EPTOn September 15 2011 18:26 snotboogie wrote:
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Greetings and welcome to my blog! I'm feeling a little defeatist right now due massive loss streaks and the stagnation of my skill level. And I feel I have been doomed from the beginning of this foolish quest to get to Masters. I'd like to start this off by giving you some background into my history with the game.
When Starcraft first came out, I fell in love. I devoured the instruction manual, especially the origin stories of the races leading up to the events of the game. To this day I believe it's an awesome piece of sci fi, and it's one of the reasons I've grown to become a big reader. I also loved playing the campaign. I loved the feel of being a super-awesome commander at the centre of a three-sided galactic war, the key player in the series of cataclysmic fate-changing events we all know and love.
The only problem was, I was terrible at it. I used cheats at every level. Without them, I would get my ass handed to me by what I thought was an insanely cruel and cheating computer. (I'm talking about the campaign missions here, not even a melee game haha.) So happily I blacksheepwalled and operationcwal'd my way through the campaign and loved every second of the amazing story arc and dramatic voice acting.
When Starcraft 2 was announced, I instantly knew that I wanted to be good at it. I looked back at my time with Starcraft fondly, and I had always considered it a shame that I had never become any good at it. I heard vague stories of crazy Korean machine-men who spent all their waking hours playing the game, honing their skills and competing against one another. There were even TV stations dedicated to it! I thought that was just the frickin' bee's knees. I knew I would never reach that level, but I wanted to be at least "good" at SC2 when it came out.
Unfortunately I theorize that I'm just naturally terrible at RTS. When my friends and I would play Warcraft 3, I was called "the cripple" because of my laughable skills. RTS just never clicked in my brain. Determined to change this, I got into the TL community and started getting into Starcraft in anticipation of the sequel. I got on iccup and got my ass handed to me. I played some more and got severely owned. I continued, and got beat down again and again. I think I played actively for more than 6 months when the SC2 beta finally game out. I had reached my equilibrium at the D level. Months of playing and I never even ranked up. Once I was 1 game away from reaching D+ but I ran into a Korean smurf who completely trashed me and ruined my confidence. It would be the highest I ever got in BW, but I didn't really care. I had fallen in love with the game.
When I first got into beta, I found that just knowing what to expect, from my experience in BW, landed me consistently into the top league at the time, Platinum. I knew I was never good at the game, the simple fact being that most people were alien to competitive RTS, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't give me an ego boost. For a few months I held my head high knowing I was better than most people at the game. It gave me a quiet satisfaction, even though objectively I knew people would eventually catch up and surpass me.
When Masters League was introduced, I was comfortably in Diamond, so I figured I'd be promoted too after a few games. Unfortunately that never happened. I hit a wall at Diamond which I've yet to break. After playing for ages, getting nowhere with Protoss, I decided to switch race just to get some fun back into the game.I spent many months moving from Terran to Zerg to Terran to Zerg just figuring out which race I liked best. Eventually I settled on Zerg. By that time I had fallen into Plat due to the implications of switching to a race I didn't know how to play. But with a lot of hard work, I acquired my cool Hydralisk picture and advanced my skill to the level of consistently beating Diamond leaguers. Finally, at the beginning of this season, I made it back into Diamond!
By now Master League had become my main goal. It remains so today. For me making Masters would be a massive accomplishment and would make all the hours I've worked at my game worth it. Unfortunately it also became my personal white whale, simultaneously eluding and mocking me. Damn you Master League! But I felt I was close to being almost close to Master League level. Surely with the progress I'd been making and the hard work I'd been putting in, I was well on my way, right?
Which brings me to now. A couple weeks ago I decided to quit playing any other games and focus on improving my SC skills. That has turned out, well, sort of horribly. I'm looking at my match history and there is a section from 2 days ago where I had 3 wins and 13 losses. I'm currently sitting on another four match losing streak. The wins are few and far between, and the thing is that I'm being matched against platinum players. And losing. Not even top plat any more; I'm getting totally crushed by mid plat players in straight up games.
I know in my heart a demotion is coming soon, but I'm dreading it horribly. I don't know if I could take another demotion and still want to keep playing! I still like playing the game, which is why I keep coming back to it... but I know I just suck. I constantly make awful decisions like pushing out with armies I know I have no chance of winning with, and donating them to the opponent. My mechanics are sorely lacking, I completely forget about important things like upgrades and I often feel like I'm on autopilot while playing the game, mindlessly making workers and hoping I've made more than the enemy.
So here I am in disappointment and fatigue. I feel like I've worked my ass off this past year for no returns whatsoever in terms of skill. I'm thinking of switching races again. I'm running dry on motivation. But I still really, really, really want to get into Masters.
Anyway, thanks for reading my little story! Typing all this has been sort of therapeutic for me, so excuse me if it seems overly self-centred. I'm at a place where I'm not sure if I enjoy the game any more - what I really enjoy, if I'm being honest with myself, is improving and winning. And I'm not doing either. I spend hours of my day watching GSL and other tournaments, watching VODs and replays, and thinking about how to improve. But I'm at the same level I was months ago, and that level is Horrible. All that effort I put into Starcraft 2 is starting to feel like a waste. TL, should I just quit? Was I just doomed by my genes to be a terrible player? Should I just become purely a watcher of the pro scene, giving up on actually playing? I need advice, Liquid`Auntie Agony!
When Starcraft first came out, I fell in love. I devoured the instruction manual, especially the origin stories of the races leading up to the events of the game. To this day I believe it's an awesome piece of sci fi, and it's one of the reasons I've grown to become a big reader. I also loved playing the campaign. I loved the feel of being a super-awesome commander at the centre of a three-sided galactic war, the key player in the series of cataclysmic fate-changing events we all know and love.
The only problem was, I was terrible at it. I used cheats at every level. Without them, I would get my ass handed to me by what I thought was an insanely cruel and cheating computer. (I'm talking about the campaign missions here, not even a melee game haha.) So happily I blacksheepwalled and operationcwal'd my way through the campaign and loved every second of the amazing story arc and dramatic voice acting.
When Starcraft 2 was announced, I instantly knew that I wanted to be good at it. I looked back at my time with Starcraft fondly, and I had always considered it a shame that I had never become any good at it. I heard vague stories of crazy Korean machine-men who spent all their waking hours playing the game, honing their skills and competing against one another. There were even TV stations dedicated to it! I thought that was just the frickin' bee's knees. I knew I would never reach that level, but I wanted to be at least "good" at SC2 when it came out.
Unfortunately I theorize that I'm just naturally terrible at RTS. When my friends and I would play Warcraft 3, I was called "the cripple" because of my laughable skills. RTS just never clicked in my brain. Determined to change this, I got into the TL community and started getting into Starcraft in anticipation of the sequel. I got on iccup and got my ass handed to me. I played some more and got severely owned. I continued, and got beat down again and again. I think I played actively for more than 6 months when the SC2 beta finally game out. I had reached my equilibrium at the D level. Months of playing and I never even ranked up. Once I was 1 game away from reaching D+ but I ran into a Korean smurf who completely trashed me and ruined my confidence. It would be the highest I ever got in BW, but I didn't really care. I had fallen in love with the game.
When I first got into beta, I found that just knowing what to expect, from my experience in BW, landed me consistently into the top league at the time, Platinum. I knew I was never good at the game, the simple fact being that most people were alien to competitive RTS, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't give me an ego boost. For a few months I held my head high knowing I was better than most people at the game. It gave me a quiet satisfaction, even though objectively I knew people would eventually catch up and surpass me.
When Masters League was introduced, I was comfortably in Diamond, so I figured I'd be promoted too after a few games. Unfortunately that never happened. I hit a wall at Diamond which I've yet to break. After playing for ages, getting nowhere with Protoss, I decided to switch race just to get some fun back into the game.I spent many months moving from Terran to Zerg to Terran to Zerg just figuring out which race I liked best. Eventually I settled on Zerg. By that time I had fallen into Plat due to the implications of switching to a race I didn't know how to play. But with a lot of hard work, I acquired my cool Hydralisk picture and advanced my skill to the level of consistently beating Diamond leaguers. Finally, at the beginning of this season, I made it back into Diamond!
By now Master League had become my main goal. It remains so today. For me making Masters would be a massive accomplishment and would make all the hours I've worked at my game worth it. Unfortunately it also became my personal white whale, simultaneously eluding and mocking me. Damn you Master League! But I felt I was close to being almost close to Master League level. Surely with the progress I'd been making and the hard work I'd been putting in, I was well on my way, right?
Which brings me to now. A couple weeks ago I decided to quit playing any other games and focus on improving my SC skills. That has turned out, well, sort of horribly. I'm looking at my match history and there is a section from 2 days ago where I had 3 wins and 13 losses. I'm currently sitting on another four match losing streak. The wins are few and far between, and the thing is that I'm being matched against platinum players. And losing. Not even top plat any more; I'm getting totally crushed by mid plat players in straight up games.
I know in my heart a demotion is coming soon, but I'm dreading it horribly. I don't know if I could take another demotion and still want to keep playing! I still like playing the game, which is why I keep coming back to it... but I know I just suck. I constantly make awful decisions like pushing out with armies I know I have no chance of winning with, and donating them to the opponent. My mechanics are sorely lacking, I completely forget about important things like upgrades and I often feel like I'm on autopilot while playing the game, mindlessly making workers and hoping I've made more than the enemy.
So here I am in disappointment and fatigue. I feel like I've worked my ass off this past year for no returns whatsoever in terms of skill. I'm thinking of switching races again. I'm running dry on motivation. But I still really, really, really want to get into Masters.
Anyway, thanks for reading my little story! Typing all this has been sort of therapeutic for me, so excuse me if it seems overly self-centred. I'm at a place where I'm not sure if I enjoy the game any more - what I really enjoy, if I'm being honest with myself, is improving and winning. And I'm not doing either. I spend hours of my day watching GSL and other tournaments, watching VODs and replays, and thinking about how to improve. But I'm at the same level I was months ago, and that level is Horrible. All that effort I put into Starcraft 2 is starting to feel like a waste. TL, should I just quit? Was I just doomed by my genes to be a terrible player? Should I just become purely a watcher of the pro scene, giving up on actually playing? I need advice, Liquid`Auntie Agony!
It's a shame you're having so many problems, maybe you should consider finding yourself a high level coach to iron out some of your mistakes. Whether or not it's a payed coach is up to you, but there are plenty of people who coach for free and often post offers of service either on TL or reddit. Look for one and jump on it! Best of luck man (^_^)
