people play how they like (people still generally like to win but there's no incentive for your teammates to conform to that or not get the practice they want to)
What does that leave for a third mode? How can you get rid of those who don't like to win when there's no incentive to do so? Playing balanced games just takes longer and what's the point of a balanced match if there's no reason for anyone to be competitive? It's such a half-baked idea and complaint to have about a fundamentally sound division between casual and hardcore modes...
Chill podcast, but most of these takes ain't it.
Agreed
I'm someone who's been from bronze to Plat in Tank support n DPS and I can tell you. The main problem is that majority of people do not care to try to rank up in lower ranks. Half the time you feel like you are fighting agaisnt your own team. They play like they do not care. And the only way to really rank up is to play your hardest. Even when it looks like you're going to lose. because you will pull some of the games out and win. The problem is sometimes you don't pull the games out, and even though you try so hard. Even though someone on your team is just giving no care. Not swapping, constantly feeding etc. Even if your in coms and asking them to please help. They just dont care about even trying. So you have to try extremely hard and then still lose. All the while, some of your teammates dont care. It feels self Defeating, and pointless. you lose all hope you don't feel like playing and it's not fun, and so you give up. Or you play hundreds of games. At which point it's better to create an alt account and just place at a higher rank.
Agreed, people act like oh although account won't save you, but it does, give you another chance after years of sadness lol this game was meant for teamplay and they've forced individualism, this is the result
@@OO-il6sl Agrees. Took so many games to get to plat from bronze. And had terrible losing streaks. Even though i did well as i could.
Took me a 4th of the time to create an alt account and place plat out of placement matches in a 4th of the time.
You laid out your biggest problem and I couldn't help but notice that it totally reflects cuppcaakes mental on the game that she laid out at the beginning of the podcast
@jaedengarcia8249 It's not "my" biggest problem. It's the problem with the comp design and match making. People can play how they want. Some one wants o play mercy for example and not heal and run around with their gun is there any consequences? No there is not. So what does that Mean for you? Well, it means that you can try you absolute hardest to compensate and still win. And as slim as that chance is its possible. However, the feeling of losing and feeling like no matter how hard you tried it didn't matter because your mercy ran around with their pistol is not fun nor does it inspire most people to get better. What it does is frustrate you. There is a reason some one like myself. Who's gone to bronze to Plat in all roles. On a hard stuck account for years finally decided to just play through it, and climbed. After countless hours. Yet I can make an alt account and place plat in a quarter of the time. That's an inherently bad game and comp design.
beautifully put and well-said, I agree wholeheartedly, I was hard stuck Gold OW1 on Hanzo getting all the picks, Hard stuck Plat in OW2, made a few new accounts became hard stuck Diamond, made one more, now Masters lol, it's a numbers game bc of the devs not pushing teamplay, but bullshit randomized luck involved based on who you get individualid solo Q's. Yes GM's get to their rank eventually because theyre that much better, but that means whoever isn't the top 1% deals with this shit due to simply not being able to carry EVERYONE.@@willywonka00
as a main tank in metal ranks i find LemonKiwi to be way off on the ppl expect the tank to hold W, usually what happens is i hold W my team holds S and i get flamed for feeding when my team wont move passed a choke and as i tank im moving passed the choke to make space for my team to then pass thru, no one wants me to hold W then want me to me their bullet sponge
Yea as someone who flexes all roles, it is frustrating when you’re trying to make space as a tank and your team wants you to hug them the entire match
When I hear a person say "I used to be GM/Master but games are more fun down in Plat," it just sounds like they want easier games. Of course, the poor bastard who has to legit sweat just to get to Plat has to sit there and suffer through GM's halfassing in their games for "fun," and then a lot of times, when they don't just bully the board by existing, they get mad and then they jump on their GM main and destroy people.
If you don't want to sweat and you don't want to play against people in your peak rating, just stick to QP. Stay out of lower ranked games. No one wants you or needs you there.
Or it shows ppl can peak above their skill level with one good win streak
Early overwatch 1 gm was like high gold today until people learned the game, thats what she is talking about
@@goldfishtoast Knowing a bunch of the people who played OW1 in those early days, I have to laugh. Lot of people who were on actual teams in other games came to Overwatch and tons of them did stuff to play on beta like buying/renting keys. It wasn't 100% solved, but the skill level was MUCH MUCH higher than Gold today.
Quick play is just as bad as comp. QP uses your MMR for matchmaking.
@@BasicSneedEducation why wouldnt it use your MMR, every online game ive played has some sort of MMR or skill based match making
I'm just suggesting
Maybe if losses didn't have any effect on ranking up and just putting players with as accurate as possible mmr then we be more calm since loses aren't a problem with mmr rank ups
Biggest issue in metal ranks is trickling dude and its not even close. I cant tell you how many times people run straight in on respawn when the whole fight just ended and bam they are dead like legit they give up 3 to 5 deaths in a game that are just them 1 v 5 because they sprint out of spawn 😊
I always thought it was medal rank, as in medals in athletics, (gold, silver, bronze). But I guess they use metal to include platinum
Haven't even watched it yet and kiwi is quite possibly the worst choice svb could've made for this podcast. We will NEVER FORGET rein Hammer doing less damage than torb Hammer. Smh
Edit: look I'm not a fan of unranked to gm either, but Bogurs unranked to gm on life weaver was INSPIRATIONAL. kiwi did NOT need to call him out like that. Poor taste kiwi. Poor taste. Not to mention she put "brig" and "bad heros" in the same sentence. Literally never cook again.
This^
I remember when that pro experimental argument was streamed and it was suggested Mei should get an increase in her secondary ammo because no one on the stage had ever touched Mei or knew her abilities. Then they set themselves up as arbiters of balance. GTFOOH.
She's right tho, you are just not willing to listen.
Hmmm I don’t think she was a bad choice. I mean the point was to get the perspectives of metal rank players right? If anything her balance changes back then are the perfect example of why balance is so difficult. Players from all different ranks are gonna give you all different answers. A lot of them are not good. Personally I miss the experimental card to try more shit like that.
Also to be fair she didn’t directly call out Bogur she just said lifeweaver. She’s also not wrong, he was so weak at the time that even a player as good as Bogur had such a difficult time with UR2GM. Now imagine other people not as good trying to do it. I think that’s the point she was getting at. At least that’s how I interpreted it.
Players do try to emulate higher rank players and brig is also a perfect example of a hero that lower rank players throw on. She’s definitely not a bad hero though lol.
Gotta agree gold and below has 0 foundation on team play and it defeats the entire purpose of Overwatch
so some differences I didnt hear mentioned about the lower ranks is the speed, of the game is slower, through time to kill being longer because of poorer aim as well as reaction time to plays and positioning. the hell that is bronze in particular comes from being mixed in with players that play and dont care, smurfs and leavers have the greater impact. solo groups vs a co-ordinated stack, combined with a match loss feeling more punishing than a win does. so it might take 60 wins to get out of b5 but just 5 losses straight to dump you back down to start over. unless you are a natural fps god. once you get out of bronze its like a weight is lifted, games feel much better cue time quicker, as you feel like you are with people that want to be there. the side effect i think is having experienced it, It must corrupt you as you have to train yourself to not get tilted, at a loss.
You really don't need to be an FPS God to get out of bronze.
6:12 I'd say gold is that rank for me, but plat is fair enough.
I completely disagree with Cupcakee's experience in regards to toxicity when playing on ladder. I found it to be way more relaxing and chill when I managed to climb to high elo lobbies than in the metal ranks where everyone thinks they know better but they don't.
the problem about average stats in any rank is that the stats of a single game is not representive for anyone
cause if you have a rein as a ana you can farm the healstats pretty damn good
if you have a ball in your game - your heal numbers would be probably not the same and have more dmg
you would have both numbers and its the situation which tells the secret of the number
so its kinda hard to average out a single game sadly
also i actually dont think "Guides" would really help cause Overwatch is so situational thats pretty damn hard
i mean you have basic stuff like highground and so but thats also kinda situational (against widow/hanzo *cough*)
Bane is right. I was laid off once and it sucked. This is no surprise though given the merger. Those in positions of responsibility need to go through the list of employees and determine areas of overlap and duplication and then rank the performance of all to try and make the best decision possible. I have had to do this and it is always hard.
Why are these people playing Comp if they want fun? You can't balance every hero for fun. I can't find a podcast group that I've disagreed with most than this one here.
I wish the guests had stronger opinions on balance. I think often those at lower ranks are hesitant to have balance takes because they always get shouted down with "get good". I just wish there was more talk about remakes like Mercy. Bame1 touched on it a bit but the goal for metal ranks should be a fun game. In order to get there I think you need to prioritize skills that are fun being the ones that win you games.
Just to show the contrast, on Plat Chat Johnny and Hawk thought group respawn was a super dumb idea. However that has the potential to just significantly make fights more fun for lower ranks. Grouping up isn't really a fun skill to get better at. I believe it is the same with ultimate tracking. There are all these kind of tedious garbage 'skills' that I don't think should be core the gameplay for low level players.
If higher level players like not being able to see their opponents ults or spawning separately fine add a cutoff. Diamond or Masters and above they have the current system. I think it is kind of dumb to dump all these mechanics on your average Joe.
Grouping up IS the game though. I see both sides. Metal ranks that lose games solely because they don't reset probably don't need more handholding mechanics. Overwatch maps are pretty textbook. The Art of War is thousands of years old and easy to read.
@@josephreynolds2401 I think you kind of made my point for me. Grouping up has become the game. Do you find that fun?
I got to say I really don't find it all that fun. I just disagree with you on Overwatch map complexity completely. The sheer amount of modes and maps in the game asks a ton from players, maybe more than any other shooter.
As for The Art of War, reading it confirmed my beliefs about it. It is basically an empty authority vessel with enough platitudes so that people can use them however they like. If The Art of War didn't exist and came out 5 years ago not a single person would know of it. The only reason it is relevant is its age and the perceived authority that comes from it.
It is similar to people using what the game is to justify what is should be. The old philosophy chestnut is right here. You can't derive and ought from an is.
@@SlipperySnake321 Grouping up IS the game. It's a team game. Always has been. Always will be. When it's free for all deathmatch as standard, then it will no longer be a team game. Mechanics ARE the game. You're saying you play the team game like it's not a team game. So you're knowingly not interfacing with 4 of the people. You think the mechanics are too hard or too tricky for the majority of players. Do you realize what position that puts you in? You're projecting your mental mode onto a host of people that mostly disagree with you. Your stance contradicts the entire game. If people can learn Lucio rollouts they can learn to look at their teammates IN A TEAM GAME!!! Put away the sado-masochism, please. You're not a tough guy. You're just lonely.
@@josephreynolds2401 Lol that got weirdly personal fast. Are you trying to reply to someone else?
You are backwards on so many things it is kind of hard to know where to start. Here is a quick list:
1. Group Respawn wouldn't make Overwatch more deathmatchy it would do the opposite.
2. Group Respawn wouldn't make Overwatch less of a team game, you would be with you team more not less.
3. Plenty of team games already have group respawn.
Is English not your first language? Are you high responding here? What's going on?
These are great, but really wish the speakers more self aware and not say "like" so much.
I can see where LemonKiwi is coming from when she says she has to "explain" matchups to teammates or how the game works and whatever. There is a side of it which is how Overwatch's design is flawed and not clear in what you "have" to do. I think it wouldbe better if they actually were more specific in the instructions of the game for all types of players to have a common ground. I will say though that once you climb to a higher rank you realize elo hell is bullshit and it was really you who couldn't climb. Because you don't need your teammates to be good in order to get out of gold. At least not over a period of time and several games. Don't judge the ladder by your low quality games or streak.
The idea that Comptetitive is only for "serious" gameplay (as in, you have to SWAP your one trick) is not something I agree with, if I have a 9-5 and want to play Junkrat in competitive, why can't I? The reality is that most one tricks in low ranks are better than swappers, because they can learn the mechanics of a hero well instead of putting on a bunch of bad performances with several other heroes... it is competitive, yes, but not pro, so I don't see the need for any rules, which is why the game itself doesn't enforce them (i.e. ban one tricking?)
who in the world would post an unranked to gm that gets hardstuck in plat... this lemon is delirious
Loved hearing from people who are in metal and actually seeing what most people see. Feel bad for bame being stuck playing ball in metal. Hopefully the rework is good for ball.
Im gonna be honest, as someone who was in the metal ranks for a good time as well, i dont relate to a lot of these. But i understand them. Personally, what i hate the most about the metal ranks, is how RNG they are. Plat is literally a mix and match of silver and masters players, and everything in between. And thousands of GMs off-roling too. I wish the matchmaker was narrower, but then the queue times would suffer.
This is just wrong. Plat matchmaking is not silvers and masters. its one of the most populated ranks therefore its the easiest to matchmake equal ranks.
@@LeSobaMask 7 months late to tell you you’re wrong kid
MURICA working as intended with the 1900 layoffs
Kiwis best take was when she took her leave
Huh?
I’d have to agree. OW1 I was always focused on trying to rank up. Was Plat for the majority and touched Diamond for a lil while.
Let me tell you, Diamond is STRESSFUL. A complete different world to Plat.
Plat is like Gold with more flamers and more people who think they’re solo carrying when they’re really not.
OW2 I’m “hard stuck” Gold because 1) I don’t have much desire to put too much effort anymore 2) it’s a way more chill/fun experience.
The only thing I miss is at least the ATTEMPT at some synergy and coordination. But you get more plays yourself so it’s a worth it trade. Although it does seem you only win a game if you carry it.
06:00 I think the most frequent comment I got (in plat) was "hang yourself on the ceiling". And guess what: Not a single player got banned, because in reality Blizzard doesn't really care about toxicity, which is ultimately why I switched to FF 14. The community in FF is the exact opposite of LoL, Overwatch, WoW etc. The difference is so enormous, FF14 doesn't even have an ingame report button to report "toxicity". If someone gets toxic in FF14, that person gets bullied for beeing toxic by other players...
Next podcast should be with quick play warriors and reflect on how the current rank system make some players not really want to play ranked. And then redo the same topic and see how it changed a couple weeks into season 9 after the ranked changes.
Diamond tank here. Cant get out of gold with dps,supports. Not as good.but leavers etc should atleast be plat.
Finally content I can relate to (I’m very bad at the game)
Ive been watching groop up for a while and i absolutely find it intresting to listen to really good players opinions but they are hard to relate to because top 500's and gms are the rarest people so bringing people that are lower down on the ladder were verry relatable in my opinion, also the game is verry one sided always when you come up against someone who is clearly not ment to be in the rank that you que up in but thats the least of your problems. The amount of losses i have just because the tank left and we just insta loose is insane thats an issue of 5v5 or more like an issue of the developers that havent made some sort of compenasation for players that loose a tank ... for example you could have a system in place that when you do loose a tank the game just ends automaticaly and you get like a draw or something cause its really unfair to just get a loss without even having a chance. SVB these podcasts make some good points and i find them really intresting so thank you for it. looking forward to the next one :)
Cuppcaake talking about a new mode has already been tried by Valve with CS2. CSGO had casual and competitive, but CS2 introduced a new mode called Premier. Normal comp is now the more casual mode, and "Casual" is even more casual.
It seems to be working well, CS2 is also 5v5 and queue times don't seem too bad despite the game using maps for queue instead of rotating map pools like OW2. Wouldn't surprise me if OW2 gets a similar queue system in the future.
Subbed, SVB speaks really well on the topics covered.
also amazing seeing cupcaake here. i used to watch her sooo much in ow1 when i used twitch more often. love her!!
Lemonkiwi, one of the worst OWL Casters of all time.
Remove placement games - there you go ranked will feel soooooo much better
So, how do you place? Lol😂
@@OO-il6sl everyone starts at 1lp duh
I agree it's more fair and makes everyone grind, but it creates endless smurf games if it's slow to pick up on whos better.@@mazfgit
did that guy lose some weight??
he's been cycling like a maniac. he inspired me as well
As a Brig main I love playing with a good Ball, it might be my favorite tank to see on my team. Call me crazy, I know.
I still say the people on this episode are ranked too high to represent the "Metal Ranks" and more represent the in-between Metal Ranks and high-level GM play. When most of them have been up to masters that does not count. Only one person here has even been in bronze, so they don't represent me or the rank I play at. (Note: i'm not in bronze now but use to be)
Would be great two have one or two of these guys with flats or samito to really compare and contrast
Ty for the content SVB I was wondering when the next group up was coming and I got surprised last night. Saved it for my chore day today. Is there a schedule for group up or is it vaguely twice-once ish a month?