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I am going to keep this short and sweet, but here's the TL;DR for those of you who want to get back to laddering:
The more you lose, the more you think about losing, the less thinking you do about the game you're playing. The more you win, the less you think about losing, the better you do.
SC2 Psychology: Winning Streaks, Losing Streaks
Taking control of your overactive mind to maximize your performance potential
It seems counter-intuitive to be careless. Yet why is that when you stop caring about whether you win or lose, you perform better? Paradoxical as it may seem, carelessness can be beneficial in many important situations. Ever asked a girl or guy out, rehearsed your question hundreds of times, even in your sleep, and then choked the one time it mattered most? It's happened to all of us. It's a byproduct of performance anxiety, and it sucks elephant balls.
So let's reduce it, shall we?
Think of a typical mindset before you find a game on the ladder. Everyone's mindset is different, but let's generalize and find an average mindset. Perhaps there's hesitation. You're about to click the orange button and then you think, "Wait, if I lose this next one I'll get dropped to 2nd place in my division," or "I might get promoted next game, so I can't lose." After a moment you click the button, and your hands are shaky as you try to remember your very basic opening build. Like me, maybe you accidentally build your Gas before your Rax and have to change your whole strategy based on that one mistake.
Now, let's analyze a less-common mindset prior to clicking that button: "I have a 50% chance of winning/losing, but 100% of learning something new and getting better." It's not merely a glass-half-full mentality that you see in heart-warming films, it's actually a method of reducing the amount of pressure you put on yourself to play better. Here's where winning and losing streaks come in.
A losing streak is nasty. There seems to be a gravity that makes losing more likely the more it happens -- a self-sustaining snowball of defeat. When you lose it does not end there. The effects of a loss carry on to the next game, and then the next, and the next, until the vicious cycle is broken. But why is this? Let's look at a winning streak.
A winning streak is beautiful because the more you win, the more confidence you have. It seems your gosu vibe brings along a sense of invulnerability. The linking element between winning and losing is the thinking about losing part. Here's where we get some answers.
A losing streak causes you to think more about losing, whereas a winning streak causes you to think less about losing. When you're thinking about losing, you inherit that performance anxiety as I mentioned before. You think about your performance as its occurring, and thus you think less about what you're actually doing. You're thinking, "He's going to attack, I know it, I'll lose if he attacks." Usually, these sort of thoughts are defensive, not offensive. And as we all know, pure defensive playing never wins in Starcraft. You become so afraid of losing that you 'turtle' your thoughts and become a victim.
A victim to 4-gate. A victim to proxy dark shrines. A victim to cheese. A victim to imba. A victim to all-ins. A victim to the maps. A victim to voidraybansheemutaliskOhmygodwhere'smyAA!?
Losers are victims. It's sad because they don't gain anything from the process. Their growth and learning are in stasis as their thoughts are focused inward on all of those terrible tragedies they suffer. They don't bother watching replays because the emotional trauma is too much to relive again, because they feel victimized and taken advantage of. It's normal, it happens to each one of us. Don't feel worse because you feel this way as it will only bring you down more. It's caused many others to quit SC2, thinking either the state of the game is broken or they are incapable of advancing beyond X League.
On the opposite spectrum are those who seem to have mastered the process, the Progamers, who, though they may lose tournaments viewed by tens of thousands on streams worldwide, seem to never have bad days or losing streaks. Their physical games may have a visible losing streak, but their mindset never enters a losing streak. When they fall back, they don't stay that way for long.
Progamers rarely QQ. They may speak on a perceived imbalance, but it's more along the lines of, "I really feel Blizzard should look into this aspect of the game," opposed to, "Oh my god I'm going to quit if they don't patch this." Back when Terran was a lot more powerful as it is now, IdrA never quit nor turned Terran. The pros seem to work with what they have and make it work.
Back to the orange button.
You're calm and cool. You think to yourself, "No matter what happens, I'm going to become a better player. If I lose, I'll take a few deep breaths, watch the replay, do some push ups, and be back in better performance." You start the game, and as you play you sense peace. No longer you're thinking, "Oh my god I better not lose." Instead, you think, "I need to get upgrades," "I need to get AA," "I need to expand." All of your energy and thoughts are devoted to the game. You are playing at your maximum potential in the zone. Your friends watch your expressions and think you're playing Minesweeper, but really you're burning through 200 supply of ambition. And sure you may lose the game, but because you cleared your thoughts and regained your long-term perspective, your losses don't follow you for long. You may lose 50 points today, but hot damn you'll be 250 points higher by next month. You understand that the visible Bnet points aren't a representation of your limitations, only a representation of the process it takes to get there.
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I'm going to agree with you on this. I'm on a losing streak right now and it feels awful. After the 1st loss, the feeling was "Well, you can't win them all." After the 5th it was more "OMG, I suck at this game!".
I did learn something from every game (being a newbie does have that advantage), but it does get to me. I'll take this opportunity to ask: What should I do now? Try to clear my head and go find another game, or call it a day and go and practice build orders?
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This reads like a self help book
Something like, "Now close your eyes...you imagine your losing streak to be a long, winding road full of potholes. Now you're driving along this road and consciously, you see every pothole and steer deliberately to avoid them. There is a light at the end of the road...imagine this light to be your healing color...this light is victory and you lather your body in it."
Something like that.
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I've noticed clear patterns of win streaks and losing streaks in my play. I cant seem to avoid it. I find best approach is to just keep playing the win streaks and stop playing the losing ones. Go on TL, watch youtube, analyse replays. etc etc. Just stop playing for a while
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Omg the losing streaks are just terrible! When I get one loss I think ill shake it off and its when I start accruing losses that my game goes south and players I should have beat just destroy me. I like the advice though I think I need to really take a step back after a loss or two. Thanks for the advice!
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I will reword your whole OP post.
Masturbate.
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I would approach this the same way we approached Physics Exams in College...
Just as a Samurai would focus on the beauty of each stroke of the sword...
Focus on the now...
Focus on what is in front of you...
Do not worry about results...
There is no win or lose...
ONLY the BEAUTY of EACH move!
If you give the details of macro and micro the care they deserve for their own sake
Winning will take care of itself.
(To Be Honest --- I still have anxiety when entering a match - Perhaps I should take my own advice)
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So many people here I can relate to.
One loss is fine. Two, also fine. When it reaches five, "OMG I NUB"
Perhaps it'd be a good idea to take a break after a loss streak
Also, I am anxious when playing the first match of the day, or after a long time. After I get the first match done, I can continue playing
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On January 13 2011 08:54 RukKus wrote:
It's happened to all of us. It's a byproduct of performance anxiety, and it sucks elephant balls.
I understand, but was wondering if you could elaborate on the science of this process.
I am curious the exact means by which the production of performance anxiety creates an auxiliary condition of negative pressure on pachyderm testicles......
Other than that, I totally agree. Good Post. :-p
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I thoroughly enjoyed this post and will be trying to correct my mental processes before/during/after games with this in mind. Thank you OP!
Gl and Hf!
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I hate winning streaks, cause when I lose it feels blah, whereas normally losing lets me learn so much, when I win its like "wow how the hell did i win this, this guy made huge mistakes" and I can only really glean things like my horrible macro or whatever.
I like a good mix of both to be honest, rank doesn't matter to me I just want to steadily improve (that being said I have won my last 13 zvzs and every time I play one now I get wayyyyyy more nervous than normal)
For serious loss streaks (3+), I think its time to do something else :D
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when i lose i go do some team games :p
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Honestly, This plays a bigger role than most people think. To go further rather than a win/lose streak, people feel differently after they click the search button and find out they are playing an undesired map vs race you aren't comfortable with, terran on steps of war for example seems impossible to the point that I just vetoed the map in fear of rolling a terran opponent.
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I love your signature xD
The analysis is amazing as well. This definitely helped me a ton as I have these awful losing streaks as well.
Just look at that 6 loss streak I had yesterday...I think of which 4 or 5 were <10 minute PvPs -__-
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sick post.
I wanted more of this mentality to spread over b.net because it's less suffering for everyone.
As a poker player, I find it interesting to live through the variance in the medium of a video game instead of through the felts.
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i actually had an experience of this recently, i had an 8-9 winstreak and then when i lost one, i lost like several further games, strange how you can go from a 100% ratio to a 0% ratio for seemingly no reason, the opponents werent in a higher league or anything
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This pretty much sums up the mentality I've adopted when it comes to laddering. It actually only recently clicked for me, I'd have to guess about a little over a week ago, but better late than never. I definitely feel much calmer before pushing that wonderful orange button and my play has improved a lot since as a result of my change in philosophy, so it's definitely an approach I'd recommend to anybody who's feeling like they've hit a wall in terms of skill. To help me maintain this attitude, I always take a break for at least few hours after a three game losing streak because I find that it's easier to process those three games rather than feeling overwhelmed by the larger streak that would have likely resulted had I kept playing. If I happen to lose upon my return to the game, it's easier to to mentally separate those sets of games because while it's technically one long losing streak, they don't feel as connected and it's easier to push forward and improve.
The other part of the issue is the winning streak. Going on a long winning streak is obviously going to feel much better than going on a long losing streak, but I've found that it can have negative effects on my play as well if I don't handle them properly. If I go on a longer winning streak (6-7+ games), I like to continue playing until I lose and then take a break similar to if I had lost three in a row. Going from winning so many games in a row to suddenly losing even two in a row can really make you call your play into question. Thoughts such as: "What changed in my play in that short period of time to cause me to lose?" begin creep in and can cause you to make mistakes you would have otherwise been able to avoid in future games. Obviously nobody's play is perfect and everybody can improve in some facet or another, but you might begin looking at the wrong elements of the game as a result from being so hot to going so cold. Taking the break after the first loss immediately following a long winning streak really helps me focus on what I did well during the winning streak and what I could have improved upon to make my victories more convincing.
I feel that being able to handle both winning and losing properly is important to improving as a player and that it's something that everybody should take into consideration along with the build orders, timings, tactics, and whatever else would normally be at the forefront of your thinking regarding gameplay.
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Thank you for this post - I've found it helpful and I will stick:
"50% chance of winning, 50% chance of losing, 100% chance of learning"
on my monitor with the rest of my reminders.
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Great post OP. Having a clear mind when playing is extremely important and can make for a fun gaming experience, rather than one filled with rage and contempt.
I have something to add that might be a little off topic but it relates to losing games and maybe other people are feeling the same.
I play Terran at low Diamond (~1000 but Bnet pits me against ~2k diamond opponents) and I had an 11-game losing streak today (with 3 wins sprinkled in, 2 being where the other player dropped -___- ) and I maintained a clear head throughout without raging.
Here's my problem though:
It's frustrating to lose because the reason I am losing is not because of rage, bad macro or build orders. I can harass and I can expand in a timely manner and my in-game APM is relatively high for not spamming (~150). The most trouble I have is when big battles occur. There are important micro-related decisions one must make in a split-second that will either make or break the game, and these sorts of things I cannot practice whenever I want to. Some examples of this would be things like EMP shots, tank & army placements, army movement, anything micro-related during huge battles.
I wish there was a way I could continuously practice these huge battle scenarios, in the same way that as I can endlessly practice my build orders and general macro in a game against the computer. Common sense tells me that I need practice partners to hone this down but does anyone have any suggestions for a way to practice these sorts of split-second decisions for large battles by myself because that is the main reason I lose games in general. It would be so great to try tackling the same battle scenario over and over in different ways to get instant feedback on what works and what doesn't, instead of having to macro up every single time.
If you read the whole thing, kudos to you, and gl hf in your future games :D
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EPT
