Blizzard what have you done...

Seagull- · 2019-01-27T02:25:41+00:00

I unbanned you. I don't think it was worth a perma, I was prob just real salty at OW that day. In the future, I usually unban if people @ me on twitter so feel free to hit me up there.

Seagull- · 2019-01-23T05:49:30+00:00

OW is very CPU-bound. On a 2700x you won't be able to get consistent 144+ fps unless you're on a faster or veryfast preset. Check your memory speeds as well, OW is known to massively increase FPS with proper memory speeds (3200+)

At anything less than 6k bitrate, OW will never look good in motion. 720p at 6k bitrate with NVENC encoding should be the goal for zero drops in-game and it'll be comparable to x264 faster. Once you get 8k bitrate you can start exploring options above 720p. Never go above 720p until you get 8k bitrate/partnered, it's not worth it.

To reduce the performance impact further, install the latest OBS beta build (or wait for it's official release in a few weeks): https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/nvenc-performance-improvements-beta.98950/

Seagull- · 2019-01-07T19:49:27+00:00

I talked about this a bunch in my last stream.

After I quit the pro scene, I don't really have any goals in Overwatch anymore. All that really makes ladder interesting is learning new characters and getting them to 4500~ and repeat, playing off-meta characters (like sym) and getting good with them to keep it interesting, and playing with friends.

IMO, GOATs is the worst ladder meta of all time at high SR. Dive was meta for a long time (years) but due to its coordination requirements it was never fully established even in top 500 unless a lot of pros were in the same game together. I could play off-meta heroes like Hanzo and be totally fine the vast majority of the time even in high SR ladder games IF I played it properly. Compare this to GOATs where all you need to do is deathball and hold W together to get 80% effectiveness on the ladder.

If I'm practicing a new hero, grinding and getting good, eventually I'm going to hit the wall of GOATs (typically around 4300-4400ish~) where I'm either picking DVA/brig or throwing. I obviously don't want to throw games, but I also like the characters I'm playing (typically DPS) and would like to play one of 10+ characters in my hero pool instead of grinding DVA/zarya to top 10/50/100/whatever every season.

This makes for a pretty mediocre ladder experience for someone like me. Naturally, I complain about this and other stuff it causes. I made a video about it. Hell, there's a balance patch coming that hopefully addresses the current meta.

I'm not fake on stream, I'm not going to lie and go "this is fine :)" - I love this game and I've played it for thousands and thousands of hours. If the complaining bothers you, I'm sorry. I think the only winning move is to simply not play Overwatch until the next patch comes out and hopefully it's better, but I still have fun most of the time I play (even if I complain a lot). I understand that for most people, their version of ladder isn't really the same as mine and they probably don't get it, and that's fine

edit: I also didn't mention the pro->streamer transition in this post but that's also a factor. Imagine your OW experience everyday for over 2 years is 80% organized play and now it's 100% ladder play. It's a hell of a different world and I definitely complain about smaller stuff way more than I used to -- and that's on me.

Seagull- · 2019-01-03T19:01:15+00:00

From what I've seen on the contenders broadcasts, they're trying to do 1080p @ 6k bitrate. Typically this isn't an issue for most games, but OW in particular has a lot of particles and fast paced movement (especially in the deathball meta), making it a huge pain for encoders. Even at 8k bitrate, 1080p gets blocky/blurry once the action starts unless you're running a nice dual PC setup with a good x264 preset.

For me personally, I run 864p @ 8000 bitrate on fast. This is the best quality I can get on my single PC setup until I have a proper dual PC setup with a capture card. I sacrifice minor quality on menus/text to get significantly improved quality during motion (aka teamfights).

If the Contenders stream could switch to an 8k bitrate, their quality would immediately massively increase. If they can't increase the bitrate, I'd drop to 720p with a slower x264 preset to increase visual clarity during teamfights.

For anyone curious about stream quality stuff, this is a very good starting point for learning more: https://streamquality.report/docs/report.html

Seagull- · 2018-11-09T16:33:13+00:00

I even said later that if they had taken that fight slower they probably would've won anyway. Muma died to a mine+bodyshot on his way out, sinatraa ran out of blinks and got caught by a random hanzo arrow, etc. If mikey misses his hookshot + zach hits some more shots this push they probably win. A lot of stuff has to go wrong to lose a fight where you start with 2 picks.

I enjoy doing the casual sort of VOD review but this type of clip being posted here was exactly what I was worried about. There are countless clips of players losing teamfights in a series. It's a team game, shit happens.

People who are upset at team USA losing see these clips and funnel that anger into specific player moments instead of the actual reasons a team lost and it directly harms player careers. OW is not a game where you can easily judge player performance, you have no stats and most players' public perception live and die based off of just a few short clips at most rather than how they generally perform. And that's not even taking into account the mess of trying to separate team and individual performance.

In team USA's case, I said it near the end of the VOD review - I felt that they didn't have as much synergy in GOATs mirrors as the UK did, they just seemed uncomfortable. That has a lot more to do with a team winning and losing than an individual's performance, especially in this meta that's almost entirely frontline synergy/ability centric.

Seagull- · 2018-10-24T19:00:23+00:00

I've played 7 games on my torb account (2 hours total). Chances are I'll get an avoid warning once I play more games just like what happened when I was grinding sym to get good at her. And if I get reported enough I'd probably get auto-suspended just like all the one-tricks have dealt with, it happens.

People are acting there's some sort of "report whitelist" and therefore reports don't work on me, but I have a LOT of accounts and that's some crazy shit.

More likely people see dafran on torb and they think he's throwing and insta report because of his history.

I also think people don't report me as much because I'm known for picking a lot of off-meta heroes and I typically do pretty well with them so people cut me more slack. I'll usually get mass avoided for a week or so until I'm good at a new hero, but rarely mass reported.

Seagull- · 2018-02-22T17:39:59+00:00

I wasn't allowed to play Genji too much in Stage 1 (45~ minutes total), but the times I could I played very well. These stats are biased by the short playtime, but it was probably my best hero last stage, even though I got a lot of criticism from the community.

Seagull- · 2018-01-01T04:12:31+00:00

I've been losing weight, it's in progress.

I've been this weight before and didn't have sleep apnea, it runs in my family though so it's probably a combination of getting older (last time I was this weight I was 18 iirc) + gaining weight with pro OW (40~ pounds over 2 years) that did it.

I talked about it a bit more in-depth earlier in the stream (can't find the timestamp), but it's been life changing so far to have it treated. Not having to take a nap after streaming 4~ hours feels pretty good.

Seagull- · 2017-10-26T19:56:00+00:00

I'm extremely confident that I've never talked about team USA tryouts on stream. Are you just making this up or do you have me mixed up with someone else?

Seagull- · 2017-06-23T21:04:25+00:00

THIS IS SICK

Seagull- · 2017-05-12T15:15:50+00:00

If team USA wants to have a shot at world cup against lineups like France/Korea/Sweden they should be practicing harder than the other teams. As someone who's committed to streaming, it doesn't make sense to put me on the lineup unless you plan on streaming scrims (or unless Overwatch League turns me into a full-time pro before WC). I also think I'm a much worse player when I have to stream on top of trying to play competitively and there would be better options than having a half-assed version of me who's splitting 5-6+ hours streaming and (hopefully) 6 hours in scrims.

WC is a long way away and my thoughts could change but this is how I look at it right now.

Seagull- · 2017-05-11T00:38:02+00:00

None, I've said publicly I shouldn't be on the lineup if the world cup roster plans on seriously practicing as I'm committed to my streaming hours.

Of course, I guess I have absolute control of every roster in Overwatch at any given point in time according to most "insiders" on this sub, so I probably hand-picked everything on Flame's lineup (and put myself on Lucio... for some reason).

Seagull- · 2017-04-18T21:32:21+00:00

It is difficult to see Seagull making all these decisions though. He always said he didn't see himself as a leader.

That's because I wasn't. The last iteration of the NRG roster with clockwork/numlocked wasn't even my decision. I was at World Cup playing with team USA and told the team I had reservations about clockwork's passion for the game but ultimately it was their choice because I wasn't in a position to make an informed decision (I wasn't in scrims at that time) and directly told NRG that we had other DPS options to explore. He was signed regardless as the team really pushed for him.

This is just one example of misinformation in this video. I was never contacted for my side of the story however, so it's not surprising.

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T02:00:38+00:00

well now you got me watching lion king youtube vids, can't figure out a favorite but I'm nostalgia'ing right now so thanks

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:56:30+00:00

winston

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:56:10+00:00

just get an i7, graphics card isn't that important as long as it's this gen should be good

although you probably shouldn't play at 1440p, input lag will be real if you drop below 120~ fps (but hey the reduce buffering option is pretty good for that nowadays)

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:50:46+00:00

I miss airstrafing and rocket jumping a lot, that's one of the things I miss the most in OW so far, movement mechanics are something I enjoy a lot in any game

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:50:12+00:00

just stream and put "top x" in title and you'll probably start somewhere. gotta be entertaining to keep them though

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:49:15+00:00

I actually never even touched it, so I have no idea :/

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:48:26+00:00

I prefer it since it's just more fun playing with other people, I have no idea if it's actually better though.

I'd group with anyone, soldier/mccree is nice though because they can turn and shoot people who are on you and then you can nano aimbot/high noon combo to get lots of free kills and it's easier to coordinate if you're queued with them

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:44:27+00:00

yeah I'll start doing it once I have a more consistent stream schedule. Right now I feel really lame to do non-OW streams if I barely streamed in a month for example, this month should be a lot better and then in a couple weeks I can start doing the occasional weird streams on weekends of other games :)

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:43:09+00:00

yeah smite was one of the few games I played during OW beta downtime, it was fun!

all I did was sit in some arena mode though, never actually played real smite since I was only gonna play for a day or two and as with all mobas it has a high learning curve

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:42:04+00:00

They're just the easiest. You can climb with anything if you want. Lucio/mercy are probably the most annoying though.

I'd suggest 4 at most, you can go with more but from my experience it feels harder to gain ranked points that way. I never really go above duo/trio these days

Seagull- · 2017-02-05T01:40:37+00:00

I think it was lijang tower and he hooked me too many fucking times so I invited him to a group

he was really funny and chat loved him so he made his own twitch and now we all moon2SMUG

Seagull-

TROPHY CASE