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I’m 5 days into the new training regimen. In order to improve my productivity, I started measuring my pure play-time with minimum standards for each day. It’s easy, I just type down the game time after each game into a MS Exel file and it calculates everything.
I set 225 minutes of pure gameplay (real time) as my daily minimum. It more/less means I need to play 20 games per day on average. If I screw up and play less, I’d have to catch up the next day.
Such written measurements and standards are very strong motivators for me personally. For some people it’s like meh, but for me it’s one of the best ways to fire up motivation. I like the feeling of getting something done on paper each day.
Some days I’m losing a lot and I used to feel like a failure. I felt no sense of accomplishment after a hard day of practice because I lost more than I won. But now whether I’m winning or losing, I’m still SUCCESSFULLY surviving the Hardass Training Regimen. ;-)
First day was an “o shit” kind of day. I played only 170 minutes. I realized that I’ll really need to put in the effort to stay in this. I managed to equalize things next day, playing 290 minutes. From there it’s a straight line.
I’ll probably screw that regimen up by taking a day of break from SC2 and I won’t be able to come back from that ;-) So far I could play 20 games per day for 3-4 days but then I was too tired and needed a break.
Overall, I’m practicing until the point of mental exhaustion, where my head hurts a little or I have trouble focusing on the game. I expect that, as a side-effect, this training will increase my capability to train more and more each day.
Now I not only want to advance to masters, but I also want to advance to a higher minutes per day standard ;-)
What do you think about this time-measuring idea?
And what do you think about 225 minutes per day of pure gameplay? Doesn’t it seem a little low? ;-)
 
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225 minutes is under 4 hours. That isn't much time at all if you are trying to go pro.
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~4 hours grinding ladder? Seems very doable to me. Maybe just split it up into two 120 min chunks. Pretty cool that you're making this work for you.
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Well if your goal is just to get to Masters, id say that regiment is fine, maybe even over kill, but if your really planning on getting really good, entering tournaments, or trying to be an amateur pro, then you need to treat is as a job. I mean, if your thinking of making it a career out of sc2, id say, make it your job, were talking 8 hours a day of practice, like 2-3 hours straight playing, then 30 mins for break/food/drink, then refocus and get back at it. But if your ultimate goal is to make it to masters, i see no point in playing anymore than you are, unless you really enjoy it, in which case you should be able to log in as many hours a day as you want. i like the concept here, measuring your time spent playing each day, but i think you need to set a goal in and stick with it. Whats the point of playing several hours a day just to get to masters? sure its fun to be good at the game, but the game should be fun anyways without torturing yourself. Food for thought. GG GL
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Why not just use SC2gears instead of the excel sheet? Under Multi-rep analysis there's a column called "total time in games".
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Perhaps you don't realize that people on 8-hour jobs don't work 8 hours. They don't even work 6 hours. Most of them work less than 4 hours :-)
It's easy to say "oh, you play 4 hours a day", while actually it takes me about 8-10 hours to get those 4h of gameplay done. I can't just start 1 game after another for 4 hours and get it done  Sc2 is way too mentally exhausting and intense, I need breaks to reflect on the games, stretch, eat etc. I COULD play 8 hours straight for 2 days, but then my physical health and mental stamina would run out.
It's not so easy to play a lot every single day. But you gotta try it in order to know that :-)
I'll do my best to increase that goal, but sometimes I gotta cook something, go to school (4 days a month) or meet up with friends. Each time I do something like that, I need to catch up later. So some days its 6 hours, some days its 2 hours.
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Hey man,
How did you settle on the name "ProGamer's Cocoon"? If you use SC2 gears you don't have to write down times in Excel. 4 hours a day is very casual for SC2. You will be at a casual level/mediocre level if you do this for several years, just keep that in mind.
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You call 20-25 games per day casual? ^.^ Because 4h of pure gameplay is 20-25 games.
Then what would you call all those people that play 5-10 games per day?
Thanks for SC2Gears tips, but this program doesn't suit me as well as Excel does :-) Excel has some functions I really like, and it's not much trouble anyway.
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On November 23 2011 20:27 JoyfulSpirit wrote:
You call 20-25 games per day casual? ^.^ Because 4h of pure gameplay is 20-25 games.
Then what would you call all those people that play 5-10 games per day?
Thanks for SC2Gears tips, but this program doesn't suit me as well as Excel does :-) Excel has some functions I really like, and it's not much trouble anyway.
I'm aware of how much time it is. Most people would consider everyone up to high masters/grandmasters casual players. Try to keep in mind that skill is an exponential curve, and getting to masters league you're still on the part that's super easy to climb. Here's a graph that roughly conveys how gaining skill works in SC2 (and every competitive activity) assuming you're reasonably efficient at practicing:
![[image loading]](http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/4020/asdasfasggag.jpg)
As for people who play 5-10 games, I would call them casual players much like yourself.
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why do I see [image loading] and no image? anything I should fix?
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On November 23 2011 21:25 JoyfulSpirit wrote:
why do I see [image loading] and no image? anything I should fix?
ahh sorry, imgur has been really bad for me recently so i'm trying to find one that works. I'll edit it with an imageshack link ><
Edit: I'm not trying to break your joyful spirit baby, just want you to be realistic about the diminishing returns you'll get !!
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Oh  thanks for the fix and thanks for your opinion. You might wanna fix your recent post as well!
Btw how do you know it takes 20 times more time to get Master -> Grandmaster than it does to get Bronze -> Master? Got any GM friends or? Is there any statistics I could look up?
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On November 23 2011 21:52 JoyfulSpirit wrote:Oh thanks for the fix and thanks for your opinion. You might wanna fix your recent post as well! Btw how do you know it takes 20 times more time to get Master -> Grandmaster than it does to get Bronze -> Master? Got any GM friends or? Is there any statistics I could look up?
It's from my own experience and common sense. It took me like 300 games to get to master league last year and i've been there for the next ~12 000 games and now I'm in high master league. I'm not claiming improving is strictly time or amount of games, I am just claiming that SC2 has a very steep learning curve where you begin getting better quickly and then it gets harder and harder to improve.
If you've ever played a sport or an instrument or any activity really, you can notice huge improvements early on. Starting with nothing, I could improve dramatically in one month if I play tennis every day. But one month of practice for Djokovic may improve a tiny, tiny detail of his game.
count the replays in your replays folder from the beginning to when you got to master league. Now try to get to grandmaster in under 20 times that amount of games. I think you'll find it's quite hard.
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Maybe you're right about 20 games per day being casual ;-)
I'm figuring out ways to play more. The main restriction for me is stress and mental exhaustion. It's easy to play 40 games one day. It's not as easy to keep doing that for a week or even a month. But I believe I'll be able to increase my standard up to 30 games per day. Managed to do it 2nd day straight and it's not super-exhausting so I'll stick to it.
Btw could you link me to your profile? I've never seen a profile of anyone that played 12 000 games :-) Appreciated!
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You could try playing some, then taking a nap (90 mins or something) when you are exhausted and continue playing after that.
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As I'm getting used to playing more and more games, I'll now pump up my daily standard to 330 minutes :-) let's see if I can keep up!
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EPT
