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Warning: boring blog, I know. I wanted to write down my thoughts but reading it back I realize it's extremely uninteresting for someone other than me.
I started playing sc2 in July 2012. I had very little rts experience but managed to make it to master within ~450 games over 3-4 months. It still surprises me when I think about it. I used to think that I was talented at the game and could reach a high level very quickly. In fact, that had happened for other things in my life too. When I unlocked the 1000 wins portrait on my only account I was consistently playing against GMs. Then I just stopped improving.
I don't know what happened. I play more than I used to (close to 10 games a day on average?); still, every week I don't feel that I have improved from the week before. It's been going on like this for several months now. I think that I'm weaker than I was 1 year ago, and I played at least 3k 1vs1s from then. Still stuck in mid master after about 5k 1vs1s. Trash. Scrub. Uninstall please.
I constantly use 1-2 (macro) builds per matchup. I try to fix my mistakes but everytime I do I forget about older ones, and so on. Then I just get outplayed in straight up macro games. I'd say that I both misread the games and have bad mechanics.
My main goal for a while has been to get to grandmaster league. Recently I got GM on the american server. At first I felt content, but then I realized that there's a problem with that server. Top 100 GM players there are as good as mid-high master players on EU. Now I feel like a fool for believing that I was good for such a worthless achievement, and once again I think that I'll never hit GM on EU.
When I look at other players, I see there are some in worse situations than mine - people who play more than me and are stuck in low master, diamond, even gold league. That makes me reflect on how talent and some sort of 'X factor' is way more important than training in this game, at least for the part of training that we can control consciously. In fact, I also see other players who play less than me who improve much more quickly (well, just improving, even if slowly, would be enough for me right now).
Someone could argue why I don't just uninstall the game. At first it seems like a reasonable option, but then the thought that comes immediately after is that if I quit for 6 months and then I feel like playing again, it would take ages to get back to my skill level. Of course, I have fun playing the game. But it's become so competitive for me to the point that what matters the most is whether I win or not.
I'm the kind of guy who's always played only 1 game at once. Other times, after 1-2 years of playing, I got tired and switched to a game that seemed cooler. But this time I can't find a game that I enjoy more than sc2. Furthermore, as soon as I see a game that I might like I think immediately 'how many years will it take until I'm as good as I am now on sc2?' and that's enough to convince me that starting up another game would be a waste of time in the first place.
So yeah, I love sc2 but on the other hand it makes me feel so much frustrated most of the time .
I know the problem is my character. I would have a better experience if I quit caring about results. In the end I just play on ladder, I'm no full time player and so on. Sometimes I think that even if I hit GM, I wouldn't be satisfied. But I'm not really sure. There's only way to know, right?
And in all of this, funnily enough, I completely fixed my manners. Haven't left without a gg/gg wp/good luck in your next games in the past few months. So if you heard that being well mannered could help your mindset and make you improve faster, it's not necessarily true.
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So what you're purporting to tell us is that "no gg = no skill" might not necessarily be the case, because I have been arguing for years that there is a direct correlation between typing the same letter twice and competing with a high level of dexterity, strategic and critical thinking, reflexes, mental focus, pattern recognition, and exhaustive preparation.
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you've adopted a non-growth mindset, and you aren't playing for a reason that compels you enough to embrace the struggle of learning over rewarding yourself mentally for what you (are or want to be) 'already good' at. once you change that, you will begin to find ways to improve past your plateau.
because the root cause is purely the fundamental mindset, you can change this and improve more in a month than you've done in years. at anything, sc or otherwise
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On October 13 2014 10:45 nath wrote:
you've adopted a non-growth mindset, and you aren't playing for a reason that compels you enough to embrace the struggle of learning over rewarding yourself mentally for what you (are or want to be) 'already good' at. once you change that, you will begin to find ways to improve past your plateau.
because the root cause is purely the fundamental mindset, you can change this and improve more in a month than you've done in years. at anything, sc or otherwise
Well, problem solved I guess.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On October 13 2014 11:39 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2014 10:45 nath wrote:
you've adopted a non-growth mindset, and you aren't playing for a reason that compels you enough to embrace the struggle of learning over rewarding yourself mentally for what you (are or want to be) 'already good' at. once you change that, you will begin to find ways to improve past your plateau.
because the root cause is purely the fundamental mindset, you can change this and improve more in a month than you've done in years. at anything, sc or otherwise Well, problem solved I guess.
lol nina. So nath, what do you propose that OP does then to change his mindset? I think he was looking for specifics rather than a broad statement ^^
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Pretty simple. nath says Alphard has a non-growth mindset. Therefore, Alphard needs to switch to a growth mindset.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
On October 13 2014 07:17 KingAlphard wrote:
Someone could argue why I don't just uninstall the game. At first it seems like a reasonable option, but then the thought that comes immediately after is that if I quit for 6 months and then I feel like playing again, it would take ages to get back to my skill level. Of course, I have fun playing the game. But it's become so competitive for me to the point that what matters the most is whether I win or not.
I'm the kind of guy who's always played only 1 game at once. Other times, after 1-2 years of playing, I got tired and switched to a game that seemed cooler. But this time I can't find a game that I enjoy more than sc2. Furthermore, as soon as I see a game that I might like I think immediately 'how many years will it take until I'm as good as I am now on sc2?' and that's enough to convince me that starting up another game would be a waste of time in the first place.
So yeah, I love sc2 but on the other hand it makes me feel so much frustrated most of the time .
I had the exact same feeling before, I used to be GM too. But now that I don't play SC2 anymore, me and some of my old SC2 friends wonder why the hell did we play a game that made us mad all the time.
After a while, you'll just realize that it doesn't matter whether you are good at a game or not. Better to invest that energy into something that will give you more earning power. Now I'm a filthy casual who plays games for fun.
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You wanna play random 4's top?
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when you "play", are you (actually / actively) trying to win or get better?
when you are trying to get better, are you trying to get perfect?
There's a lot more to improving than playing.
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I found, that things that come easy to one, are almost impossible to master. You basicly do so many things right from the start, which you have to do if you reach masters in 3month and this being your first RTS, that you never did all the stupid stuff someone stuck in silver for his first three month tries.
Then you are at that skill platue, and now you wonder where to focus improvement on next, and now you have to take a detour through all that stupid stuff those ... other players, I see there are some in worse situations than mine are going through. I think you are in a worse situation, they are daimond and lower, they know they are still allowed to try all that stupid stuff and find out which areas truly matter.
If you care about sc2 and really want to improve quickly, I think you should get a coach, someone who can deeply analyze your play and tell you, without you having to smash your head into the millions of possible ways to improve, where you core mistakes are.
Also, in the beginning, or road to masters, you learn to master a completly different game, than the game from master to grandmaster. Up to masters it is mostly about getting mechanics right, once masters hit masters, once players can do whatever they want, the strategic part becomes more important.
Maybe you need to join a clan, find people to talk to, theorycraft more about the strategic side of sc2. And maybe have someone just take a look at your mechanics to see that there is no more puzzlepiece missing.
You could also start and play GO, to see how strategy in a game (since the mechanical requirement of Go is 0), still manages to differentiate players so finely. (Like you are at 20k in GO, somenoe on 17K will just roll you, and 25K players will bore you to death already.).
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That makes me reflect on how talent and some sort of 'X factor' is way more important than training in this game, at least for the part of training that we can control consciously.
That's such a poisonous attitude.
Learning how to learn is a skill which has to be observed or taught. Some people have not had as much training how to learn as others. I think that's a more likely cause for the perceived 'X factor.' The skill of learning is something that you can always get better at.
Furthermore, when you hit a certain level from just training by yourself, there comes a point where you need to collaborate to make more gains. All the seriously top top players in foreign BW were all people who joined clans, talked with them on Skype, played religiously, and discussed their games together. That's not really something you can do laddering like a loner. Other perspectives, advice, coaching, peripheral changes like diet are the types of things that take someone from being a competent player to being a top player. That kind of investment is totally different from someone who just ladders by themselves all day.
tl;dr you can't make calculations of talent based purely on time investment. How that time is spent is at least as important. "Not caring about results" is a total red herring that doesn't have much to do with anything.
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hmmm it's not entirely bad, I know plenty of people who played Brood War since 1998 and they played like complete bronze level newbs. To them it was more about the fun and the observing rather than improving.
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EPT
