Hah and after you get picket your mind goes "You see? You fucking new that's what was gonna happen and you did it anyways, stop!". And then you charge in again.
can't help it... get a few fire strike hits, wack someone with the hammer a couple of times and that fucking bloodlust that comes over you is unstoppable!! and lord have mercy on the other team if you've been Nanoed!!!! FOR GLORY!!!!!!!
I'd love to see some practical examples of this in action. You're so good at visual examples, it would really help. Like what someone who's purely reaction based would do, and then what the OODA thinking process would be. Thanks so much for this video btw, you're my #1 Overwatch teacher.
In case he doesn't, which I hope he does so I can get some clarity on what I'm about to say too. I think Tracer is an easy example of an OODA loop, a player that isn't really using an OODA loop on Tracer would generally just be blinking if they felt as though they were standing still for too long, or if an enemy that cant even output enough damage to be significant spots them for a second. Whereas using an OODA loop for tracer would be using your blinks to play around an opponent, anticipating when they're about to shoot and then blink - obviously its easier to do this on slow shooting targets like Roadhog, Reaper and McCree. And an example of doing an enemies OODA loop would be to mess with a McCree's mind by, for example, blinking into flashbang radius, then recalling or just blinking back, this would mean he's wasted his main defence against you and you can focus him down. I hope this helped. Edit: This is just what I've gathered from the video, hopefully Skyline will see this and correct any misinformation I may have passed here.
Observe examples: Communicate with your team effectively. Try and scope their comp out the gate without letting your comp be seen. Check the other team's ult status's in killcam. Press tab to see who's alive and on what character. Imagine each step of the cycle, and how you could improve that step - in whatever way. The whole point is to make better decisions faster than your opponents.
I've seen it done for Dark souls 3 in "Thoughcloud duels", editing in every thought as text and narrated duels just talking about it live. The system of a Vod review should have the best of both since you can pause and elaborate a lot without having to edit a ton of text.
as an Orisa 1:30 into the match their McRee who has typically been very aggressive from behind his reins shield is nowhere to be seen and has not ulted yet.. you notice your torb dead in the chat despite him being way in the back. turn around and fire a shield that mcree is about to wipe you!!!!!!!!
>constantly run OODA loop for yourself well, okay >run OODA loop for your enemy Pretty damn hard, but reasonable >run OODA loops for multiple opponents Wait wha... >run OODA loopes for both your opponents and allies brain.exe has stopped working Close the program? Y/Y _
Somehow these videos got into my feed as I was looking for project management tutorials. I find these videos very informative in illustrating key decision practices in a different venue. Please keep up the work.
I'm not sure if I do this or not, but most of the time when I'm playing really well I feel like I'm in "the zone" so to speak. I hardly make an effort to think at all while in "the zone". Maybe this zone is just me subconsciously making a bunch of OODA cycles and I just don't realize it? Mmmm....
Skyline Hm, I had in mind that being in zone wasn't just going through those processes, but rather acting without thinking about the 'simple' thought processes. After a lot of practice, players in the zone can focus on the harder decision making without being slowed down by the basics. (I don't think that there is a universal answer to what the zone is, but that's my take.)
Well, it's like when we catch a ball thrown at us quickly without time for us to think. All of the OODA process still has to occur, but that stuff is done very quickly without your knowledge assumedly by your subconscious mind.
I think this is a really interesting question. I think if you are unaware of your thought process or stop making an effort to think then it almost certainly means you are not making any of the complex decisions you might have otherwise been able to make. However, you may still be able to perform better than average because your subconscious mind is making rapid basic decision based on instinct. Actually when you are in this kind of state trying to force yourself to think more consciously about the complex stuff may well slow your reactions down and disrupt you. I would say being "in the zone" has both positives and negatives, so in some situations you might benefit from forcing yourself to think about the complex stuff instead of being in the zone. I experience this kind of "in the zone" feeling when I am playing pharah on good days and it seems that if I record and review the actions that I took afterward I realize that I didn't notice a lot of important things and some of the actions I took were not well thought out/over aggressive, but I was able to get away with it anyway because I just lined up the shots and predicted where the enemies would move on a subconscious level very well and I reacted fast to taking damage by using my abilities immediately to get out. So my subconscious mind is able to do basic predictions about the enemy like whether they will run toward the door or stick around to shoot at me when calculating where to aim my rockets, but when it comes to paying attention to other important things like keeping track of my teammates (eg how many are alive and pushing with me or whether I need to retreat and regroup) I often just don't think about it as much as I would have normally, so I am more prone to feeding and other dumb mistakes.
Woah this video was excellent! It actually made me *work out* my brain muscles as I was thinking about the concept and trying to implement it to your opponents in the video.
Very interesting to have a more complete understanding of how/why I got to masters(soon GM), and after watching this video I see that I was using OODA without realizing that it was in use. As a result I would like to say that if you are able to use the OODA cycles very well you will without a doubt start seeing change in your Rank, however if you are playing in competitive DON'T focus on your Rank. I fell into this trap of focusing too much about winning that I kept ignoring what I did incorrectly even when I won. After some time I just started to focus on improving my game sense and communicating more with the team and I started to see some improvement, and because I started seeing my flaws which made me play more to try and fix them. I would also like to point out one of my biggest flaws, which is my lack of great aim. Which truth be told has not really hindered me greatly because play around it, what I mean by that is not ignore it completely but play around what you are best at. In my case I had excellent quick decision making and game sense which made me more drawn to the Tank/ Support role where my call outs and thoughts were put to great use. I would keep rambling on about what made me better but the best thing I can recommend you to do is to 1.) Keep improving your OODA cycles 2.) After each game write down what you did well and what you can improve on(Recording gameplay is recommend so you can ask others what you did wrong) 3.) Play more to practice/get better
If I may, it is called "OODA loop" to be precise as championed by the late COL John Boyd of United States Air Force whom I consider to be the one of top 3 strategists of human history after Sun Tzu and Von Clausewitz. The biography called "Boyd" is definitely a worthy read for all walks of life.
Skyline Thank you Skyline. As someone who is active duty I definitely appreciate the military example correctly referenced and applied. I am a subscriber now & please keep up the good work.
ive played many team based fps games and most of these points apply to most of them. what would've taken months or even years to learn is explained here. very good vids as always
Hi Skyline, I really enjoy your videos. While I don't play Overwatch, what you mentioned, in regards to the OODA loop, reminds me of a time in another game. I was in a 5-man group for a dungeon, (this was awhile ago) and one player kept getting up in our faces about "play this way, or play that way" and that guy did the craziest stuff. Charging in when nobody was even remotely close enough to back him up, and making all sorts of weird decisions. I couldn't wrap my head around it. Eventually, he just calls us all noobs and then leaves the party. At that point we're more than half-way in the dungeon, and while we tried to find a fifth member before we pressed on we were unsuccessful. We then decided to just press on, and with only four of us, that felt pretty crazy. However, all the OODA stuff you mentioned just seemed to click with the rest of us, and from that point on, nobody died and it's like we were in some kind of hive-mind. I could never explain what happened back then, but your OODA information is the best explanation I've heard for it. Thank you!
Got into Overwatch fairly recently (2-3 weeks), Although my aim is fairly good for my modest level, I'm not that great yet. I listened to a TON of videos from other channels, but this channel is the best for me so far. Thanks a lot, you deserve more subscribers! The thinking process is something that not many overwatch youtubers share consistently it seems, and I think it's really the thing that helps me the most.
I can't believe you are at such low subs, I think you are way better and more informative than people like BritishLostGaming or YourOverwatch but they have more subs? I can't think of any other way to describe it other than you deserve more.
I think he described it best in the video. 'Basic, small, and fast [videos] will always beat out big, bulky, complex, and slow [videos]'. Not saying that his videos are particularly heavy, but compared to the competing channels he may as well be a PhD. Not having (much) clickbait certainly contributes as well
My only previous multiplayer FPS is BF3 and I totally agree, in that game with map knowledge and very little aim you can carry much more than in OW. There is no ranked and very little tournaments for it, so maybe it has more depth but you don't need to explore it at all to win.
i know this is quite late, but you can turn off music and listen super carefully to tune your hearing observation... or you can turn music on full and then your reliance on your eyes trains your brain to see much more... only in qp or ffa tho ;)
I never realized that people didn't do this. It comes naturally for me, but I know that some of my friends are always asking me for advice on obvious decisions. Now I understand what they're lacking and how I can help them improve. Thank you.
I never manage to catch your twitch streams so I haven't seen you live, but you put out some pretty rockin' content. I hadn't played Overwatch in a long time, then randomly clicked one of your videos that came up about aiming in FPS or something (which I find myself pretty bad at) and it was interesting enough that I picked the game back up. So thanks!
I play used to play Super Smash Bros. Melee competitively, and this was something I picked up on but didn't know how to describe. This was such a good explanation, know I really know why sometimes I would be able to perfectly read my opponents and completely outplay them, even though they practice more than me and have better mechanical skill
glad to find channels that have actual content and helpful.. keep it up dude. I will be sharing your videos to support you. I'm head of gaming club in university so I hope it will help :D
it's like a simple elimination process: you see where the enemy is positioned and what their composition is like, and from that information you can begin to narrow down the possible actions they can take. You read the situation based on your own experience and knowledge of the game, you've been in a similar place that the enemy is in so you should be able to visualize what they might do. It's an intuitive thought process where you don't think so much as feel. You get into "the zone"
One of the better ways to increase the productivity of ones OODA loop is through general experience. Once you get killed or kill an enemy in a certain fashion enough times, this information becomes more obvious. Thus recalling said information is easier and less thought is used overall, allowing for more plans and tactics to form where once it was used to decide other things.
Idk if you read these but you are literally fantastic. I'm new to FPS and video games in general so i just want to express appreciation for your work and tell you to set up a patreon :p somehow your teaching matches my learning pace and style exactly, and i understand the justification behind everything you're saying really well
When you think about other people's thought processes, they might be thinking about yours, and it might create an infinite loop! Yay for thoughts that give me headaches!
Man I had a lot of trouble focusing on s2, I've improved in s3 but this puts much better perspective on how i should really be working on that. Thanks! Will share with my overwatch discord group :)
A great way for predicting an enemy's movements is to have played that class before. For instance, when I first got the game I played a lot of Rhein, before moving over to Junkrats and McCrees, however I still have most of that Rhein knowledge. If I go head-to-head against a Rhein, I anticipate he'll do what I did. Of course this is randomish, and personal preferences vary (Some rheins charge, some never do it) but it really does help. If you're loosing to a class consistently, try and play that class for a few matches, so you understand that mindset.
really love the vids man! Definitely improving each time. Minor feedback on this video if you could talk about actual examples in the game using OODA so we can visualize and understand better. Thanks!
this is an extremely helpful video especially for me as an Ana/76 main the only problem is you can't predict you're allies movement especially when they are on auto pilot. it's true that I have to think about mine, team and the enemy positioning and threats of flanker's and keeping eye on the ultimate charges for both the teams . but that's a big problem when your team doesn't have the same mind set as you do . they JUST SEE SOME HEADS AND SHOOT IT . COMPLETELY BRAINLESS
The most simple application: Try to be the team making active plays, not reactive plays. Making reactive plays already means you're a decision cycle behind.
You can't get videos like this anywhere else! My question: I feel like I'm super slow at making decisions and I lack focus (tab to check enemy comp, close, shit I didn't actually register what I saw, open again, close again, still didn't stick!). Very much a reactionary player rather than one who plans. Any thoughts on fixing that?
That sounds like something that is actually done subconsciously, to me. Mainly because sitting there thinking about what to do will likely affect everything else you do in the game negatively, your focus swaps from movement and aim and the enemy, to decision making. People that play a character 24/7 will likely have this cycle happen automatically and not even be aware of it. So yea, if this is a thing that people want to do, they should probably be doing it outside of ranked, this is a matter of split seconds where the amount of actions your brain can account for grows based on your past experiences as far as I can tell, probably because, again, thinking about what to do next consciously instead of subconsciously, takes more time then the fight gives you. so you have to learn to think in advance, not stop and think about it there when you're on the clock. But that's just what I can gather from it, not claiming to be an expert on the subject.
Great great great video. Thank you for sharing. I was wondering however, how did you first learn about the OODA cycle? I'd enjoy learning more about critical decision making, but find my self lacking knowledge of resources. I hope you have time to respond. I've thoroughly enjoyed all of your content, please don't stop :D
I had something like this today. I was playing as lucio and had to decide to either stay with the payload to push it back or support my teammates who were fighting a couple of meters away from me. I had to consider how low their hp was, what kind of problems they could encounter, whether they had squishy heroes and the opponents lots of tanks etc. I decided to stay with the payload to buy us some time if the enemy team would beat us and push the payload further.
Thought about it some more. There is a big factor that affects the decision making, and that is the ultimate charge. It's like a hidden trump card, nobody knows who has it, only that everyone will get it eventually. Sometimes one can even bluff with it (I have no idea how to bluff your ultimate in Overwatch though). Predictions can only go so far if you don't know your opponents' ultimate status.
Medal ideally, I believe most ultimates you will want to be a surprise, and trying to use them in a way that the enemy team will be dead or helpless before they know what is going on. in this sense, there's not really any way to bluff ultimate. the only example I can think of is in lower ranked games, when a reaper tries to wraith form into a big group of people and ultimate right away. obviously this doesn't work out well for the reaper often for higher ELO teams. on the other note of ultimate charge, you can never now exactly, but with lots of practice you can have a pretty good idea of what ults you may need to watch out for. the simplest example would be an enemy Reinhardt, where his main way of gaining ultimate charge is with fire strike which give I believe about 10% (I may be wrong) per hit. if you've ever watched pro players, you'll notice them sometimes say "I'm afraid of X ultimate right now" and they will play accordingly. anyways those are just my thoughts on the subject.
What I think tends to trip people up when attempting this type of intrinsic information gathering and execution is ironically the need for communication. People tend to rely so much on communication or demand communication and coordination so much they end up losing that ability to think up a plan on the spot. Of course communicating is always important so something I think you could have added to this video is and people may hate me for saying this, but promoting doing a lot of solo queing before establishing a team. solo q sucks, but it would definitely help you gain this skill.
I could use some examples of the kind of thinking and decisions you're talking about. Maybe a VOD review that focuses on decision making and situation analysis?
For the 1v1's in Overwatch, I think you can kinda draw a parallel to the neutral game in fighting games, if you're familiar with that. Another interesting note is the mindgames; where you try to outpredict your opponent, who is trying to outpredict you. What would be helpful to me, as a relative new player to Overwatch, is not only being able to observe the information available to me, but also know what to do with it.
MEGJECT you can try to react to the information in different and creative ways and see what works and what doesn't, building experience and developing the Orient phase of the cycle.
Really dug this video. Would you consider posting a vid about the attitude you need to carry to get better/climb in ranked? I went super tilt this weekend and tried to grit my teeth and brute force through the loss streak which ended up costing me around 400 SR... so definitely not the best strat haha. Would super appreciate some tips on ways to pace yourself game-wise in ranked (eg signs you should end a playing session), what's constructive/a good way to handle a loss streak, things you can do before you start a playing session to get in the right head-space, and if there are things to look out for or be careful of when you are on a win streak. Might be super obvious stuff, but these areas seem to be hurting me the most right now. :/
you are such a talented guy skyline....you discuss about important topinc in community FIRST and then i see same conteont by stylosa or YO guys...but they have more view and subs so they get money feels bad manù you deserve more
Got plat (2,7k) right before christmas, auto-pilot ON and back to low gold i go (2,2k).. Feels bad man.. Great video! I have to start using my head! Cheers! =)
Thanks for this video! I am trying to wrap my head around this concept...Could you do another video where you provide examples of what you're talking about? Maybe I'm just not analytically intelligent enough to understand this, but I'm having a hard time grasping this concept right now.
im a rein main and i mostly just focus on my ana and where she is so i know where i have to be to gat heals, their rein so my team wins the sheild battle and gets shields and their poke character (raod widow) so i can sheild my team from them
Nice Video. Well argued - keep the good stuff up. I rly enjoy your Videos (: i learned something New for overwatch That I can also use for life. Maybe a series About real life stuff adapted to overwatch would be nice (:
i usually do 4 one for me, one of my teammates that is influencing the match a lot or that is slacking and 2 of the enemies that i find important to beat, sometimes i do more.
its the same general idea in sword fighting or chess, if you've ever played lightsabers as a kid, its about prediction into counter. At least thats how it goes in my mind.
but you can do slow decision on your downtime . it's 10 second. your first loop even have more time ,ex.when start the game look at your teammate pick or profile and choose your pick to compatible with them (and that one that you also confident enough to play). edit : and when I being salty my brain can thinking that much anymore . (probably, everyone is like that). that why I take a break or go do something stupid in quick play /brawl/arcade while I getting too salty.
I am quite new to Overwatch and still have trouble spotting the enemy, but when it comes to my team mates I at least try to play for / with them. (As winston I am looking more at the positioning of my team than the one of the enemys for example.. can't make a decent jump if I don't know if the followup is atleast in position )
You talk about thinking what they would do, but thats not a surefire method unless you can process out all the possible iterations of the info you recieve, say via hearing a sound from your right, then you know what they ate looping into; however you need good reflexes and good judgement and practice. Being that said, i agree with desition makeing being the most important fact on RTG&FPS.
hey skyline; I have played a lot of genji and roadhog and when I am playing genji I know when to reflect roadhogs hook because I have played a lot of him. Is this an example of a ooda cycle? If so that's interesting because for me it feels like I don't think about it and it is instinct. Anyway love your vids and if you could answer this in anyway I would be great full :)
I wonder if it's any good to have every player in the team focus on one enemy player each and note everything theyre doing? Like your Ana constantly notes what the enemy Ana is doing, the dps check on another enemy each and so on. This way it's easier to know who has ult and what abillities, their behaviour etc. Of course this would need a full team and/or lots of communication, but if this would be meta and everyone would do it without needing to be told to this could change alot
I feel like when I try to use OODA my aim deteriorates. I think that I play autopilot so much that aiming has become linked with that style of play. Alternatively maybe I'm just noticing problems with my aim that I otherwise wouldn't notice. Any advice on disconnecting my aim from my autopilot or just in general on this problem? Also I find when trying to make fast decisions, it's much easier to make them subconsciously then reflect on whether that was the correct decision afterwards. If it was the wrong decision then I can attempt to train my subconscious to make the correct decision next time. I believe that subconscious decision making is much much faster, but it's more of a black box process so is far less malleable. I'm also a huge fan of the idea of watching you play a game while explaining your OODA cycles along with the emulations of other player's OODAs.
I've came to Overwatch from the day9 Starcraft 2 class of: "You should do your thinking AFTER the game, not during". Granted, RTS requires less snap decisions from an FPS. The problem here is that I go to games in autopilot, maybe allowing me to play faster but also causing me to make stupid mistakes. I wish I could do quick decisions without stopping and getting my sorry ass handed to me.
How can you switch to "fast, low-quality" thinking? I can't seem to do that, no matter what I try. I'll try thinking from my opponent's perspective in the future more, but I still can't get rid of my slow thinking. It's not like I am dumb. I know for a fact that I am quite smart, but I tend to be very thorough with my thought process. And it's not like there are "gears" in my brain, that I can switch into. I start thinking, think and finish thinking, there is no "extra slow, high-quality thinking" part in there.
in about 80% of the games the following happens i pick torbjörn - player assume im trolling - they ask me to switch - i dont because i want to win - they insult me call me names - they refuse to play - we loose - they blame me - they report me due to this i was banned 11 times already and the reason blizzard used to ban me was inapropriate language useage. so if i wouold have said something inapropriate it might be ok to act but not even didnt i say any inapropriate ever the fun part is that even tho i said nothing at all never in voice chat and no single letter written in chat no emoki used their reasoning was still - inapropriate language usage- of cours blizzard was unable to tell me what inapropriate things i should have said and had to lift the ban every time but tahts not it sometimes i loose alot of tanks just because player rightout refuse to play at all. the record was 40 games lost in a row with 1300 ranks lost in 8 hours every single match there were one up to 3 player who refuse to play and stand afk at spawn to make sure its a loss and im talking about ranked games only. with a couple thousand games its possible to tell something about statistics and they tell that if some player A notes in chat to player B that he should pick something different the chances of it beeing a lost game are above 90% on the other hand if no one mentions anything about picks at all the chances of loosing are below 20% in the matches recorded. a smiliar connection exist between chatting in general. the more words written in chat during a game the higher the chance of loosing the game this is actually pretty liniear function there isnt even a peak optimum words beeing written thoughtout the count of words the rule aplies more words less likly to win anyway i look forward to quake champions team based shooter like overwatch are not rating skill my sollution would be as simple as every ranked match should cost 1$ -> 2$ for win and 0 for loss
Easy. The whole point of the video is "Never do stuff subconsciously unless it's something mechanical, like aiming". There's no way you will not think while trying to observe your enemies.
Missing from this is that the OODA LOOP is primarily aimed at "how to interact with locals without pissing them off / offending their beliefs". It is NOT a fantastic thinking model for high-paced games, or combat. If you have your entire team all running OODA LOOPS, you are going to have a significant amount of delay. There is a definite value in having people operating on the shortest, reactionary cycles.
I mean this all makes sense.. but i'm having a really hard time seeing how to apply this to games... or just stuff in general... Can you possibly provide some examples to get a better understanding of what's going on?
My ooda is telling me not to charge into the enemy lines as Rein, but my body... my boooodddyy is telling me yessss
FOR GLORY! FOR HONOR! FOR JUSTICEEEEEEEE
Hah and after you get picket your mind goes "You see? You fucking new that's what was gonna happen and you did it anyways, stop!".
And then you charge in again.
can't help it... get a few fire strike hits, wack someone with the hammer a couple of times and that fucking bloodlust that comes over you is unstoppable!! and lord have mercy on the other team if you've been Nanoed!!!! FOR GLORY!!!!!!!
I'd love to see some practical examples of this in action. You're so good at visual examples, it would really help. Like what someone who's purely reaction based would do, and then what the OODA thinking process would be. Thanks so much for this video btw, you're my #1 Overwatch teacher.
agree
In case he doesn't, which I hope he does so I can get some clarity on what I'm about to say too. I think Tracer is an easy example of an OODA loop, a player that isn't really using an OODA loop on Tracer would generally just be blinking if they felt as though they were standing still for too long, or if an enemy that cant even output enough damage to be significant spots them for a second. Whereas using an OODA loop for tracer would be using your blinks to play around an opponent, anticipating when they're about to shoot and then blink - obviously its easier to do this on slow shooting targets like Roadhog, Reaper and McCree.
And an example of doing an enemies OODA loop would be to mess with a McCree's mind by, for example, blinking into flashbang radius, then recalling or just blinking back, this would mean he's wasted his main defence against you and you can focus him down. I hope this helped.
Edit: This is just what I've gathered from the video, hopefully Skyline will see this and correct any misinformation I may have passed here.
Observe examples: Communicate with your team effectively. Try and scope their comp out the gate without letting your comp be seen. Check the other team's ult status's in killcam. Press tab to see who's alive and on what character.
Imagine each step of the cycle, and how you could improve that step - in whatever way. The whole point is to make better decisions faster than your opponents.
+*NotDeclan* words. Words everywhere.
Jessica Alburn What?
Can you do a gameplay review of yourself going through these thought processes?
yes please! using examples you can really illustrate the points you are making. Keep up the gd work, I really like your videos!
darktoster Animetic has a video where she goes over her thought process as a mercy, it was rather helpful for me :)
I've seen it done for Dark souls 3 in "Thoughcloud duels", editing in every thought as text and narrated duels just talking about it live. The system of a Vod review should have the best of both since you can pause and elaborate a lot without having to edit a ton of text.
+Xavier Devere Any link pls ?
as an Orisa 1:30 into the match their McRee who has typically been very aggressive from behind his reins shield is nowhere to be seen and has not ulted yet.. you notice your torb dead in the chat despite him being way in the back. turn around and fire a shield that mcree is about to wipe you!!!!!!!!
>constantly run OODA loop for yourself
well, okay
>run OODA loop for your enemy
Pretty damn hard, but reasonable
>run OODA loops for multiple opponents
Wait wha...
>run OODA loopes for both your opponents and allies
brain.exe has stopped working
Close the program? Y/Y _
It's just like juggling. :P
Somehow these videos got into my feed as I was looking for project management tutorials. I find these videos very informative in illustrating key decision practices in a different venue. Please keep up the work.
I'm not sure if I do this or not, but most of the time when I'm playing really well I feel like I'm in "the zone" so to speak. I hardly make an effort to think at all while in "the zone". Maybe this zone is just me subconsciously making a bunch of OODA cycles and I just don't realize it? Mmmm....
People can think subconsciously? I've always thought it's all just luck.
Skyline Hm, I had in mind that being in zone wasn't just going through those processes, but rather acting without thinking about the 'simple' thought processes. After a lot of practice, players in the zone can focus on the harder decision making without being slowed down by the basics.
(I don't think that there is a universal answer to what the zone is, but that's my take.)
Well, it's like when we catch a ball thrown at us quickly without time for us to think. All of the OODA process still has to occur, but that stuff is done very quickly without your knowledge assumedly by your subconscious mind.
Same
I think this is a really interesting question. I think if you are unaware of your thought process or stop making an effort to think then it almost certainly means you are not making any of the complex decisions you might have otherwise been able to make. However, you may still be able to perform better than average because your subconscious mind is making rapid basic decision based on instinct. Actually when you are in this kind of state trying to force yourself to think more consciously about the complex stuff may well slow your reactions down and disrupt you. I would say being "in the zone" has both positives and negatives, so in some situations you might benefit from forcing yourself to think about the complex stuff instead of being in the zone.
I experience this kind of "in the zone" feeling when I am playing pharah on good days and it seems that if I record and review the actions that I took afterward I realize that I didn't notice a lot of important things and some of the actions I took were not well thought out/over aggressive, but I was able to get away with it anyway because I just lined up the shots and predicted where the enemies would move on a subconscious level very well and I reacted fast to taking damage by using my abilities immediately to get out. So my subconscious mind is able to do basic predictions about the enemy like whether they will run toward the door or stick around to shoot at me when calculating where to aim my rockets, but when it comes to paying attention to other important things like keeping track of my teammates (eg how many are alive and pushing with me or whether I need to retreat and regroup) I often just don't think about it as much as I would have normally, so I am more prone to feeding and other dumb mistakes.
You're a genius man every video you make helps me be a better player. Fantastic stuff man keep it up
Woah this video was excellent! It actually made me *work out* my brain muscles as I was thinking about the concept and trying to implement it to your opponents in the video.
Very interesting to have a more complete understanding of how/why I got to masters(soon GM), and after watching this video I see that I was using OODA without realizing that it was in use. As a result I would like to say that if you are able to use the OODA cycles very well you will without a doubt start seeing change in your Rank, however if you are playing in competitive DON'T focus on your Rank. I fell into this trap of focusing too much about winning that I kept ignoring what I did incorrectly even when I won. After some time I just started to focus on improving my game sense and communicating more with the team and I started to see some improvement, and because I started seeing my flaws which made me play more to try and fix them. I would also like to point out one of my biggest flaws, which is my lack of great aim. Which truth be told has not really hindered me greatly because play around it, what I mean by that is not ignore it completely but play around what you are best at. In my case I had excellent quick decision making and game sense which made me more drawn to the Tank/ Support role where my call outs and thoughts were put to great use. I would keep rambling on about what made me better but the best thing I can recommend you to do is to 1.) Keep improving your OODA cycles 2.) After each game write down what you did well and what you can improve on(Recording gameplay is recommend so you can ask others what you did wrong) 3.) Play more to practice/get better
i literally have done this my whole life and never realized it till you explained it so clearly
If I may, it is called "OODA loop" to be precise as championed by the late COL John Boyd of United States Air Force whom I consider to be the one of top 3 strategists of human history after Sun Tzu and Von Clausewitz. The biography called "Boyd" is definitely a worthy read for all walks of life.
Skyline Thank you Skyline. As someone who is active duty I definitely appreciate the military example correctly referenced and applied. I am a subscriber now & please keep up the good work.
ive played many team based fps games and most of these points apply to most of them. what would've taken months or even years to learn is explained here. very good vids as always
Hi Skyline, I really enjoy your videos. While I don't play Overwatch, what you mentioned, in regards to the OODA loop, reminds me of a time in another game. I was in a 5-man group for a dungeon, (this was awhile ago) and one player kept getting up in our faces about "play this way, or play that way" and that guy did the craziest stuff. Charging in when nobody was even remotely close enough to back him up, and making all sorts of weird decisions. I couldn't wrap my head around it.
Eventually, he just calls us all noobs and then leaves the party. At that point we're more than half-way in the dungeon, and while we tried to find a fifth member before we pressed on we were unsuccessful. We then decided to just press on, and with only four of us, that felt pretty crazy. However, all the OODA stuff you mentioned just seemed to click with the rest of us, and from that point on, nobody died and it's like we were in some kind of hive-mind.
I could never explain what happened back then, but your OODA information is the best explanation I've heard for it. Thank you!
Got into Overwatch fairly recently (2-3 weeks), Although my aim is fairly good for my modest level, I'm not that great yet. I listened to a TON of videos from other channels, but this channel is the best for me so far. Thanks a lot, you deserve more subscribers! The thinking process is something that not many overwatch youtubers share consistently it seems, and I think it's really the thing that helps me the most.
Man Sky I really miss you, you have a way of explaining things that is simultaneously easy to understand and makes me feel smart :P
I can't believe you are at such low subs, I think you are way better and more informative than people like BritishLostGaming or YourOverwatch but they have more subs? I can't think of any other way to describe it other than you deserve more.
Clickbait + lowest common denominator vs quality
I think he described it best in the video. 'Basic, small, and fast [videos] will always beat out big, bulky, complex, and slow [videos]'. Not saying that his videos are particularly heavy, but compared to the competing channels he may as well be a PhD. Not having (much) clickbait certainly contributes as well
peter garrett Those channels already learned and decided to play by RUclips numbers: mandatory daily video, clickbait, hot topics, networking...
My only previous multiplayer FPS is BF3 and I totally agree, in that game with map knowledge and very little aim you can carry much more than in OW. There is no ranked and very little tournaments for it, so maybe it has more depth but you don't need to explore it at all to win.
Clutch The Ninja ?? If you're not thinking and making decisions in Battlefield, let alone any game, you're probably doing something wrong, haha
i know this is quite late, but you can turn off music and listen super carefully to tune your hearing observation... or you can turn music on full and then your reliance on your eyes trains your brain to see much more... only in qp or ffa tho ;)
I love this. In addition to overwatch, I've been trying to get back into fighting games and this will help me immensly.
I never realized that people didn't do this. It comes naturally for me, but I know that some of my friends are always asking me for advice on obvious decisions. Now I understand what they're lacking and how I can help them improve. Thank you.
this video is really good and applies to almost everything
you make better vids than 95% of the overwatch yters. Very interesting and useful! Keep it up.
Being subbed and watched your videos for a while every video i learn something new than from those medicore youtubers thx for this my dude
I never manage to catch your twitch streams so I haven't seen you live, but you put out some pretty rockin' content. I hadn't played Overwatch in a long time, then randomly clicked one of your videos that came up about aiming in FPS or something (which I find myself pretty bad at) and it was interesting enough that I picked the game back up. So thanks!
Amazing videos. Thanks so much, I watch them all and they have helped a lot!!
I play used to play Super Smash Bros. Melee competitively, and this was something I picked up on but didn't know how to describe. This was such a good explanation, know I really know why sometimes I would be able to perfectly read my opponents and completely outplay them, even though they practice more than me and have better mechanical skill
glad to find channels that have actual content and helpful.. keep it up dude. I will be sharing your videos to support you. I'm head of gaming club in university so I hope it will help :D
I really hope the quality of your videos content doesnt change as you get more famous, please. Great video, keep up the good work!
it's like a simple elimination process: you see where the enemy is positioned and what their composition is like, and from that information you can begin to narrow down the possible actions they can take. You read the situation based on your own experience and knowledge of the game, you've been in a similar place that the enemy is in so you should be able to visualize what they might do. It's an intuitive thought process where you don't think so much as feel. You get into "the zone"
This is one of these videos that I need to watch a LOT to fully understand.
One of the better ways to increase the productivity of ones OODA loop is through general experience. Once you get killed or kill an enemy in a certain fashion enough times, this information becomes more obvious. Thus recalling said information is easier and less thought is used overall, allowing for more plans and tactics to form where once it was used to decide other things.
Great Video Sky! keep it up, love the vids
I really enjoy your coaching style, you make things very easy to comprehend
Idk if you read these but you are literally fantastic. I'm new to FPS and video games in general so i just want to express appreciation for your work and tell you to set up a patreon :p somehow your teaching matches my learning pace and style exactly, and i understand the justification behind everything you're saying really well
Wow, great videos man. Some truly useful advice.
So much Abo +
Nice work Skyline, as always !
When you think about other people's thought processes, they might be thinking about yours, and it might create an infinite loop! Yay for thoughts that give me headaches!
Man I had a lot of trouble focusing on s2, I've improved in s3 but this puts much better perspective on how i should really be working on that. Thanks! Will share with my overwatch discord group :)
A great way for predicting an enemy's movements is to have played that class before. For instance, when I first got the game I played a lot of Rhein, before moving over to Junkrats and McCrees, however I still have most of that Rhein knowledge. If I go head-to-head against a Rhein, I anticipate he'll do what I did. Of course this is randomish, and personal preferences vary (Some rheins charge, some never do it) but it really does help. If you're loosing to a class consistently, try and play that class for a few matches, so you understand that mindset.
really love the vids man! Definitely improving each time. Minor feedback on this video if you could talk about actual examples in the game using OODA so we can visualize and understand better. Thanks!
I eat Frooda loops for breakfast.
Good Content.
Keep up the a-mei-zing work!
this is an extremely helpful video especially for me as an Ana/76 main the only problem is you can't predict you're allies movement especially when they are on auto pilot. it's true that I have to think about mine, team and the enemy positioning and threats of flanker's and keeping eye on the ultimate charges for both the teams . but that's a big problem when your team doesn't have the same mind set as you do . they JUST SEE SOME HEADS AND SHOOT IT . COMPLETELY BRAINLESS
The most simple application:
Try to be the team making active plays, not reactive plays.
Making reactive plays already means you're a decision cycle behind.
Sorta like the idea of 'tempo' in Hearthstone.
You can't get videos like this anywhere else! My question: I feel like I'm super slow at making decisions and I lack focus (tab to check enemy comp, close, shit I didn't actually register what I saw, open again, close again, still didn't stick!). Very much a reactionary player rather than one who plans. Any thoughts on fixing that?
Very useful! Great content dude!
That sounds like something that is actually done subconsciously, to me. Mainly because sitting there thinking about what to do will likely affect everything else you do in the game negatively, your focus swaps from movement and aim and the enemy, to decision making. People that play a character 24/7 will likely have this cycle happen automatically and not even be aware of it. So yea, if this is a thing that people want to do, they should probably be doing it outside of ranked, this is a matter of split seconds where the amount of actions your brain can account for grows based on your past experiences as far as I can tell, probably because, again, thinking about what to do next consciously instead of subconsciously, takes more time then the fight gives you. so you have to learn to think in advance, not stop and think about it there when you're on the clock. But that's just what I can gather from it, not claiming to be an expert on the subject.
Ay, the OODA Loop. This shit gets crammed down our throats for a while haha. Didnt expect to hear about it anywhere else outside of the military.
Great great great video. Thank you for sharing. I was wondering however, how did you first learn about the OODA cycle? I'd enjoy learning more about critical decision making, but find my self lacking knowledge of resources. I hope you have time to respond. I've thoroughly enjoyed all of your content, please don't stop :D
You are amazing! Overwatch needed more advice based on management/decision management.
I had something like this today. I was playing as lucio and had to decide to either stay with the payload to push it back or support my teammates who were fighting a couple of meters away from me. I had to consider how low their hp was, what kind of problems they could encounter, whether they had squishy heroes and the opponents lots of tanks etc. I decided to stay with the payload to buy us some time if the enemy team would beat us and push the payload further.
Thought about it some more. There is a big factor that affects the decision making, and that is the ultimate charge. It's like a hidden trump card, nobody knows who has it, only that everyone will get it eventually. Sometimes one can even bluff with it (I have no idea how to bluff your ultimate in Overwatch though). Predictions can only go so far if you don't know your opponents' ultimate status.
Medal ideally, I believe most ultimates you will want to be a surprise, and trying to use them in a way that the enemy team will be dead or helpless before they know what is going on. in this sense, there's not really any way to bluff ultimate. the only example I can think of is in lower ranked games, when a reaper tries to wraith form into a big group of people and ultimate right away. obviously this doesn't work out well for the reaper often for higher ELO teams. on the other note of ultimate charge, you can never now exactly, but with lots of practice you can have a pretty good idea of what ults you may need to watch out for. the simplest example would be an enemy Reinhardt, where his main way of gaining ultimate charge is with fire strike which give I believe about 10% (I may be wrong) per hit. if you've ever watched pro players, you'll notice them sometimes say "I'm afraid of X ultimate right now" and they will play accordingly. anyways those are just my thoughts on the subject.
That's the best video I've ever seen on formalizing the cognitive processes that competitive gamers subconsciously use
that video open up my mind to thing differently wow
What I think tends to trip people up when attempting this type of intrinsic information gathering and execution is ironically the need for communication. People tend to rely so much on communication or demand communication and coordination so much they end up losing that ability to think up a plan on the spot. Of course communicating is always important so something I think you could have added to this video is and people may hate me for saying this, but promoting doing a lot of solo queing before establishing a team. solo q sucks, but it would definitely help you gain this skill.
I could use some examples of the kind of thinking and decisions you're talking about. Maybe a VOD review that focuses on decision making and situation analysis?
I would love if you made a video going over the OODA cycles that you were thinking of during a VOD.
For the 1v1's in Overwatch, I think you can kinda draw a parallel to the neutral game in fighting games, if you're familiar with that. Another interesting note is the mindgames; where you try to outpredict your opponent, who is trying to outpredict you. What would be helpful to me, as a relative new player to Overwatch, is not only being able to observe the information available to me, but also know what to do with it.
MEGJECT you can try to react to the information in different and creative ways and see what works and what doesn't, building experience and developing the Orient phase of the cycle.
Really dug this video. Would you consider posting a vid about the attitude you need to carry to get better/climb in ranked? I went super tilt this weekend and tried to grit my teeth and brute force through the loss streak which ended up costing me around 400 SR... so definitely not the best strat haha. Would super appreciate some tips on ways to pace yourself game-wise in ranked (eg signs you should end a playing session), what's constructive/a good way to handle a loss streak, things you can do before you start a playing session to get in the right head-space, and if there are things to look out for or be careful of when you are on a win streak. Might be super obvious stuff, but these areas seem to be hurting me the most right now. :/
you are such a talented guy skyline....you discuss about important topinc in community FIRST
and then i see same conteont by stylosa or YO guys...but they have more view and subs so they get money
feels bad manù
you deserve more
I think you should get into details and give examples
itamar koren a follow up video with detailed examples would be very nice
My problem on the OODA chart is the fact that I understand the first three concept but the fail to execute them properly. Panic, late ulti, etc.
this is very important to do when playing zarya
Got plat (2,7k) right before christmas, auto-pilot ON and back to low gold i go (2,2k).. Feels bad man.. Great video! I have to start using my head! Cheers! =)
Thanks for this video! I am trying to wrap my head around this concept...Could you do another video where you provide examples of what you're talking about? Maybe I'm just not analytically intelligent enough to understand this, but I'm having a hard time grasping this concept right now.
i never thought about it like that
god damn that symettra play was distracting now i have to rewind ^_^
Truly amazing!
An example could be counting Roadhog hooks, and knowing when he can or cannot, will or will not use it
Solid information that a lot of good gamers forget they had to learn and fail to articulate well.
im a rein main and i mostly just focus on my ana and where she is so i know where i have to be to gat heals, their rein so my team wins the sheild battle and gets shields and their poke character (raod widow) so i can sheild my team from them
Nice Video. Well argued - keep the good stuff up. I rly enjoy your Videos (: i learned something New for overwatch That I can also use for life. Maybe a series About real life stuff adapted to overwatch would be nice (:
i usually do 4 one for me, one of my teammates that is influencing the match a lot or that is slacking and 2 of the enemies that i find important to beat, sometimes i do more.
its the same general idea in sword fighting or chess, if you've ever played lightsabers as a kid, its about prediction into counter. At least thats how it goes in my mind.
One day I'm going to be proud to be first on a video. This is not that day.
I'm pride of you for saying that, that's a step forward .
Skyline Thanks Skyline-san
Holy shit, that Symmetra 5K at 3:08 was disgusting. I would have been so mad if I was on the enemy team.
but you can do slow decision on your downtime . it's 10 second.
your first loop even have more time ,ex.when start the game look at your teammate pick or profile and choose your pick to compatible with them (and that one that you also confident enough to play).
edit : and when I being salty my brain can thinking that much anymore . (probably, everyone is like that).
that why I take a break or go do something stupid in quick play /brawl/arcade while I getting too salty.
This Guy gets like 400 subs a day ( content is important )
I'ma sub. Seems you got some good vids.
The lesson of the day is "Emphasize with your enemy".
thankyou for this video
I am quite new to Overwatch and still have trouble spotting the enemy, but when it comes to my team mates I at least try to play for / with them. (As winston I am looking more at the positioning of my team than the one of the enemys for example.. can't make a decent jump if I don't know if the followup is atleast in position )
You talk about thinking what they would do, but thats not a surefire method unless you can process out all the possible iterations of the info you recieve, say via hearing a sound from your right, then you know what they ate looping into; however you need good reflexes and good judgement and practice. Being that said, i agree with desition makeing being the most important fact on RTG&FPS.
ok... I have to master this circle.
I just realized part of the process is a pentagram. Noice!
hey skyline; I have played a lot of genji and roadhog and when I am playing genji I know when to reflect roadhogs hook because I have played a lot of him. Is this an example of a ooda cycle? If so that's interesting because for me it feels like I don't think about it and it is instinct. Anyway love your vids and if you could answer this in anyway I would be great full
:)
I wonder if it's any good to have every player in the team focus on one enemy player each and note everything theyre doing? Like your Ana constantly notes what the enemy Ana is doing, the dps check on another enemy each and so on. This way it's easier to know who has ult and what abillities, their behaviour etc. Of course this would need a full team and/or lots of communication, but if this would be meta and everyone would do it without needing to be told to this could change alot
I feel like when I try to use OODA my aim deteriorates. I think that I play autopilot so much that aiming has become linked with that style of play. Alternatively maybe I'm just noticing problems with my aim that I otherwise wouldn't notice. Any advice on disconnecting my aim from my autopilot or just in general on this problem?
Also I find when trying to make fast decisions, it's much easier to make them subconsciously then reflect on whether that was the correct decision afterwards. If it was the wrong decision then I can attempt to train my subconscious to make the correct decision next time. I believe that subconscious decision making is much much faster, but it's more of a black box process so is far less malleable.
I'm also a huge fan of the idea of watching you play a game while explaining your OODA cycles along with the emulations of other player's OODAs.
I've came to Overwatch from the day9 Starcraft 2 class of: "You should do your thinking AFTER the game, not during". Granted, RTS requires less snap decisions from an FPS. The problem here is that I go to games in autopilot, maybe allowing me to play faster but also causing me to make stupid mistakes. I wish I could do quick decisions without stopping and getting my sorry ass handed to me.
How can you switch to "fast, low-quality" thinking? I can't seem to do that, no matter what I try. I'll try thinking from my opponent's perspective in the future more, but I still can't get rid of my slow thinking. It's not like I am dumb. I know for a fact that I am quite smart, but I tend to be very thorough with my thought process. And it's not like there are "gears" in my brain, that I can switch into. I start thinking, think and finish thinking, there is no "extra slow, high-quality thinking" part in there.
4:45 i usually do an ooda loop to decide how many ooda loops i do :^)
Yeah i saw that on reddit too.
Can you make a video with examples of how to apply this?
What happens if you have multiple but broken ooda cycles? Its like done half heartedly :/ Great video :DD
As you said this works in any fast paced game, I have been kicked sometimes for wallhacking in TF2.... And I was not wallhacking
in about 80% of the games the following happens
i pick torbjörn - player assume im trolling - they ask me to switch - i dont because i want to win - they insult me call me names - they refuse to play - we loose - they blame me - they report me
due to this i was banned 11 times already and the reason blizzard used to ban me was inapropriate language useage. so if i wouold have said something inapropriate it might be ok to act but not even didnt i say any inapropriate ever the fun part is that even tho i said nothing at all never in voice chat and no single letter written in chat no emoki used their reasoning was still - inapropriate language usage- of cours blizzard was unable to tell me what inapropriate things i should have said and had to lift the ban every time but tahts not it sometimes i loose alot of tanks just because player rightout refuse to play at all. the record was 40 games lost in a row with 1300 ranks lost in 8 hours every single match there were one up to 3 player who refuse to play and stand afk at spawn to make sure its a loss and im talking about ranked games only. with a couple thousand games its possible to tell something about statistics and they tell that if some player A notes in chat to player B that he should pick something different the chances of it beeing a lost game are above 90% on the other hand if no one mentions anything about picks at all the chances of loosing are below 20% in the matches recorded. a smiliar connection exist between chatting in general. the more words written in chat during a game the higher the chance of loosing the game this is actually pretty liniear function there isnt even a peak optimum words beeing written thoughtout the count of words the rule aplies more words less likly to win
anyway i look forward to quake champions team based shooter like overwatch are not rating skill my sollution would be as simple as
every ranked match should cost 1$ -> 2$ for win and 0 for loss
yeah but stylosa once told me that thinking doesn't matter
is this something i should focus on doing or it should come subconsciously as i am playing?
Easy. The whole point of the video is "Never do stuff subconsciously unless it's something mechanical, like aiming". There's no way you will not think while trying to observe your enemies.
ok thank you, also great video!
Yariv Astrahan that depends on your personality. But you should consiously think about observing
Missing from this is that the OODA LOOP is primarily aimed at "how to interact with locals without pissing them off / offending their beliefs". It is NOT a fantastic thinking model for high-paced games, or combat. If you have your entire team all running OODA LOOPS, you are going to have a significant amount of delay. There is a definite value in having people operating on the shortest, reactionary cycles.
I mean this all makes sense.. but i'm having a really hard time seeing how to apply this to games... or just stuff in general... Can you possibly provide some examples to get a better understanding of what's going on?
good video, love the content, good idea for a vid btw