The final response to Samito...

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I’ll begin this by echoing your most crucial point, respect. Like yourself, I respect you and every single content creator in our ever dwindling community. Every streamer who plays Overwatch for hours on end, each day, has asked themselves if it is really worth the stress and emotional duress to continue playing Overwatch. You only have to look at the loss of Tim, Moon, and the overall viewership on Twitch to understand that the honeymoon period is very much over. We, as a community, must respect the impact this game has on us, the impact that we have on our viewers, and not vilify entire sections of the community because of a perceived lack of “effort” in playing Overwatch.

Effort: the single word your entire video can be summed up to. The suggestion that effort is distinct from skill is true, but the suggestion that YOU as a biased party can unbiasedly evaluate the amount of effort a player has put in a match is a logical fallacy. Let me lay out some definitions:

One-tricking is the the pursuit of the mastery of a single character to the point where an in-depth knowledge of every composition, matchup, and map can be reasonably achieved.

Counters are characters who have a composition, matchup, or map advantage over another character which makes the counter a favorable pick.

To say that I am putting in less effort by not swapping characters is laughable. You cannot see the effort that has and is being made to make that character work. Counter-picking does not SINGLE HANDEDLY win you a match and picking a character is not where the effort in playing comes from. That effort comes from making a character function in the circumstances you have picked them in. The circumstances that you pick them in, the compositions, matchups, and maps, are overcome with a combination of effort and skill. Do not delude yourself that you are trying any harder to win a game than I am.

Skill: you say this isn’t relevant to the amount effort put into a game and is, therefore, irrelevant to your argument. This, too, is incorrect. Skill is an application of knowledge and experience that, when combined with effort, determines the outcome of a game. Skill determines if you win a game JUST as much as effort does and the existence of onetricks in T500 proves that the climate of the game is not as set in stone. The outcome of a game can be determined by an individual but is not always. Just as picking a “proper” meta team-composition will not win you a game, so too will having a one-trick “weighing you down” not lose you the game.

A griefer, by your definition, is a person who does not put the effort in to win the game. Let me amend that definition to a more… truthful one for yourself and many others:

A griefer is one who does not play what I want them to or how I want them to play.

I’ll remind you that Blizzard removed the griefing section for this very same open-ended interpretation:

“The other change we’re making to the player reporting categories is removing the Poor Teamwork category. Many players were using this category in a very similar fashion to the Griefing category, because both categories could be interpreted very broadly to include diverse types of bad behavior. This made it more difficult for us to action players appropriately.”

These changes were brought about by the very same reckless and inappropriate reporting to bully players into playing “correctly.” I’ll remind you again about what category your grievances would be filed under: https://i.imgur.com/dX9q3HM.png (Gameplay Sabotage). Gameplay Sabotage IS NOT: “Simply making a mistake, playing poorly, or an unwillingness to switch heroes.” One-tricking is not making a mistake, playing poorly, or putting in any less effort to win the game then a flex player is. One-tricking is not reportable: https://i.imgur.com/BzlqSwZ.png.

You said, “It’s a free country. I can go out and kill someone right now. I would go to jail for it obviously. I can’t blame the United States for having free streets. I would be held accountable for that [killing someone].” I am, however, being held accountable. One-tricking is not a bannable offense. I have not gone to “jail” (been banned) since the first time this automated ban system went into place, and I can thank Blizzard from keeping me safe from the numerous false reports I receive on a daily basis. Oh! Also, apparently one-tricking is equivalent to murder.

Don’t worry though! I understand the purpose of using extremes to make a point and we weren’t being serious with one-tricking being equivalent to murder. That’s just part of using an extreme to paint a point as ridiculous in the same way I previously argued you cannot ban one-tricks without eventually banning 10-tricks (or whatever). When you start slipping down that slope you will start the crusades against the next X-trick until we just ban everyone who isn’t playing “meta-comp 2019” in top 500. This is the reason one-tricking cannot be bannable.

Additionally, once again you have this misconception that ladder should be the same as OWL and go so far to play competitive ,“The right way.” You understand how silly this sounds, right? Ladder can only ever be a joke of a mimicry of professional play at its very best. An idealized, unattainable dream. Ranked ladder will never be like OWL simply because you will never play with the same 5 people every single game and it’s obvious your frustration comes from trying to chase this pipe-dream. If you want the same 6 shotcalling, mic-using, Brig-abusing, and meta-playing teammates every game then you WILL NOT FIND IT IN LADDER. Ranked will never be able to be like Basketball because Basketball does not throw you into a random team every single game. The Overwatch equivalent of the NBA is OWL, Contenders is NBA G, and collegiate Basketball is most likely TESPA. You know what all of these have in common that ranked does not? The same teammates every single game. Go scrim and play competitive, “the right way,” as I’m sure you’ll be much happier.

Before I get to my last point, I would like to discuss your suggestions. I’m glad that we have a lot of common ground we agree on in regards to the casual and competitive community being shafted, and I agree that we do need more avoid slots (although permanent avoid slots is a hilariously bad idea). I agree that Quickplay is a joke and any mode, competitive ruleset or not (as you recommended) that does not have an suitable risk/reward and suitable punishment for leaving the game early, will never suffice. I’m sure you’ve played off-season ranked and if you haven’t, I can tell you from experience that you should avoid it. I do not approve at all of automatic bans based on character picks as that flies in the face of how teams will typically have the same or very similar characters each game if they are playing “meta.” Forcing people to do anything against their will or face punishment, if it is as fundamental as playing a character, will result in an outcry far worse the initial one-trick debate ever had. If bans exist they have to be a core part of game (such as per-round character bans) and I am not certain that vision of Overwatch would be any more fun than what we have now. This is a fundamental issue with the hero-swapping design of Overwatch.

Lastly, let's talk about behavior. You say you’re not being toxic and even going so far as to say that calling you toxic is me deflecting from your “issues” with my behavior. But then you hype up this video heralded as “proof” of one-tricks automatically losing games… did you even bother to rewatch the video to see your attitude? Cocky, pompous, and every bit as toxic as you could imagine. Let’s get some stand out lines:

You sarcastically said, “There’s no proof one tricks lose games.” I’m certain you carry this EXACT mindset with you into every game you play with me and are in many ways assuring yourself of a loss before it even happens.

You told your team, “I’m just toxic for saying onetricks shouldn’t be able to play the game.” Yes, are you stupid or was this just a Freudian Slip? I’m going to assume the latter because oh boy does this betray your cause. Painting yourself as a saint and a victim of one-trick “griefing” when I’m certain this is not the only game you’ve acted like this... Is this why you have past broadcasts on Twitch turned off?

You speak of the “effort” it takes to win a game and how I am griefing you and yet you, in the same video, pull this? You’re actively being toxic in your “showcase” example and as an influencer, don’t have any idea how this affects your viewers? You’re setting yourself up for a loss every game we play together and proving to the world that Samito doesn’t actually want to create discussion on an issue, but instead wants to bully people he doesn’t like and have them banned from the game. You cannot actively say you respect me and then turn around act like this in-game without being two-faced.

Sam, I remember a game we played together a while back where you were three-stacking and someone in your three-stack was telling you to pick a character you didn’t think would win the game. They weren’t doing so to try and win the game, and they themselves weren’t putting in the “effort” to win the match and yet you stood your ground, played to win, and didn’t take trash advice from anyone. We worked together to win that game. Do you remember? Because that’s the person you should aim to be in-game. Take your own words to heart. Grow up and put some actual “effort” into your attitude.

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