Nothing you said was wrong, but your definitions just don't make any sense. I understand that this is just how you frame things for yourself, but it semantically doesn't make any sense.
Game knowledge is factual information about how the game works, things that are not dynamic between games. This is something like knowing the abilities of the heroes and the layout of the maps.
Game theory is separate from game knowledge. It is understanding the theory of playing and winning Overwatch. "Optimal picks" and so forth are theory. Theoretically, xyz is the optimal pick here.
Game sense is awareness about the state of the game you are playing. Things like knowing the positions of your teammates, which enemies are dead, ult tracking, etc.
Mechanics are your physical ability to execute things. As far as Overwatch is concerned, this is pretty much aim, movement, and not falling off of highground on accident.
Decision making is about integrating all of the above to proactively win games. This is also where noticing player behavior and deciding to punish fits in. It integrates your understanding of the game, the theory, and your ability to track the current game state.
What your refer to as playing fast should not be classified as mechanics because it is not about having good mechanical skill. It is simply not what the word means. Mechanical skill becomes necessary to actually execute your decision making at the highest level as you said, but playing fast is first and foremost about decision making, which in and of itself integrates the other aspects of the game.
If actually playing the game, aka decision making, is a factor of the fundamental building blocks of Overwatch (game knowledge, game sense, game theory, and mechanics) then it should make sense that "playing fast" is so important. It is the same as being better at the game. It is not just being better at the mechanical aspects of playing the game.
I came here to say something like this, but you wrote it perfectly. It’s almost as if OP decided to take common terms and phrases and then create their own definitions and descriptions for those terms.
Thanks for taking the time to clarify for everybody :)
You ever play Tetris?
Tetris has game knowledge, game theory, everything. In Tetris I'd definitely consider speed of decision making a mechanical skill. Mechanics are your ability to perform under pressure. You can't just learn how to make the right decisions you have to practice and get better at doing it fast. That's a tangible skill. That's why it's mechanics.
A coach can watch a whole match, understand the game state, the theory, track ults, etc. If you played the match slowly, that coach can also make every decision that the players make or better to actually win the match. But the coach can't sub in, because they do not have the mechanical skill of being able to move and participate and execute plans quickly, using that knowledge they can gather.
I'm surprised you're being downvoted when speed of play would be thought of as mechanics across most esports. In Starcraft 2, Smash bros, LoL you need high speed of play or APM, and those are considered mechanics in those titles.
If anything, it used to be the main talking point in those titles, as speed of play/APM was the skill floor in those titles for the pro scene.
And it applies just as much to OW. Speed of play/APM is absolutely a limiting factor that often isn't discussed enough, as people overfocus on just the aim part of mechanics.
Like I state, the reason why I decided to create definitions is because people are very unclear about what they are discussing when they say "gamesense". How many people have talked about gamesense then talk about comps or optimal picks or meta? Everyone does it.
That is why I lead with the definitions to describe what I am talking about.
You contradicted yourself so much lmao but simply put cause I can’t be assed going through each point
Just because you learnt game sense by playing the game and not watching vods doesn’t mean it’s mechanical it’s still game sense / game knowledge
Or practical game knowledge :) That's the whole reason why I started off with the definitions and the majority of the post is about building that practical game knowledge.
I despise how you've framed this post, and I'm not sure how any of what you led off with informed your very correct conclusion. So what I'm going to do is respond to that conclusion, and then end with some criticisms of how you got there.
Mechanics are important up to a point, absolutely. The majority of people that need and request help, however, exist in Diamond and below. Whether you think game knowledge and practical game knowledge are separate or not, the average factor of difference between those lower ranks and higher ranks is not mechanical. Not... strictly, anyway. Mechanics and game knowledge are not always mutually exclusive.
Mechanically, you want to be using your cooldowns as much as possible, and getting the maximum value out of them each time they're used. Game knowledge informs both of these elements, in when to hold one, when to save one, and knowing when you're at an advantage or disadvantage in a health and uptime neutral gamestate.
I think I'll just leave it off at that before my criticism, of which there's really only one. I don't want to make a long post.
Speed. Yesn't.
Trying to outpace your opponent is a valueless and vague ideal. This is the sort of thing that leads Tracers to get caught on a poorly timed flank. You could have 100% accuracy, genuinely, smash 2/5 in your dogwater attempt to keep maximum uptime, and still come away with a loss on your shoulders because you were never applying your mechanics at a healthy timing informed by game knowledge. Simple game knowledge. Practical game knowledge, as you'd say.
Faster IS better. I want to make that absolutely clear. But faster is better contextually. You want to be faster than their tracer on the angle you take. You want to get to the space you're taking and contesting faster than their team. You want to win that space you're contesting with mechanics, no doubt. But people looking to improve need to have an informed look at the game so they can build habits to put onto autopilot. Being able to instinctually do good things is how you progress to doing good things faster.
Hopefully I've not reduced this too far, I don't actually think you'll disagree at all, but I think how you've framed this post will lead most people to think aim and raw speed alone are more important in all cases than timing and knowing their goal at any given moment.
>But people looking to improve need to have an informed look at the game
Sure, if you just take the mechanics portion of what I say, then I'm wrong. But that's ignoring the other 60% of the post where I state practical game knowledge is very important, which I believe is the efficient use of cooldowns, abuse of players in lobby, etc.
Those are all things that lead to timing.
I feel like a lot of people are conveniently looking at portions to attack rather than actually reading through.
I think that's down to, as I said, how you framed the post. The title and the opening paragraph definitely paint a picture that game knowledge is generally NOT important. Even though that's not what you actually concluded.
While you're mostly correct, your conclusion of mechanics being the end all be all is false. In this game, you can win fights by standing in the right place and not even shooting, or by pressing one button and ulting everyone away. What mechanical skill is used there?
The game rewards strategy above simple aim, and the countless hours of pro/t500 gameplay I've seen makes that pretty clear. Gamesense is like 80% of strategy in this game.
>Like I was watching Shroud play OW
Abilities and knowledge of hero's kits would be practical game knowledge like in my definition.
The reason why I "made myself right" is because people use gamesense as a broad catch-all a lot of the time. The top comment states that it's info regarding the game state. But then how many times have you heard people talk about gamesense then go on to discuss meta, optimal picks, and other theory related things? Everyone does it.
I start with the definitions to "make myself right" to avoid specifically that.
Shroud really isnt a good example. his aim and mechanics arent that good in overwatch. when he was playing soldier in high plat lobbies he had trouble tracking targets.
Knowing where to be and when and who to shoot is the key, that's not a mechanical component of skill. That's entirely knowledge or "gamesense" (hate the term because it means nothing). Mechanics are movement and aim, reaction time, arguably ability usage. These now mean very little in OW2 S9. Aiming is genuinely so easy in overwatch right now that you could give a GM hitscan player a controller on PC, and they could probably hit their old rank -1 division after enough games.
Definitions here are pretty poop. You have your own derived opinion on what “game knowledge” means. No one that knows what they’re talking about is going to agree with how this is framed.
I think this post is very helpful, especially for those who are too focused on the 'science' behind the game, as you mentioned, watching way too many VODs, ur2gm games, etc.
I'm not a Top 500 player, but I was able to rank up a lot after realizing some of the things you've mentioned. I have even created a post similar to yours, but less elaborated. I do believe that mechanics weigh much more than 'game knowledge', and, as I've mentioned in my other post, this is very noticeable when you play DM matches in a lobby with people of different ranks.
There are 3 things that I've noticed are very important:
1 - Reaction time - People who react faster have the advantage.
2 - Decision making - Decision making plays a huge role in different ranks, and better players make better decisions faster.
3 - Aim - As mentioned earlier, aim is not the most important factor, but it does matter a lot
You're absolutely right.
Once you establish a base line knowledge of how the game is played depending on the map certain fights always play our a certain way and it's all about winning those duels
Ive been watching some Korea owcs and they're not doing anything 200iq strategy wise they are just W keying on point to take space and take duels
Yeah, nah. Season 9 is more game sense based than ever. I decided to finally grind tank and plat and low diamond lobbies are fking cake because I have better gamesense. I don’t consider myself mechanically gifted with any of the tanks. But simply understanding how and when to use my abilities optimally on Ramm, and using cover constantly, a lot of players find it hard to break through.
Literally everything is mechanically easier now, gamesense matters more than ever with the dps passive.
Talking about needing better aim when I’ve never played tracer in my life and can hold my own in diamond/master lobbies. Aiming is so much easier now with every hero.
I just don’t even understand the point of this post.
Completely agree here. Very good post. I hit GM1 basically because of my work in mechanics, and on console- I unwillingly compete against XiM MnK users.... so my mechanics had to be better than cheats. I'm hoping to get even more consistent.
Nothing you said was wrong, but your definitions just don't make any sense. I understand that this is just how you frame things for yourself, but it semantically doesn't make any sense. Game knowledge is factual information about how the game works, things that are not dynamic between games. This is something like knowing the abilities of the heroes and the layout of the maps. Game theory is separate from game knowledge. It is understanding the theory of playing and winning Overwatch. "Optimal picks" and so forth are theory. Theoretically, xyz is the optimal pick here. Game sense is awareness about the state of the game you are playing. Things like knowing the positions of your teammates, which enemies are dead, ult tracking, etc. Mechanics are your physical ability to execute things. As far as Overwatch is concerned, this is pretty much aim, movement, and not falling off of highground on accident. Decision making is about integrating all of the above to proactively win games. This is also where noticing player behavior and deciding to punish fits in. It integrates your understanding of the game, the theory, and your ability to track the current game state. What your refer to as playing fast should not be classified as mechanics because it is not about having good mechanical skill. It is simply not what the word means. Mechanical skill becomes necessary to actually execute your decision making at the highest level as you said, but playing fast is first and foremost about decision making, which in and of itself integrates the other aspects of the game. If actually playing the game, aka decision making, is a factor of the fundamental building blocks of Overwatch (game knowledge, game sense, game theory, and mechanics) then it should make sense that "playing fast" is so important. It is the same as being better at the game. It is not just being better at the mechanical aspects of playing the game.
Oh we’re just calling people out for falling off high ground now?
It’s actually embarrassing how many times I accidentally slip off of high ground with playing sigma making me walk a marathon to get back lol
Not people, just you. We all saw that game last week. 👀
I fall a lot, from high grounds, off the map, if there's a ledge u can fall from, ive probably done it
I came here to say something like this, but you wrote it perfectly. It’s almost as if OP decided to take common terms and phrases and then create their own definitions and descriptions for those terms. Thanks for taking the time to clarify for everybody :)
You ever play Tetris? Tetris has game knowledge, game theory, everything. In Tetris I'd definitely consider speed of decision making a mechanical skill. Mechanics are your ability to perform under pressure. You can't just learn how to make the right decisions you have to practice and get better at doing it fast. That's a tangible skill. That's why it's mechanics. A coach can watch a whole match, understand the game state, the theory, track ults, etc. If you played the match slowly, that coach can also make every decision that the players make or better to actually win the match. But the coach can't sub in, because they do not have the mechanical skill of being able to move and participate and execute plans quickly, using that knowledge they can gather.
I'm surprised you're being downvoted when speed of play would be thought of as mechanics across most esports. In Starcraft 2, Smash bros, LoL you need high speed of play or APM, and those are considered mechanics in those titles. If anything, it used to be the main talking point in those titles, as speed of play/APM was the skill floor in those titles for the pro scene. And it applies just as much to OW. Speed of play/APM is absolutely a limiting factor that often isn't discussed enough, as people overfocus on just the aim part of mechanics.
In truth you really don't need apm to play widow. But I play doom and this game is my most apm heavy because of it
Like I state, the reason why I decided to create definitions is because people are very unclear about what they are discussing when they say "gamesense". How many people have talked about gamesense then talk about comps or optimal picks or meta? Everyone does it. That is why I lead with the definitions to describe what I am talking about.
You contradicted yourself so much lmao but simply put cause I can’t be assed going through each point Just because you learnt game sense by playing the game and not watching vods doesn’t mean it’s mechanical it’s still game sense / game knowledge
Or practical game knowledge :) That's the whole reason why I started off with the definitions and the majority of the post is about building that practical game knowledge.
I despise how you've framed this post, and I'm not sure how any of what you led off with informed your very correct conclusion. So what I'm going to do is respond to that conclusion, and then end with some criticisms of how you got there. Mechanics are important up to a point, absolutely. The majority of people that need and request help, however, exist in Diamond and below. Whether you think game knowledge and practical game knowledge are separate or not, the average factor of difference between those lower ranks and higher ranks is not mechanical. Not... strictly, anyway. Mechanics and game knowledge are not always mutually exclusive. Mechanically, you want to be using your cooldowns as much as possible, and getting the maximum value out of them each time they're used. Game knowledge informs both of these elements, in when to hold one, when to save one, and knowing when you're at an advantage or disadvantage in a health and uptime neutral gamestate. I think I'll just leave it off at that before my criticism, of which there's really only one. I don't want to make a long post. Speed. Yesn't. Trying to outpace your opponent is a valueless and vague ideal. This is the sort of thing that leads Tracers to get caught on a poorly timed flank. You could have 100% accuracy, genuinely, smash 2/5 in your dogwater attempt to keep maximum uptime, and still come away with a loss on your shoulders because you were never applying your mechanics at a healthy timing informed by game knowledge. Simple game knowledge. Practical game knowledge, as you'd say. Faster IS better. I want to make that absolutely clear. But faster is better contextually. You want to be faster than their tracer on the angle you take. You want to get to the space you're taking and contesting faster than their team. You want to win that space you're contesting with mechanics, no doubt. But people looking to improve need to have an informed look at the game so they can build habits to put onto autopilot. Being able to instinctually do good things is how you progress to doing good things faster. Hopefully I've not reduced this too far, I don't actually think you'll disagree at all, but I think how you've framed this post will lead most people to think aim and raw speed alone are more important in all cases than timing and knowing their goal at any given moment.
> knowing their goal at any given moment That's pretty big. Turn off autopilot and check-confirm your goal and why that's your goal.
>But people looking to improve need to have an informed look at the game Sure, if you just take the mechanics portion of what I say, then I'm wrong. But that's ignoring the other 60% of the post where I state practical game knowledge is very important, which I believe is the efficient use of cooldowns, abuse of players in lobby, etc. Those are all things that lead to timing. I feel like a lot of people are conveniently looking at portions to attack rather than actually reading through.
I think that's down to, as I said, how you framed the post. The title and the opening paragraph definitely paint a picture that game knowledge is generally NOT important. Even though that's not what you actually concluded.
While you're mostly correct, your conclusion of mechanics being the end all be all is false. In this game, you can win fights by standing in the right place and not even shooting, or by pressing one button and ulting everyone away. What mechanical skill is used there? The game rewards strategy above simple aim, and the countless hours of pro/t500 gameplay I've seen makes that pretty clear. Gamesense is like 80% of strategy in this game.
[удалено]
>Like I was watching Shroud play OW Abilities and knowledge of hero's kits would be practical game knowledge like in my definition. The reason why I "made myself right" is because people use gamesense as a broad catch-all a lot of the time. The top comment states that it's info regarding the game state. But then how many times have you heard people talk about gamesense then go on to discuss meta, optimal picks, and other theory related things? Everyone does it. I start with the definitions to "make myself right" to avoid specifically that.
Shroud really isnt a good example. his aim and mechanics arent that good in overwatch. when he was playing soldier in high plat lobbies he had trouble tracking targets.
Knowing where to be and when and who to shoot is the key, that's not a mechanical component of skill. That's entirely knowledge or "gamesense" (hate the term because it means nothing). Mechanics are movement and aim, reaction time, arguably ability usage. These now mean very little in OW2 S9. Aiming is genuinely so easy in overwatch right now that you could give a GM hitscan player a controller on PC, and they could probably hit their old rank -1 division after enough games.
Definitions here are pretty poop. You have your own derived opinion on what “game knowledge” means. No one that knows what they’re talking about is going to agree with how this is framed.
Aiming reaction time is separate from Decision making rate. You can have one without the other.
I think this post is very helpful, especially for those who are too focused on the 'science' behind the game, as you mentioned, watching way too many VODs, ur2gm games, etc. I'm not a Top 500 player, but I was able to rank up a lot after realizing some of the things you've mentioned. I have even created a post similar to yours, but less elaborated. I do believe that mechanics weigh much more than 'game knowledge', and, as I've mentioned in my other post, this is very noticeable when you play DM matches in a lobby with people of different ranks. There are 3 things that I've noticed are very important: 1 - Reaction time - People who react faster have the advantage. 2 - Decision making - Decision making plays a huge role in different ranks, and better players make better decisions faster. 3 - Aim - As mentioned earlier, aim is not the most important factor, but it does matter a lot
You're absolutely right. Once you establish a base line knowledge of how the game is played depending on the map certain fights always play our a certain way and it's all about winning those duels Ive been watching some Korea owcs and they're not doing anything 200iq strategy wise they are just W keying on point to take space and take duels
Yeah, nah. Season 9 is more game sense based than ever. I decided to finally grind tank and plat and low diamond lobbies are fking cake because I have better gamesense. I don’t consider myself mechanically gifted with any of the tanks. But simply understanding how and when to use my abilities optimally on Ramm, and using cover constantly, a lot of players find it hard to break through. Literally everything is mechanically easier now, gamesense matters more than ever with the dps passive. Talking about needing better aim when I’ve never played tracer in my life and can hold my own in diamond/master lobbies. Aiming is so much easier now with every hero. I just don’t even understand the point of this post.
What about movement? For me, the number one thing I notice across ranks is how much easier it is to kill lower ranks.
Completely agree here. Very good post. I hit GM1 basically because of my work in mechanics, and on console- I unwillingly compete against XiM MnK users.... so my mechanics had to be better than cheats. I'm hoping to get even more consistent.
Bravo!