Watching Over Overwatch 2, Too

WARNING!! INCOMING VIDEO GAME GEEKERY!!! WARNING!!!

Okay, now that we got that out of the way….

Behold! My beautiful infographic of data from my Overwatch 2 matches!

For those unaware, Overwatch 2 is an online cooperative and competitive video game that I often play, both alone and with my friends. There are two teams of 5 players, and they battle against each other on different maps. Each player plays as one of the following:

• a tank (someone who tries to control part of the battlefield)

• a DPS (someone who focuses on damaging the other team)

• a support (someone who focuses on healing their team)

The game has several different types of modes, such as escorting a payload to its destination, and each mode has multiple different maps. The matches last between 7 to 20 minutes, although some matches can go much longer. Each player also has a rank for each role, letting you know how you fare compared to the player base at large. These ranks go in the order:

• Bronze

• Silver

• Gold

• Platinum

• Diamond

• Masters

• Grandmasters

• Champions

After a particularly bad game, my friends I will remark that we have dropped into ranks of Plastic or Wood.

Anyway.

Having played OverWatch 1 and 2 for years, I always felt like I was having way more losing streaks than winning steaks. At the very least, I recall cursing profusely a lot more after matches than doing victory dances. But I was well aware that people tend to recall negative events easier than good events, so just to see what was really going on, I started tracking my win rates, as well as my other stats for each match. When I hit 1,008 games, I called it a day and put together the above infographic.

I am currently Silver 1 in Tank, Silver 1 in DPS, and Platinum 2 in Support. Again, for those unaware, this means compared to the player base at large, I am below average on tank and DPS, and above average on Support.

My takeaways after charting all of this out:

Despite all of the losing streaks I felt like I was having, overall I was actually winning slightly more games than losing. In other words, the matchmaking system is doing a pretty good job of getting me to a 50% win rate in both Quick Play and Competitive. The fact that they are both within .2% of each other is actually pretty scary. Hence, I am perfectly fine tolling away in the metal mines, because this is pretty much where I am supposed to be.

Ironically, the more friends I have in my group, the worse I tend to do. I guess you can check off the “Does not play well with others” box. This is a shame, as I prefer to play with friends rather than going solo. Now, I have played a lot more on my own than with friends, so maybe these rates will change the more I play in a group. One thing I know, though, is that our deep, philosophical discussions while playing that have nothing to do with the game are NOT the cause, because when that happens, we roll. Maybe we just aren’t having those debates enough? Hmm, okay friends, let’s blow up these comms by comparing and contrasting Keynes and Hayek!

Looking at the map wins, if I’m playing in Competitive on Watchpoint: Gibraltar or Midtown, you want me on your team. Midtown I can see, as I really like that map, and love the opening theme music for it (which I’m sure somehow translates to playing well). But Gibraltar really surprised me – never felt like it was a strong map for me, but apparently I have learned some things about it to help secure wins. 

On the other hand, if we are on Havana or Paraiso, uhm, yeah; you don’t want me on your team. I knew Paraiso had been a problem, but Havana was a bit of a surprise. If I had to choose a reason, I would guess that it’s the third point with the bridge into the castle; too often, I bet I try to just yolo it and charge straight down the bridge, instead of playing angles or flanks.

Samoa is a bit of an outlier here, because I think I played on the map in Competitive only 4-5 times before I finished gathering data. My Quick Play win rate is much better, and seeing as the map plays the same in both modes, I would guess that if I kept track the Competitive percentage would climb up to at least 30%. Still pretty bad, but hey, definitely better than the current 11%.

You can tell that as a tank, I have rarely played Roadhog, and even barely any Mauga, given that my average healing as a tank is almost non-existent. I did play those characters, definitely, but only a handful of times in hundreds of tank games. So, yeah, not enough to push the averages up. 

I also admit that I have played tank the least of the roles – the pressure to perform well and the sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize the opposing tank is just going to use you as a bum wipe without your knowledge or consent… not a good time. These days I tend to only play tank when I am with friends as at least I know then that some folks on my team won’t be screaming “TANK DIFF” after the first point.

The stats for damage, healing, and mitigation look close between wins and losses, but I think it’s the elims, assist, and deaths that tell the bigger story. For example, the difference in damage as a DPS between wins and losses is less than 1000 points, but the elims drop from 23 to 15. And that’s massive. I think it just hammers home that doing a lot of damage is good, but it’s not helpful unless you are actually getting elims as a result. It’s the (at this point, old) adage about the best way to get better in the game is to just not die.

If I was to do this again, I think I would want to start tracking the time to win, as well, to see how often there are snowballs and stonewalls in the matches. It would be an interesting way to see how frequently the system works in setting up close, well-balanced matches, as opposed to setting up matches where my team just bulldozes the other only for the next match to be the one where we get bulldozed.

Okay, enough geeking out over video game data. We now return you to your regularly scheduled universal columns.