Player burnout is one of the hottest topics in esports, with many esport pros retiring with less than five years on the circuit. It’s a tough job, a mentally intensive job, and with metas changing constantly across all titles, it’s a very hard job at which to stay proficient.
In order to help combat this, the Overwatch League has lightened the load on its players this year. Along with the decrease of scheduled games per stage from 10 to seven, OWL also scheduled a sizable mid season break, giving many players time to recoup and reset.
In order to get a sense for the effectiveness of the mid-season break, I met with Neptuno at the Philadelphia Fusion house hoping he could give me some insight.
The following Interview has been edited for length and clarity
Adam: We've come to the mid-season point, how did you like having a big break instead of just a week like last year?
Neptuno: Personally I don't like it, but I know it's good for a lot of people. For some people, it refreshes their minds, but I don't like it since it keeps me from going to Spain in Summer, and Spain is really cool in the Summer. I'd really like to be there with my friends hanging out on the beach and doing whatever. That's part of a professional life though, you have to give up things you never thought you'd give up.
Adam: Tell me a bit about what you did on break.
Neptuno: Well I've played a bit of Soccer, playing some video games, and I've been reading which I didn't do a lot before. I've been watching Game of Thrones and Chernobyl and just hanging around the house. I haven't really gone out that much, just a few days, overall it's just been chilling. This week I've been playing a lot of Overwatch, about 12 hours every day.
I also went to Blizzard HQ, and we got to see the World of Warcraft Department. We also got to meet with Jeff Kaplan and some of the other devs, but they didn't let us go into the offices since they were working on something they didn't want to show. I guess they thought I'd spoil it (laughs). We talked for a bit and I gave them feedback on the game, some troll feedback, but some actual feedback as well.
I know they care a lot about the game, but I do feel like the changes come a little too slowly. Then again, I don't know how much work, or how long it takes to make changes, but I think it takes too long. They may be scared of making changes that might make someone OP, but I don't think it's all that bad. I would like to see them make big changes, there are so many characters that could have been drastically changed.
Adam: During the break, we were also introduced to your new series, "Neptuno's World." How did that come about?
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Neptuno: So I make a lot of sarcastic comments to people. Like the other day, people were talking about going out, and I started going off on them like, "Why would you want to go out, you're such a nerd, why would you want to go outside? A car is gonna kill you or something, stay inside always." I was just being sarcastic or funny you know, and they thought it was fun, so they told me to do a video about those things.
They just gave me topics and told me to talk about things like, tell me why reading is boring, or why watching a movie is better, just stuff that doesn't make sense if you actually think about it. Going outside is stupid, dancing is dangerous, working is a waste of time, it all just came with a flow. I didn't even know what to say at the beginning, and they had to help me, it took a long time to make it.
Adam: So apart from the recreational aspect, how has the break affected your preparation for stage three?
Neptuno: So basically I think we have been pretty lazy with the scrim blocks, well maybe not lazy, but last year at some point we started to only scrim two blocks because we knew the meta. We understood a lot of the important stuff, so two blocks made sense, and we would play solo queue with the extra time. Now people don't like solo queue as much, you can't really replicate GOATS in solo, so you can’t really practice what you need to practice.
We need to figure out way more stuff than before, so it makes sense to scrim three blocks a day, and try to and work on every possible detail down to a single cooldown. The ult economy and the big stuff everyone has figured out, so now in order to figure out how to win, you have to focus on all the small things. That's how you'll figure out how to win in a completely even or equal situation when it comes to ults and abilities. How to build grav first, hot to build trance faster, how to pressure and control the map for extra damage, are all the techniques you need to win.
Everyone knows that if you get hit with a grav you need to counter grav, and every D.va knows the counter grav is coming, so they need to try to eat that grav. Sequences like that are common knowledge, so the important thing now is all the small details. If everything is even, it all comes down to who can build the next ult faster, who is getting that extra bit of damage, or who is being more efficient with their heals and cooldown management.
Adam: Considering how much easier your schedule is this stage compared to your stacked schedule in stage 2, where is your confidence going into the rest of the season?
Neptuno: I think right now it's not about confidence. At least for me, it's more about trying to get the best that we can out of the GOATS comp. If we can do that, we shouldn't be afraid of any other team that we face. I just hope we can figure out how to play on stage. Last year, I never really took the stage and felt like we weren't performing as well as we did in scrims, except once or twice, but you talk about it and you fix it. This year, it feels like on stage, we are not able to perform the way we know we can.
That's my goal as a player, I can't fix what other people do, but I can try to be the player that brings stability and consistency to their team. I need to make sure that I always play the same way. Normally I am super consistent on stage with my comms, reminding people of small things. That's what I want to regain this stage, consistent comms, and controlling the tempo of the game. I'm the Lucio player, so I need to understand what my team needs, and make them understand what I want to do.
They need to know if I have the speed or not, if we need to go back or push forward if people are hurt and we need to back up, all of that is important for me to communicate. That's how I control the tempo, and if I do that we will play with confidence and win. When people read about the Fusion, they may get the impression that I don't talk, that I don't communicate, which is not the case. I actually very vocal, but I just need to be consistent with my calls. It was never a problem when I was playing Mercy, now with GOATS it's so easy to feel overwhelmed by the enemy team, and it can be harder to stay on the same page.