If you play Overwatch, you may have heard the phrase "one-trick" becoming increasingly popular among the competitive and casual community. It is a derisive term that calls to question some players decision to specialize in only one hero, despite the game being designed around the ability to switch Heroes on the fly to suit the strategic needs of the match.


The most common heroes that have gained the collective scorn from the community are the niche ones; Bastion, Symetra, Torbjörn and Orisa. Mercy used to be at the top of this list, but since her recent re-work has turned her into arguably the most powerful hero in the game, people are less upset over a dedicated Mercy in their game.


As it stands now, Overwatch isn't a fun place if you want to play these heroes or god forbid master them. Doubly so when playing Overwatch's competitive mode, it has become an accepted and embraced "truth" that selecting these heroes is somehow selfish or inherently non-competitive. Players are accused of throwing matches or told they don't deserve their high MMR if they "one-trick" the unpopular heroes the community has branded as unfit for healthy team play.

Or, as Overwatch content creator and freelance caster Skyline puts it, the current Overwatch zeitgeist is defined by the communities tendency to criticize their fellow gamers and not the game itself. 

A Growing Trend

A large population of Overwatch players would have you believe that explanation of the games increasing toxicity isn't because of balance or hero design. Instead, it's the selfish and troublesome players that choose to play in a non-standard way. It's the players who don't understand how the game "should" be played and single-handedly ruin the experience for their 5 unlucky teammates.

This growing sentiment represents a frustrated group of gamers who want to improve their Overwatch ranking and pride themselves in their understanding of "correct" team compositions and strategies. It's the standard "meta is king" crowd that exists in every multiplayer game and are infinitely irritated when they are forced to play with strategic deviants who are more open-minded when it comes to how to win. 

But whereas most games have found a way to deal with this inherent player tension, Overwatch hasn't and it's making the game much, much less fun.

Don't hate the player...

As discussed in Skyline's video embedded above, the problem boils down to where players shift blame when they encounter a loss in-game that makes them feel bad. In a perfect world, players would look inward and accept a game loss as the result of their own imperfect play. After all, unless you didn't miss a single shot, there is always something you could have done differently to win a match.


But Overwatch's easy to understand design makes it all too easy for frustrated players to underestimate the multitude of factors that go into a game loss and, instead, funnel their anger onto the easiest target: their teammates. The most obvious teammate to bully becomes the one that chose to play an unpopular hero or the one that "selfishly" picks the hero they wanted to play and not the hero the team supposedly needed.


Aside from being needlessly critical of a fellow gamer, this type of mentality is, quite literally, harming Overwatch. When players default to blaming the teammates (and subsequently flood the reporting system with unwarranted and incorrect accusations of throwing a match based on off-meta hero choices), they fail to look at what game mechanic or system is actually causing them so much frustration. 


In other words, maybe the problem isn't the "selfish" and "bad" one-trick player-- maybe it's a game that is designed around hero switching but fails to properly incentivize it. Maybe it's a game that rewards players for performing well as individuals despite having team based gameplay. It's not your Bastion loving teammates fault that their favorite hero is difficult to win with and the solution isn't trying to convince them to stop loving Bastion.

Jeff Kaplan spoke on the issue and put the problem in plain terms: 

"The reason we got into the thing that we do is because we love creating these cool features for you. We want to make new maps, new heroes, new animated shorts – that's where our passion is. But we've been put into this weird position where we're spending a tremendous amount of time and resources into punishing people, trying to make people behave better. I wish we could have put that time into a match history system, or a replay system instead. It was the exact same people who worked on both, that had to be rerouted. "

"The bad behavior is making the game progress, in terms of development, at a much slower pace."

-- Jeff Kaplan

If the majority of players focused more on the game and less on their teammates supposedly ruining their play experience, I have a feeling the extremely attentive Overwatch development team, once armed with productive feedback on a massive scale, would be better equipped to make a better, more balanced game.


What you can do to make Overwatch better.

Maybe you are guilty of toxicity in Overwatch-- that's ok. You can turn a new leaf if you just keep these things in mind:

● Your teammates are just like you and the overwhelming majority of them are trying to win in a way they think is fun and rewarding.

● People have the right to play only one hero. The instances in which this makes it easier or harder to win balances out over time and is just an inevitable part of any multiplayer game.

● Your individual performance is the single biggest factor in your ability to rank up and the "luck-of-the-draw" factor regarding teammates is something each player experiences equally.

And lastly, what is probably the most important thing to keep in mind...

● When you lose, try to objectively understand why. The knee-jerk reaction to blame your teammates or individual players is harming the game and making you a worse player.

As multiplayer gamers, we win together and we lose together. But, above all else, we play together. We each take time out of our lives to enter this shared virtual space, so try to remember the human decency you easily embrace outside of the game. Next time you play Overwatch, be the team hero Blizzard wants you to be!