How draw.io can level up your esports game

En route to Victory Road

Button-bashing is fun and all, but in reality, game strategy is where it’s at. Whether you’re leading your team to victory in League of Legends, outmaneuvering opponents in Fortnite, or up against a particularly nasty raid boss in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy, your success inevitably depends on the preparation and game plan you have put together beforehand.

Developing a winning strategy takes forethought, cunning, and careful planning. From obtaining that key loot you’ve wanted for so long, to climbing the precious League Elo ladder, it’s important to visualize the steps you will take on the path to victory, and what better way to visualize this than with draw.io!

In this blogpost, let draw.io be your trusty steed, speedrunning you to the Winners Circle. We’ll show how you can take your gaming strategy to the next level, and make your future gameplay better coordinated, more collaborative, and more efficient.

1. Hone your game plan with swimlane diagrams

Unlike Leeroy Jenkins, you probably don’t want to run into battle headfirst, with no plan on how to execute your strategy, or who will be responsible for what.

Swimlane diagrams are a great way to visualize complex strategies in a simple and organized manner. They’re ideal for mapping out rotations that involve multiple players or stages with different responsibilities. They enable you to plan ahead, and ensure everyone on your team is aligned and knows their role in the upcoming fight.

Use swimlanes to represent different players or roles in an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, and symbols to depict the actions and interactions between them.

A swimlane diagram for planning a WoW boss fight

2. Develop your game sense with Fatality flowcharts

Game sense is not as simple as “practice makes perfect”. While this will help your reaction time and increase the speed with which you make decisions, analyzing your previous games and comparing them with how others compete will take your gameplay to the next level. The deeper you develop your understanding of a game’s mechanics, along with your objectives, strategies, and interactions, the more you will increase your game sense.

draw.io empowers gamers to craft diagrams depicting potential flank routes, chokepoints, and optimal ultimate ability combinations. You can use visualizations to dissect replays, and highlight crucial instances where game sense played a pivotal role, from predicting enemy pathing to anticipating an opponent’s strategy.

A flowchart is ideal for illustrating the decision-making process and the sequence of actions. Use different shapes and colors to highlight certain actions, like movement or abilities. Connectors will guide those viewing the diagram through the steps that will signify the flow of gameplay. Things like decision splits, branches, and conditional actions can also be depicted in your flowchart.

A flowchart depicting the Overwatch fatality gameplay loop

3. Collaborate with your teammates on your strategy map

In games like WoW, FF Online, ESO, etc., teamwork is absolutely essential, and collaboration is everything. The more in-tune you and your teammates are, the better your chances of a coordinated effort resulting in success. That’s what gaming headsets were developed for in the first place, right? (Not to badmouth everyone because you’re sore your group wiped).

Create a strategy map in draw.io that you can quickly share with your raiding guild, for everyone to add their ideas to. You and your team are able to collaborate on your strategy in real time: simply jump on Discord, share your diagram with your group, and get visualizing! Everyone has the chance to capture their ideas, suggestions and comments, and see and interact with what their teammates are adding. This truly synergizing experience with your team means no one is left behind on your journey to success.

A multipage diagram here is perfect for this: on one page, you have your strategy map, on the next, you have your schedule and roster for your guild, all stored within one central diagram.

Page 1 of a multipage diagram depicting a strategy map: player vs. player battleground

Page 2 of a multipage diagram depicting the team roster

4. Use Foresight to create mind maps for community engagement

You might have recently begun your content creator journey and are starting to stream your games on Twitch. Or you might be a seasoned coach, providing tips to gamers on an international playing field to help them get good. In either case, fostering community engagement is often a pain point for gamers. You try and reach viewers, but your channel just isn’t growing.

Fear not! With draw.io, you can create stunning mind maps to provide your followers with valuable insights into your gaming tips and tricks. By actively and regularly sharing loadouts, strategies, game sense, spawns, etc. with your audience, you give them exclusive access and privileged insight that will allow them to learn from you, and from each other.

Not only will you inspire your viewers to use and share these resources themselves, you will ultimately cultivate community engagement and create an enriching gaming experience for everyone.

A mind map to come up with ways to boost community engagement

A Paradigm Shift in your game strategy

The four diagrams above are just a glimpse into the versatility of visualization that is possible with draw.io. From refining tournament strategies to fostering community engagement, draw.io offers a suite of tools and features to elevate your gameplay, along with a shift in your way of imagining, planning and executing your strategy.

Embark on your journey to glory, with draw.io by your side!

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