Livestreaming and mental health

Well, isn't this an issue nowadays? Question is, what isn't an issue nowadays?! Everything seems to be taken to the extreme... It's pure insanity. The internet was such a great gift but even greater of a curse. Livestreaming is something that has been growing exponentially in the past, let's say, 8 years? Ever since YouTube started having people recording their gameplay and posting it with tipically commentary, livestreaming of videogames became very popular. And with everything that is popular, it also generates money on account of sponsors interested in promoting their products to massive audiences. So livestreaming for a lot of people became a source of income, it became their job. You might be reading this right now and thinking : "Wow, playing videogames for a living? That must be the dreamjob!". However I can agree to disagree, on account that you are playing publicly, available for the whole world to see you and you are vulnerable to plenty of aspects that can be incredibly negative towards someone. Negativity is the prime factor here... In the past 6 years of having an account on Twitch i've been watching all kinds of livestreaming and streamers and I can say that it is not an easy job as many will paint it as. The amount of toxicity you literally have to deal with everyday is insane and it has been allarmingly getting worse every single day. From the enabled racism from emotes that were created in an innocent manner to promote certain actions to every single little or big mistake being accounted for and announced in the chat in an attempt to infuriate the streamers as well as the attempts of finding out personal information, doxxing it, death threats... The list goes on and on. The amount of people having mental breakdowns is insane, which also leads to a theory of mine... Somehow, people are entertained by the pain of others and it's getting out of control. Between people that legitimately have mental breakdowns to those that fake them in order to achieve an audience, this is not ok. The internet needs way more control because humanity can't have nice things without being put on a leash. There is no consequence to someone being incredibly toxic to another person on the internet. It is as easy as snapping your fingers to ruin someone elses day through the internet. There must be harsh consequences for those that use the internet with malicious intent. Let's stop this nonsense before it is too late! It's already known that people are way more depressed than ever before this whole technological world took its place. Excessive information can be pretty good but also very bad if all you want to see is bad, depressing things.

My thoughts on a game that I thoroughly enjoy and "is dying". Overwatch.

Ok, so it should be known at this point, for people into Blizzard Entertainment and specifically Overwatch, that the game is at a state that a lot of people consider to be annoying, obnoxious and simply not fun. However I have a few things to say for myself about the game and my experience while playing it for almost 2 years.

First of all, it's an online video game. It depends on a player base, which therefore means it depends on people. People are unpredictable, and as someone on the internet, both you and I know that people can be quite unpleasant in this virtual world. Games are no exception! Due to the comfort and ease of not experiencing the human emotions first hand when you're talking to someone online, people tend to be quite destructive and toxic. And when a game fully depends on team play, strategy, awareness, communication, "it's everyone's fault but mine". "I did everything I could." "I was at my very best and the team threw the game." "All the players in my team are typically trash, but I usually pop off." You get the point. So it's not that the game promotes this kind of behaviour, it's just that it's a lot easier to blame someone else so that you get the upper hand and feel better about yourself. However this is not healthy for the person doing it or the person reading/listening to it. Hence it's called toxic behaviour. Now that we mentioned the matches, let's go deeper into it and say that not only are people toxic towards each other in the matches, they are toxic to the game as well. To the developers, to the company, to the designers and so on and so forth... Ever since Season 3 when I started to focus on playing Competitive Overwatch, i've seen people complaining about anything and everything. "Triple tank meta is trash, I want to play something else." ; "Quad tank sucks!" ; "Roadhog is broken, please fix!" ; "Genji is overpowered and stupid, what the hell Blizzard?! NERF HIM!" ; "Dive meta is so boring!" ; "The game was great until GOATS comp. appeared!" ... Again, you get the point. Which is, people haven't stopped complaining... EVER! 

So, do you really expect a "miracle" that saves Overwatch from people complaining? It will never happen. Again, it's an online videogame and therefore it will always suffer from people complaining. Personally, i'm always complaining about Pharah, because I think it's a hero that requires too much focus towards the sky and leaves you way too vulnerable towards enemies on the ground. But a lot of people disagree with me and you know what? I'm okay with that! I can respect it as an opinion just as I hope my opinion is respected as well. 

Now, moving on to Competitive itself... Personally, I believe that it should be reset every Season and before I get judged, allow me to explain : If you keep playing with the same ranks all the time, sure, it is fair. However, there's little to no room for improvement. Do you get better at playing an instrument by playing the same song over and over again? I doubt it, you will probably start attempting more difficult songs once you stagnate at a certain point. So, with that said, I believe that if the SR was reset every season, there would be a mix between highly ranked players that would "force" someone to improve in order to get to their level. And again, before you judge this statement, let me say that i'm not talking purely about aiming capabilities. I'm talking about basic knowledge that you should've developped once you reach level 150 or 200. Game sense, awareness and communication. Three key factors to succeeding in Overwatch. With that said, if you continuously play with Gold ranks and lower that do not communicate whatsoever, you will never learn to communicate properly. You will never feel confident enough to call the shots. And if you do, hey, congratulations! Keep aiming higher (At all the Pharahs)! If you stagnate in Gold and lower, playing against others that might have an equal or worse aiming capability than you, you won't necessarily improve... I mean, you can but... You're not really "forced" to. So I think it would be good if the SR got reset every season and perhaps make the seasons a bit longer too. But (!), there's also another issue with the lack of SR resets. Players that abuse certain heroes that are incredibly strong in a specific meta with low skill cap and high reward. These are players that you go through their profile to find that they stagnated in a rank for multiple seasons but that then show up in the highest ranked matches one tricking a hero. And as if that wasn't bad enough, due to the fact that you remain around the same rank for multiple seasons even after your placement matches, they might as well be there for who knows when. And if you try to counter argument with : "But they will derank on account of not being good enough for the ranks they are sitting at." ; I will reply to you asking if you think that matches depend on that single person? Well, they don't! So with that said, they might as well sit in higher ranks for 2, 3, maybe 4+ seasons due to the fact that they are playing with really good players who attempt everything in their power to win and rank up. So as long as you're not throwing the game on purpose, as long as you're not a complete dead weight to your team, you can probably sit in those ranks for longer than the season a certain hero allowed you to get to. 

To wrap it up, I think Blizzard still has a long way to go to figure out the best way to make Overwatch Competitive a truly fun experience for both veteran and rookie players. But it doesn't depend on Blizzard single handedly, it depends on us as well, the players. It depends on us to not complain about every single little detail. People got Roadhog nerfed to the ground in the first place because it felt humiliating to get hooked, stunned and pulled into a fat, goofy walking character that shoots junk out of his Scrap Gun and then lets out a massive laugh. This is the power that the community has and Blizzard has always listened to the community. World of Warcraft has always been a victim of that as well. Anyways, enjoy the game guys, stop being so annoying and so picky. They're not naive, immature and ignorant children working on a game randomly just because. They're hired and paid professionals. Suggest things, absolutely! But there's been complaining every single season and unless we change that behaviour, the complaining will never stop!

"As Long As They're Happy..."

As long as they're happy... This is a statement often heard nowadays as the internet provides more and more information on people that are completely out of their minds doing things that are absolutely unthinkable for todays or... well any society, modern or old fashioned, for that matter. As I wish this was a statement that could be often used appropriately, it is not. This is something that's a lot more complex than just letting people be happy. People in general are weak. "What do you mean man? I'm pretty freakin strong! You wanna go?!?!"... I meant weak in their minds and someone that has the attitude I just described proves exactly my point. Weak in terms that they can't be on their own, wandering around doing whatever they want and this is unfortunately the majority of people. They need guidance, they need leadership. That's why governments and democracy were created... People wanted to take down monarchy but then what would happen? No rules? No laws? It would be complete chaos! Outside of the government, religion also does this to people as they feel they're being watched by a higher form of existence so they have something to grasp on to, which then also proves my point of people being weak. The majority that is. So for me, "as long as they're happy" cannot happen. It simply cannot! Without guidance, leadership, people would be led to killing themselves if they just did what made them happy. This is obviously me generalizing, because if what makes you happy is something healthy and productive then by all means do it! But some people have really unhealthy things that make them happy. I once had the habit of getting drunk everyday. It felt like I was happy because alcohol made me a weak minded person who wouldn't really think much about anything. I just... acted up on things. Sometimes with severe consequences. Now, do you think someone should be left an alcoholic just "as long as they're happy"? Absolutely not! There's also this woman that apparently identifies as a man and a dog (?!) that i've been often seeing on facebook. Now this is a weird case but this person is incredibly weak minded or completely traumatized to have these "identities". Do you think it's ok to let a person behave like a dog, when our bodies are not meant to behave like dogs? Zeus know what else she/he/it does to act like a dog. So this is the perfect example that I can find to transmit to you, whoever is reading this, that we can't "just be happy", a lot of us really can't. Guidance is needed because otherwise we'd be killing ourselves even more constantly than we do nowadays. And a lot of these people that suffer through these scenarios, ideas, addictions, etc... Are people afraid to reveal their problems so they look for a way of escaping into a different reality to try and surpass their real feelings. So my advise is... As someone going through stuff, talk to someone, let them know because you will need them! And as someone who can help others, do it! There's nothing wrong in offering guidance to other people. Trust me, they'll be thankful once they come to their senses!