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![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/TqMn5zu.jpg)
Hey guys,
in late november 2013, i posted YALB! #1, with high expectations and i really wanted to do it that time.
In the comments there was this one guy "ruiyang" who said the following:
You'll prolly stop 1week-1month after posting this blog. In other words, your most likely to end at gold before you quit.
I fucking hate to say it, but boy he was spot on. I did make it to gold and i did quit about a week and a half after my inital post. Why is it so hard for me to keep pursuing this goal of mine (i.e. getting into diamond)?!?
I really thought about this and i think its the following. It is really hard to play ladder and simply enjoy the fact that you are playing a cool game. Your mindset is telling you to constantly try to get better, always give the best, play each game a little better than the previous and improve, improve, improve. Stagnation is not an even an option, you need to progress...
This is what sets sc2 apart from quake which i played competetively for almost 10 years prior to this. While Quake tournament games and clanwars are equally as stressful as sc2 laddering is, you had lots of opportunities to calm down and joke around and play a bit more relaxed. I got (kinda) good at quake because i just played a shitton of hours not giving a fuck about analyzing replays or watching pro streams etc. And i enjoyed it, i could play for 5-6 or even more hours nonstop, then turn of the computer and feel relaxed.
With sc2 i have to stop after 4-5 games because i am mentally exhausted.
Because i really want to love and play this game, my new approach i am going to try is:
- endorse stagnation
- don't give a flying fuck about winrates, losses etc.
- be friendly and positive all the time
- drop the analytical bullshit
- don't veto any maps
- stick to simple, clean build orders
- don't give a fuck about ladderpoints, promotions etc.
- try to chill out during games, just have fun
- leave a ladder session with a happy, relaxed mindset
- stream my games, so maybe someone sniffs in and says hi 
- play regularly like this
Let's see how far this gets me this time...
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I think it would be nice to do all those things without dropping the analytical "bullshit" or endorsing stagnation. Probably make it easier to play and progress.
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Let me tell you a story ...
When the beta got out everybody was so hyped and we played the shit out of it. One base battle for the win.
I made it into diamond (which was the highest back then) simply because of my broodwar micro. I had no intention of getting better, no intention of learning buildorders, I queued all my terran buildings into one hotkey and tab - a/s/d'd through them (well the first 50 matches I went back and clicked on them one by one to build a new unit, that still brought me into diamond) and watched what would get out and used it to fight.
5 minute battlecruiser with yamato vs protoss ? Sure why not. Mass ghosts into emp the orbital into nuke vs terran ? HELL YEAH. Anything with marines vs zerg ? Sure, just split that stuff up and outmicro them like a god. Hidden bases, iland expansions into banshee fleets of death ? My kind of girl.
But then everyone started to learn buildorders and the game got boring for me. Being as greedy as possible .. sure I just punished everyone for it. And they lost. But it was boring as hell and I felt if I wanted it to be interesting again I would have to macro up as well, work on my mechanics, learn buildorders, study the maps, follow live streams e.t.c. . I was just playing for fun, unwinding, chilling with 60 apm untill a fight happened and it skyrocketed to 160 for a minute.
Laughing as a banshee wecked their mineral line, weeping when banelings dropped into my mineral line and I wasn't fast enough. Playing solid snake with a ghost while my bases were eradicated, I did not care a bit. I had fun playing and that's all that mattered to me.
I dont know. Whats the point of this story .. Starcraft players never really play casual. Even if they do their heart races up to 200 and everyone gets super competitive and the win is the only goal but it just isn't like that for me ...
I wish you the best of luck. I hope you can find joy in the simple starcraft things, learn that a win does not mean anything if you are just afraid to lose the next time and stop playing because of that. This is a game. At least for me, games are for fun. Try to treat it like that.
Good luck !
edit : I even purposefully ran my units into nukes just to see them burn and have a laugh with the other guy (still reminding everyone, I was diamond and remained there)
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Thanks for your story!
It is really mindblowing how some virtual points and ranks (that have absolutely no purpose or consequences in real life) make your brain think in a way that something important is at stake. I think that is the key-reason why ladder anxiety exists. Plus if you accumulate some ladder points you always get the notion 'i worked really hard for that', when rather it should be 'i had fun gathering these points'.
I think the main problem why i find it so hard to have fun in this game is, that all other game modes except the 1v1 ladder are more or less crap:
- I gave the unranked games a shot, but i find it pretty much useless, because its more like a test lab for super weird stuff or cheeses and players leave in an instant if something goes wrong. I had guys leave after 3 minutes because my overlord flew over a proxy pylon.
- I gave team games a shot, but the maps are just horrible. And for zerg, teamgames get boring super fast, because 90% of games you work off of 2base economy and end up rushing speedling and MAYBE pump out some mutas once in a while.
- I played the A.I. a lot. Its kinda fun, because there i can relax.. take the hand off the mouse from time to time and take a sip of my beer. The A.I. was actually improved alot over the last few patches, but it is stilly pretty easy to beat even on the hardest difficulty. So there is that.
- I looked into the Arcade of course, and there are really a lot of cool games. But most of them are very different from starcraft itself (obviously). Maybe i should give starbow a try, did not check that one out yet.
But at the end of the day, there is still this accomplishment of having something better than this gray platinum icon next to my name that remains unfulfilled to this day....
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Yay, i actually found the motivation to pick up laddering again, but just played two games, no need to go full grind mode right away.
Game 1 (placement game) was against a really unexperienced protoss player. As my Ovi Scout flew in at around 5:30 he had Probes standig next to his buildings everywhere and only a hand full of units. So i just made 5 mutas and around 40 lings and that was it. After that i was placed silver again.
Game 2 was a ZvZ. I went 15 Hatch, 15 Gas, 15 Pool, the other guy with Pool First than hatch. We traded some lings, then i managed to get some really good baneling connections which entailed 10 or so drone kills. He never rebuilt the drones but pumped out a couple of roaches and went for it. I defended that with no economical losses, swapped into muta, he wasn't ready at all, game over. After that game i was already promoted back to gold.
I am really happy that i found a guy via the practice partner thread who is a platinum terran and is really friendly. We played custom games which are a great great learning opportunity for me, because he seems to be better than me just enough that the games are still fun while being very educational.
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EPT
