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Active: 3046 users

Absolutely de-motivated

Blogs > XTraumaX
Post a Reply
XTraumaX
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States27 Posts
November 03 2012 06:14 GMT
#1
So Ive recently just become over whelmed and just de motivated all around to practice more and do better.

I was playing with a masters friend and i was just absolutely over whelmed by things I need to do. Its easy to say i need to make drones, army, upgrade, expand and all these other things but when I get in game its just soo much to concentrate on and keep up with that its hard for me to keep motivated to continue playing and practicing to finally get out of bronze after around 1 and a half years of owning the game.

I can't pick which race I want to stick with and when i try to practice a race I cant find the motivation to keep playing and get better even though in my head I really want to get good and hit platinum/diamond level.

And tonight hasn't helped playing with my friend where i just feel like i dont know what to do at all and just get over whelmed because i cant spend my minerals or seem to do anything right in my play. Its seriously frustrating to be in this position of wanting to get better but constantly getting overwhelmed with the games mechanics and learning builds at the same time and how to react.

I don't know what I should do to help with my situation at all. As much as I want to get better, it feels like the game is working against me in every way possible.

jjun212
Profile Joined December 2004
Canada2208 Posts
November 03 2012 06:26 GMT
#2
Some time away from the game might help.

It works with anything in life I feel... love, relationships, sports, learning an instrument. Sometimes things just don't progress the way you want it to and that's ok. Turning away for an indefinite amount of time sometimes helps.
G_G
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Canada178 Posts
November 03 2012 06:51 GMT
#3
There is nothing in macro that is particularly difficult on it's own. The difficulty is in keeping up with all of it and not forgetting any of it. You will only improve at things you gain experience with. You will not be able to play a difficult piece of music fast until you gain experience playing it slow. You will not be able to perform a fancy flip until you have thrown yourself mercilessly into a pit of foam cubes a thousand times to gain experience with your jump. The key to increasing performance is making sure you are actually experiencing the thing you want to be able to do, even if other aspects of the performance have to temporarily suffer for it.

Pick one thing, and sacrifice everything else to make sure you are actually gaining experience doing that one thing. If you just try to do every aspect of something perfectly and fail at all of them, then you will not gain any experience doing anything of them well.

If I made you a custom map with a nexus/command center/hatchery+queen in the center, and nothing else, you would be able to have constant worker production/larva injects no problem. The actual acts of checking if you need to build workers or inject, and then building them or injecting, is a trivial task. A monkey trainer could put a banana sticker on the SCV hotkey and have a monkey press it when the blue bar almost fills up. So, what you're trying to train yourself to do is have constant worker production [i]awareness[i]. The actual production is not difficult.

Combining those results in a simple exercise. Do one thing, check workers. Do one thing, check workers. Repeat until the game is over, win or lose. If you're checking your worker production after every one thing you do, you will gain experience with having constant worker production (or larva injection) awareness, because you will literally have it. You can be sitting at 10k minerals and have almost no army, lose, and still have gained valuable experience.

Once you have developed a compulsion for worker production, you will naturally find yourself wanting to produce workers after every few things you do, which is the only "skill" you need for it. Then, switch your focus to some other aspect of your play.

In summary, just pick one thing and make it the sole focus of many matches in a row. I mean literally, if you lose to mass hellions with roaches because you had 20k minerals and 10k gas with 100 less supply than your opponent, but you had perfect injects, then that was successful practice. Right now it sounds like your the music teachers' nightmare student who is trying to learn a complex piece of music at full speed right off the bat and playing a clear, correct note once out of every twenty. In music you can just slow down and gain experience with the whole piece at once at a more manageable speed, in Starcraft you need to simplify not by slowing down but by only focusing on one sole part of your play at a time, and very literally one. Worry about builds and strategy later. Cut out anything you need to in order to actually be successfully doing something, otherwise you'll never improve.
udgnim
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States8024 Posts
November 03 2012 06:59 GMT
#4
Protoss

cannon rush

laugh whether you win or lose

meaning screw around. have fun. forget about trying to get better for a little while.
E-Sports is competitive video gaming with a spectator fan base. Do not take the word "Sports" literally.
XTraumaX
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States27 Posts
November 03 2012 07:12 GMT
#5
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I guess I should just have some fun for a bit and quit letting the stress of performing good get to me. Maybe play some arcade games and whatnot.
Azera
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
3800 Posts
November 03 2012 07:59 GMT
#6
Play some relaxing customs and stay away from 1v1s for a bit. Read a good book. Shoot the shit with friends, watch a funny cast, you get the idea.
Check out some great music made by TLers - http://bit.ly/QXYhdb , by intrigue. http://bit.ly/RTjpOR , by ohsea.toc.
NotoriousBig
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
Germany301 Posts
November 03 2012 10:05 GMT
#7
Take a break, only thing that helps when you feel like this, after 1 week or so you will be hot for sc2 again, atleast this helps me every 6-8 months when i loose a bit of motivation for practice.
Cortza
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
South Africa328 Posts
November 03 2012 12:19 GMT
#8
It seems like you are too hyped over doing well in the first place. Find something to take the edge off.

Try putting a tennisball on the floor and massage your feet (barefoot) while playing by putting your weight on it. I do it and it's great

meteorskunk
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Canada546 Posts
November 03 2012 13:48 GMT
#9
On November 03 2012 21:19 Cortza wrote:
It seems like you are too hyped over doing well in the first place. Find something to take the edge off.

Try putting a tennisball on the floor and massage your feet (barefoot) while playing by putting your weight on it. I do it and it's great



hahah this is my favourite advice for OP!

It's actually difficult for some people to want it badly enough to really try. I know i wanted to improve, but really all i wanted was to show others that I am competent. My whole goal was obscured, i didn't know why being good was cool, i didn't know what is valuable about starcraft. Once i started to think about these things, it turned out i was happy where i was.

Also the way you are thinking about the game is surprisingly important. What is a game of starcraft? collect resources to make army to kill enemy structures, yes but what is either person doing to out maneuver the other?

play drunk or stoned some time. its refreshing fsho
Girl Blog Credentials: Comfortable talking to some women. Tried the sex once
Lokk
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
Canada635 Posts
November 03 2012 15:04 GMT
#10
i always rewatch mvp winning gsl's for motivation aha ^o^
@Lokk_2/Go Woori 우리
Chef
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
10810 Posts
November 03 2012 15:38 GMT
#11
Maybe you just don't enjoy the game you're playing? If you don't naturally feel excited to try new things and fix flaws in your play the next time you have a match, then maybe the part that happens between the start screen and the victory/defeat screen doesn't matter enough to you.

There shouldn't be an identity crisis for people who play the game as a hobby. The game is either fun or it is not. You want to get "better" but what does better mean? If you can't identify it exactly and work on it, then you are probably just not focused because you are not interested enough in the game. Do you need to keep your money lower? Do you need to move more aggressively on the map? Less aggressively? Do you scout enough? etc etc. Pick one, easily fixable thing and fix it. If that's not satisfying play a game where it is.
LEGEND!! LEGEND!!
radscorpion9
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Canada2252 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-11-03 16:08:14
November 03 2012 16:07 GMT
#12
On November 04 2012 00:38 Chef wrote:
Maybe you just don't enjoy the game you're playing? If you don't naturally feel excited to try new things and fix flaws in your play the next time you have a match, then maybe the part that happens between the start screen and the victory/defeat screen doesn't matter enough to you.

There shouldn't be an identity crisis for people who play the game as a hobby. The game is either fun or it is not. You want to get "better" but what does better mean? If you can't identify it exactly and work on it, then you are probably just not focused because you are not interested enough in the game. Do you need to keep your money lower? Do you need to move more aggressively on the map? Less aggressively? Do you scout enough? etc etc. Pick one, easily fixable thing and fix it. If that's not satisfying play a game where it is.


I wish this sentiment was expressed more often. It should be the first question that comes to your mind when you don't enjoy the game and find it demotivating. Do you actually enjoy playing the game? If you don't enjoy the stress of macroing and microing incredibly fast, and remembering build orders, constantly scouting to avoid being cheesed, then you should just play another game.

Sometimes I feel like people think SC2 should be the next big thing, and they should enjoy it...but for some reason they don't, but ignore that and keep trying. There's no reason why SC2 *has* to be fun, to a lot of people its very repetitive, holds very little in strategic value, and is more of a spam fest repeating very similar build orders over and over again. It becomes more about muscle memory than anything else.

There are so many other great games out there. Instead of working so hard to try to enjoy a *game* (you should feel something is wrong with that sentence ), just recognize that after giving it a good shot, its probably not for you and its time to move on. Games shouldn't require months (or weeks) of effort to enjoy
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