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To the OP:
The reason it's draining you is time investment. With Counter Strike and others FPS individual rounds are only a few minutes long usually. While StarCraft does use more mental processing than your average FPS it's the length of the average game the reason your palms are sweating and your heart rate is likely racing toward the end of a long but close match of SC2. You have so much time and effort invested in a match, the idea that all of that work may have been for nothing increases the stakes.
I have no real solution or answer, it just comes with the territory of the type of game this is.
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I don't really get dazed by any RTS. Well sometimes I get a bit bored though, which isn't too good either as far as my performance is concerned...
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tl;dr
Complaining about mental exhaustion after playing SC would be like an arm wrestler complaining that his arm is sore after a match. Starcraft is arm wrestling but with your brain.
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Sometimes i mass games like crazy dont sleep at all and sometimes i just dont play for a few days
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i don't seem to have that problem at all, but i have played broodwar a ton so im used to it.. but i have also played a lot of games that require no apm at all like wow.. but when i first got into the beta i played for 30 hours before i went to bed .. but just keep playing even if you get tired and when you have played 50+ or 100+ games its not a problem anymore...
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Now imagine playing an even harder game than starcraft 2 for years. Yeah...
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I played one TvT that took 2hrs the other day, i lost it and it was the first time i really felt fatigued physically and mentally, couldnt play another game that day.
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I'm not sure this feeling ever goes away. I've been playing for months and still get the feeling. I always got the feeling in SC:BW as well which is sort of what drove me away from playing it very much. It makes losses that much more painful. It almost gets to the point of being "scared" of losing.
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On July 17 2010 23:59 jimminy_kriket wrote:
Now imagine playing an even harder game than starcraft 2 for years. Yeah...
You probably didn't start out at the level that SC2 is already at, though.
Looking back to some of the common strategies in SC pre-BW, any SC2 silver league player would beat those with his hands tied.
Competition is pretty fierce already for so early in the game's life.
One thing that SC2's lower entry barrier has caused is that horrible players can succesfully pull off certain cheeses, whereas in SC:BW, the field would often be leveled a bit by their inability to macro/micro. In practice, this means that you'll be screwed over by a lack of scouting on lower levels a lot more in SC2 than in SC. At least, I think. This puts pressure on inexperienced players to anticipate a hundred different things that could be coming their way. In time you learn to expect what can and can't happen, given what you've scouted and what he's revealed.
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After BW, SC2 seems like a joke (concerning the whole "mentally taxing" thing). Your units aren't constantly getting stuck and dying for no reason, and you dont have to look back at your base... ever... so much less frustating, so much easier.
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I feel the same way as the OP about mental fatigue after only a couple games and I think part of my problem is that I know too much about the game as weird as that sounds.
I watch Day[9] and professional replays often and have a wealth of knowledge about what I should be doing, but then don't have the mechanics and experience to make it happen myself. So, instead of learning the game gradually over time, I am forcing my brain to play like a pro when I really don't have the RTS experience to make it happen from a multitasking/mechanics perspective.
Maybe a lot of newbies like me are putting too much pressure on ourselves to immediately mimic the pros? Have to allow myself to be bad at the game for a while.
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I can deffinetly connect with the OP, but i still manage to mass game. After every single game i feel "more tired" then i did before i started playing, but this is why, at least i think this is the reason, my brain does not switch to like a relax mode.
After a game finishes, i still seem to be strangely focused and stressed. Im aware that the match is over, but my mind is racing like 20 million miles a second. I think of every single battle\confrontation and how i sucked at it(if i lost the match) or i think of how i got lucky or actually did something good and try to recognize why what i did worked and stuff(if i won).
Its weird but i also noticed that after a loss, im very inclined to just play another game right away(i do not suggest it). However, after a win im just fist pumping and feeling good about my self and watch the replay and the awesomeness that is me....haha....
All of this makes me wonder, is it maybe because your mind has to come to a halt right after a game ends??? Like for athletes(track mostly) if you run 1 mile and you are done, its very unhealthy to just sit down and do nothing right away, it is advised to walk it off, and let your body slow down gradually. In SC2, SC: BW, and most competitive intellectual games that options is not there it seems. You are extremely focused, and then not at all and the difference in time is a loading screen, i wonder if there is any sufficient research to back this up, except for my own thoughts that is.
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I can't play too much either, but what helps me is water. I drink a lot water between every match just to cool down, get a clear head and do something different. I end up drinking 3-4 litres every gaming session and it's a little bit expensive, because I have to buy new water every other day, but this way I can play much longer than normal.
SC2 is still very exhausting even with all those simplified controls. I can't see myself playing 1on1 ladder after a day of work when I need to relax. Blizzards way to deal with this is to provide a ton of other options like UMS, singleplayer and replays.
Other companys, especially Relic Games have gone great lenghs to make RTS-gameplay itself a more relaxing experience while still being somewhat exciting. I could play Dawn of War all day, even after 8 hours of work, but I don't think that's the future of RTSs. Relaxing and demanding games can coexist very well.
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Some of the streamers here are beasts. They go right into another game the second the screen pops up when their done the last. I find that I need breaks often and that I can generally only play 2-3 games before stopping and either reviewing the replays, lurking TL, reading strats or watching some streams for some tips. Maybe it's the stress levels, but even when I'm on a hot seat and win a few in a row... I almost don't want to play, hah. Probably because I don't want to ruin what I've gained because the match making system is going to make me play tougher opponents (as it should).
Either way, since the beginning of the beta I find that I'm getting less ragey and more reflective and trying to learn from my mistakes as best as I can. This means more browsing, reading and watching than I was doing before and I find it helps calm and give me something to usually work on and move forward.
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I used to play Warcraft III during my childhood and when after doing the campaign, custom games, I eventually transitioned to 1v1 ladder I didn't notice this effect at all. I sometimes had trouble motivating myself to play after a loss, but I don't know of any mentally draining effect.
My theory for you is the reason you feel mentally taxed is precisely because you participate in this forum, read articles, think about your playstyle, follow Day[9], tournaments and such. This creates a contrast between your knowledge of the game and your actual playing skills, so that every time you do play you are unable to fully express yourself: you want to do all sorts of things and have all sorts of ideas, but you just don't have the training or talent to.
The reason I think this is because I've noticed that with Starcraft II I have some similar problems I didn't have with Warcraft III. If I play to get my mechanichs up for a while it tends to go away, but after every break from the game - or even during the first game of the day - I often feel tired when playing.
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Everyone has gone through this one time or another whether it be in sc1 or sc2. The only cure is to mass game hard core. Really push your limits and focus alot . After a few weeks you will find multitasking and spamming keys no longer tire you. In fact it's fun to do those things.
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On July 18 2010 02:10 Mothxal wrote:[spoiler]
I used to play Warcraft III during my childhood and when after doing the campaign, custom games, I eventually transitioned to 1v1 ladder I didn't notice this effect at all. I sometimes had trouble motivating myself to play after a loss, but I don't know of any mentally draining effect.
My theory for you is the reason you feel mentally taxed is precisely because you participate in this forum, read articles, think about your playstyle, follow Day[9], tournaments and such. This creates a contrast between your knowledge of the game and your actual playing skills, so that every time you do play you are unable to fully express yourself: you want to do all sorts of things and have all sorts of ideas, but you just don't have the training or talent to.
The reason I think this is because I've noticed that with Starcraft II I have some similar problems I didn't have with Warcraft III. If I play to get my mechanichs up for a while it tends to go away, but after every break from the game - or even during the first game of the day - I often feel tired when playing.[spoiler]
I played 1v1 Warcraft III for a long time without actually being good at it and I still felt this fatigue after a 2-3 hour session. It's the same with Starcraft II now, just worse.
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i cant play more than 3-4 games in a row without taking a break of at least 30 mins, but anyways i dont think thats something bad... and the same happened to me when i played wc3.
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Don't put so much pressure on yourself. It all depends what you want from the game. For example, when you played CS, did you play because you liked the game? Did you like the genre? Did you play purely to pass the time and did it matter whether you finished top 3?
Maybe in SC2, since there is so much information available at the moment (videos, forums, streams, live tournaments) it's stressing you out trying to play at your absolute best 100% of the time. Perhaps you just need to relax a bit more, don't treat each game as an examination of your personal ability, just chill and enjoy it.
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same here. SC2 is the most taxing game I've ever played. I can not play more than 3-4 games in a row without taking a long break. I used to game Company of Heroes for like 8 hours a day before Relic fucked that game completely. I can still play CS for hours on end with only a 15 minute break.
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EPT
