Hi, EffOrt here, Not the real one (the real one sold his soul to the devil for sc1 skills at the cost of looking like an alien.)
Ladder Fear/anxiety and the Korean superiority complex? Biology, Psychology and science in general can explain almost everything in the world around us or at least be applied to it. This post will attempt to explain a theory of some of the biggest stigma's in the starcraft 2 scene.
1. Korean's are in general better than everyone followed by European's (scandanavians) which are both much better than North Americans.
2. Ladder Fear is rampant and common.
Some Stats about Ladder Fear/anxiety:
there are approximately 150 threads mentioning ladder fear on TL.
Current Season player numbers: 352,000 NA 116,000 Kr+tw 281,000 EU
*Sc2Ranks
Season 1 and Season 2 Percentage drop between season 1=current, 2=current
823799 NA 628046 NA s1NA: 57% s2NA: 44% 499751 Kr/tw 270220 KR/tw s2Kr/tw: 76% s2KR: 43% 621059 EU 541202 EU s3EU: 54% s2EU: 48%
You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, other games and other misc reason:
Most of those 1v1 players were lost in the gold to bronze league region:
Starcraft 2 is a difficult game with a relatively steep learning curve (it's nothing compared to BW) and more players simply don't or can't put in the time or effort to improve and stick with it. Ladder fear/anxiety among other things is killing E-sports.. In fact there are plenty of people that just play customs and team games, but the number of non 1v1er's has substantially increased. How many of you have friends that played 1 v 1 that don't anymore.
Korean/Swedish Domination and ladder fear have something in common?
There is an excellent book out there by Carol Dweck called Mindset.
At first you might see this book and think, ohhh this is some straight up Oprah-like self help crap, but actually It's written by a psychologist exploring the human mind and moreover the mindset of a person. The short summary of it all is that some people depending on their upbringing develop fixed mindsets and some develop growth mindsets. Now its more complex than that because some people have different parts of their personality that are growth AND fixed. Fixed Mindset:
How many of you grew up being told you were talented or intelligent. Fixed mindsetters believe your qualities are innate and you are either born talented or not.How many of you grew up being told you were below average, slow or just plain dumb. Fixed mindset people told they were gifted or above average, were the people in high school who did well in elementary in middle school but as school got tougher they struggled or just simply didn't even try. Fixed mindset people being told they were below average tended to be the people who had no confidence in their selves and dropped out of school or just made it by almost failing. Many fixed mindset people went to college and never learned how to study, (why would they need too, their gifted right?) and as a result did poorly. A lot of fixed mindset people are only good at things they take an interest or curiosity too, and many coast by on that. Others are fueled off of pure competition in a constant race to One-up or best those around them.
Growth Mindset:
Growth mindset were the people who didn't always seem to be particularly gifted but always worked extra hard. These people may have failed the first test's of a class but always tried to improve and would bounce back and make the B or A. Growth mindset people are driven by the challenge and work in itself, the results are not so much important as the physical act of challenging and improving. These were the people who worked hard to get where they are and never waste a spare moment to improve.
You avoid challenges because you don't want to risk your status as a good player or a talented individual. You probably screw around in 1 v 1's with your friends trying a retarded strategy or a flashy build, because if you played standard and lost, that might mean people think your a noob. You give up on any sort of goals or test because your worst fear is failure.
You avoid obstacles because you view personaility and talent as a fixed thing. Everytime you lose you blame an external force, Protoss, Zerg or Terran OP. This is likely why imbalance is a hot topic, wouldn't it be so nice to be able to blame something other than ourselves for the mistakes. You constantly need to validate yourself because your subconscious urges to live up to your own perceived gosu-ness.
effort and hardwork, wtf, only people who don't have the talent need that. You should be able to do something effortlessly if your truly talented. didn't you see how easy MVP made it look to destroy MC, he's amazing, he's korean, he was born with the RTS gene. People with fixed mindsets don't believe in effort and hardwork or PRACTICE, for that matter because they believe if their truly talented they won't need to practice to succeed. This sounds crazy until you realize what your subconsciousness is actually telling you. I dont need better mechanics, I can beat GM players with my 60 apm, you don't need apm to be good, its all a bunch of junk after all some players only have 100 apm and do fine. While Your average korean progamer has flawless mechanics and and a solid 250 apm.
People with fixed mindsets hate critisicm, they look at criticism as an insult to their innate abilities. A threat to their Gosu status. You become defensive, you don't listen and you always believe your way is the best.
Success with other - Jealousy and ad hominem (people bashing) is common when other encounter success. you become jealous and enraged at the thought of someone being better than you, a ridiculous thought in itself. Ladder BM is so common, usually entwined with blaming some strategy or aspect of game design rather than accept that you got outplayed. If your beaten it was luck, If some player wins a tournaments its because he abused a strategy, if an up an coming player beats your hero is because hes abusive or just lucky. How many people resort to calling Incontrol "incholesterol" or a "noob". Honestly they are jealous he has a beautiful woman (anna prosser) can bench twice their weight, is a witty and salaried player on EG, a head community figure and a very good player.
Wow, anything sound familiar. Odds are if you have a fixed mindset you probably can easily point out these flaws in players like Idra, combat-ex, darkforce or SJTerran. However those with very fixed mindsets will be the last to see these traits in themselves.
Growth Mindsets:
Only a fixed mindset person would believe if they have a fixed mindset that they are doomed to live in their own self fulfilling prophecy. Truth is anyone can change their mindset to a growth mindset, However it takes alot of hard work, not the forte of those with a FM.
IQ test are commonly referred to as a way to evaluate someones intelligence. However did you know that they were invented in the 1800's by a Frenchman as a way to evaluate progress in Parisian schools. That's right if you were a student in Paris you would take a IQ test at the beginning of the year and the end of the year to figure out how much you learned. YOU CAN BECOME MORE INTELLIGENT BY LEARNING AND PUTTING FORTH EFFORT TO ACCOMPLISH YOUR GOALS!???? Growth mindset factors:
You embrace challenges and you are starved to find players to stomp you repeatedly so you can improve. You understand that you must lose, you must suck, You must be in a low league before you can get to a higher league. You must lose before you can win.
you love obstacles, you love to see a strategy that trainwrecks your's. you want your vulnerabilities laid bare and your game-plan demolished, so you can figure out what you were doing that wasn't working. You are not discouraged by failure and you infact look forward to it. Next time your in ladder, try telling your opponent to play his best and absolutely destroy you, and WANT it. You realize that your self-image has nothing to do with whether you win or lose, or what your win loss ratio is on ladder.
Hard work and effort are necessary to master anything and in order to win mlg or have a solid build you will test your build order against different timings for hours and you ENJOY it. You've dotted every T and crossed every I, and you know your responses to 4 gates, stargate all ins, forge fe's, chargelot ht, dark templar, mass vr, collosi, blink stalker 1/2base ect. You practice not because you know you will be gosu if you do it, but because you like to test yourself against any and all challenges.
you love criticism and feedback, you ask other players to look at your replays and take every recommendation and logically evaluate it. You never get mad when someone tells you your build is awful, you simply ask them what can I do to improve it. You don't mind when your clan mates inform you of every mistake you make. Then you start to become critically aware of the difference between yourself and a professional player.
Your are inspired by the success of others, you get nerd chills when you see SlayerS_MMA and Boxer break out crazy blueflame helion strategies. As a Zerg player you are in awe of MVP's meticulous 3 base doom pushes. You love to see Stephano grow as a player and you can't wait to see what Nestea breaks out in the round of 4. When your clanmates or friend get a promotion your are truly happy and excited. You want to inpsire others in your clan, among your friends or even in the sc2 community so that they can grow with you.
Koreans, Ukrainians and Swedes Dominate?
My theory is that the above countries are dominating the e-sports scene because of CULTURE. You are raised as a child in accordance with your culture and your culture in turn develops your mindset. MVP, White_RA and Naniwa are all formidable forces in E-Sports because they have growth mindsets. MVP doesn't 1-1-1 because he see's it as unfair and knows this strategy will be dealt with, so he opts to further develop his macro game and timings. Naniwa does not care any longer if he wins or loses, all he wants to do is become the best. White_ra embraces losing because he knows it will make his game more solid. Many people argue korean's are better than foreigners innately, but it is only due to their work ethic. EG_Huk is a prime example that with a good work ethic and a good training environment you can become as good as any korean, recently making it to the round of 8 in GSL. The secret to success and improvement in sc2 is not a secret at all, its a growth mindset and alot of hard work. Korean's dominate because they practice 60 hours a week, while foreigner's do not. In SOTG episode 47 you can see an empty EG training house at night with a Lone EG_Puma practicing behind incontrol's laughter and facial zoom-in's.
From someone who discovered I had a very fixed mindset, I have since been trying to change in order to keep from sabotaging myself with self fulfilling prophecies, it is very beneficial to try and change your mindset. It has had many benefits beyond just starcraft 2 including my professional and personal life. Also This is quite a long post, but I will say these concepts took me from a medicore diamond player to a mid-high masters players and I overcame my ladder fear. I want to lose now and as a result I've won much more (with alot of time and EffOrt ; ). So to all those with ladder fear and the pro's with korean superiority complexes, get a growth mindset and go practice, alot. One day you may too have top 3 control in the world. :D "More GG, More Skill" - The Grandpa Toss himself, White_RA
That's an interesting writeup. I do like the idea that understanding (and even embracing) your own badness is the key to getting better. A wise man knows his own foolishness. I appreciate the whitera quote too he is a baller
LOL. Oddly enough I run into to this same mindset in the amatuer-ish music community I know. I put in hours of practice every day, and work hard at it, and easily sound better than most of said people. And they just call me "ridiculously talented", and say stupid things like, "i could never be that good', etc. And I try to say thanks and be polite, but it's so, so, BS, and almost insulting to me.
ANYONE can be world class at anything they are not completely limited physically at. And mere mechanical limitations, aka, "I could never get 250 APM!!!" is not enough to limit you. Sure, you might not ever be legendary/dominant at anything, but you can become world class at anything if you just put the time and effort into it.
You want to be as good as MC/Ronaldo/Perlman? Practice 12 hours a day. And by practice, I don't mean do 4 v 4 ladder/trick shots/show-off pieces for 11 hours and actually grind practice games vs specific builds/practice penalty shots over and over/practice scales over and over. You don't want to practice that hard? Fine, it certainly isn't for everyone, but don't let me hear you spouting this "talent" bs until then.
/rant. Great article OP.
Also, about ladder anxiety and quitting. I'm one of those quitter statistics. I realized soon into playing SC2 that i could never devote enough time to actually be decent at it, aka, diamond/masters. So I started just playing for fun in team games, and while it still is fun, I found games like HoN were just a intesive, but yet at the same time still fun at even low levels. And you don't need to hours and hours of grinding to be good, you just have to consciously be trying to improve your game, and you will get better.
On September 07 2011 08:55 Sm3agol wrote: LOL. Oddly enough I run into to this same mindset in the amatuer-ish music community I know. I put in hours of practice every day, and work hard at it, and easily sound better than most of said people. And they just call me "ridiculously talented", and say stupid things like, "i could never be that good', etc. And I try to say thanks and be polite, but it's so, so, BS, and almost insulting to me.
ANYONE can be world class at anything they are not completely limited physically at. And mere mechanical limitations, aka, "I could never get 250 APM!!!" is not enough to limit you. Sure, you might not ever be legendary/dominant at anything, but you can become world class at anything if you just put the time and effort into it.
You want to be as good as MC/Ronaldo/Perlman? Practice 12 hours a day. And by practice, I don't mean do 4 v 4 ladder/trick shots/show-off pieces for 11 hours and actually grind practice games vs specific builds/practice penalty shots over and over/practice scales over and over. You don't want to practice that hard? Fine, it certainly isn't for everyone, but don't let me hear you spouting this "talent" bs until then.
/rant. Great article OP.
Excellent, post, I'm glad to see people are reading and understanding this, I just hope it wasn't to dry to become a post with more reach. :D Thanks! Mindset psychology applies to much more than gaming for sure, its an epidemic in the developed world to have a fixed mindset, but look at our movies and role models. Superheroes, who happened upon some magic bullshit that instantly gave them their miraculous powers. If we had more movies and media which emphasized the developement of someone great, it would be better. Many of the greatest composers sucked ass at music and were never prodigies. They just kept working at it.
Edit: It does indeed take alot of time to stay in good shape at sc2. I think to maintain masters level you need atleast 2-3 hours a day in my experience.
On September 07 2011 08:50 Ares[Effort] wrote: I am the real Effort
Oh noes
Good article, I had no idea bout the fixed vs Growth mindset.
Well if you've had a fixed mindset all your life like me its quite liberating to find the voice in your head that makes excuses for everything. You can become a man of action rather than idle talk. Idra used to be one of my favorites players but now he just saddens me. I watch him ladder, and he loses, and rather than saying shit, i missed my timing he just says something like terran op, sc2 is bullshit. He won't stay at his level for much longer with that attitude. However maybe that will change when he goes to korea.
I had a growth mindset when I started out as a bronze, but as I got promoted, I admit I've developed a fixed mindset. I think it's because it was so much easier to see why I lost, but now, it's like, "you've got to squeeze in more units".
I'm also relieved someone else related ladder fear to the fear of Koreans dominating foreign tournaments. Foreign pros/advocates should not think they've reached their limit, and remove Koreans from their tournaments because of that.
Thank you for sharing this article, dear OP. I've found myself to be a typical example of 'Fixed mindset' by reading couple of definitions, although I'd argue couple of points against. But yeah, I hope with time, i'll be able to change it, even though I believe it's not uncommon knowledge that it's very difficult task to change one's mindset, especially if it was part of someone for so many years.
On September 07 2011 09:11 julianto wrote: I had a growth mindset when I started out as a bronze, but as I got promoted, I admit I've developed a fixed mindset. I think it's because it was so much easier to see why I lost, but now, it's like, "you've got to squeeze in more units".
I'm also relieved someone else related ladder fear to the fear of Koreans dominating foreign tournaments. Foreign pros/advocates should not think they've reached their limit, and remove Koreans from their tournaments because of that.
Yeah, korean's have the psychological edge, just because foreign pros think their better, its all bullshit. These foreign pro's have to just get over it, and practice as much as the korean's do, and then the playing field is leveled. Foreign players also do not actively try to improve their mechanics. Have you ever seen sjow against a korean, its disqusting watching sjows minerals go up to 900 just causes hes attacking. I increased my apm from 70 in beta in plat league to 200 or so nowadays. It just takes alot of work and focusing on working out anything that slows you down.
On September 07 2011 09:13 BabyToss! wrote: Thank you for sharing this article, dear OP. I've found myself to be a typical example of 'Fixed mindset' by reading couple of definitions, although I'd argue couple of points against. But yeah, I hope with time, i'll be able to change it, even though I believe it's not uncommon knowledge that it's very difficult task to change one's mindset, especially if it was part of someone for so many years.
Would definitelly read again.
Story of my life, try that book i listed called Mindset by Carol dweck, some of the most valuable stuff I ever read. Remember not every part of your personaility in necessarily fixed, most people have alot of different growth and fixed parts. It does indeed take alot of work with a lot of remissions, but just never give up.
Very nice post. I'm going to try and change my mindset because I do have a fixed mindset and that needs to change. =). You've helped out at least one perosn by doing this post. Thumbs up =).
Fantastic post. This certainly makes me re-evaluate the way I approach the game from a mental standpoint, although I don't suffer from "ladder fear". Too often I hoped to see my opponents doing (in the past) anything but a 4-gate, or (current) anything but 1-1-1, or anything but a Bane/Ling all-in, because I assumed "these are just bad players winning because of a strategy", when in reality there are thousands of players who have learned through practice how to deal effectively with all of them and win the game.
On September 07 2011 09:15 RedDragon571 wrote: Story of my life, try that book i listed called Mindset by Carol dweck, some of the most valuable stuff I ever read. Remember not every part of your personaility in necessarily fixed, most people have alot of different growth and fixed parts. It does indeed take alot of work with a lot of remissions, but just never give up.
I've been trying to discover more about myself as a person because of StarCraft 2 recently, trying to understand why I feel this and that way when something happens and how to deal with it. Because mindset plays huge part in StarCraft 2, I realized I had to grab my problems from their roots.
Funnily enough, if it wasn't for SC2 (yes, SC2 means a lot for me, but that's loong story), I'd be still stuck deep down in my old self; never trying to go on with anything, giving up immediatelly after facing obstacles and saying 'I have no talent, so why should I try? I'll be hopeless anyways, no matter what I do'. So I'm indeed speaking from personal experience, when it comes to dealing with any sort of mindset problem. Sometimes, at my worst, I still feel like throwing it out of the window, giving up and going back to my old self; but when something is as important as this is to me, I hope it'd be the true drive for an actual change. Just have to constantly remind myself of that, write stuff down and sort out my own thoughts - it does help.
On September 07 2011 09:25 yakitate304 wrote: Fantastic post. This certainly makes me re-evaluate the way I approach the game from a mental standpoint, although I don't suffer from "ladder fear". Too often I hoped to see my opponents doing (in the past) anything but a 4-gate, or (current) anything but 1-1-1, or anything but a Bane/Ling all-in, because I assumed "these are just bad players winning because of a strategy", when in reality there are thousands of players who have learned through practice how to deal effectively with all of them and win the game.
I'll take a look at this book as well.
Great glad I can help! I used to fear that way about alot of builds, but once i focused more on figuring out how to stop these builds and less on raging at these players are started to figure out, that solid mechanics with the knowledge of responses to different builds will shoot you up on ladder dramatically.
Man, great article, really good read especially the mindset part. Nice!
I like to think I'm a growth mindset, but losing sometimes does irk me out. Hell, I've gotten a lot better than I used to be though.
Those lost players stats are crazy too, but as you say, SC2 doesn't offer enough instant gratification for casuals who don't enjoy the game to get better. I've noticed this a lot on SEA, a lot less players but as a result a lot more good folks, not much BM, and generally good games overall.
Thank you everyone for such warm responses! Glad I could help and If anyone is interested in any more information about mindsets or ladder anxiety feel free to PM me! :D
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: Hi, EffOrt here, Not the real one (the real one sold his soul to the devil for sc1 skills at the cost of looking like an alien.)
On September 07 2011 09:36 itsTheSituatioN wrote: MVP does 1-1-1, so your argument there is invalid. so we're left with the obvious: people with a mindset to seek improvement will get better
not sure you understood the content, but I didn't expect to help everyone :D. MVP doesnt prefer to 1-1-1, because hes interested in more solid and long lasting ways to win. It would seem obvious, but the hard part is figuring out if your lying to yourself, whats in your subconscious isn't always obvious.
when i get it right you think that most people stop playing because they are afraid of ladder? i think most people who stop playing a game do this because they are bored of it and dont like it anymore. I think only someone who cares for ladder can have "ladder fear" and the ones who care stay...
I truly appreciate this post, OP. You've done something wonderful here, and I hope that I can contribute a very small bit to make things even more interesting.
Korean is one of a select few "Language Isolates" that does not draw from any other language. The way we speak often steers our critical thinking in many different ways, for reasons which I don't need to get into now.
An example being the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, who instead of using terms like "to the left" or "behind you" always refer to the cardinal direction of an object. The man is North of me. If an Aboriginal can't SEE the man North of him, he *will* say something to the effect of "A man was North of me".
Most Aboriginals have a near perfect sense of cardinal direction.
I am curious if the Korean language isolate is responsible for any of the differences between Koreans and foreigners. While surely the most weight rests on culture and practice regimen, I find this a very interesting and unexplored area.
Thanks again!
Unfortunate edit: I don't believe in "persona dichotomies" as the book you reference professes. I believe this to be much the same as believing in "Good" and "Evil", which I also believe to be a false dichotomy. My post seemed to indicate I was in complete agreeance with you, whilst in reality I disagree heavily on this and some other points.
i did not know that there is a book like that existed! i always called the 'mindset' attitude. Your attitude decided alot of things that happen/happened in your life. Any ambitious person will have most or all the 'growth mindset' criteria that you mentioned. Sometimes people may think that i am insane because i am never upset no matter how bad the boss treated me lol i love mistakes because they made me stronger <3 i'd give anything to get better in anything in my life. There is always a price to get to your target and sometimes that price is HUGE.
That said, maybe TL is a progaming site and it is good to have a cool discussion like this but i dont think everyone has the same attitude towards a game and his college final exams. To me I stopped playing 1v1 because i feel depressed even if i won the game. And no i dont want to be a pro gamer so i dont wanna spend that much time on this (broken) game especially when everyone can learn bunker rush in 5mins time. I am waiting HotS to see if zerg gets something otherwise i am quite done with ladder
edit: not that i am whining the game is broken or anything (look at nestea <3 my hero!!!) but if you look at 'common' player like Destiny, after playing the game for so long still die to bunker rush from time to time. zerg players will understand what i meant. i simply cant play a game like this.
On September 07 2011 09:34 mTwRINE wrote: Great post. I used to have a growth mindset in SC1 but with huge RTS experience and easy start in SC2 I lost it somewhere on the way.
Easy concept but able to explain alot.
I feel like a lot of really good Sc1 foreigners have had to deal with this same thing, particularly Idra and Tyler. They don't have the same work ethic they used too, Good points!
i definitely can see where the fixed mindset vs growth mindset is hindering. my question is with almost any type of scenario, there are pros and cons to both sides, it doesn't seem like the growth mindset has any cons. is this your observation as well?
On September 07 2011 09:45 zyce wrote: I truly appreciate this post, OP. You've done something wonderful here, and I hope that I can contribute a very small bit to make things even more interesting.
Korean is one of a select few "Language Isolates" that does not draw from any other language. The way we speak often steers our critical thinking in many different ways, for reasons which I don't need to get into now.
An example being the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, who instead of using terms like "to the left" or "behind you" always refer to the cardinal direction of an object. The man is North of me. If an Aboriginal can't SEE the man North of him, he *will* say something to the effect of "A man was North of me".
Most Aboriginals have a near perfect sense of cardinal direction.
I am curious if the Korean language isolate is responsible for any of the differences between Koreans and foreigners. While surely the most weight rests on culture and practice regimen, I find this a very interesting and unexplored area.
Thanks again!
Unfortunate edit: I don't believe in "persona dichotomies" as the book you reference professes. I believe this to be much the same as believing in "Good" and "Evil", which I also believe to be a false dichotomy. My post seemed to indicate I was in complete agreeance with you, whilst in reality I disagree heavily on this and some other points.
I understand, and neither do I. The whole fixed and growth mindset is a simplified version of what really happens, in order to allow people to better understand the concept. In reality people have growth and fixed views in different areas.
Great post, OP. I personally never understood ladder fear. I mean, it's a fucking game. The world doesn't end if you lose a single game (hopefully; if it would, please don't play that game. I don't want to die alone!). Enjoy the game, which involves actually playing said game. And bronze leaguers, if you want me to induce some ladder fear... PM me.
this is so good for my mindset.. I want to get raped so much right now (I kid) still I love it due to I don't care about my attitude towards slumping and shit
On September 07 2011 09:51 Kazeyonoma wrote: i definitely can see where the fixed mindset vs growth mindset is hindering. my question is with almost any type of scenario, there are pros and cons to both sides, it doesn't seem like the growth mindset has any cons. is this your observation as well?
The growth mindset's only flaws I can attest to are having a distorted concept of whats possible. If you go to far with your growth mindset you start to think you can do anything you want, and as a result might end up waste alot of your time. How many people go to college to major in drama or photography to find out, they have a very low chance of getting a good job doing that, no matter how good they are. In a scenario where skill and work don't pay off that well, growth mindset can sometimes be a hindrance. Maybe a job interview, where you need to be a little more arrogant than you normally are, everything has its drawbacks. But you can learn to maintain a balance.
All in all a growth mindset is a more realistic view of the world itself. Every 7 years all the molecules in your body a different from the previous ones. Your literally are not made out of the same matter you were, and people are dynamic likewise. People learn things and change, and its a more realistic view of the world to take this into account. But its easier and simpler to just judge people at face value.
Wait, I think I have a mixed fixed/growth mindset... In the sense, I don't want to lose, I don't like it, I like winning, but I practice the stuff I think is cool in games, like marine splits, 2 marines killing 1 zealot, and stuff like that. I like to think I'm gosu, and that if I wasn't regulated on the computer I could be higher than platinum, but I guess that's what differentiates between me and the OP lol; no excuses for winners, lawl.
On September 07 2011 10:00 Jim7 wrote: Very cool. It looks like I'm a fixed mindset but not all the points apply to me ;(
I also don't have the desire to reach masters but at the same time don't have much ladder fear.. so where would that put me?
Well you have to dig down deep and find teh reason your not interested in reaching masters. It might be because your afraid your not masters material and so your not even trying. The growth mindset view is that you should play to get better and masters will come in time as a result. If your more focused on your league than your gameplay then that could be a problem.
I promise you, ever since I have heard White Ra's words, "more GG = more skill" I have said that to myself after every loss... and it has yet to fail me
That was a beautiful post, I think this is mindset advice is great in general to life, and to generic internet users who are younger. Deserves a spotlight for more discussion in my eyes. <3
Luckily though, we can at least start seeing some stagnation and eventually a solid player base. I mean most games are like this anyway, right? A ton of games I've played start off with a huge player base and the population declines, stagnates, and then picks up slowly. IMO as long as the rate of people going down doesn't rocket, it shouldn't matter.
I think the reason for this might just be because SCII isn't what it used to be, I mean some of us have waited 12 years for this game to come out and a few of us were a tad disappointed.
On September 07 2011 10:07 IntoTheheart wrote: Luckily though, we can at least start seeing some stagnation and eventually a solid player base. I mean most games are like this anyway, right? A ton of games I've played start off with a huge player base and the population declines, stagnates, and then picks up slowly. IMO as long as the rate of people going down doesn't rocket, it shouldn't matter.
I think the reason for this might just be because SCII isn't what it used to be, I mean some of us have waited 12 years for this game to come out and a few of us were a tad disappointed.
Fixed mindset. :-)
You've told yourself that there is nothing more that you can do with the game. That the game is inherently broken. That YOU, are at a disadvantage, because you aren't X.
On September 07 2011 10:07 IntoTheheart wrote: Luckily though, we can at least start seeing some stagnation and eventually a solid player base. I mean most games are like this anyway, right? A ton of games I've played start off with a huge player base and the population declines, stagnates, and then picks up slowly. IMO as long as the rate of people going down doesn't rocket, it shouldn't matter.
I think the reason for this might just be because SCII isn't what it used to be, I mean some of us have waited 12 years for this game to come out and a few of us were a tad disappointed.
Fixed mindset. :-)
You've told yourself that there is nothing more that you can do with the game. That the game is inherently broken. That YOU, are at a disadvantage, because you aren't X.
Did I do it right OP?
Hell yeah son, that how you do it. Let them know all the excuses they make are in their mind.
I Love the white-ra quote, because seeing the interview in the trailer shown during MLG Raleigh was what made me play ladder again. I agree that the mindset is essential to achieving your goal. I hated loosing, not becaus i thougt it would show im bad but because it felt like not getting better.
On September 07 2011 10:21 MidgeS wrote: My first TL post *yay*
I Love the white-ra quote, because seeing the interview in the trailer shown during MLG Raleigh was what made me play ladder again. I agree that the mindset is essential to achieving your goal. I hated loosing, not becaus i thougt it would show im bad but because it felt like not getting better.
Fixed mindset trap, I hated loosing, not becaus i thougt it would show im bad but because it felt like not getting better.
1. you would probably never admit to being bad, your bad im bad were all bad. until you get into code a, your simply not that good, admit it.
2. You were worried your not going to get better because you were afraid if you really tried you'd fail. Well you just sabotaged yourself sir. Thats how you create a self fufilling prophecy.
Gl, im glad white ra is so inspirational. If you practice hard you WILL get better.
Very interesting timing for you to bring up the fixed vs. growth mindset. I just finished reading that book, literally 3 days ago. Upon reading it I thought of making a thread on TL but just never had the time. SO WEIRD.
Where do you go to school btw? I'm thinking this is not just some weird coincidence.
On September 07 2011 10:28 bryanftw wrote: Some of these starts are misleading, how can you prove that players lost is directly caused by ladder fear? Maybe they just did not enjoy the game.
You can't with that little data, I was more trying to imply that the lack of instant gratification inherent to sc2 has caused people to shy away from 1v1's at least. It's probably related to the fact people don't take the time and effort it takes to get good.
Very interesting timing for you to bring up the fixed vs. growth mindset. I just finished reading that book, literally 3 days ago. Upon reading it I thought of making a thread on TL but just never had the time. SO WEIRD.
Where do you go to school btw? I'm thinking this is not just some weird coincidence.
I am from oklahoma, I got to University of Oklahoma and now Tulsa community college. Studying Diet and nutrition. I had a failed stent at engineering because of my fixed mindset ways and now im trying to change it.
On September 07 2011 09:56 mizU wrote: Interesting perspective, but I think it's a little too specific to be applied to such a variety of types of gamers.
I have to agree with this. While the OP is well-written, the division of the gaming world into two types of people simplifies the equation too much for my taste.
Given that the OP notes, intelligently, the influence of culture toward the end of his post, I'd like to weigh in that another factor in this discussion might be related to video games and social stigma. How do social pressures in NA differ from those in Korea and Scandinavia relative to video games?
In other words, I think that the psychological analysis threatens to reduce the situation to a question of what type of individual one is. What about the broader social circumstances that encourage or discourage us to be one thing or another?
tl;dr While the OP is smart to acknowledge culture, the emphasis on psychology tends to reduce problems to differences in the motivations of individual types. I find such explanations to be oversimplified to the extent that they ignore a host of other socio-cultural factors--the stigma against professional gaming, for instance--that influence the differences in performance between players in NA, Korean, and Scandinavia.
Great read! It's quite funny to read through the examples for the Fixed mindset and instantly realize they apply to myself. These are things I've always tried to work on improving but always look upon them as completely unrelated traits. Taking a broader perspective such as this could be a great step in overcoming these hurdles.
Yeah... I would consider myself a growth mindeset player, and yet I still balance rage and blame stuff on external factors sometimes... I also get jealous of people I percept to be better or more skilled than me, so thank you for this post, I'll work harder to become a better player and a better person, because of me, not because of blizzard or the failures of others. Thank you!
On September 07 2011 09:56 mizU wrote: Interesting perspective, but I think it's a little too specific to be applied to such a variety of types of gamers.
I have to agree with this. While the OP is well-written, the division of the gaming world into two types of people simplifies the equation too much for my taste.
Given that the OP notes, intelligently, the influence of culture toward the end of his post, I'd like to weigh in that another factor in this discussion might be related to video games and social stigma. How do social pressures in NA differ from those in Korea and Scandinavia relative to video games?
In other words, I think that the psychological analysis threatens to reduce the situation to a question of what type of individual one is. What about the broader social circumstances that encourage or discourage us to be one thing or another?
tl;dr While the OP is smart to acknowledge culture, the emphasis on psychology tends to reduce problems to differences in the motivations of individual types. I find such explanations to be oversimplified to the extent that they ignore a host of other socio-cultural factors--the stigma against professional gaming, for instance--that influence the differences in performance between players in NA, Korean, and Scandinavia.
i understood it more that instead of everyone being only one of the two, the two are the extremes, and most people are a little of each, while some are extremely fixed or growth minded
This mindset thing is definitely a valid psychological construct; I'm working in a metacognition lab at a pretty damn good university, and one survey we give to every subject asks them how they feel about it. In general, people who have what the OP calls 'fixed mindset' are worse at knowing how much they know, and perform worse than those with a 'growth mindset' on many psychological tasks, especially metacognitive judgments. If you think you can't change, you never will. I have a friend who started in Bronze and now he's high Diamond, playing Masters players pretty regularly on ladder. When a friend of mine started lifting, he couldn't bench the bar ten times, now he's repping 135.
It's also definitely true that in Asian cultures, the growth mindset is much more prevalent. I firmly believe that this is the cause of Asian-American students dominating most American universities. The Western world has been fed the 'genetics is destiny' lie so much that we just use it as an excuse to not try to improve, because we never will, right?
On September 07 2011 09:56 mizU wrote: Interesting perspective, but I think it's a little too specific to be applied to such a variety of types of gamers.
I have to agree with this. While the OP is well-written, the division of the gaming world into two types of people simplifies the equation too much for my taste.
Given that the OP notes, intelligently, the influence of culture toward the end of his post, I'd like to weigh in that another factor in this discussion might be related to video games and social stigma. How do social pressures in NA differ from those in Korea and Scandinavia relative to video games?
In other words, I think that the psychological analysis threatens to reduce the situation to a question of what type of individual one is. What about the broader social circumstances that encourage or discourage us to be one thing or another?
tl;dr While the OP is smart to acknowledge culture, the emphasis on psychology tends to reduce problems to differences in the motivations of individual types. I find such explanations to be oversimplified to the extent that they ignore a host of other socio-cultural factors--the stigma against professional gaming, for instance--that influence the differences in performance between players in NA, Korean, and Scandinavia.
It is oversimplified so people can understand the difference between fixed and growth mindsets, not many people are fully fixed or fully growth. Yes theyre all other cutural factors but cultures does influence peoples mindsets. How many korean interviews end with, I will worker harder to win the next game?
i had no problem in BW doing 1v1, but now in sc2 i can't seem to play at all. thx for this post, RedDragon57. now i can rationalize this "fear" and can work to fix it
On September 07 2011 11:30 Binky1842 wrote: i had no problem in BW doing 1v1, but now in sc2 i can't seem to play at all. thx for this post, RedDragon57. now i can rationalize this "fear" and can work to fix it
Awesome, I can't believe the positive feedback and response in this thread. It seems with ladder fear the biggest thing to overcome is yourself, to put yourself out there and accept you may not be as good as you think you are. But you can be as good as anyone out there, given you put forth the effort, practice and time in. You guys are awesome, I <3 Sc2 players !
On September 07 2011 10:47 lunchrush wrote: This mindset thing is definitely a valid psychological construct; I'm working in a metacognition lab at a pretty damn good university, and one survey we give to every subject asks them how they feel about it. In general, people who have what the OP calls 'fixed mindset' are worse at knowing how much they know, and perform worse than those with a 'growth mindset' on many psychological tasks, especially metacognitive judgments. If you think you can't change, you never will. I have a friend who started in Bronze and now he's high Diamond, playing Masters players pretty regularly on ladder. When a friend of mine started lifting, he couldn't bench the bar ten times, now he's repping 135.
It's also definitely true that in Asian cultures, the growth mindset is much more prevalent. I firmly believe that this is the cause of Asian-American students dominating most American universities. The Western world has been fed the 'genetics is destiny' lie so much that we just use it as an excuse to not try to improve, because we never will, right?
Right?
Sounds right on the money to me! awesome picture, I didn't realize you could do that in 2 years. Need to start working out again, lol. I used to have 15 more pounds of muscle on myself O.o.
On Culture, Asians are very humble and I think this is very synonymous with a growth mindset!
It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
OP, I agree that culture is the key factor towards ladder play and level of skill between Koreans and everyone else. You discuss how culture of the individual affects these things.
However, I think the culture of the *society* is even more important than the culture of the individual! The Korean culture, that is of this "mindset", draws a high interest into a game with a lot of growth like Starcraft. As a result, Korea supports professional, quality Starcraft play. This allows for two things:
1. Due to the high interest in the culture, a higher percentage of people will try to go pro, allowing for talent to emerge from that population. (ie there's a Boxer lurking in every country, just needs to be enough interest and opportunity in that game to lure him and people like him in)
2. The high cultural interest in SC creates more tournaments, show matches, etc., thus creating a higher degree of competition than in less culturally interested society. Competition breeds skill. And it also requires you to practice hard and long (ie 12 hour days of the Korean pro gamers) to meet that tough competition. Both these things increase skill in the players.
In summary (TLDR) - when there's a lot of cultural interest in a sport, more sportsman will be drawn in from that population, and more tournaments allow for more competition and demands practice, both of which improve the quality of those players.
On September 07 2011 11:54 Relickey wrote: It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
Yeah their paying me 10 dollar per response by the author's company who is rich as bawlz. I've showed them how advertising on TL will lead to direct profit will benefit the greedy mistress Carol Dweck herself ( Yes, She builds 4 orbital commands in her base, before barracks, while teaching her psych class). Did I mention I am also a free mason sent by the illuminati to sell this book, It is necessary to change the mindset of the human race in order so that they will be more resistant? in the face of an imminent alien invasion after the awakening of the ancient vampires under stonehenge and the great pyramids. They will feast upon the earth O.o?
ROFL, no, I was not paid to sell anything. Its a book that helped me personally and I thought it had alot of application to sc2.
btw. "You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games and other misc reason:"
I said that? You might want to put a TL:DR in your post, or something or read more carefully?
On September 07 2011 11:59 AtlasGrip wrote: OP, I agree that culture is the key factor towards ladder play and level of skill between Koreans and everyone else. You discuss how culture of the individual affects these things.
However, I think the culture of the *society* is even more important than the culture of the individual! The Korean culture, that is of this "mindset", draws a high interest into a game with a lot of growth like Starcraft. As a result, Korea supports professional, quality Starcraft play. This allows for two things:
1. Due to the high interest in the culture, a higher percentage of people will try to go pro, allowing for talent to emerge from that population. (ie there's a Boxer lurking in every country, just needs to be enough interest and opportunity in that game to lure him and people like him in)
2. The high cultural interest in SC creates more tournaments, show matches, etc., thus creating a higher degree of competition than in less culturally interested society. Competition breeds skill. And it also requires you to practice hard and long (ie 12 hour days of the Korean pro gamers) to meet that tough competition. Both these things increase skill in the players.
In summary (TLDR) - when there's a lot of cultural interest in a sport, more sportsman will be drawn in from that population, and more tournaments allow for more competition and demands practice, both of which improve the quality of those players.
Yeah, my point was just illustrating how the mindset of a player can affect their success, good points on culture btw.
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games
Where the story fell apart...
Lol, i didn't mean to insert any bias. LOL, is definitely stealing the spotlight at MLG from sc2. You gotta admit that LOL doesnt have a steeper learning curve than sc2.
On September 07 2011 10:47 lunchrush wrote: This mindset thing is definitely a valid psychological construct; I'm working in a metacognition lab at a pretty damn good university, and one survey we give to every subject asks them how they feel about it. In general, people who have what the OP calls 'fixed mindset' are worse at knowing how much they know, and perform worse than those with a 'growth mindset' on many psychological tasks, especially metacognitive judgments. If you think you can't change, you never will. I have a friend who started in Bronze and now he's high Diamond, playing Masters players pretty regularly on ladder. When a friend of mine started lifting, he couldn't bench the bar ten times, now he's repping 135.
It's also definitely true that in Asian cultures, the growth mindset is much more prevalent. I firmly believe that this is the cause of Asian-American students dominating most American universities. The Western world has been fed the 'genetics is destiny' lie so much that we just use it as an excuse to not try to improve, because we never will, right?
Right?
Sounds right on the money to me! awesome picture, I didn't realize you could do that in 2 years. Need to start working out again, lol. I used to have 15 more pounds of muscle on myself O.o.
On Culture, Asians are very humble and I think this is very synonymous with a growth mindset!
to do that in 2 years you need steroids, lots of them :D
Nothings more hysterical than a post claiming Americans do worse than fucking Europeans because they dont have a winners mindset. You know, America, the country where everything is engendered towards working hard and succeeding and it being your own fault if you fail, compared to sweden where...work is what? That annoying thing you do for a handful of hours every now and again.
I disagree with the whole "growth vs fixed mindset", it seems like it's based entirely on assumptions of the individual.
Laddering puts you under pressure. Some enjoy it, others, like myself, don't. I don't think you can read any further into it than that.
Removing the pressure from leagues would solve this for me. A league where you can't lose rating or rank would do this, though obviously it's implementation would have to be very craftily done to make the league still mean something without just being a grind. This probably isn't possible.
On September 07 2011 12:13 lizzard_warish wrote: Nothings more hysterical than a post claiming Americans do worse than fucking Europeans because they dont have a winners mindset. You know, America, the country where everything is engendered towards working hard and succeeding and it being your own fault if you fail, compared to sweden where...work is what? That annoying thing you do for a handful of hours every now and again.
Dear god.
Seems a bit biased, You ever been to Sweden or Korea? It also has nothing to do with how much you work, but your attitude towards work. I live in america and believe me a love of hard work isn't especially a virtue, especially in the gaming demo-graph (young middle-class guys). where do you live?
I really disliked the description of people using a dichotomy of fixed mindset and growth mindset. It really felt very narrow, and to me, it didn't really explain anything useful.
I do like the analysis on the drop of active players, and it doesn't surprise me that the most active players were lost between bronze and gold leagues. We saw that happen with other games, most notably with Iccup, and it's bound to happen to SC2 as well.
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games
Where the story fell apart...
Lol, i didn't mean to insert any bias. LOL, is definitely stealing the spotlight at MLG from sc2. You gotta admit that LOL doesnt have a steeper learning curve than sc2.
Wait What? I just heard their spectator client failed and that the LoL crowd was much smaller than SC2. Where did they steal SC2's thunder?
On September 07 2011 12:15 Eiviyn wrote: I disagree with the whole "growth vs fixed mindset", it seems like it's based entirely on assumptions of the individual.
Laddering puts you under pressure. Some enjoy it, others, like myself, don't. I don't think you can read any further into it than that.
Removing the pressure from leagues would solve this for me. A league where you can't lose rating or rank would do this, though obviously it's implementation would have to be very craftily done to make the league still mean something without just being a grind. This probably isn't possible.
You have a fixed mindset bro, Your more concerned with the results (your league and rank) than the journey it took to get there (refining your build, delaying an overlord so you can survive a 5 second timing window.) If you'd rather have a shiny symbol and the feeling your better than alot of other people, than work to understand and play the game better, than this game isn't for you.
On September 07 2011 10:47 lunchrush wrote: This mindset thing is definitely a valid psychological construct; I'm working in a metacognition lab at a pretty damn good university, and one survey we give to every subject asks them how they feel about it. In general, people who have what the OP calls 'fixed mindset' are worse at knowing how much they know, and perform worse than those with a 'growth mindset' on many psychological tasks, especially metacognitive judgments. If you think you can't change, you never will. I have a friend who started in Bronze and now he's high Diamond, playing Masters players pretty regularly on ladder. When a friend of mine started lifting, he couldn't bench the bar ten times, now he's repping 135.
It's also definitely true that in Asian cultures, the growth mindset is much more prevalent. I firmly believe that this is the cause of Asian-American students dominating most American universities. The Western world has been fed the 'genetics is destiny' lie so much that we just use it as an excuse to not try to improve, because we never will, right?
Right?
People can say what they want to about Zyzz, but damn he was an inspiration.
On September 07 2011 12:13 lizzard_warish wrote: Nothings more hysterical than a post claiming Americans do worse than fucking Europeans because they dont have a winners mindset. You know, America, the country where everything is engendered towards working hard and succeeding and it being your own fault if you fail, compared to sweden where...work is what? That annoying thing you do for a handful of hours every now and again.
Dear god.
Seems a bit biased, You ever been to Sweden or Korea? It also has nothing to do with how much you work, but your attitude towards work. I live in america and believe me a love of hard work isn't especially a virtue, especially in the gaming demo-graph (young middle-class guys). where do you live?
Canada, near the border [as everyone is basically]. And no shit teenagers arent the most motivated [though im sure thats replicated in europe as well]. Either way any casual glance at the amount americans [and to a lesser extent canadians] work relative to their European counterparts, or looking at stats on what people consider important etc etc, it comes back overwhelming: North Americans work far far far far more than Europeans [western europeans that is] and put a far far far higher importance on work, the necessity of succeeding on your own, and money. The result? North Americans are far more fucking ambitious. We dont have like four month vacations like sweden, surprise, kinda have to be.
Most counter intuitive thing I ever heard, Europeans being work orientated.
On September 07 2011 10:47 lunchrush wrote: This mindset thing is definitely a valid psychological construct; I'm working in a metacognition lab at a pretty damn good university, and one survey we give to every subject asks them how they feel about it. In general, people who have what the OP calls 'fixed mindset' are worse at knowing how much they know, and perform worse than those with a 'growth mindset' on many psychological tasks, especially metacognitive judgments. If you think you can't change, you never will. I have a friend who started in Bronze and now he's high Diamond, playing Masters players pretty regularly on ladder. When a friend of mine started lifting, he couldn't bench the bar ten times, now he's repping 135.
It's also definitely true that in Asian cultures, the growth mindset is much more prevalent. I firmly believe that this is the cause of Asian-American students dominating most American universities. The Western world has been fed the 'genetics is destiny' lie so much that we just use it as an excuse to not try to improve, because we never will, right?
Right?
People can say what they want to about Zyzz, but damn he was an inspiration.
RIP
I think he died of an enlarged heart(steroids) in a thai spa or something, hookers were involved?
This fits for SC2 but go plays games like DOTA or LOL and get back to me if you continue to think its the mindset or others believe me when it goes outside of your own mindset you can't blame yourself unless you screw up but if your teammate is bad then that's how it is.
Thanks OP, i like reading threads like this, it helps stimulate my work ethic and my drive to improve. I wish more people could get over ladder fear, its sad to see how much the ladder season numbers have decreased.
I feel like a must be some combination of the two mindsets. I don't like losing, and am not a fan of having my builds get ripped apart or ridiculed, but I also have a pretty good work ethic and am willing to analyze my losses.
On September 07 2011 12:13 lizzard_warish wrote: Nothings more hysterical than a post claiming Americans do worse than fucking Europeans because they dont have a winners mindset. You know, America, the country where everything is engendered towards working hard and succeeding and it being your own fault if you fail, compared to sweden where...work is what? That annoying thing you do for a handful of hours every now and again.
Dear god.
Seems a bit biased, You ever been to Sweden or Korea? It also has nothing to do with how much you work, but your attitude towards work. I live in america and believe me a love of hard work isn't especially a virtue, especially in the gaming demo-graph (young middle-class guys). where do you live?
Canada, near the border [as everyone is basically]. And no shit teenagers arent the most motivated [though im sure thats replicated in europe as well]. Either way any casual glance at the amount americans [and to a lesser extent canadians] work relative to their European counterparts, or looking at stats on what people consider important etc etc, it comes back overwhelming: North Americans work far far far far more than Europeans [western europeans that is] and put a far far far higher importance on work, the necessity of succeeding on your own, and money. The result? North Americans are far more fucking ambitious. We dont have like four month vacations like sweden, surprise, kinda have to be.
Most counter intuitive thing I ever heard, Europeans being work orientated.
I think your misunderstanding me, I live in the midwest, and the focus for most americans around here, Is not on the work but the money. The whole american mindset is make as much money as you can as fast as you can so you DON'T have to work. Yes work is of a high importance because the real emphasis is on money and not work. It is extremely counter intuitive and actually your exactly right about american importance of work. Americans are concerned with self image and money, not much value is placed upon the actual act of doing work. Maybe its different where you live and of course we are generalizing an entire country.
On September 07 2011 11:54 Relickey wrote: It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
Yeah their paying me 10 dollar per response by the author's company who is rich as bawlz. I've showed them how advertising on TL will lead to direct profit will benefit the greedy mistress Carol Dweck herself ( Yes, She builds 4 orbital commands in her base, before barracks, while teaching her psych class). Did I mention I am also a free mason sent by the illuminati to sell this book, It is necessary to change the mindset of the human race in order so that they will be more resistant? in the face of an imminent alien invasion after the awakening of the ancient vampires under stonehenge and the great pyramids. They will feast upon the earth O.o?
ROFL, no, I was not paid to sell anything. Its a book that helped me personally and I thought it had alot of application to sc2.
btw. "You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games and other misc reason:"
I said that? You might want to put a TL:DR in your post, or something or read more carefully?
I feel like this is a pretty aggresive response to mine. I meant no harm, but I wasn't born yesterday. I've also walked past a plethora of cellphone kiosks at malls, and one of my hobbies is watching infomercials, I know a sales pitche when I see one. I guess viral advertisement is the new thing, huh? Never would have thought it would've happened upon TL.
On September 07 2011 12:26 Genie1 wrote: This fits for SC2 but go plays games like DOTA or LOL and get back to me if you continue to think its the mindset or others believe me when it goes outside of your own mindset you can't blame yourself unless you screw up but if your teammate is bad then that's how it is.
I have played ALOT of Heroes of Newerth and Dota, it definitely goes both ways. In Hon and Dota every game is filled bming some guy on the team that is feeding and doing retarded things and feeding. At the same time their is someone who is doing well but not contributing to a win at all, An Int hero nuker stealing all the carries kills, he thinks hes a fucking boss cause he has a positive kdr, but when you look into the team metagame hes just as bad of a player. Also when all this is going on, people don't really analyze their own mistakes, not lo0oking at the minimap and getting ganked. The mindset stuff definitely applies, it just is more complex because their are 5 players vs 5 players.
Sometimes your teammates suck ass and you straight up lose. But don't let that hide your own mistakes from yourself or make you feel you can't improve. Don't tell me every game you lose you played perfectly.
On September 07 2011 12:13 lizzard_warish wrote: Nothings more hysterical than a post claiming Americans do worse than fucking Europeans because they dont have a winners mindset. You know, America, the country where everything is engendered towards working hard and succeeding and it being your own fault if you fail, compared to sweden where...work is what? That annoying thing you do for a handful of hours every now and again.
Dear god.
Seems a bit biased, You ever been to Sweden or Korea? It also has nothing to do with how much you work, but your attitude towards work. I live in america and believe me a love of hard work isn't especially a virtue, especially in the gaming demo-graph (young middle-class guys). where do you live?
Canada, near the border [as everyone is basically]. And no shit teenagers arent the most motivated [though im sure thats replicated in europe as well]. Either way any casual glance at the amount americans [and to a lesser extent canadians] work relative to their European counterparts, or looking at stats on what people consider important etc etc, it comes back overwhelming: North Americans work far far far far more than Europeans [western europeans that is] and put a far far far higher importance on work, the necessity of succeeding on your own, and money. The result? North Americans are far more fucking ambitious. We dont have like four month vacations like sweden, surprise, kinda have to be.
Most counter intuitive thing I ever heard, Europeans being work orientated.
I think your misunderstanding me, I live in the midwest, and the focus for most americans around here, Is not on the work but the money. The whole american mindset is make as much money as you can as fast as you can so you DON'T have to work. Yes work is of a high importance because the real emphasis is on money and not work. It is extremely counter intuitive and actually your exactly right about american importance of work. Americans are concerned with self image and money, not much value is placed upon the actual act of doing work. Maybe its different where you live and of course we are generalizing an entire country.
The result is still the same. If [as you said a generalization] an American goes into something, they are doing it in order to get money, and will work hard and be cut throat in order to get there. Obviously theres always that trade off of enjoyment and the like, but needless to say Idra works hard to get cash and anybody in America who looks at starcraft as something potentially beneficial to them monetarily will work extremely hard. Europe does not have that mentality, so accusing America of having a lazy mentality and Europe of having the opposite is simply wrong, and demonstrably wrong. And everyone here knows its wrong.
edit: For that matter, outside of maybe hardcore Calvinists, your going to be hard pressed to find anyone on the planet who works hard just for its own sake.
On September 07 2011 12:17 gamecrazy wrote: I really disliked the description of people using a dichotomy of fixed mindset and growth mindset. It really felt very narrow, and to me, it didn't really explain anything useful.
I do like the analysis on the drop of active players, and it doesn't surprise me that the most active players were lost between bronze and gold leagues. We saw that happen with other games, most notably with Iccup, and it's bound to happen to SC2 as well.
Like ive said many times, the dichotomy is so you can better understand the concepts, the reality is more complex as you can be both fixed and growth in different apsects.
Blatant generalizing and unbacked facts aside. I think we should all focus in the positive mindset this thread is trying to encourage.
So lets not make this into a America vs the world or SC2 vs other games.
I think this message brings a lot of uncomfortable truths about the so called ladder fear and yeah even it made me question my mindset when it comes to that. We all like to put a lot of the blame on talent or circumstances(don´t get me wrong, I do think they are a huge factor but not something that can´t be overcome in many cases) but the truth is that we should stop looking for ¨outside¨ sources in our defeats and failures and start focusing on what can we do to improve on that, which btw is a kickass concept.
Edit: And duh, of course this applies to everything you do. Games, work, love and everything. Cheers
On September 07 2011 12:13 lizzard_warish wrote: Nothings more hysterical than a post claiming Americans do worse than fucking Europeans because they dont have a winners mindset. You know, America, the country where everything is engendered towards working hard and succeeding and it being your own fault if you fail, compared to sweden where...work is what? That annoying thing you do for a handful of hours every now and again.
Dear god.
Seems a bit biased, You ever been to Sweden or Korea? It also has nothing to do with how much you work, but your attitude towards work. I live in america and believe me a love of hard work isn't especially a virtue, especially in the gaming demo-graph (young middle-class guys). where do you live?
Canada, near the border [as everyone is basically]. And no shit teenagers arent the most motivated [though im sure thats replicated in europe as well]. Either way any casual glance at the amount americans [and to a lesser extent canadians] work relative to their European counterparts, or looking at stats on what people consider important etc etc, it comes back overwhelming: North Americans work far far far far more than Europeans [western europeans that is] and put a far far far higher importance on work, the necessity of succeeding on your own, and money. The result? North Americans are far more fucking ambitious. We dont have like four month vacations like sweden, surprise, kinda have to be.
Most counter intuitive thing I ever heard, Europeans being work orientated.
I think your misunderstanding me, I live in the midwest, and the focus for most americans around here, Is not on the work but the money. The whole american mindset is make as much money as you can as fast as you can so you DON'T have to work. Yes work is of a high importance because the real emphasis is on money and not work. It is extremely counter intuitive and actually your exactly right about american importance of work. Americans are concerned with self image and money, not much value is placed upon the actual act of doing work. Maybe its different where you live and of course we are generalizing an entire country.
The result is still the same. If [as you said a generalization] an American goes into something, they are doing it in order to get money, and will work hard and be cut throat in order to get there. Obviously theres always that trade off of enjoyment and the like, but needless to say Idra works hard to get cash and anybody in America who looks at starcraft as something potentially beneficial to them monetarily will work extremely hard. Europe does not have that mentality, so accusing America of having a lazy mentality and Europe of having the opposite is simply wrong, and demonstrably wrong. And everyone here knows its wrong.
edit: For that matter, outside of maybe hardcore Calvinists, your going to be hard pressed to find anyone on the planet who works hard just for its own sake.
There's plenty of people out there that work doing something they love. They're not common but they're out there. There may be plenty of people that hate their job, but I think there is alot of people who love starcraft and do it for the sake of enjoyment, a Mr. Sean Plott [Day9] comes to mind.
On September 07 2011 11:54 Relickey wrote: It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
Yeah their paying me 10 dollar per response by the author's company who is rich as bawlz. I've showed them how advertising on TL will lead to direct profit will benefit the greedy mistress Carol Dweck herself ( Yes, She builds 4 orbital commands in her base, before barracks, while teaching her psych class). Did I mention I am also a free mason sent by the illuminati to sell this book, It is necessary to change the mindset of the human race in order so that they will be more resistant? in the face of an imminent alien invasion after the awakening of the ancient vampires under stonehenge and the great pyramids. They will feast upon the earth O.o?
ROFL, no, I was not paid to sell anything. Its a book that helped me personally and I thought it had alot of application to sc2.
btw. "You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games and other misc reason:"
I said that? You might want to put a TL:DR in your post, or something or read more carefully?
I feel like this is a pretty aggresive response to mine. I meant no harm, but I wasn't born yesterday. I've also walked past a plethora of cellphone kiosks at malls, and one of my hobbies is watching infomercials, I know a sales pitche when I see one. I guess viral advertisement is the new thing, huh? Never would have thought it would've happened upon TL.
lol, im not sure if you saw the spoiler or not. But yeah, no im not doing this for money. Sorry for trolling you, gave me a good laugh.
On September 07 2011 12:13 lizzard_warish wrote: Nothings more hysterical than a post claiming Americans do worse than fucking Europeans because they dont have a winners mindset. You know, America, the country where everything is engendered towards working hard and succeeding and it being your own fault if you fail, compared to sweden where...work is what? That annoying thing you do for a handful of hours every now and again.
Dear god.
Seems a bit biased, You ever been to Sweden or Korea? It also has nothing to do with how much you work, but your attitude towards work. I live in america and believe me a love of hard work isn't especially a virtue, especially in the gaming demo-graph (young middle-class guys). where do you live?
Canada, near the border [as everyone is basically]. And no shit teenagers arent the most motivated [though im sure thats replicated in europe as well]. Either way any casual glance at the amount americans [and to a lesser extent canadians] work relative to their European counterparts, or looking at stats on what people consider important etc etc, it comes back overwhelming: North Americans work far far far far more than Europeans [western europeans that is] and put a far far far higher importance on work, the necessity of succeeding on your own, and money. The result? North Americans are far more fucking ambitious. We dont have like four month vacations like sweden, surprise, kinda have to be.
Most counter intuitive thing I ever heard, Europeans being work orientated.
I think your misunderstanding me, I live in the midwest, and the focus for most americans around here, Is not on the work but the money. The whole american mindset is make as much money as you can as fast as you can so you DON'T have to work. Yes work is of a high importance because the real emphasis is on money and not work. It is extremely counter intuitive and actually your exactly right about american importance of work. Americans are concerned with self image and money, not much value is placed upon the actual act of doing work. Maybe its different where you live and of course we are generalizing an entire country.
The result is still the same. If [as you said a generalization] an American goes into something, they are doing it in order to get money, and will work hard and be cut throat in order to get there. Obviously theres always that trade off of enjoyment and the like, but needless to say Idra works hard to get cash and anybody in America who looks at starcraft as something potentially beneficial to them monetarily will work extremely hard. Europe does not have that mentality, so accusing America of having a lazy mentality and Europe of having the opposite is simply wrong, and demonstrably wrong. And everyone here knows its wrong.
edit: For that matter, outside of maybe hardcore Calvinists, your going to be hard pressed to find anyone on the planet who works hard just for its own sake.
There's plenty of people out there that work doing something they love. They're not common but they're out there. There may be plenty of people that hate their job, but I think there is alot of people who love starcraft and do it for the sake of enjoyment, a Mr. Sean Plott [Day9] comes to mind.
Haha, this too. I don´t know why people think that you have to hate what you do unless you are smth silly like a pornstar or whatever. and they are not as uncommon as you think, as always its just that its much easier(and healthy) to complain and vent about the bad stuff in your life.
On September 07 2011 12:13 lizzard_warish wrote: Nothings more hysterical than a post claiming Americans do worse than fucking Europeans because they dont have a winners mindset. You know, America, the country where everything is engendered towards working hard and succeeding and it being your own fault if you fail, compared to sweden where...work is what? That annoying thing you do for a handful of hours every now and again.
Dear god.
Seems a bit biased, You ever been to Sweden or Korea? It also has nothing to do with how much you work, but your attitude towards work. I live in america and believe me a love of hard work isn't especially a virtue, especially in the gaming demo-graph (young middle-class guys). where do you live?
Canada, near the border [as everyone is basically]. And no shit teenagers arent the most motivated [though im sure thats replicated in europe as well]. Either way any casual glance at the amount americans [and to a lesser extent canadians] work relative to their European counterparts, or looking at stats on what people consider important etc etc, it comes back overwhelming: North Americans work far far far far more than Europeans [western europeans that is] and put a far far far higher importance on work, the necessity of succeeding on your own, and money. The result? North Americans are far more fucking ambitious. We dont have like four month vacations like sweden, surprise, kinda have to be.
Most counter intuitive thing I ever heard, Europeans being work orientated.
I think your misunderstanding me, I live in the midwest, and the focus for most americans around here, Is not on the work but the money. The whole american mindset is make as much money as you can as fast as you can so you DON'T have to work. Yes work is of a high importance because the real emphasis is on money and not work. It is extremely counter intuitive and actually your exactly right about american importance of work. Americans are concerned with self image and money, not much value is placed upon the actual act of doing work. Maybe its different where you live and of course we are generalizing an entire country.
The result is still the same. If [as you said a generalization] an American goes into something, they are doing it in order to get money, and will work hard and be cut throat in order to get there. Obviously theres always that trade off of enjoyment and the like, but needless to say Idra works hard to get cash and anybody in America who looks at starcraft as something potentially beneficial to them monetarily will work extremely hard. Europe does not have that mentality, so accusing America of having a lazy mentality and Europe of having the opposite is simply wrong, and demonstrably wrong. And everyone here knows its wrong.
edit: For that matter, outside of maybe hardcore Calvinists, your going to be hard pressed to find anyone on the planet who works hard just for its own sake.
There's plenty of people out there that work doing something they love. They're not common but they're out there. There may be plenty of people that hate their job, but I think there is alot of people who love starcraft and do it for the sake of enjoyment, a Mr. Sean Plott [Day9] comes to mind.
Haha, this too. I don´t know why people think that you have to hate what you do unless you are smth silly like a pornstar or whatever. and they are not as uncommon as you think, as always its just that its much easier(and healthy) to complain and vent about the bad stuff in your life.
This. If you've never been to a third world or poor country you wouldn't understand. If you go to a place like guatemala, you can see people who have almost nothing and are barely making it by. But strangely enough, their happy, really happy. They get through life by virtue of mindset, if all they cared about is their title or label of poor third world person, they wouldn't be that happy.
This was a very interesting and informing post. I wasn't aware of the different mindsets or that you could change them, I am definatly a fixed mindset!
Where do you even start to try to change your mindset?
On September 07 2011 12:51 GosuNinja wrote: This was a very interesting and informing post. I wasn't aware of the different mindsets or that you could change them, I am definatly a fixed mindset!
Where do you even start to try to change your mindset?
Honestly it sounds crazy, but you have to talk to yourself, not out loud of course, but if it helps, why not.
Its hard but I found the best way is finding the voice/reasoning in your mind that:
Make excuses for what you can and cannot do, when you encounter a challenge or something difficult.
response: Tell yourself, that you are not limited by what people say you can and cannot do. If your not good at something its because you haven't had enough practice or you never really tried that. Attempt new things.
The part that tries to shelter your ego, by blaming something else other than yourself.
response: You lose a game or something goes wrong. Tell yourself its not luck, its not someone else, its not anything else. If you lost or something went wrong, there is always something you could have done better. Focus on that. If you lose or fail in some way. Don't concentrate or mull in your lose or failure, focus one WHAT YOU LEARNED from that experience. Reflect that because that happened you understand how to deal with that situation and you've grown.
Interprets every personal remark someone makes about you or something you do, as a comment on your person or pride. response: someone just said you supply block yourself all the time. You hear, your a shitty player and a fucking noob. What you should hear, I supply block myself alot, I need to change something in my play, I'm going to iron out my builds a bit more, and focus my next 10 ladder games on not getting supply blocked.
the part that tells you that you don't want to work or practice because you don't have to.
response: You hear, If i have to practice that mean's im not good. You should hear, I need to practice in order to get better, I am going to embrace this challenge and really get myself into this new build or look at some replays and write down some timing attacks to be safe against.
the part that makes you jealous when someone else is doing good, or the part that tries to constantly justify why other people are not better than you in some aspects, or why your a better overall person. Your friend makes master league and your still in diamond. You think, Jeez how'd he get into masters league I'm so much better than him, I beat him all the time. You should think, Wow im really happy my friend got into masters, I wonder what he improved to do it, maybe i can learn from him. I've got a masters practice partner awesome, Lets go run some practice games so I can refine my matchup.
Love the thread, I actually am going to read into it some more when I get a chance.
have been going through depression and this hit home. I think I have a fixed mindset along with my negative thoughts that are feeding back into me being a failure and not getting past my problems (which makes it come full circle as a self fulfilling prophecy).
Also, at first I didn't care about going through the leagues and only about hitting injects and not getting supply blocked and always producing something out of my larva. Now that I've been in diamond, I am scared of failing to get to masters so I don't allow me to fail by not laddering whatsoever. Either way, thanks for the thread, it has made me think a ton.
On September 07 2011 13:15 Demonace34 wrote: Love the thread, I actually am going to read into it some more when I get a chance.
have been going through depression and this hit home. I think I have a fixed mindset along with my negative thoughts that are feeding back into me being a failure and not getting past my problems (which makes it come full circle as a self fulfilling prophecy).
Also, at first I didn't care about going through the leagues and only about hitting injects and not getting supply blocked and always producing something out of my larva. Now that I've been in diamond, I am scared of failing to get to masters so I don't allow me to fail by not laddering whatsoever. Either way, thanks for the thread, it has made me think a ton.
Fear of Failure is the biggest problem with a fixed mindset!
just have a look at EG Huk and IM Fenix, i believe the ability is already there for a long time, its the positive mindset that makes them how they compete with the koreans now.
Especially for Fenix, look how much had changed in just a couple of days. The strength of will power!!
On September 07 2011 09:13 BabyToss! wrote: Thank you for sharing this article, dear OP. I've found myself to be a typical example of 'Fixed mindset' by reading couple of definitions, although I'd argue couple of points against. But yeah, I hope with time, i'll be able to change it, even though I believe it's not uncommon knowledge that it's very difficult task to change one's mindset, especially if it was part of someone for so many years.
Would definitelly read again.
Story of my life, try that book i listed called Mindset by Carol dweck, some of the most valuable stuff I ever read. Remember not every part of your personaility in necessarily fixed, most people have alot of different growth and fixed parts. It does indeed take alot of work with a lot of remissions, but just never give up.
If you're really not doing this for money, I'd suggest you start to lol.
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games
Where the story fell apart...
Lol, i didn't mean to insert any bias. LOL, is definitely stealing the spotlight at MLG from sc2. You gotta admit that LOL doesnt have a steeper learning curve than sc2.
You obviously don't know what you're talking about...
On September 07 2011 11:54 Relickey wrote: It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
Yeah their paying me 10 dollar per response by the author's company who is rich as bawlz. I've showed them how advertising on TL will lead to direct profit will benefit the greedy mistress Carol Dweck herself ( Yes, She builds 4 orbital commands in her base, before barracks, while teaching her psych class). Did I mention I am also a free mason sent by the illuminati to sell this book, It is necessary to change the mindset of the human race in order so that they will be more resistant? in the face of an imminent alien invasion after the awakening of the ancient vampires under stonehenge and the great pyramids. They will feast upon the earth O.o?
ROFL, no, I was not paid to sell anything. Its a book that helped me personally and I thought it had alot of application to sc2.
btw. "You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games and other misc reason:"
I said that? You might want to put a TL:DR in your post, or something or read more carefully?
I feel like this is a pretty aggresive response to mine. I meant no harm, but I wasn't born yesterday. I've also walked past a plethora of cellphone kiosks at malls, and one of my hobbies is watching infomercials, I know a sales pitche when I see one. I guess viral advertisement is the new thing, huh? Never would have thought it would've happened upon TL.
You sound like a dick. Guy shares his opinion on TL and gets berated for it by you. Who the hell are you?
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games
Where the story fell apart...
Lol, i didn't mean to insert any bias. LOL, is definitely stealing the spotlight at MLG from sc2. You gotta admit that LOL doesnt have a steeper learning curve than sc2.
You obviously don't know what you're talking about...
On September 07 2011 11:54 Relickey wrote: It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
Yeah their paying me 10 dollar per response by the author's company who is rich as bawlz. I've showed them how advertising on TL will lead to direct profit will benefit the greedy mistress Carol Dweck herself ( Yes, She builds 4 orbital commands in her base, before barracks, while teaching her psych class). Did I mention I am also a free mason sent by the illuminati to sell this book, It is necessary to change the mindset of the human race in order so that they will be more resistant? in the face of an imminent alien invasion after the awakening of the ancient vampires under stonehenge and the great pyramids. They will feast upon the earth O.o?
ROFL, no, I was not paid to sell anything. Its a book that helped me personally and I thought it had alot of application to sc2.
btw. "You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games and other misc reason:"
I said that? You might want to put a TL:DR in your post, or something or read more carefully?
I feel like this is a pretty aggresive response to mine. I meant no harm, but I wasn't born yesterday. I've also walked past a plethora of cellphone kiosks at malls, and one of my hobbies is watching infomercials, I know a sales pitche when I see one. I guess viral advertisement is the new thing, huh? Never would have thought it would've happened upon TL.
You sound like a dick. Guy shares his opinion on TL and gets berated for it by you. Who the hell are you?
Hmm, the initial paragraphs of the fixed mind set were pretty much describing my childhood-adolescence. However as it continued, especially where it comes to correlating this sort of mindset as an explanation to ladder fear, it did not make sense to me that it was the main cause. I've been thinking on the OP's post and would like to offer another argument, as I believe this mindset difference (and tbh oversimplified) is not the only problem for a declining player base.
************ I do not consider the contents below as the real facts or truth. I only want to present an argument from my perspective and experience. ************
1. TIME! It's so simple. I love SC2, I love playing 1v1 ladder. Mostly I love playing at my mid masters level where for me the games are extremely fun and challenging no matter win/loss. Sadly I just don't have the time to play. I haven't had the time to play at all the past month because of studies and other engagements. I re-qualified for masters this season, but I have only played five games. I come home too tired to sit down and ladder, instead I relax by watching GSL and other tournaments. I would love to play in GM league, or to strive for it, but I know I don't have the time. To actually be good at this game is almost like having a full time job. I don't resent this or blame it, in fact I revel in it only knowing that this makes the tournaments even better and more exiting to watch. Some people who bought the game will come back and play during the holidays (the ones who love this game), but you should consider that there are a lot of people who buy the game and only play the campaign (lots of casual players who simply aren't interested in competitive gaming and are only interested in playing a new game for a while then moving on to another game). Playing Starcraft 2 the way OP suggests is making it more than just a game. It is a hobby. Just because someone bought the game doesn't mean SC2 is their hobby or passion.
For example half my guild in WoW bought SC2 only to play through the campaign and some ladder games out of curiosity only to never log in again. They went back to WoW because that game is their hobby, not because they were scared of ladder or that the psychology was wrong, it was as simple as the fact that they weren't interested in this type of game. They liked to invest their free time leveling alts, doing dailies, improving their character and personal economies (whereas I don't even have a single alt, don't have any professions, or any money. Just a single max level char where I log in once a week for 4 hours to clear Firelands. It's relaxing and super fun to raid with 10 good friends, but outside of that the game is all boring crap to me). Different passions and interests. Honestly there are so many games out there that many gamers have their special game which they play the most. However, one thing that gamers have in common is that they buy many games and play them once or twice.
Ladder fear will cause some players to stop, but let's be honest here: you don't lose almost 50% of the player base to ladder fear. That is just stupid. It's like saying Oblivion lost 99% of its player base (there are the Oblivion hobbyists who spend most of the that time playing the game) because people were too scared to go in a dungeon. Even consider that there are people who didn't even finish the game and never went back to it.
1.1. The fact that SC2 has retained almost 50% of its player base after more than a year should be testament to how effin frikkin good this game is. Especially considering that it is a complex and deep RTS game centered around competitive play. I would bet that the biggest decline of active ladder players was during season one. Each consecutive season will lose less and less active members (and the later seasons primarily people with ladder fear, but I don't think most of them leave permanently). People who truly developed SC2 as their hobby will stay (some will play only on holidays, but always come back so one might expect a pattern of dipping during fall to spring), the people who leave permanently are just mainly people that lose interest in the game at different rates.
2. If you think that you are innately talented and intelligent and stuck in bronze because the game is so unbalanced I would think you are retarded. Sure any normal person can lie to themselves for a while (a few days) but the realization must hit them, it has to if they have a functional brain. To me the real fear in laddering is when you hit a certain point where the time you spend on the game reflects your skill level. You will plateau not because you hit your max skill ceiling but because you don't have the time to crunch in that extra time to raise it. At this point your win rate should be about 50%. No one likes to lose but is obvious that it is unavoidable. If you say that you feel not the slightest anxiety when you hit that "Find Game" button you are a liar.
Yet people who want to improve or just keep playing do keep laddering because the reward and the awesome feeling of the prospect of winning is stronger than the anxiety of losing the game. For those that stop laddering their anxiety and fear of losing is greater, they begin to doubt themselves and their ability and the feeling of actually just losing (not how or why, just the negative feeling of it). In their mind, I would imagine, they are experiencing the prospect of a permanent loss streak (and everyone has experienced a loss streak and knows how bad that sinking feeling is, and a lot of us still keep hope and still keep in mind the fact that you can win). Unless the person enjoys tormenting himself he will stop playing for a while or forever because his subconsciousness will correlate the game with more negative feelings than positive ones.
3. No intelligent person ever starts anything and thinks they are good - note difference between people who think they are intelligent and people that are actually intelligent. I have never raged at a 1v1 loss (only at some stupid random team games ). Everytime I lost I would watch the replay. In my mind blaming losses on something that you think is OP is retarded because by simply looking at how many people raged against me because they lost one would think every Protoss unit and strategy is OP and should be nerfed. Yes it would be easiest to blame their "OP" units and strat, but by just stepping back and analyzing your own thoughts and actions one should always logically come to the conclusion that one is over reacting. Even if their strategy or unit comp actually might be OP to a certain extent (what map it's on, spawn position, etc.) it is only logical to assume that even though your opponent might be at an advantage: his micro isn't perfect, his macro isn't perfect, his execution isn't perfect, his timing is not perfect, and his decisions aren't perfect.
If you are truly better than your opponent in every aspect of the aforementioned then you must be able to beat him because your superior skill would close the advantage he has, and if you aren't you should strive to be better. Any player that is between bronze-masters and are being matched by mmr can ALWAYS find a way to beat ANY strategy and unit comp if they analyze their. You are not playing against MC, MVP, or Nestea. I can guarantee you that your opponent who beat you with the 6 gate is not even close to, by light years, how well MC does it. Just because he had 6 gates at about the same time and attacks at about the same time he will not have the same macro behind it, he will not have the same decision making behind it (what unit comp he warps, what he reinforces with, etc.), nor will he have the same micro and execution.
Honestly there are so many holes in the quality of play from players bronze to masters that any strat can be picked apart if you dedicate to improve, especially in the scouting, decision making, and game awareness. I've beaten players who had better micro, macro, and apm than I did because they might scout my base and even see what tech I'm going AND STILL prepare wrong because they think, "Oh my probe revealed his base, OK good I scouted him". And likewise I have lost games in the same fashion.
On September 07 2011 11:54 Relickey wrote: It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
Yeah their paying me 10 dollar per response by the author's company who is rich as bawlz. I've showed them how advertising on TL will lead to direct profit will benefit the greedy mistress Carol Dweck herself ( Yes, She builds 4 orbital commands in her base, before barracks, while teaching her psych class). Did I mention I am also a free mason sent by the illuminati to sell this book, It is necessary to change the mindset of the human race in order so that they will be more resistant? in the face of an imminent alien invasion after the awakening of the ancient vampires under stonehenge and the great pyramids. They will feast upon the earth O.o?
ROFL, no, I was not paid to sell anything. Its a book that helped me personally and I thought it had alot of application to sc2.
btw. "You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games and other misc reason:"
I said that? You might want to put a TL:DR in your post, or something or read more carefully?
I feel like this is a pretty aggresive response to mine. I meant no harm, but I wasn't born yesterday. I've also walked past a plethora of cellphone kiosks at malls, and one of my hobbies is watching infomercials, I know a sales pitche when I see one. I guess viral advertisement is the new thing, huh? Never would have thought it would've happened upon TL.
This is pretty depressing, a guy takes his time to explain why he believes that being Korean or being European doesn't matter, but instead work ethics are much more important. He then proceeds to get bashed by someone who (clearly was not born yesterday /sarcasm) thinks he's running a viral advertisement for the book. I hope more people read this thread and become inspired to work harder. You can definitely transcend the entire ladder system, starting from bronze to even grandmasters as long as you work hard enough. The current progamers all had to start somehwere.
IMO it's more of the fact that the game has been out for a year. Most people are casual players (of any game) and are not going to keep playing. The drop in players is normal. Happens in almost every game.
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games
Where the story fell apart...
Lol, i didn't mean to insert any bias. LOL, is definitely stealing the spotlight at MLG from sc2. You gotta admit that LOL doesnt have a steeper learning curve than sc2.
You obviously don't know what you're talking about...
Edit:
On September 07 2011 12:34 Relickey wrote:
On September 07 2011 12:04 RedDragon571 wrote:
On September 07 2011 11:54 Relickey wrote: It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
Yeah their paying me 10 dollar per response by the author's company who is rich as bawlz. I've showed them how advertising on TL will lead to direct profit will benefit the greedy mistress Carol Dweck herself ( Yes, She builds 4 orbital commands in her base, before barracks, while teaching her psych class). Did I mention I am also a free mason sent by the illuminati to sell this book, It is necessary to change the mindset of the human race in order so that they will be more resistant? in the face of an imminent alien invasion after the awakening of the ancient vampires under stonehenge and the great pyramids. They will feast upon the earth O.o?
ROFL, no, I was not paid to sell anything. Its a book that helped me personally and I thought it had alot of application to sc2.
btw. "You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games and other misc reason:"
I said that? You might want to put a TL:DR in your post, or something or read more carefully?
I feel like this is a pretty aggresive response to mine. I meant no harm, but I wasn't born yesterday. I've also walked past a plethora of cellphone kiosks at malls, and one of my hobbies is watching infomercials, I know a sales pitche when I see one. I guess viral advertisement is the new thing, huh? Never would have thought it would've happened upon TL.
You sound like a dick. Guy shares his opinion on TL and gets berated for it by you. Who the hell are you?
Sorry bro?
Not you, Relickey lol
Edit: That is the first time I've ever seen someone bash and defend a person in a single post, and it was me. O_0
On September 07 2011 14:06 BeyondCtrL wrote: Hmm, the initial paragraphs of the fixed mind set were pretty much describing my childhood-adolescence. However as it continued, especially where it comes to correlating this sort of mindset as an explanation to ladder fear, it did not make sense to me that it was the main cause. I've been thinking on the OP's post and would like to offer another argument, as I believe this mindset difference (and tbh oversimplified) is not the only problem for a declining player base.
************ I do not consider the contents below as the real facts or truth. I only want to present an argument from my perspective and experience. ************
1. TIME! It's so simple. I love SC2, I love playing 1v1 ladder. Mostly I love playing at my mid masters level where for me the games are extremely fun and challenging no matter win/loss. Sadly I just don't have the time to play. I haven't had the time to play at all the past month because of studies and other engagements. I re-qualified for masters this season, but I have only played five games. I come home too tired to sit down and ladder, instead I relax by watching GSL and other tournaments. I would love to play in GM league, or to strive for it, but I know I don't have the time. To actually be good at this game is almost like having a full time job. I don't resent this or blame it, in fact I revel in it only knowing that this makes the tournaments even better and more exiting to watch. Some people who bought the game will come back and play during the holidays (the ones who love this game), but you should consider that there are a lot of people who buy the game and only play the campaign (lots of casual players who simply aren't interested in competitive gaming and are only interested in playing a new game for a while then moving on to another game). Playing Starcraft 2 the way OP suggests is making it more than just a game. It is a hobby. Just because someone bought the game doesn't mean SC2 is their hobby or passion.
For example half my guild in WoW bought SC2 only to play through the campaign and some ladder games out of curiosity only to never log in again. They went back to WoW because that game is their hobby, not because they were scared of ladder or that the psychology was wrong, it was as simple as the fact that they weren't interested in this type of game. They liked to invest their free time leveling alts, doing dailies, improving their character and personal economies (whereas I don't even have a single alt, don't have any professions, or any money. Just a single max level char where I log in once a week for 4 hours to clear Firelands. It's relaxing and super fun to raid with 10 good friends, but outside of that the game is all boring crap to me). Different passions and interests. Honestly there are so many games out there that many gamers have their special game which they play the most. However, one thing that gamers have in common is that they buy many games and play them once or twice.
Ladder fear will cause some players to stop, but let's be honest here: you don't lose almost 50% of the player base to ladder fear. That is just stupid. It's like saying Oblivion lost 99% of its player base (there are the Oblivion hobbyists who spend most of the that time playing the game) because people were too scared to go in a dungeon. Even consider that there are people who didn't even finish the game and never went back to it.
1.1. The fact that SC2 has retained almost 50% of its player base after more than a year should be testament to how effin frikkin good this game is. Especially considering that it is a complex and deep RTS game centered around competitive play. I would bet that the biggest decline of active ladder players was during season one. Each consecutive season will lose less and less active members (and the later seasons primarily people with ladder fear, but I don't think most of them leave permanently). People who truly developed SC2 as their hobby will stay (some will play only on holidays, but always come back so one might expect a pattern of dipping during fall to spring), the people who leave permanently are just mainly people that lose interest in the game at different rates.
2. If you think that you are innately talented and intelligent and stuck in bronze because the game is so unbalanced I would think you are retarded. Sure any normal person can lie to themselves for a while (a few days) but the realization must hit them, it has to if they have a functional brain. To me the real fear in laddering is when you hit a certain point where the time you spend on the game reflects your skill level. You will plateau not because you hit your max skill ceiling but because you don't have the time to crunch in that extra time to raise it. At this point your win rate should be about 50%. No one likes to lose but is obvious that it is unavoidable. If you say that you feel not the slightest anxiety when you hit that "Find Game" button you are a liar.
Yet people who want to improve or just keep playing do keep laddering because the reward and the awesome feeling of the prospect of winning is stronger than the anxiety of losing the game. For those that stop laddering their anxiety and fear of losing is greater, they begin to doubt themselves and their ability and the feeling of actually just losing (not how or why, just the negative feeling of it). In their mind, I would imagine, they are experiencing the prospect of a permanent loss streak (and everyone has experienced a loss streak and knows how bad that sinking feeling is, and a lot of us still keep hope and still keep in mind the fact that you can win). Unless the person enjoys tormenting himself he will stop playing for a while or forever because his subconsciousness will correlate the game with more negative feelings than positive ones.
3. No intelligent person ever starts anything and thinks they are good - note difference between people who think they are intelligent and people that are actually intelligent. I have never raged at a 1v1 loss (only at some stupid random team games ). Everytime I lost I would watch the replay. In my mind blaming losses on something that you think is OP is retarded because by simply looking at how many people raged against me because they lost one would think every Protoss unit and strategy is OP and should be nerfed. Yes it would be easiest to blame their "OP" units and strat, but by just stepping back and analyzing your own thoughts and actions one should always logically come to the conclusion that one is over reacting. Even if their strategy or unit comp actually might be OP to a certain extent (what map it's on, spawn position, etc.) it is only logical to assume that even though your opponent might be at an advantage: his micro isn't perfect, his macro isn't perfect, his execution isn't perfect, his timing is not perfect, and his decisions aren't perfect.
If you are truly better than your opponent in every aspect of the aforementioned then you must be able to beat him because your superior skill would close the advantage he has, and if you aren't you should strive to be better. Any player that is between bronze-masters and are being matched by mmr can ALWAYS find a way to beat ANY strategy and unit comp if they analyze their. You are not playing against MC, MVP, or Nestea. I can guarantee you that your opponent who beat you with the 6 gate is not even close to, by light years, how well MC does it. Just because he had 6 gates at about the same time and attacks at about the same time he will not have the same macro behind it, he will not have the same decision making behind it (what unit comp he warps, what he reinforces with, etc.), nor will he have the same micro and execution.
Honestly there are so many holes in the quality of play from players bronze to masters that any strat can be picked apart if you dedicate to improve, especially in the scouting, decision making, and game awareness. I've beaten players who had better micro, macro, and apm than I did because they might scout my base and even see what tech I'm going AND STILL prepare wrong because they think, "Oh my probe revealed his base, OK good I scouted him". And likewise I have lost games in the same fashion.
Let me explain a bit. This post is directed towards players who are looking to improve their starcraft and have ladder anxiety. Also people who perceive Koreans to innately better at starcraft. If you play one hour of starcraft a day or one hour a week, you can still take it with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Also I did not say that Ladder fear is the sole reason for why people were leaving the game. If you'd rather spend your time doing something other than starcraft there's obviously nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with being a casual player, but if you are indeed looking to improve at starcraft there is no reason to let your mindset keep you from that. Mindset is a complex and mostly a subconscious thing and its lot easier to lie to yourself than I could tell by your post. There is no logical reason to fear pressing the search button and play some ladder games ever, the entire point of my post was it is all in your head. It's really easy to lie to yourself and make excuses for why your not getting better and many people do it all the time. I agree with most of your post and good points sir! Also I understand this is very simplified, however it is simplified for understanding's sake, the reality of course is more complex. It would be unlikely for anyone to be fixed in all their ways and have no growth mindset. Be vigilant and search deep, within yourself. Your the hardest one to fool and the easiest one to fool yourself.
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games
Where the story fell apart...
Lol, i didn't mean to insert any bias. LOL, is definitely stealing the spotlight at MLG from sc2. You gotta admit that LOL doesnt have a steeper learning curve than sc2.
You obviously don't know what you're talking about...
Edit:
On September 07 2011 12:34 Relickey wrote:
On September 07 2011 12:04 RedDragon571 wrote:
On September 07 2011 11:54 Relickey wrote: It's a pretty big leap to say that because less games were played from season 1 to 2 to 3 because of ladder fear and not because of a combination of things like quitting the game, losing interest, etc. Also I feel like this write up is just a really big pitch to sell that self-help book. Were you paid for this viral advertisement?
Yeah their paying me 10 dollar per response by the author's company who is rich as bawlz. I've showed them how advertising on TL will lead to direct profit will benefit the greedy mistress Carol Dweck herself ( Yes, She builds 4 orbital commands in her base, before barracks, while teaching her psych class). Did I mention I am also a free mason sent by the illuminati to sell this book, It is necessary to change the mindset of the human race in order so that they will be more resistant? in the face of an imminent alien invasion after the awakening of the ancient vampires under stonehenge and the great pyramids. They will feast upon the earth O.o?
ROFL, no, I was not paid to sell anything. Its a book that helped me personally and I thought it had alot of application to sc2.
btw. "You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, League of legends, other games and other misc reason:"
I said that? You might want to put a TL:DR in your post, or something or read more carefully?
I feel like this is a pretty aggresive response to mine. I meant no harm, but I wasn't born yesterday. I've also walked past a plethora of cellphone kiosks at malls, and one of my hobbies is watching infomercials, I know a sales pitche when I see one. I guess viral advertisement is the new thing, huh? Never would have thought it would've happened upon TL.
You sound like a dick. Guy shares his opinion on TL and gets berated for it by you. Who the hell are you?
Sorry bro?
Not you, Relickey lol
Edit: That is the first time I've ever seen someone bash and defend a person in a single post, and it was me. O_0
Yeah, didn't mean to offend people with anything towards LOL, i was just simply trying to explain that the reason for the exodus of players from starcraft might be other games. I just used LOL as an example because I believe it took away the main stage at MLG due to more viewers, not sure.
Why do you say definitively that Starcraft lost many players due to ladder fear. Plenty of people play games and then stop. You cannot blame it on ladder fear alone, or even primarily, or even really at all without some sort of comprehensive study.
On September 07 2011 15:18 MerciLess wrote: Why do you say definitively that Starcraft lost many players due to ladder fear. Plenty of people play games and then stop. You cannot blame it on ladder fear alone, or even primarily, or even really at all without some sort of comprehensive study.
You can see that Starcraft 2 has lost well over a million active players due to ladder fear, lack of continuing interest, other games and other misc reason:
"MVP doesn't 1-1-1 because he see's it as unfair and knows this strategy will be dealt with, so he opts to further develop his macro game and timings."
LOL he 1-1-1ed huk... also of the 3 games he did 2 cheeses and only 1 macro game.
On September 07 2011 15:29 rareh wrote: "MVP doesn't 1-1-1 because he see's it as unfair and knows this strategy will be dealt with, so he opts to further develop his macro game and timings."
LOL he 1-1-1ed huk... also of the 3 games he did 2 cheeses and only 1 macro game.
didn't see those games, the play_xp interview said he didn't want to do it, but something about protoss on wanting to see how he defended it.
Eeeexcellent write up, personally when I was reading it I thought "well i'm not one of those guys who think they're gosu and are afraid lol, I know I have to work really hard to get good"
Then it hit me, what excuse do I then have for not laddering? I couldn't think of a single one.
So congratz, you made me ladder again. This was previously thought to be impossible.
Thanks for the article, really shed a lot of light into my brain... im a fixed mindset too i guess, ill try to improve that! not only in sc2, but in life in general!
Jealousy and ad hominem (people bashing) is common when other encounter success. you become jealous and enraged at the thought of someone being better than you, a ridiculous thought in itself.
/signed. People like this are ...... If this is the reason why you suffer from ladder fear, If this is the reason why you BM people after a game, Then you must be .........
Jealousy and ad hominem (people bashing) is common when other encounter success. you become jealous and enraged at the thought of someone being better than you, a ridiculous thought in itself.
/signed. People like this are ...... If this is the reason why you suffer from ladder fear, If this is the reason why you BM people after a game, Then you must be .........
not necessarily the direct reason but part of having a fixed mindset :D
On September 07 2011 15:29 rareh wrote: "MVP doesn't 1-1-1 because he see's it as unfair and knows this strategy will be dealt with, so he opts to further develop his macro game and timings."
LOL he 1-1-1ed huk... also of the 3 games he did 2 cheeses and only 1 macro game.
This goes more along the lines of "Playing to Win" which is another good book/blog about what it takes to become a pro in any game. I'm sure MVP doesn't only do 1/1/1 in practice, but it is one of his builds that is a GO-TO build to mix it up and to throw his opponent off.
Either way, part of having that fixed mindset goes along with people thinking certain strategies are "cheap" or that they lost because of imbalance. Basically you always have to know that you made mistakes in the game and need to take that loss and improve from it.
On September 07 2011 16:04 robih wrote: people quitting a game has nothing to do with ladder fear there are just so many gamers that dont stick with a game for a long time, thats it
This is just false, I know for a fact people play less because of ladder fear or we wouldn't have a ton of threads with a ton of replies about it. We wouldn't have section of liquipedia that deals with anxiety and laddering. I've been one of those people, barely played 5 or 10 games in season 2 and almost quit because I was just too nervous to play.
I would agree that there are more reasons people stop playing. Boredom, other games, busy lifestyle, etc. They could all be reasons why people also leave, but I know for a fact that ladder fear and the downright competitive nature of SC2 turns people away from 1v1 laddering.
Is there any sort of mindset that's in between? I feel that I exhibit elements of both mindsets, which is sort of strange, isn't it? I'm in Year 12 at the moment and coasting through school without studying etc. until about a month ago and getting straight A's, then suddenly bursting into a lot of effort to get the best result possible... in my case the extra work is a way to get a result, but a lot of the time in SC2 for example I play for the challenge and never blame imbalance as a result of losing.
On September 07 2011 16:16 SteemdRIce wrote: Is there any sort of mindset that's in between? I feel that I exhibit elements of both mindsets, which is sort of strange, isn't it? I'm in Year 12 at the moment and coasting through school without studying etc. until about a month ago and getting straight A's, then suddenly bursting into a lot of effort to get the best result possible... in my case the extra work is a way to get a result, but a lot of the time in SC2 for example I play for the challenge and never blame imbalance as a result of losing.
Yes, While for this post and for the understanding of the concept I outlined the two polar opposites, different aspects of your personality can exhibit fixed and growth qualities. But better understanding yourself can lead to a ton of self improvement with the understanding of mindsets.
Fascinating. Thank you for the post. It alluded to important things, I think. I'm reminded that people (Including myself) need to revisit the simple fact of structure and just simple thinking skills. This, rather than emotions as a guide. It helps to "verbalize" and to have a way of understanding.
Losing ladder players does not hurt e-sports. It's good that those who werent that interested in sc2 still bought the game because of effective marketing of Blizzard, then just left. Those who love the game but are anxious to ladder 1v1 will still play occasionally some games, and if they watched pro games, they will continue watching.
I'm one of those who are frustrated by ladder, i almost entirely skipped laddering in season 2, however i kept watching the pro games the same.
You cannot keep everyone happy, so there s no need to fix anything, because there is nothing broken.
The mindset idea is great but it doesn't account for the large drop in 1vs1 play. What does is the fact that 1vs1 is the most stressful game type and the least social. If i boot up Halo i play with friends, i play CS with friends, if i log into WoW i play with my friends but in SC2 1vs1 i play solo against a unknown opponent. I for one don't really have time or the interestest to improve in 1vs1 and i find it alot more fun to spend time playing with bros.
Everything can't be broken down into growth vs fixed mindsets. It's alot about how much you like the game and what you want out of it.
Also having a growth mindset is good to a point. Working hard to improve is good but i've seen lots and lots of "growth mindset" people burn out at work, you need to balance the desire to improve with how much you can take before breaking. Just look at BW and SC2 with all the pros having CTS and requiring surgery in the 20's.
So if I understand correctly you say that a fixed mindsets biggest fear is failure....but then you count naniwa as a growth mindset player? Naniwa said multiple times that failure is unacceptable and he does not care about anything but winning. Still he is one of the best because he works hard.
Another example is IdrA. When SC2 was starting he was in korea all on his own focusing only on practice. Reading your definitions IdrA clearly counts as a fixed mindset (Toss OP etc. you said it yourself) still he was the best foreigner in the first half year of starcraft 2. He made it past the cruel GSL Open qualifiers three times and never dropped out in the Ro64. He even made two Ro8. So I really dont see how your logic (if it can be called logic) is applied here.
All of the above are things that should be unachievable with your so called fixed mindset.
You also said that people that play team or custom games for fun or to try out new builds do that because of fear of 1v1? Are you serious? Is trying new stuff outside of the 1v1 ladder now forbidden? A real grotesque image.
In clonclusion I must say that Im happy to see people putting thought in this community but I find your write up very illinformed, riddled with contradictions and bad reasoning. Im glad the "mindset" book gave you the epiphany you needed but please dont call your post "ladder fear explained". LT.net is not a sect. Ladder fear is not explained by a book nor your personal understanding of the human mind and has even less to do with Koreans/Scandinavians being better that most NA-players.
This is such a good write up. I've always only thought about winning... I stop playing after I lose 2 games in a row usually. That's because my mindset is just so wrong. Thanks.
Fun read, but it seems somewhat biased :p The "fixed mindset" people are portrayed by you as cave trolls whereas the growth mindset people were described as the pc-gaming master race.
I'm Swedish. I identify myself with both of those characters though. I grew up "talented" and I definitely cruised in school, having an easy time with most things and then only being able to focus when the subject was interesting to me, causing me some difficulty as graduation approached.
On the flipside, I never feel jealous or rage at successful people and I no longer suffer from ladder anxiety. I've started playing more frequently, and I'm hoping to cross into Masters any day now. I don't love criticism but I certainly don't hate it either. I dunno.
On September 07 2011 16:56 Xacalite wrote: So if I understand correctly you say that a fixed mindsets biggest fear is failure....but then you count naniwa as a growth mindset player? Naniwa said multiple times that failure is unacceptable and he does not care about anything but winning. Still he is one of the best because he works hard.
Another example is IdrA. When SC2 was starting he was in korea all on his own focusing only on practice. Reading your definitions IdrA clearly counts as a fixed mindset (Toss OP etc. you said it yourself) still he was the best foreigner in the first half year of starcraft 2. He made it past the cruel GSL Open qualifiers three times and never dropped out in the Ro64. He even made two Ro8. So I really dont see how your logic (if it can be called logic) is applied here.
All of the above are things that should be unachievable with your so called fixed mindset.
You fail to realize that it isn't black or white when it comes to fixed or growth mindsets. There are shades of grey, especially with Naniwa and IdrA.
Naniwa is still likely to train with some type of growth mentality, learning from his mistakes (losses) and Koreans, not focusing on some type of arbitrary ceiling that most people set for themselves
IdrA does have a shitty mindset, and you can actually tell that it is hurting his performance lately. I think his early success does have something to do with this growth mindset, considering he went to Korea and got onto a team in BW and refining his play there. I'm positive that there is a difference between his mindset after losing a game and when he is talking to other players in the house about a match-up. I could only imagine how much stronger he would be with a good mindset.
Anyway, my main point is that you take growth and fixed mindset as black and white, even though there is a grey area on the spectrum.
On September 07 2011 08:45 garlicface wrote: Would've appreciated this post more if you didn't blast EffOrt in the first paragraph.
But it's true! I love EffOrt too but he does look like an alien! I want to see him play again
I really enjoyed this post and it gave me a lot to think about. I think the majority of the SC community have fixed mindsets as you describe and that often does cause a lot of conflict, in the forums and in game, because we all think that we're better than everyone else to some degree.
This is the case with a lot of gamers, especially since many of us such as myself come from high academic schooling backgrounds, finish school but then are confronted with something that's actually difficult and call bullshit and give up or procrastinate until the problem will hopefully magically go away. I dropped out of uni for several reasons but this had to have been a strong contributor. It's something I hope to change about myself and I will be returning to university but perhaps to study something not so difficult. I think changing from a growth mindset to a fixed mindset is a very gradual process, but it's kind of a catch 22 because someone with a fixed mindset will believe that they can get there no problem.
In regard to laddering, I barely play 1v1 anymore but I keep telling myself I should, I always end up playing 4s or 3s though but even though I play that a fair bit I often realise that I really need to improve myself as a player when it comes to the end result of the game. Sure there are other players in team games that are bad (comparitively) and sometimes it is even their fault that you lost but if you focus on your own part in that game you will always find things to improve and sometimes even make up for the mistakes of your teammates.
On September 07 2011 16:56 Xacalite wrote: So if I understand correctly you say that a fixed mindsets biggest fear is failure....but then you count naniwa as a growth mindset player? Naniwa said multiple times that failure is unacceptable and he does not care about anything but winning. Still he is one of the best because he works hard.
Another example is IdrA. When SC2 was starting he was in korea all on his own focusing only on practice. Reading your definitions IdrA clearly counts as a fixed mindset (Toss OP etc. you said it yourself) still he was the best foreigner in the first half year of starcraft 2. He made it past the cruel GSL Open qualifiers three times and never dropped out in the Ro64. He even made two Ro8. So I really dont see how your logic (if it can be called logic) is applied here.
All of the above are things that should be unachievable with your so called fixed mindset.
I think you misunderstood Naniwa - when he says he just cares about winning, what this means is, that he considers getting 2nd or 3rd place not as a success for him.
Nevertheless he repeatedly stated, that he wanted to go to Korea because his opponents on EU/NA ladder don't give him enough troubles. And this is exactly what the OP mentioned - Naniwa wants to face the harshest competition, he wants to learn to battle vs the best executed cheese, the perfectly timed 111. And after he went to Korea he even said that he didn't expect to win, but that he'll need time to adjust and improve further.
With your example of IdrA, I think the fixed mindset does partially apply, yet on a pretty high level. IdrA seems to think that he's "supposed" to win vs everybody, because he is "that" good. He doesn't seem to embrace his losses as a way to improve, to rework and further fine-tune his strategies.
On September 07 2011 08:45 garlicface wrote: Would've appreciated this post more if you didn't blast EffOrt in the first paragraph.
But it's true! I love EffOrt too but he does look like an alien! I want to see him play again
I really enjoyed this post and it gave me a lot to think about. I think the majority of the SC community have fixed mindsets as you describe and that often does cause a lot of conflict, in the forums and in game, because we all think that we're better than everyone else to some degree.
This is the case with a lot of gamers, especially since many of us such as myself come from high academic schooling backgrounds, finish school but then are confronted with something that's actually difficult and call bullshit and give up or procrastinate until the problem will hopefully magically go away. I dropped out of uni for several reasons but this had to have been a strong contributor. It's something I hope to change about myself and I will be returning to university but perhaps to study something not so difficult. I think changing from a growth mindset to a fixed mindset is a very gradual process, but it's kind of a catch 22 because someone with a fixed mindset will believe that they can get there no problem.
In regard to laddering, I barely play 1v1 anymore but I keep telling myself I should, I always end up playing 4s or 3s though but even though I play that a fair bit I often realise that I really need to improve myself as a player when it comes to the end result of the game. Sure there are other players in team games that are bad (comparitively) and sometimes it is even their fault that you lost but if you focus on your own part in that game you will always find things to improve and sometimes even make up for the mistakes of your teammates.
I've found team games can be great for focusing on mechanics and speed without losing 400 ladder points. Although when it does come to laddering if you are focused on getting better at 1 v 1, you gotta figure your mindset is holding you back.
Sleepingdog and Demonace34 , thank you for adressing the Naniwa Idra paraodx, I was about to do it myself. Indeed noone is purely fixed or purely growth. Pro player MTW Rine (same team as dimaga) commented a while back that his success in BW hindered his growth in sc2 due to his "expected success." I'm guessing Idra has the same issues, still arrogant and with a new bad mindset from his BW days (seems to have gone to his head). Very good points!
On September 07 2011 17:34 ki11z0ne wrote: this question was asked on Day9 a few days ago you no WTF he said!
JUST DO IT!!!!!
you win some you lose some....its life
day9 seems to have a very hardworking growth based mindset, It's honestly hard for people that don't have fixed mindsets to understand fixed mindsets and vice versa. Just do it, i don't think deals with the core issue as much as understanding yourself. But yeah pretty much, just do it, more gg, more skill!
On September 07 2011 14:06 BeyondCtrL wrote: Hmm, the initial paragraphs of the fixed mind set were pretty much describing my childhood-adolescence. However as it continued, especially where it comes to correlating this sort of mindset as an explanation to ladder fear, it did not make sense to me that it was the main cause. I've been thinking on the OP's post and would like to offer another argument, as I believe this mindset difference (and tbh oversimplified) is not the only problem for a declining player base.
************ I do not consider the contents below as the real facts or truth. I only want to present an argument from my perspective and experience. ************
1. TIME! It's so simple. I love SC2, I love playing 1v1 ladder. Mostly I love playing at my mid masters level where for me the games are extremely fun and challenging no matter win/loss. Sadly I just don't have the time to play. I haven't had the time to play at all the past month because of studies and other engagements. I re-qualified for masters this season, but I have only played five games. I come home too tired to sit down and ladder, instead I relax by watching GSL and other tournaments. I would love to play in GM league, or to strive for it, but I know I don't have the time. To actually be good at this game is almost like having a full time job. I don't resent this or blame it, in fact I revel in it only knowing that this makes the tournaments even better and more exiting to watch. Some people who bought the game will come back and play during the holidays (the ones who love this game), but you should consider that there are a lot of people who buy the game and only play the campaign (lots of casual players who simply aren't interested in competitive gaming and are only interested in playing a new game for a while then moving on to another game). Playing Starcraft 2 the way OP suggests is making it more than just a game. It is a hobby. Just because someone bought the game doesn't mean SC2 is their hobby or passion.
For example half my guild in WoW bought SC2 only to play through the campaign and some ladder games out of curiosity only to never log in again. They went back to WoW because that game is their hobby, not because they were scared of ladder or that the psychology was wrong, it was as simple as the fact that they weren't interested in this type of game. They liked to invest their free time leveling alts, doing dailies, improving their character and personal economies (whereas I don't even have a single alt, don't have any professions, or any money. Just a single max level char where I log in once a week for 4 hours to clear Firelands. It's relaxing and super fun to raid with 10 good friends, but outside of that the game is all boring crap to me). Different passions and interests. Honestly there are so many games out there that many gamers have their special game which they play the most. However, one thing that gamers have in common is that they buy many games and play them once or twice.
Ladder fear will cause some players to stop, but let's be honest here: you don't lose almost 50% of the player base to ladder fear. That is just stupid. It's like saying Oblivion lost 99% of its player base (there are the Oblivion hobbyists who spend most of the that time playing the game) because people were too scared to go in a dungeon. Even consider that there are people who didn't even finish the game and never went back to it.
1.1. The fact that SC2 has retained almost 50% of its player base after more than a year should be testament to how effin frikkin good this game is. Especially considering that it is a complex and deep RTS game centered around competitive play. I would bet that the biggest decline of active ladder players was during season one. Each consecutive season will lose less and less active members (and the later seasons primarily people with ladder fear, but I don't think most of them leave permanently). People who truly developed SC2 as their hobby will stay (some will play only on holidays, but always come back so one might expect a pattern of dipping during fall to spring), the people who leave permanently are just mainly people that lose interest in the game at different rates.
2. If you think that you are innately talented and intelligent and stuck in bronze because the game is so unbalanced I would think you are retarded. Sure any normal person can lie to themselves for a while (a few days) but the realization must hit them, it has to if they have a functional brain. To me the real fear in laddering is when you hit a certain point where the time you spend on the game reflects your skill level. You will plateau not because you hit your max skill ceiling but because you don't have the time to crunch in that extra time to raise it. At this point your win rate should be about 50%. No one likes to lose but is obvious that it is unavoidable. If you say that you feel not the slightest anxiety when you hit that "Find Game" button you are a liar.
Yet people who want to improve or just keep playing do keep laddering because the reward and the awesome feeling of the prospect of winning is stronger than the anxiety of losing the game. For those that stop laddering their anxiety and fear of losing is greater, they begin to doubt themselves and their ability and the feeling of actually just losing (not how or why, just the negative feeling of it). In their mind, I would imagine, they are experiencing the prospect of a permanent loss streak (and everyone has experienced a loss streak and knows how bad that sinking feeling is, and a lot of us still keep hope and still keep in mind the fact that you can win). Unless the person enjoys tormenting himself he will stop playing for a while or forever because his subconsciousness will correlate the game with more negative feelings than positive ones.
3. No intelligent person ever starts anything and thinks they are good - note difference between people who think they are intelligent and people that are actually intelligent. I have never raged at a 1v1 loss (only at some stupid random team games ). Everytime I lost I would watch the replay. In my mind blaming losses on something that you think is OP is retarded because by simply looking at how many people raged against me because they lost one would think every Protoss unit and strategy is OP and should be nerfed. Yes it would be easiest to blame their "OP" units and strat, but by just stepping back and analyzing your own thoughts and actions one should always logically come to the conclusion that one is over reacting. Even if their strategy or unit comp actually might be OP to a certain extent (what map it's on, spawn position, etc.) it is only logical to assume that even though your opponent might be at an advantage: his micro isn't perfect, his macro isn't perfect, his execution isn't perfect, his timing is not perfect, and his decisions aren't perfect.
If you are truly better than your opponent in every aspect of the aforementioned then you must be able to beat him because your superior skill would close the advantage he has, and if you aren't you should strive to be better. Any player that is between bronze-masters and are being matched by mmr can ALWAYS find a way to beat ANY strategy and unit comp if they analyze their. You are not playing against MC, MVP, or Nestea. I can guarantee you that your opponent who beat you with the 6 gate is not even close to, by light years, how well MC does it. Just because he had 6 gates at about the same time and attacks at about the same time he will not have the same macro behind it, he will not have the same decision making behind it (what unit comp he warps, what he reinforces with, etc.), nor will he have the same micro and execution.
Honestly there are so many holes in the quality of play from players bronze to masters that any strat can be picked apart if you dedicate to improve, especially in the scouting, decision making, and game awareness. I've beaten players who had better micro, macro, and apm than I did because they might scout my base and even see what tech I'm going AND STILL prepare wrong because they think, "Oh my probe revealed his base, OK good I scouted him". And likewise I have lost games in the same fashion.
Let me explain a bit. This post is directed towards players who are looking to improve their starcraft and have ladder anxiety. Also people who perceive Koreans to innately better at starcraft. If you play one hour of starcraft a day or one hour a week, you can still take it with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Also I did not say that Ladder fear is the sole reason for why people were leaving the game. If you'd rather spend your time doing something other than starcraft there's obviously nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with being a casual player, but if you are indeed looking to improve at starcraft there is no reason to let your mindset keep you from that. Mindset is a complex and mostly a subconscious thing and its lot easier to lie to yourself than I could tell by your post. There is no logical reason to fear pressing the search button and play some ladder games ever, the entire point of my post was it is all in your head. It's really easy to lie to yourself and make excuses for why your not getting better and many people do it all the time. I agree with most of your post and good points sir! Also I understand this is very simplified, however it is simplified for understanding's sake, the reality of course is more complex. It would be unlikely for anyone to be fixed in all their ways and have no growth mindset. Be vigilant and search deep, within yourself. Your the hardest one to fool and the easiest one to fool yourself.
You are right that there is no logical reason to fear pressing the button if you want to improve. People who experience a lot of ladder fear/anxiety are people who probably have other stresses in their life that outweigh the stress of ladder fear. A student that loves to play SC2 and wants to play competitively and improve on the game doesn't only need to change their mindset. They have to also spend more time on the game working on it. You can do both, sure, but you will probably sacrifice some other aspect of your life. But how does ladder fear/stress depend on other areas of your life and why does experiencing stress playing to improve matter in other areas of your life? I don't claim to have the answer, but I would like to explain from my reasoning.
You have to consider that your cold logic doesn't apply to your whole all the time. A consciousness that rationalizes using logic always has an inner dialogue. With that said, there is also a logical reason from another part of your consciousness arguing why you wouldn't want to press that button, and it has nothing to do with if you want to improve it has to do with the part that seeks to maintain a good psychological mood. If a person is in a good mood they tend to perform better, experience life better, and generally begin things confidently. Maintaining a general good mood is something you are always striving for (hence the dangers of drug addiction from a psychological side) because it helps you.
There is no way you can ever think that losing anything doesn't matter, that's just lying to yourself and will hurt you more in the long run. It has to do about your stamina and ability to soak the feeling. A single loss doesn't hurt me. Heck if I play 20 games and have a 50% win rate I'm fine, it was a good day. But if losses start to become consecutive and persistent (aka loss streak) it does have an effect and if it's big enough (depending on how resilient you are) it will affect you eventually. This is an evolutionary trait that every human being has as a survival behavior mechanism and falsely triggers on events that actually have no bearing on your survival as a person. Now if your life was centered around SC2 and your lively hood depended on it (aka progamer) it would make you practice even harder. However, for the average Joe, the anxiety and stress caused by the fear is something he would like to avoid because the bad mood lingers and affects the areas of his life that do depend on his survival, mostly studies and job. For the average Joe SC2 is not a livelihood.
Additionally it is not just the fear of pressing the button. A person who experiences a lot of anxiety before pressing the button will most likely be the type of player that plays anxiously and fearful during the game. Playing over defensively and fearing that his opponent is doing something he is not prepared for. Playing a 15 minute game while being anxious, stressed, and paranoid to some extent makes one probably feel that they are not in control of the game and can lead to a lot of missed opportunities. Experiencing some or many loss streaks will compound the fear. If you want to improve you have to fight it with effort and it can take a lot of effort. Some people's drive to want to improve is greater than others'. I think everyone would like improve their game at SC2 (I would imagine that everyone reading TL does at least, and yet there is ladder fear) at some extent but the effort might be too much because of other stresses. If you can't maintain the effort by mass gaming, which is probably the most effective way of banishing the ladder fear, the fear will persist. You can't mass game if you only play once or twice a week for only a couple of hours. For those who want to improve and have a lot of free time I don't imagine that ladder fear is a problem for them. But for those that don't have the time....
Even though you can tell yourself that it's just a game another more primal part of you reacts to it as a potential danger that can diminish your performance in areas that are higher priority. Of course losing at SC2 won't make you lose your job but that part of your brain (or consciousness if you will) only receives the information (chemical/physical reaction) and feeling of loss and more importantly the fear of it. Fear is observable in nearly every animal because evolution selected it as a beneficial trait. Like it or not you are a physical being and you cannot directly control every cell in your body (it would be like taking a dose of heroin and refusing to get high because you can control your blood flow in your brain - not possible). And like it or not this "ladder fear" is not "ladder fear" to the part of you that processes fear. It's just fear. Fear can make you fight harder, but can also make you avoid unnecessary risks.
If that part of your inner dialogue becomes louder than your other conscious reasoning you will lose interest, you will want to avoid the risk. The tolerance for ladder fear, I think, is directly related to the sum of stress/fear already experienced in other areas of your life and the balance of it. To maintain a good mood you do a lot of things and one of them is to keep the amount of stress to a minimum. To some people the amount of stress received from "ladder fear" (really it's the fear of loss and has context in all aspects of your life) may seem like nothing because their life is relatively good at the moment. But say if you were a person that loves SC2 but have a ton of stress (exam, fear of losing job, hating your job, etc.) then that extra stress from laddering is not something that you instinctively welcome.
I'm not saying you cannot overcome the ladder fear. You are correct that you can change your behavior. It takes a lot of work though (you can never get rid of the fear, but you can suppress it). My argument is culminating to the assertion that stress levels vary in your life and from different aspects and person to person. Every average Joe has ladder fear. Some experience it very little and continue playing it season after season. However for some the threshold came during the first season, and for some the second, and etc. Perhaps when season three began Mr. Anonymous noticed that his grades were dropping causing a hike in stress and fear of failure.
Generally most people at this point will start playing less or completely stop, and if they do continue playing the game it will be for relaxation (customs and dicking around in team games). When you play SC2 with the mindset to improve one has to concentrate, take it seriously, and spend the time working on it. You can easily compare this to a person that loves his job. It might be challenging but fun at the same time, it's not relaxing however. This is why you can play custom games without getting tired, because they take no effort at all. But when you play four intense 1v1's with the intention of climbing the ladder and improving you will probably take a break (hence the importance of stamina, which is only developed through mass, mass gaming).
The average player will have other things to do during the day, even after work or school. If you work, then come home to practice and ladder seriously (which is working tbh) then do other chores you are not relaxing or resting. Thus if you already have enough stress or building stress you will start to resist (that other inner dialogue will get louder) until the fear/stress becomes undesirable. Now what will you avoid? Will you avoid your studies and job? Will you avoid maintaining your relationships to family, friends, and partners? Those things are more important to the average Joe and he will drop the stressful activity that can be avoided without causing the biggest risk to living a balanced life. Average Joe will stop playing ladder games to improve, but might still play customs or other games, but only to relax with. If you are unable to relax or rest during the day you are going to be one stressed out person.
All this being said how can one say that quitting because of ladder fear is based on dividing people into two groups or three or four? These generalization are exactly akin to horoscopes that also divide people into general groups. So general that it will ring true with a lot of people
So why do countries like Korea/Sweden dominate? It has to do with culture. How many people in the U.S.A. thought that they could become a progamer and earn money off of SC2 by playing competitively when they bought the game? Places like Korea and Sweden, to some extent have, accepted socially that progaming is a possible means of livelihood. Why did they develop like this? Well that would take another type of research to even begin to determine. I'm sure there are parents in Korea that encourage their children to become progamers if they see their child playing Starcraft or some other recognizable e-sport obsessively, after all e-sports are broadcast on TV there. If a parent in the U.S.A sees their child playing a game obsessively, well I don't need to tell you how often U.S. media blames games for their expanding degenerate youth. It doesn't even stop at parents, your friends may be completely non-supportive and the dialogue based against playing games, even as an adult.
i believe that if we played the game on windowed mode instead of the fullscreen one might lessen our ladder fearness... because we would take it as a less serious thing
Seems like the "fixed-mindset" is looked upon negatively... wonder what mindset the people who wrote that article consider themselves?
The stats you put in the OP are miss-labeled, and unformatted, would be nice to see something fact based, instead of a bunch of un-sourced numbers and a caption saying "this means I'm right".
This article really helped me to understand myself. I often had no explanation for why I got frustrated when people criticized my play who were worse then me. Thinking about myself under a "fixed" mentality and wanting to get out of that... I think I prefer that to not knowing myself at all. Good post.
Right now I'm stuck in a fixed mindset, Wanting to have a growth mindset as improvment is all I want but it just annoys me to lose. I've never had a problem with losing in games before untill I started Starcraft2 I sadly missed out on multiplayer Starcraft1 due to internet issues.
I strive to learn about the game and how to improve, but my biggest problem is I have no friends/clan mates to practice with. The only player that has given me critism about my play was I believe you. I met a guy in a 1v1 Obs game when I was low diamond his name was BugRancher a master Zerg, Added him played a couple games with him and his critism helped me improve my macro and move up into Master league. The only real players I have to practice with is a Diamond Toss. Good friend but it doesn't teach me much, But I enjoy helping him improve his PvZ. Makes me wish I had someone to do the same for me.
I believe you are the BugRancher I had added as someone changed their name to Eff0rt on my list. My ingame name is Dustin with the Kate Lockwell picture, Thanks for helping me improve :p. We should play a few games sometimes maybe this time I can beat you.
I'll repeat what i said a page or two ago. The growth/fixed mindset doesn't explain everything and i feel that the 1vs1 drop in SC2 is mostly due to games nowadays being about community and the social aspect, something you don't really get in 1vs1.
Also there's the level of commitment and fun people are having. Some really love SC2 and some might find it average at best and that greatly affects the amount of time and practise spent on the game. This and the fact that there's just different types of people, some can grind endlessly, some grow tired quickly and some really want to mentally learn and develop within the game etc. Just splitting all this into two distinct groups is simplifying the problem.
ladder fear is for people who take the game like its their life ( and for most people it is not their livelihood ) Sc2 is supposed to be fun and entertaining for the average player and that is how people should treat it- as entertainment. You do not have to be the best to have fun. I love watching tournaments for that higher skill level as well as the drama and excitement that happens at LANs.
Ladder fear/anxiety among other things is killing E-sports
This is false- the average ladder guy has no plans on ever becoming a professional player. The only thing killing e-sports is negative people and lazy pro-players- though i hate to say that some pro players are lazy as i do not actually know any of them personally. Point is- ladder fear is for sissy's who care to much about winning
So to all those with ladder fear and the pro's with korean superiority complexes, get a growth mindset and go practice, alot. One day you may too have top 3 control in the world.
On September 07 2011 18:07 mrRoflpwn wrote: ladder fear is for people who take the game like its their life ( and for most people it is not their livelihood ) Sc2 is supposed to be fun and entertaining for the average player and that is how people should treat it- as entertainment. You do not have to be the best to have fun. I love watching tournaments for that higher skill level as well as the drama and excitement that happens at LANs.
Ladder fear/anxiety among other things is killing E-sports
This is false- the average ladder guy has no plans on ever becoming a professional player. The only thing killing e-sports is negative people and lazy pro-players- though i hate to say that some pro players are lazy as i do not actually know any of them personally. Point is- ladder fear is for sissy's who care to much about winning
So to all those with ladder fear and the pro's with korean superiority complexes, get a growth mindset and go practice, alot. One day you may too have top 3 control in the world.
I agree with you completely here =]
Great Write up and very good read.
I think someone could argue though that a strong ladder would allow more players to go pro, so more people laddering and getting better would be better for the scene as a whole and could build stronger competition higher up. This might be a utopian idea though, where everyone ladders to become a better player and strengthen themselves and the people around them.
Also, ladder fear is more about losing and anxiety than it is about taking the game "like its their life". Some people can have fun and mess around and other people have fun by being competitive and growing as a player.
On September 07 2011 18:07 mrRoflpwn wrote: ladder fear is for people who take the game like its their life ( and for most people it is not their livelihood ) Sc2 is supposed to be fun and entertaining for the average player and that is how people should treat it- as entertainment. You do not have to be the best to have fun. I love watching tournaments for that higher skill level as well as the drama and excitement that happens at LANs.
Ladder fear/anxiety among other things is killing E-sports
This is false- the average ladder guy has no plans on ever becoming a professional player. The only thing killing e-sports is negative people and lazy pro-players- though i hate to say that some pro players are lazy as i do not actually know any of them personally. Point is- ladder fear is for sissy's who care to much about winning
So to all those with ladder fear and the pro's with korean superiority complexes, get a growth mindset and go practice, alot. One day you may too have top 3 control in the world.
I agree with you completely here =]
Great Write up and very good read.
You'd be surprised how much people limit themselves even when it comes to little things. Honestly most of the people that take offence to this post, or seem to deny it are very fixed mindset people who are pulling lots of excuses out their ass. (not you, but people in general) Whether you play 10 hours a day or 30 minutes, there's no logical reason not to try and improve your game. It's also every healthy for the rest of your life to get in the habit of having a good work ethic when it comes to learning and growing. Just because you don't expect to become a pro player has nothing to do with your mindset towards improving, its just another excuse so you don't have to work at something. good points :D
On September 07 2011 17:51 CatNzHat wrote: Seems like the "fixed-mindset" is looked upon negatively... wonder what mindset the people who wrote that article consider themselves?
The stats you put in the OP are miss-labeled, and unformatted, would be nice to see something fact based, instead of a bunch of un-sourced numbers and a caption saying "this means I'm right".
just do some googling, I provided links and the book itself has clinical studies. How many TL post have proper formatting btw, lol. By the way doing an ad hominem attack on the people who wrote this article is indicative of a fixed mindset. If i had to guess, Id say you saw alot of yourself in the fixed mindset section and now to protect your pride your railing out against it. You dont have to have a fixed mindset forever, you can change. You got to be critical of yourself.
On September 07 2011 17:51 CatNzHat wrote: Seems like the "fixed-mindset" is looked upon negatively... wonder what mindset the people who wrote that article consider themselves?
The stats you put in the OP are miss-labeled, and unformatted, would be nice to see something fact based, instead of a bunch of un-sourced numbers and a caption saying "this means I'm right".
just do some googling, I provided links and the book itself has clinical studies. How many TL post have proper formatting btw, lol. By the way doing an ad hominem attack on the people who wrote this article is indicative of a fixed mindset. If i had to guess, Id say you saw alot of yourself in the fixed mindset section and now to protect your pride your railing out against it. You dont have to have a fixed mindset forever, you can change. You got to be critical of yourself.
Boom. Dismantled.
It's funny how people complain so much about lack of sources and citations. Sure, they're worth pointing out, but you have gone too far when you act offended because someone possibly made a mistake on a community forum.
This isn't a scientific journal; there's no need to go overboard.
On September 07 2011 17:51 CatNzHat wrote: Seems like the "fixed-mindset" is looked upon negatively... wonder what mindset the people who wrote that article consider themselves?
The stats you put in the OP are miss-labeled, and unformatted, would be nice to see something fact based, instead of a bunch of un-sourced numbers and a caption saying "this means I'm right".
just do some googling, I provided links and the book itself has clinical studies. How many TL post have proper formatting btw, lol. By the way doing an ad hominem attack on the people who wrote this article is indicative of a fixed mindset. If i had to guess, Id say you saw alot of yourself in the fixed mindset section and now to protect your pride your railing out against it. You dont have to have a fixed mindset forever, you can change. You got to be critical of yourself.
Boom. Dismantled.
It's funny how people complain so much about lack of sources and citations. Sure, they're worth pointing out, but you have gone too far when you act offended because someone possibly made a mistake on a community forum.
This isn't a scientific journal; there's no need to go overboard.
lol, no kidding, I said it was a theory, its debatable for sure. People just don't want to admit they have flaws, and you can never fix your flaws, if you don't accept they exist. :D
On September 07 2011 17:55 -Dustin- wrote: Right now I'm stuck in a fixed mindset, Wanting to have a growth mindset as improvment is all I want but it just annoys me to lose. I've never had a problem with losing in games before untill I started Starcraft2 I sadly missed out on multiplayer Starcraft1 due to internet issues.
I strive to learn about the game and how to improve, but my biggest problem is I have no friends/clan mates to practice with. The only player that has given me critism about my play was I believe you. I met a guy in a 1v1 Obs game when I was low diamond his name was BugRancher a master Zerg, Added him played a couple games with him and his critism helped me improve my macro and move up into Master league. The only real players I have to practice with is a Diamond Toss. Good friend but it doesn't teach me much, But I enjoy helping him improve his PvZ. Makes me wish I had someone to do the same for me.
I believe you are the BugRancher I had added as someone changed their name to Eff0rt on my list. My ingame name is Dustin with the Kate Lockwell picture, Thanks for helping me improve :p. We should play a few games sometimes maybe this time I can beat you.
I definitely was a very fixed mindsetted person back when I was 14-18.
I sort of thought of this whole, "I'm special thing" on my own a while ago and wondered if the world would be a better place if people were simply told that they aren't worth anything until they've earned it.
And that anything you are born with is arbitrary and isn't something you've earned (economic / racial background).
On September 08 2011 14:55 cydial wrote: I definitely was a very fixed mindsetted person back when I was 14-18.
I sort of thought of this whole, "I'm special thing" on my own a while ago and wondered if the world would be a better place if people were simply told that they aren't worth anything until they've earned it.
And that anything you are born with is arbitrary and isn't something you've earned (economic / racial background).
thumbs up! :D, I've been finding that out the hard way
On September 07 2011 16:56 Xacalite wrote: So if I understand correctly you say that a fixed mindsets biggest fear is failure....but then you count naniwa as a growth mindset player? Naniwa said multiple times that failure is unacceptable and he does not care about anything but winning. Still he is one of the best because he works hard.
Another example is IdrA. When SC2 was starting he was in korea all on his own focusing only on practice. Reading your definitions IdrA clearly counts as a fixed mindset (Toss OP etc. you said it yourself) still he was the best foreigner in the first half year of starcraft 2. He made it past the cruel GSL Open qualifiers three times and never dropped out in the Ro64. He even made two Ro8. So I really dont see how your logic (if it can be called logic) is applied here.
All of the above are things that should be unachievable with your so called fixed mindset.
You also said that people that play team or custom games for fun or to try out new builds do that because of fear of 1v1? Are you serious? Is trying new stuff outside of the 1v1 ladder now forbidden? A real grotesque image.
In clonclusion I must say that Im happy to see people putting thought in this community but I find your write up very illinformed, riddled with contradictions and bad reasoning. Im glad the "mindset" book gave you the epiphany you needed but please dont call your post "ladder fear explained". LT.net is not a sect. Ladder fear is not explained by a book nor your personal understanding of the human mind and has even less to do with Koreans/Scandinavians being better that most NA-players.
im sure at one point they had a growth mindset. but when they let there fame/ego get into how they play.. they crumble. Do i really need to give examples for idra? watch any mlg hes played. He gives up as soon as he makes a mistake.
I wish everybody ever saw this post so they could feel a little bit lamer for BM'ing each time. I really do hate the amount of BM that SC2 has brought to the scene, even though I'm more excited for the overall scene compared to Brood War.
I also hope the Korean culture within Starcraft never does die--it's pretty defining of my experience overall.
I'm pretty much the fixed mindset in a lot of things (school) but one of the many reasons i've always loved competitive gaming and sports is because I have to work hard to excell at it. Problem is though I often "fall back" to the fixed mindset once I reach a certain level of "skill" in a competitive setting. So it basically becomes a constant struggle trying to find my way back to the growth mindset.
I think a lot of progamers do fall back into a fixed mindset once they've reached a certain goal in their career though. The key is to always stay in the growth mindset. Examples of people who are always in the growth mindset would probably be SaSe, Naniwa or HuK.
I loved reading this thread. I have a BIG problem with ladder fear. Most of my days are like this: I wake up, I go to my boring job (which I hate) for 8 hours, I come home, I sit down at my computer, I dont do jack shit and then I go to bed and repeat. (This is basicly my last 10 years.). Almost every day I say to myself (while at work), I should play some ladder games when I come home, but I never do it. A lot of times I actually launch SC2 and I just sit and watch at the screen and then I close the game. Im stuck, deep down in this damn depression which doesnt make things easier. I dont care about anything. I have nothing im good at, and it sucks big time, but im afraid of doing anything about it for some reason... I dont know what to do.. im so screwed.
Edit: Somehow I forgot to add that I played 5 placement matches, was put into Platinum league. Then I played 10 or so more matches and got put into Diamond league, then I played like 2 more games and I stopped.
On September 11 2011 11:36 CrazylikE wrote: I loved reading this thread. I have a BIG problem with ladder fear. Most of my days are like this: I wake up, I go to my boring job (which I hate) for 8 hours, I come home, I sit down at my computer, I dont do jack shit and then I go to bed and repeat. (This is basicly my last 10 years.). Almost every day I say to myself (while at work), I should play some ladder games when I come home, but I never do it. A lot of times I actually launch SC2 and I just sit and watch at the screen and then I close the game. Im stuck, deep down in this damn depression which doesnt make things easier. I dont care about anything. I have nothing im good at, and it sucks big time, but im afraid of doing anything about it for some reason... I dont know what to do.. im so screwed.
Edit: Somehow I forgot to add that I played 5 placement matches, was put into Platinum league. Then I played 10 or so more matches and got put into Diamond league, then I played like 2 more games and I stopped.
Read a study that having this conception of being inferior in the game plays on you during competitions and such. For example, blacks are capable of doing well in studies during unofficial tests, yet when it came to the actual test, they are unable to perform and the stereotype affects their performance. I say its the same for foreigners when they play against the koreans. The fact that koreans are superior in the game plays in their minds and distracts the foreigners, thus not allowing them to perform to their best.
I don't think ladder season numbers are terribly signifigant to the success of SC2 as an esport. How many people have dreams of being high end is more important than how many people are willing to screw around a bit competitively. Many of the casual players, and those who watch e-sports, might be quite happy to just play UMS, or not even play at all, just watch the best players play.
That's where I'm standing anyways.
How many people who watch the superbowl actually ever joined a football league?
I'd like to know where you get the idea that Europe is much better than NA, I mean it has more players at a high level but individually Idra, Select, Kiwi, and Sheth all can measure up to anyone in Europe and HuK is frankly better than anyone Europe has to offer
Wow, didn't know we had lost so many players over the year. I mean, I know the drop-off during the first couple of years would be the worst, but I didn't think it would be so many. Let's hope HotS and some bnet improvements might bring some of them back.
Wow, fantastic article. I never really thought about fixed or growth mindsets towards life in general. My father would always say challenge yourself but I didn't fully understand how and why. I am bookmarking this and hopefully I can turn my life around to succeed in my personal, profession and sc2 life.
Interesting read, I guess. But I don't think anyone thinks Koreans are born superior BW/SC2 players... I hope not at least... or else I fear for the human race...
pretty bad to see such a decline in the player population, but hard PC games are hard, so i cant imagine it growing that much. at least the spectator aspect of SC keeps getting bigger.
Hahaha what a load of crap that book is. It has an appeal because people really want the core message ("you can do anything you want as long as you set your mind to it!") to be true. In that regard, it's very similar to Malcolm Gladwell books and other pseudo-scientific crap that plague gullible minds on a regular basis.
edit: And what it has to do with Korea, Sweden and Ukraine is beyond me. The theory itself isn't really applicable only to SC2. Are you saying Koreans, Swedes and Ukrainians dominate sports in general? Or even other games? Or do you have ANY reason why this is true only for SC2? You approached this from the wrong direction. You can't begin with the conclusion after reading a book, and then try to fit it into anything you want it to fit into. If you had begun studying the cultures first, then objectively reasoned that those countries reach more success in endeavors that you *previously* thought would gain from this mindset, then you would have something that looks and sounds like a theory. Alas, you did not.
I think alot of players give it as much as they "think" they can. There is more to skill than meets the eye. More than grinding X hours/day. Like mindset, eating right, sleeping right, living right, working out etc.
If you want to be number one. You gotta do what's right pretty much all the time. Even when it hurts your very essence of lazy futuristic fail...
Ps. It's funny how people think they're more or less entitled to win in a game of skill because they "know" how great they are =)
So the entire premise of this OP is that there is a connection between ladder fear and Korean domination, and the amount of space devoted to explaining the connection is....less than one sentence? "You are raised as a child in accordance with your culture and your culture in turn develops your mindset." That actually doesn't explain at all the connection between Korean/Scandinavian culture and growth mindsets. This thread would be more appropriately titled "ladder fear can be explained by psychology" as it has absolutely nothing to do with Korean dominance.
i'm no psychologist but all that stuff basically just sounds like having an ego vs not having an ego. that is something you can change. as for the culture connection and all that, some countries foster egos more than others. remember all that 'you're a special kid' crap in american schools? yea.
Very nice! One of the reasons I like playing SC2 is that I grew up in that "you're very special and so intelligent" fixed mindset group. I'm a musician by trade, but I reached a point where I would competitively NOT practice because I though that if I was so much more talented, I wouldn't need to. Eventually I stopped practicing regularly at all and lost interest in music almost altogether. It's been a few years now and I've been realizing that I never had that "growth mindset." I've been reading and hearing a lot about this, always with different vocabulary and applications (education, sports, music, etc), but the message is the same: those who work hardest succeed most. To add my own spin, those who do because they love to do, end up working the hardest.
For people who don't understand the OP, he's saying that the reason the Koreans and Swedes and successful players succeed is that they have an open mindset, and are raised in a culture that promotes that open mindset. As to the ladder fear issue, people with and open mindset might have less ladder fear because they are less interested in winning or losing or validating assumptions they have about themselves and more interested in growing and learning and doing what they love. A side effect of this, that I think is reflected in the ladder stats is that they might more easily become disinterested after a while because they don't have anything to prove and aren't trying to be "the best." Good jorb, friend.
On September 11 2011 15:35 theBOOCH wrote: For people who don't understand the OP, he's saying that the reason the Koreans and Swedes and successful players succeed is that they have an open mindset, and are raised in a culture that promotes that open mindset.
If that is true, why does it only show itself in SC2 and perhaps a few other activities or sports? Jamaicans must sure have a good mindset too, since they run so fast. Chinese must have it too, since they are so good at table tennis and badminton. Brasilians too, they are really good at football. But why aren't Brasilians good at table tennis, and Chinese good at running? Why aren't any of these good at SC2? Strange.
On September 11 2011 15:22 kabar wrote: i'm no psychologist but all that stuff basically just sounds like having an ego vs not having an ego. that is something you can change. as for the culture connection and all that, some countries foster egos more than others. remember all that 'you're a special kid' crap in american schools? yea.
You know what else they teach in American schools? You can do whatever you put your mind to!
This thread interests me a lot. I can relate a lot to having a fixed mindset, and it has been ruining things for me since I was little. I never put effort in school because I was "talented" and I believed that I could get whatever job I wanted without any hard work in school. Obviously my grades look like shit.
I've had the same with StarCraft, I've cared so so much about winning that I almost cried when I lost. However, I've managed to turn it around a little bit, because I realized if I keep doing this I will never improve to where I want to be. I think reading this book might help me on my way.
This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
On September 11 2011 16:04 Nevermoar wrote: This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
That just means you're pretty smart (high IQ) but lazy. There are plenty of people that are not smart that are lazy as well. It has nothing to do with what they were told as children.
It's easy to say things that resonate with people. I could ask you if you sometimes put off important things to a later time such as the next monday and instead do things now that require less effort. Typical fixed mindset!!!
On September 07 2011 16:56 Xacalite wrote: So if I understand correctly you say that a fixed mindsets biggest fear is failure....but then you count naniwa as a growth mindset player? Naniwa said multiple times that failure is unacceptable and he does not care about anything but winning. Still he is one of the best because he works hard.
Another example is IdrA. When SC2 was starting he was in korea all on his own focusing only on practice. Reading your definitions IdrA clearly counts as a fixed mindset (Toss OP etc. you said it yourself) still he was the best foreigner in the first half year of starcraft 2. He made it past the cruel GSL Open qualifiers three times and never dropped out in the Ro64. He even made two Ro8. So I really dont see how your logic (if it can be called logic) is applied here.
All of the above are things that should be unachievable with your so called fixed mindset.
You also said that people that play team or custom games for fun or to try out new builds do that because of fear of 1v1? Are you serious? Is trying new stuff outside of the 1v1 ladder now forbidden? A real grotesque image.
In clonclusion I must say that Im happy to see people putting thought in this community but I find your write up very illinformed, riddled with contradictions and bad reasoning. Im glad the "mindset" book gave you the epiphany you needed but please dont call your post "ladder fear explained". LT.net is not a sect. Ladder fear is not explained by a book nor your personal understanding of the human mind and has even less to do with Koreans/Scandinavians being better that most NA-players.
A mindset that doesn't change at all is a bad thing, the OP is saying that Idra would be a better player if he were more critical of himself instead of prefering to save his own self image.
I think that the OP provides a very narrow view of things. I don't think anything is as clear cut as someone just having a fixed mindset or just having a growth mindset.
I think fixed/growth is very specific to the situation, ones mood. Hell, I think I approach SC2 with both fixed and growth midesets.
For example, I don't care about my ladder ranking in the slightest. I play probably 20-30 games a week and I pick myself apart, I know I can improve and get better and actively work towards that. I often look for players better than myself to play against so I can better my skills. I also can get frustrated at times, having moments where things aren't going well where I feel like all my effort is going to waste and the game is broken, despite the fact that I know that is garbage and get back at it just as hard once I clear my head a bit.
On September 11 2011 16:04 Nevermoar wrote: This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
That just means you're pretty smart (high IQ) but lazy. There are plenty of people that are not smart that are lazy as well. It has nothing to do with what they were told as children.
It's easy to say things that resonate with people. I could ask you if you sometimes put off important things to a later time such as the next monday and instead do things now that require less effort. Typical fixed mindset!!!
This is the epitomy of a fixed mindset. You can 1. Increase your IQ, IQ was never meant to be a FIXED measurement of intelligence, because intelligence in itself is not fixed.
2. People are not inherently lazy but they choose to do some things over others based upon their perceptions of that particular task.
3. People definitely develop their mindset based upon their upbringing. People can definitely change their mindset, and their mindset changes over time, clearly indicating environmental factors as the biggest influence, NOT genetics.
I see this post bothered you enough to create a response or two. You have clearly tried to put together some semblance of an analysis on this post. However, It highly doubt you've used a fraction of the effort you spent trying to refute these ideas, to actually analyze yourself. The main point of my post was not to reflect on these ideas as much as to truly reflect on yourself.
On September 11 2011 16:55 iCanada wrote: I think that the OP provides a very narrow view of things. I don't think anything is as clear cut as someone just having a fixed mindset or just having a growth mindset.
I think fixed/growth is very specific to the situation, ones mood. Hell, I think I approach SC2 with both fixed and growth midesets.
For example, I don't care about my ladder ranking in the slightest. I play probably 20-30 games a week and I pick myself apart, I know I can improve and get better and actively work towards that. I often look for players better than myself to play against so I can better my skills. I also can get frustrated at times, having moments where things aren't going well where I feel like all my effort is going to waste and the game is broken, despite the fact that I know that is garbage and get back at it just as hard once I clear my head a bit.
I really don't feel it is that black and white.
As I have said MANY times before is this thread, the fixed and growth mindsets are polar opposites given for better understanding of the concepts. The reality is much more complex, where many parts of your personality and perceptions contained both growth AND fixed elements.
Wonderful to hear all the overwhelmingly positive feedback on this post. Like I say I am happy if this post got through to a single person however, it would appear is got through to many more. GL and Thank you!
Interesting perspective... I had a good laugh about that this: "In SOTG episode 47 you can see an empty EG training house at night with a Lone EG_Puma practicing behind incontrol's laughter and facial zoom-in's." I mean we see players like InControL that says he practices really hardcore and so fourth but then we don't see much of him training, compared to maybe PuMa and IdrA. They just doesn't step it up.
On September 11 2011 16:04 Nevermoar wrote: This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
That just means you're pretty smart (high IQ) but lazy. There are plenty of people that are not smart that are lazy as well. It has nothing to do with what they were told as children.
It's easy to say things that resonate with people. I could ask you if you sometimes put off important things to a later time such as the next monday and instead do things now that require less effort. Typical fixed mindset!!!
This is the epitomy of a fixed mindset. You can 1. Increase your IQ, IQ was never meant to be a FIXED measurement of intelligence, because intelligence in itself is not fixed.
2. People are not inherently lazy but they choose to do some things over others based upon their perceptions of that particular task.
3. People definitely develop their mindset based upon their upbringing. People can definitely change their mindset, and their mindset changes over time, clearly indicating environmental factors as the biggest influence, NOT genetics.
I see this post bothered you enough to create a response or two. You have clearly tried to put together some semblance of an analysis on this post. However, It highly doubt you've used a fraction of the effort you spent trying to refute these ideas, to actually analyze yourself. The main point of my post was not to reflect on these ideas as much as to truly reflect on yourself.
1. You cannot increase your IQ past a very low age. If you have proof of anything else, you need to submit it to the scientific community as soon as possible, because it would be a huge breakthrough.
2. People can be inherently lazy, yes. Some people need to work harder to overcome their laziness than others.
3. In part, that's true, but the correlation is likely below .50 and thus has more to do with genetics. People cannot change their mindset, or at least there exist no such proof. Wishing it so does not make it so. Yes we live in an unfair world.
Yes it bothers me. You know nothing of science, you just deal with wishful thinking. Your talk about analyzing myself and blah blah blah is irrelevant. You have all the traits of a charlatan.
edit: You never answered why your theory only works in SC2 for a few countries that you have no proof teaches a more open mindset. Care to?
On September 11 2011 18:29 RedDragon571 wrote: Wonderful to hear all the overwhelmingly positive feedback on this post. Like I say I am happy if this post got through to a single person however, it would appear is got through to many more. GL and Thank you!
This is an excellent thread!! I am truly glad that players are not disregarding everything you say, just because it is the hard truth for a lot of them.
I absolutely like to see that kind of posts, where one takes some time and mental effort in order to determine the cause of a fact/event/situation. Trying to find the link between things, the underlying cause. This is actually called scientific process. And by finding the cause, smart people can cure it and fools can argue that Koreans have RTS DNA.
I have to admit that I, as high Diamond, have had a severe ladder fear. Result of this was me not playing as much as I would like, since I played only when I felt that I was 100% mentally functional. This resulted in really few games, since RL responsibilities usually consumed the most out of me. Hell, last time I seriously laddered and improved was in bloody easter!!!
After a 10game loosing streak a few days ago, I finally got over it. I improved much more in this fail-streak than ever before. Mainly because I felt the lack of gaming in my hands. I theorycrafted, saw a lot of games and all the other stuff. Yet I did not play and it showed in aweful micro and absurdely stupid mistakes, with a topping of zero map awereness.
I decided to try more, play more and when necessary GG more. This will lead me further. More work and more GG. I just hope I had seen this post a lot earlier.
Thanks OP for the effort put in this post. I believe you are to help a lot of mid level players enjoy themselves much more!!
PS: Are you by any chance studying/have studied something in the fields of psychology or exact sciences??
On September 11 2011 18:41 eYeball wrote: Interesting perspective... I had a good laugh about that this: "In SOTG episode 47 you can see an empty EG training house at night with a Lone EG_Puma practicing behind incontrol's laughter and facial zoom-in's." I mean we see players like InControL that says he practices really hardcore and so fourth but then we don't see much of him training, compared to maybe PuMa and IdrA. They just doesn't step it up.
haha, I think you bring up a great point! Incontrol is a good example. I would venture to guess, that Incontrol has been practicing harder but for the most part I think he is just fooling himself. When you do anything like lifting weights or playing starcraft you have to push yourself to a level that is an extreme compared to what you had experienced before. Incontrol might be practicing more, but hes not practicing harder. He doesnt have korean level apm, mechanics or multitasking. While many think you don't need that to win games (indeed you don't). You definitely will win more games than you normally would with better mechanics than you would. Most pro foreign sc2 players mechancs are laughable compared to koreans and its because they have either convinced themselves they are fine where they are or they simply don't believe they are capable of it. Both of those idea's are a complete lie, with 3 weeks of practicing incontrol could increase his apm by 100, but in order to do it he would have to lose alot and be uncomfortable. By everything I have heard Groff say on SOTG, I think he doesn't truly believe hes capable of being as good as everyone else. I think incontrols biggest obstacle to getting better is not his handspeed, mechanics or strategy, but himself. If Geoff took the same attitude towards starcraft that he did lifting weights maybe he would have better luck?
PS. Just some guesses, I don't really know the man, so take all this with a grain of salt.
On September 11 2011 18:29 RedDragon571 wrote: Wonderful to hear all the overwhelmingly positive feedback on this post. Like I say I am happy if this post got through to a single person however, it would appear is got through to many more. GL and Thank you!
This is an excellent thread!! I am truly glad that players are not disregarding everything you say, just because it is the hard truth for a lot of them.
I absolutely like to see that kind of posts, where one takes some time and mental effort in order to determine the cause of a fact/event/situation. Trying to find the link between things, the underlying cause. This is actually called scientific process. And by finding the cause, smart people can cure it and fools can argue that Koreans have RTS DNA.
I have to admit that I, as high Diamond, have had a severe ladder fear. Result of this was me not playing as much as I would like, since I played only when I felt that I was 100% mentally functional. This resulted in really few games, since RL responsibilities usually consumed the most out of me. Hell, last time I seriously laddered and improved was in bloody easter!!!
After a 10game loosing streak a few days ago, I finally got over it. I improved much more in this fail-streak than ever before. Mainly because I felt the lack of gaming in my hands. I theorycrafted, saw a lot of games and all the other stuff. Yet I did not play and it showed in aweful micro and absurdely stupid mistakes, with a topping of zero map awereness.
I decided to try more, play more and when necessary GG more. This will lead me further. More work and more GG. I just hope I had seen this post a lot earlier.
Thanks OP for the effort put in this post. I believe you are to help a lot of mid level players enjoy themselves much more!!
PS: Are you by any chance studying/have studied something in the fields of psychology or exact sciences??
Can you explain why Korea, Sweden, and Ukraine, apparentely teaching people how to have an open mindset do not reach dominance or even great levels of success in most other endeavors that would benefit from this open mindset?
Can you explain how you can say that Koreans, Swedes, and Ukainians have an open mindset solely based on their success in SC2? If you cannot, then how can say their success give any credence to the theory of mindsets?
Imagine if this was a marathon forum instead. Someone could have posted that Kenyans must have been taught to have an open mindset because they succeed so well in this sport. Are you both right? If so, I could give you A LOT of countries that dominate different sports, and it would be no more wrong to say that is because their citizens are taught to have an open mindset. Suddenly most of countries on our planet are great teachers of this mindset, and then Koreas success in SC2 would not be explained by this theory. Or is it that only you are right? It's only applicable to SC2? If so, why?
This does not even resemble a scientific process since you cannot start with the conclusion and then work from there. This is a huge case of confirmation bias.
On September 11 2011 16:04 Nevermoar wrote: This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
That just means you're pretty smart (high IQ) but lazy. There are plenty of people that are not smart that are lazy as well. It has nothing to do with what they were told as children.
It's easy to say things that resonate with people. I could ask you if you sometimes put off important things to a later time such as the next monday and instead do things now that require less effort. Typical fixed mindset!!!
This is the epitomy of a fixed mindset. You can 1. Increase your IQ, IQ was never meant to be a FIXED measurement of intelligence, because intelligence in itself is not fixed.
2. People are not inherently lazy but they choose to do some things over others based upon their perceptions of that particular task.
3. People definitely develop their mindset based upon their upbringing. People can definitely change their mindset, and their mindset changes over time, clearly indicating environmental factors as the biggest influence, NOT genetics.
I see this post bothered you enough to create a response or two. You have clearly tried to put together some semblance of an analysis on this post. However, It highly doubt you've used a fraction of the effort you spent trying to refute these ideas, to actually analyze yourself. The main point of my post was not to reflect on these ideas as much as to truly reflect on yourself.
1. You cannot increase your IQ past a very low age. If you have proof of anything else, you need to submit it to the scientific community as soon as possible, because it would be a huge breakthrough.
2. People can be inherently lazy, yes. Some people need to work harder to overcome their laziness than others.
3. In part, that's true, but the correlation is likely below .50 and thus has more to do with genetics. People cannot change their mindset, or at least there exist no such proof. Wishing it so does not make it so. Yes we live in an unfair world.
Yes it bothers me. You know nothing of science, you just deal with wishful thinking. Your talk about analyzing myself and blah blah blah is irrelevant. You have all the traits of a charlatan.
edit: You never answered why your theory only works in SC2 for a few countries that you have no proof teaches a more open mindset. Care to?
If you'd put half the effort into creating credible points than you did into bashing me to sooth your own ego, I might have given this a real reply.
"Never argue with a fool - they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience."
On September 11 2011 18:29 RedDragon571 wrote: Wonderful to hear all the overwhelmingly positive feedback on this post. Like I say I am happy if this post got through to a single person however, it would appear is got through to many more. GL and Thank you!
This is an excellent thread!! I am truly glad that players are not disregarding everything you say, just because it is the hard truth for a lot of them.
I absolutely like to see that kind of posts, where one takes some time and mental effort in order to determine the cause of a fact/event/situation. Trying to find the link between things, the underlying cause. This is actually called scientific process. And by finding the cause, smart people can cure it and fools can argue that Koreans have RTS DNA.
I have to admit that I, as high Diamond, have had a severe ladder fear. Result of this was me not playing as much as I would like, since I played only when I felt that I was 100% mentally functional. This resulted in really few games, since RL responsibilities usually consumed the most out of me. Hell, last time I seriously laddered and improved was in bloody easter!!!
After a 10game loosing streak a few days ago, I finally got over it. I improved much more in this fail-streak than ever before. Mainly because I felt the lack of gaming in my hands. I theorycrafted, saw a lot of games and all the other stuff. Yet I did not play and it showed in aweful micro and absurdely stupid mistakes, with a topping of zero map awereness.
I decided to try more, play more and when necessary GG more. This will lead me further. More work and more GG. I just hope I had seen this post a lot earlier.
Thanks OP for the effort put in this post. I believe you are to help a lot of mid level players enjoy themselves much more!!
PS: Are you by any chance studying/have studied something in the fields of psychology or exact sciences??
Glad to have helped! I studied industrial engineering for a stint, before sabotaging it with my fixed mindset. Now I am working on biology - Nutrition and diet with a better work ethic! :D
It seems the few that seem to rail out against this thread, are the ones that this is hitting too close too home.
On September 11 2011 16:04 Nevermoar wrote: This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
That just means you're pretty smart (high IQ) but lazy. There are plenty of people that are not smart that are lazy as well. It has nothing to do with what they were told as children.
It's easy to say things that resonate with people. I could ask you if you sometimes put off important things to a later time such as the next monday and instead do things now that require less effort. Typical fixed mindset!!!
This is the epitomy of a fixed mindset. You can 1. Increase your IQ, IQ was never meant to be a FIXED measurement of intelligence, because intelligence in itself is not fixed.
2. People are not inherently lazy but they choose to do some things over others based upon their perceptions of that particular task.
3. People definitely develop their mindset based upon their upbringing. People can definitely change their mindset, and their mindset changes over time, clearly indicating environmental factors as the biggest influence, NOT genetics.
I see this post bothered you enough to create a response or two. You have clearly tried to put together some semblance of an analysis on this post. However, It highly doubt you've used a fraction of the effort you spent trying to refute these ideas, to actually analyze yourself. The main point of my post was not to reflect on these ideas as much as to truly reflect on yourself.
1. You cannot increase your IQ past a very low age. If you have proof of anything else, you need to submit it to the scientific community as soon as possible, because it would be a huge breakthrough.
2. People can be inherently lazy, yes. Some people need to work harder to overcome their laziness than others.
3. In part, that's true, but the correlation is likely below .50 and thus has more to do with genetics. People cannot change their mindset, or at least there exist no such proof. Wishing it so does not make it so. Yes we live in an unfair world.
Yes it bothers me. You know nothing of science, you just deal with wishful thinking. Your talk about analyzing myself and blah blah blah is irrelevant. You have all the traits of a charlatan.
edit: You never answered why your theory only works in SC2 for a few countries that you have no proof teaches a more open mindset. Care to?
If you'd put half the effort into creating credible points that you did into bashing me to sooth your own ego, I might have given this a real reply.
"Never argue with a fool - they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience."
What constitutes a credible point to you? A point that you can agree with?
You have no answer since you just don't know how to answer. Your theory doesn't stand up to scrutiny. You can only hope to get high-fives from people that wishes it were true as much as you do but have no real knowledge in the subject themselves.
Thanks very much for the post. I've been having a lot of trouble with this fear lately and I definitely feel your post helps and it's surprising to see how many people feel the exact same.
I doubt a drop in ladder attendance is due to fear of laddering. To me it seems more like a case of the game's hype wave dying out. I mean come on, this game was hyped to fuckery, not everyone who bought it will have cared about it that much.
As I work in a psychology-related field, I decided to make my own little contribution to this debate. There are three things in the OP: ladder fear/anxiety, the mindset theory, and why Koreans are so good. I will comment on the ladder fear issue here.
There is quite a lot of discussion in the forums about "ladder anxiety" and "ladder fear", being a somewhat "uneasy" aboud laddering and therefore unable to play as much as one wants. SC2 might be the only game where people must be constantly reminded that it should be fun. That's not normal for a computer game. Not all people experience this, but some do.
The anxiety you feel comes most likely from stress. Now let's narrow down the cause of this phenomenon first. Playing against a computer, now matter how hard, does not cause it; playing in customs does not cause it. Playing against a friend does not (often) trigger the problem. And, most importantly, if you know that the opponent is much less skilled than you, ladder anxiety doesn't emerge. The stress in laddering, like in real life, emerges because you are pushed to the outer edges of your abilities. It emerges when a person is faced with a sustained challenge that is perceived just barely possible, or impossible, to achieve. The feeling of not being in control of events increases stress.
Starcraft ladder creates a stressful situation for some players by targeting the 50-50 win/loss ratio. As soon as you face oppontents that you feel you can handle in a relaxed way, you will automatically hit the wall again. The game is almost always out of your control, or feels that way.
What can be done about it? Now, you probably ladder to get better in rank & league, and thus you want to win as many games as possible. But that's wrong. Ranking and promotions are your long term goals. Practice requires short term goals which are not stressful. Suppose your short term goal is actually something that is very easy to achieve. Let's say you are in silver and your goal is, "I do not want to get demoted to bronze". Suddely, you do not need to win against better players; you just have to avoid losing many times against much worse players. The trick is that this is a goal that is totally under your control. Whatever goal works for you will do, of course. It must be something that you feel very easy about, something you can definitely achieve with minimal effort. The goal cannot remain "abstract", you really have to make a commitment to try to achieve it.
Like so many other players, I have many real life responsibilities, so I don't have the energy to get stressed about a computer game. Yet I still want to understand SC better, and I like the game a lot. When I was in bronze, my only committed goal was to keep my bonus points at zero. It was a goal that I certainly felt able to achieve.
Let's take an analogous skill, playing an instrument. By far the biggest part of improving is in executing fairly mechanical exercises. But when you do those, you do not set up very high short term goals. The goal may be, for instance, "I must play this sonata ten times". There are those moments when the stakes are higher, but for the most part the stakes are really low. Ladder does not allow this, because there is no "matched unranked" play---unless you change your own mindset about it.
Your long term goal is, of course, to master the game better. But this comes naturally with practice.
On September 11 2011 16:04 Nevermoar wrote: This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
That just means you're pretty smart (high IQ) but lazy. There are plenty of people that are not smart that are lazy as well. It has nothing to do with what they were told as children.
It's easy to say things that resonate with people. I could ask you if you sometimes put off important things to a later time such as the next monday and instead do things now that require less effort. Typical fixed mindset!!!
This is the epitomy of a fixed mindset. You can 1. Increase your IQ, IQ was never meant to be a FIXED measurement of intelligence, because intelligence in itself is not fixed.
2. People are not inherently lazy but they choose to do some things over others based upon their perceptions of that particular task.
3. People definitely develop their mindset based upon their upbringing. People can definitely change their mindset, and their mindset changes over time, clearly indicating environmental factors as the biggest influence, NOT genetics.
I see this post bothered you enough to create a response or two. You have clearly tried to put together some semblance of an analysis on this post. However, It highly doubt you've used a fraction of the effort you spent trying to refute these ideas, to actually analyze yourself. The main point of my post was not to reflect on these ideas as much as to truly reflect on yourself.
1. You cannot increase your IQ past a very low age. If you have proof of anything else, you need to submit it to the scientific community as soon as possible, because it would be a huge breakthrough.
2. People can be inherently lazy, yes. Some people need to work harder to overcome their laziness than others.
3. In part, that's true, but the correlation is likely below .50 and thus has more to do with genetics. People cannot change their mindset, or at least there exist no such proof. Wishing it so does not make it so. Yes we live in an unfair world.
Yes it bothers me. You know nothing of science, you just deal with wishful thinking. Your talk about analyzing myself and blah blah blah is irrelevant. You have all the traits of a charlatan.
edit: You never answered why your theory only works in SC2 for a few countries that you have no proof teaches a more open mindset. Care to?
If you'd put half the effort into creating credible points than you did into bashing me to sooth your own ego, I might have given this a real reply.
"Never argue with a fool - they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience."
aka don't feed the trolls
What? He makes three completely reasonable points that actually point to scientific findings, and your only answer is to label him as a troll?
You have absolutely no substance in your reply, you just argue ad hominem. I see you've done this several times throughout this thread, if someone agrees, you pride yourself of making a great thread, if people disagree and post specific replies about the content of your post, you dismiss them as trolls.
"If you'd put half the effort into creating plausible posts as you did into bashing any attempt to correct you, you might have created a useful thread." See how easy it is to spout ad hominem replies without actually responding to content?
I'd like to see you address the actual three points pointed out in that reply, as I was going to make pretty much the same reply. I was surprised nobody had brought those issues up yet, but turns out you just don't answer them.
Edit: Also, as to 1., I believe training the double n-back test was shown to have a lasting transferrable effect on intelligence, but indeed this is an extremely rare property. There is very little known about how to increase your IQ, and that is the whole reason why IQ tests are paid so much attention to: The scores are pretty stable.
I find it rather telling that you would write so much about mindset and then display such a stubborn unwillingness to engage in a conversation involving opinions that don't agree with your own.
Also, as to people's general discussions about talent vs hard work, this is a great write-up on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class-Performers/dp/1591842247 -- but the essence of it comes from a Harvard Business Review study and can be found there. (This was already discussed at length in another thread a while back.)
On September 11 2011 16:04 Nevermoar wrote: This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
That just means you're pretty smart (high IQ) but lazy. There are plenty of people that are not smart that are lazy as well. It has nothing to do with what they were told as children.
It's easy to say things that resonate with people. I could ask you if you sometimes put off important things to a later time such as the next monday and instead do things now that require less effort. Typical fixed mindset!!!
This is the epitomy of a fixed mindset. You can 1. Increase your IQ, IQ was never meant to be a FIXED measurement of intelligence, because intelligence in itself is not fixed.
2. People are not inherently lazy but they choose to do some things over others based upon their perceptions of that particular task.
3. People definitely develop their mindset based upon their upbringing. People can definitely change their mindset, and their mindset changes over time, clearly indicating environmental factors as the biggest influence, NOT genetics.
I see this post bothered you enough to create a response or two. You have clearly tried to put together some semblance of an analysis on this post. However, It highly doubt you've used a fraction of the effort you spent trying to refute these ideas, to actually analyze yourself. The main point of my post was not to reflect on these ideas as much as to truly reflect on yourself.
1. You cannot increase your IQ past a very low age. If you have proof of anything else, you need to submit it to the scientific community as soon as possible, because it would be a huge breakthrough.
2. People can be inherently lazy, yes. Some people need to work harder to overcome their laziness than others.
3. In part, that's true, but the correlation is likely below .50 and thus has more to do with genetics. People cannot change their mindset, or at least there exist no such proof. Wishing it so does not make it so. Yes we live in an unfair world.
Yes it bothers me. You know nothing of science, you just deal with wishful thinking. Your talk about analyzing myself and blah blah blah is irrelevant. You have all the traits of a charlatan.
edit: You never answered why your theory only works in SC2 for a few countries that you have no proof teaches a more open mindset. Care to?
If you'd put half the effort into creating credible points than you did into bashing me to sooth your own ego, I might have given this a real reply.
"Never argue with a fool - they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience."
aka don't feed the trolls
What? He makes three completely reasonable points that actually point to scientific findings, and your only answer is to label him as a troll?
You have absolutely no substance in your reply, you just argue ad hominem. I see you've done this several times throughout this thread, if someone agrees, you pride yourself of making a great thread, if people disagree and post specific replies about the content of your post, you dismiss them as trolls.
"If you'd put half the effort into creating plausible posts as you did into bashing any attempt to correct you, you might have created a useful thread." See how easy it is to spout ad hominem replies without actually responding to content?
I'd like to see you address the actual three points pointed out in that reply, as I was going to make pretty much the same reply. I was surprised nobody had brought those issues up yet, but turns out you just don't answer them.
Edit: Also, as to 1., I believe training the double n-back test was shown to have a lasting transferrable effect on intelligence, but indeed this is an extremely rare property. There is very little known about how to increase your IQ, and that is the whole reason why IQ tests are paid so much attention to: The scores are pretty stable.
I find it rather telling that you would write so much about mindset and then display such a stubborn unwillingness to engage in a conversation involving opinions that don't agree with your own.
Also, as to people's general discussions about talent vs hard work, this is a great write-up on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class-Performers/dp/1591842247 -- but the essence of it comes from a Harvard Business Review study and can be found there. (This was already discussed at length in another thread a while back.)
I agree. I've seen several great critical posts yet the OP seems to only reply to the positive one and either ignore or disregard the critical ones. Growth/fixed mindsets might be a part of this but OP is trying to hard to incorporate this into both player success and why 1vs1 is not as popular when there's other easier explanations available.
Also:
On September 11 2011 19:12 RedDragon571 wrote: It seems the few that seem to rail out against this thread, are the ones that this is hitting too close too home.
That just adds to the point. Seems like everyone who's critical either didn't undestand or is taking offence to the content. It's not like people can disagree on the actual science and argument made.
On September 07 2011 08:42 RedDragon571 wrote: The short summary of it all is that some people depending on their upbringing develop fixed mindsets and some develop growth mindsets. Now its more complex than that because some people have different parts of their personality that are growth AND fixed.
Then what part of the population is represented by these "some people" ? Are there people who doesn't fall in either of these categories, who have both mindsets or neither ? A personnality is a whole, I don't see how part of your personnality is fixed and the other may not be. Because from what I see in my daily life, only a few individual can actually tell "i have that mindset", and most people can't. I don't know, fixed and growth mindsets feel a bit BSy to me...
EDIT : For my case, it seems that I should be fixed mindset because, apparently, my upbringing tells me that's what I am. Now when I look at who I am and who I've been since a child, I see almost nothing that describes me in that definition of fixed mindset, but also amost nothing that describes me in that definition of growth mindset. I really don't like in your post that there's too much emphasis on one's upbringing, which seems like a very bad approach.
Also how laddering in 1v1 in a video game may be relevant to your personnality baffles me.
EDIT 2 : That's it, found what annoys me the most. Fixed and growth mindsets are way too different, you don't present any middle ground, just a large cleavage, and claims that people fall in either of these categories, with a few exceptions. I don't believe anyone can clearly fit either description. Put some shades of grey in there, please.
On September 11 2011 19:12 RedDragon571 wrote: It seems the few that seem to rail out against this thread, are the ones that this is hitting too close too home.
That just adds to the point. Seems like everyone who's critical either didn't undestand or is taking offence to the content. It's not like people can disagree on the actual science and argument made.
I've seen that exact thing so many times. It's a classic. It's in the same category of beliefs as thinking that homophobes usually are homosexuals themselves just because it just would be SO great if that were true. It would, perhaps, but it's just not true. Facts are ignored, reason is turned away at the door. It truly is wishful thinking.
I've studied psychometrics and heritability of intelligence and ability a great deal and I can only say that a lot of the things in the OP goes against uncontroversial, proven findings in those fields, such as correlation between IQ, general intelligence, and success in various endeavors. There just is no room for a theory of mindsets. If it were true that people can change their IQ's by willing it or reach success by changing mindsets, or that certain cultures with a more open mindset have more successful individuals, that would mean that the predictive powers of highly heritable factors such as IQ or general intelligence (as heritable as height), or socioeconomic status, on future success would be bad or even terrible. This is simply not the case.
If mindsets were all that mattered, then you could randomly take for instance people with a good income that work in honorable fields of science, and expect their IQ levels to not look different from a group of people that were drawn from the population in whole. You could repeat this with for instance the richest people in the world, or journalists, or lawyers, or top chess players. Looking at Kasparov's, Gates's, and Hawkin's IQ levels you'd be mystified as you'd expect them to hover around 100, and they instead go over 160. And they are just random people with good mindsets. Strange.
Certainly if this theory were true, RedDragon could link me some studies on these mindsets and where they are taught, and the correlations between individuals with open mindsets and success in "life" (be it income, sporting achievements, health, or whatever). I'd be very interested in seeing those, since it would mean a breakthrough in many fields of science, and a break without a through in others.
Great post. This will really help me because I've started out with a growth mindset and lately gone over to a FM. And its so true what you write about losing to friends etc because my prime goal for sc2 has always and will always be to be better then my friends. However lately one of my friends have or is about to pass me in skill and it's bothered me alot. But now I understand that it's good for me because now I have to get better aswell. We share the same minsset and will only push together from now on. Big cheers for the post.
Great article, it made me realize I too have quite a few characteristics typical of people with a fixed mindset. I do respond well to criticism but I have some serious trouble with challenging myself, coping with losses and putting in hard work.
The whole fixed and growth mindsets thing looks very true from a certain perspective, but I think largely misses the real cultural difference that makes Korean players better. I've noticed foreign players still seem to have an adolescent perspective on what is required to make great achievements in life. This is unrelated to a growth/fixed mindset, but rather, how much players perceive is required to become great. Perhaps this is unsurprising, as one might expect that making a living from a computer game should be pure fun.
But to be blunt, to achieve world greatness in anything, you have to put in a world-class effort, whether or not talent is innate, in order to develop that talent. When I look at posts declaring that 40 hour weeks are not enough, and player should be aspiring to a Korean player's 60 hours of practice, I want to laugh. 60 hours? 60 hours is still very relaxed. In the working world, some people will invest over 80 hours of work a week simply to achieve the requirements of their job - never mind to excel to a world-class level. For short durations of time, people are even capable of 100-120 hours a week. That means almost NO time for leisure on ANY day of the week, as they are working for over 14 hours a day including the weekend. If you don't believe me, go read about how hospital doctors (obviously very smart people, but in very demanding jobs) tend to live in the US. The human limits for hard work are far and beyond anything I've seen discussed on TL, even when the Koreans are concerned.
Things maybe different for Starcraft, sure - at a certain point, you may become too fatigued to achieve the APM required to win, so yeah, perhaps you can't be playing matches for 100 hours a week. But that doesn't mean foreign players should spend 40, or even 60 hours a week playing, then spend the rest of the time relaxing. Even if they don't have the mental capacity at that time to play a game, if a player wants to become truly great, they should be strategising, drilling on micro/macro aspects of the game, and generally making the most efficient possible use of their time. After time, by consistently pushing your endurance limits to the max, you will develop them and be able to practice more effectively for longer.
Have you noticed how fatigue often plays a significant role for foreign players coming from the open brackets of tournaments? Have you noticed how little difference it seems to make for Korean players? That's because a full 3 days of Starcraft for them is nothing different from their ordinary lives.
Truth is, foreign players aren't willing to make the huge sacrifices to be the best, whereas such sacrifices are culturally accepted and honoured in Korea (and in Asia in general). Until more players adopt HuK's attitude, there will be no real competition between Koreans and foreigners.
On September 11 2011 21:40 TheUltimate wrote: Things maybe different for Starcraft, sure - at a certain point, you may become too fatigued to achieve the APM required to win, so yeah, perhaps you can't be playing matches for 100 hours a week. But that doesn't mean foreign players should spend 40, or even 60 hours a week playing, then spend the rest of the time relaxing. Even if they don't have the mental capacity at that time to play a game, if a player wants to become truly great, they should be strategising, drilling on micro/macro aspects of the game, and generally making the most efficient possible use of their time. After time, by consistently pushing your endurance limits to the max, you will develop them and be able to practice more effectively for longer.
I agree with some of what you're saying but this part is kinda weird to me. There's a huge difference between being great at sports and having a full time regular job. A regular job is very different to training for sports/esports as you can be tired as hell and still do a decent job at work due to much of it being rutine (yet it piles up and you need to get it done).
If you're that tired when training a sport/esport you're not getting much out of it. There's lots top end athletes that have seen improvements when scaling down on practise. An added benefit of scaling down the amount of practise is that you lover the risk of sustaining injuries, something that's prominent in both esports and regular sports.
I'm not saying that people should slack off. I'm just saying that increasing the time spent doesn't always equal better results.
On September 11 2011 21:40 TheUltimate wrote: Things maybe different for Starcraft, sure - at a certain point, you may become too fatigued to achieve the APM required to win, so yeah, perhaps you can't be playing matches for 100 hours a week. But that doesn't mean foreign players should spend 40, or even 60 hours a week playing, then spend the rest of the time relaxing. Even if they don't have the mental capacity at that time to play a game, if a player wants to become truly great, they should be strategising, drilling on micro/macro aspects of the game, and generally making the most efficient possible use of their time. After time, by consistently pushing your endurance limits to the max, you will develop them and be able to practice more effectively for longer.
I agree with some of what you're saying but this part is kinda weird to me. There's a huge difference between being great at sports and having a full time regular job. A regular job is very different to training for sports/esports as you can be tired as hell and still do a decent job at work due to much of it being rutine (yet it piles up and you need to get it done).
If you're that tired when training a sport/esport you're not getting much out of it. There's lots top end athletes that have seen improvements when scaling down on practise. An added benefit of scaling down the amount of practise is that you lover the risk of sustaining injuries, something that's prominent in both esports and regular sports.
I'm not saying that people should slack off. I'm just saying that increasing the time spent doesn't always equal better results.
Your first point is valid - equating workers and e-athletes might be fallacious. But at the same time I think you're making the same mistake, in equating sports and esports. For instance, in the Premier League of football, world class players usually play for only 40 hours a week, but this is because of very well established limits of physical endurance, before performance begins to suffer. Activities such as SC2, where the main component of performance is purely mental, are so different that it doesn't make sense to apply to it the same limitations.
Frankly, we don't know for sure how much someone can work before their performance begins to degrade, but based on the results that the harder working (especially Korean) players consistently show, at the very least 60 hours still shows improvement. And from all appearances, it seems that players' endurance scales with how much they practice.
(Perhaps this is a pointless discussion though; unless someone actually investigates it in a scientific way, there's no way to say whether or not going to 80 or 100 hours would result in further improvement.)
Your point about avoiding injury is also quite valid - however, this makes the assumption that the only way to use your time to become better is to spam games. While you obviously need to play a lot, especially to improve basic micro and macro skills, it's not clear at this point that this is the only way to improve. Players need not only to invest the practice time, but also use it in a way that is efficient. For instance, if a player is very prone to carpal tunnel for instance, there might be low APM drills that could be used to improve general game sense and tactics, while high APM games could be used only to practice the strategies that require it. At the world-class professional level, there may be even further steps you could take, when you need a break from actually playing: memorising all common timings, meditating to improve concentration, etc...
Of course, this is all pure speculation, as we simply don't know what the most efficient practice regime is; the only things we can say for sure is that to date harder working players generally deliver more consistently, and it is highly unlikely that the most efficient practice regime has yet been developed.
This isn't necessarily accurate, I think you are showing a pretty biased view of the 'fixed' and 'growth' mindsets when in reality both of them have their points and the reality is somwhere in between. For instance some people are naturally talented at things, that is indisputable otherwise every korean player would be equally as good as every korean player who trains 8 hours day or some such, clearly some players are able to do more with their time for some reason or another. On the other hand obviously the time you invest is beneficial, and nobody can rely on talent alone to take them through the game.
And 'growth' mindsets can create the same amount of frustration if not more than 'fixed' mindsets, I personally don't get pissed off because of any belief that I'm better than my opponent, on the contrary I work hard to get good at the game and get annoyed when players who seem to have not worked as hard manage to beat me. I am frustrated because I spent so much time trying to get good at the game, for if it were all about talent then how could I be upset about something that is beyond my control?
Are the "1 million" players from 1v1 or just overall ladder? Because indeed alot of players stopped with 1v1/never got into it because it is hard. And if alot of people was new to RTS when SC2 was superhyped I can understand if they were uncomfortable with 1v1 and had this ladder fear.
However, alot of these people didn't stop playing for that. I play around in 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 with a friend of mine who don't like to play 1v1 that much and we get to play alot of people who have far more than 500+ wins in teamgames but aint even ranked in 1v1.
On September 11 2011 16:04 Nevermoar wrote: This really resonated with me. Not just for SC2 but for life in general. I'm quite a fixed mindset individual mainly because I really AM very gifted at learning, but lack a lot of motivation and I am quite lazy. Thank you for this.
That just means you're pretty smart (high IQ) but lazy. There are plenty of people that are not smart that are lazy as well. It has nothing to do with what they were told as children.
It's easy to say things that resonate with people. I could ask you if you sometimes put off important things to a later time such as the next monday and instead do things now that require less effort. Typical fixed mindset!!!
This is the epitomy of a fixed mindset. You can 1. Increase your IQ, IQ was never meant to be a FIXED measurement of intelligence, because intelligence in itself is not fixed.
2. People are not inherently lazy but they choose to do some things over others based upon their perceptions of that particular task.
3. People definitely develop their mindset based upon their upbringing. People can definitely change their mindset, and their mindset changes over time, clearly indicating environmental factors as the biggest influence, NOT genetics.
I see this post bothered you enough to create a response or two. You have clearly tried to put together some semblance of an analysis on this post. However, It highly doubt you've used a fraction of the effort you spent trying to refute these ideas, to actually analyze yourself. The main point of my post was not to reflect on these ideas as much as to truly reflect on yourself.
1. You cannot increase your IQ past a very low age. If you have proof of anything else, you need to submit it to the scientific community as soon as possible, because it would be a huge breakthrough.
2. People can be inherently lazy, yes. Some people need to work harder to overcome their laziness than others.
3. In part, that's true, but the correlation is likely below .50 and thus has more to do with genetics. People cannot change their mindset, or at least there exist no such proof. Wishing it so does not make it so. Yes we live in an unfair world.
Yes it bothers me. You know nothing of science, you just deal with wishful thinking. Your talk about analyzing myself and blah blah blah is irrelevant. You have all the traits of a charlatan.
edit: You never answered why your theory only works in SC2 for a few countries that you have no proof teaches a more open mindset. Care to?
If you'd put half the effort into creating credible points than you did into bashing me to sooth your own ego, I might have given this a real reply.
"Never argue with a fool - they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience."
aka don't feed the trolls
What? He makes three completely reasonable points that actually point to scientific findings, and your only answer is to label him as a troll?
You have absolutely no substance in your reply, you just argue ad hominem. I see you've done this several times throughout this thread, if someone agrees, you pride yourself of making a great thread, if people disagree and post specific replies about the content of your post, you dismiss them as trolls.
"If you'd put half the effort into creating plausible posts as you did into bashing any attempt to correct you, you might have created a useful thread." See how easy it is to spout ad hominem replies without actually responding to content?
I'd like to see you address the actual three points pointed out in that reply, as I was going to make pretty much the same reply. I was surprised nobody had brought those issues up yet, but turns out you just don't answer them.
Edit: Also, as to 1., I believe training the double n-back test was shown to have a lasting transferrable effect on intelligence, but indeed this is an extremely rare property. There is very little known about how to increase your IQ, and that is the whole reason why IQ tests are paid so much attention to: The scores are pretty stable.
I find it rather telling that you would write so much about mindset and then display such a stubborn unwillingness to engage in a conversation involving opinions that don't agree with your own.
Also, as to people's general discussions about talent vs hard work, this is a great write-up on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class-Performers/dp/1591842247 -- but the essence of it comes from a Harvard Business Review study and can be found there. (This was already discussed at length in another thread a while back.)
I agree, the OP has made at least three ad hominem attacks in this thread and so far appears to be incapable of refuting specific criticism of his post. In one post the OP actually accused another poster of making an ad hominem attack when he blatantly hadn't, and then proceeded to make an obvious ad hominem attack against that poster lol. My post in which I said that he doesn't even attempt to explain the connection between Korean/Scandinavian cultures and growth mindsets got no response. His response to CheeseMeNot's post there was actually pretty laughable.
Great post. I used to fall squarely in the "fixed mindset" category before I started playing starcraft, but seeing the insane dedication of the Korean progamers coupled with the fact that I was D- on iccup, then slowing climbed a few ranks after putting in a lot of practice really changed my outlook. I would now say I have a growth mindset or at least more of one.
It's funny. When I started reading this post, I had the thoughts "Oh I'm for sure a growth mindset". As I read on, I quickly realized I was a fixed mindset. Interesting read and I hope to gosh I can change my mindset over time.
Ladder fear is an interesting thing. Over the course of the past 1.5 years, I've played maybe 150 1v1 ladder games. This includes beta where I played 33% or more of my 1v1s. I am currently a diamond level player. For some reason, in my fixed mindset, I tell myself I should be masters even though I don't play nearly enough to reach it. Over the past week, I have played 30ish ladder games, and am constantly trying to improve. It's astounding how mechanics, game sense, and general skill increases rapidly when you have a very high base skill level with RTS.
I hope that I can keep up my practice schedule (minimum 5 games every 2 days) and convert my mindset to a growth type, and see if that improves my overall skill.
Seems like all the arguments being presented against or critical to OP have gone completely ignored by most readers (and the OP). People are reading the OP's text then replying to how awesome it is when there are plenty of arguments providing why it is contrary to so.
I don't agree with the OP, so this will seem biased, but the arguments given by several posters much better impart the impression that this fixed/growth mindset is mumbo jumbo.
Thank you for bringing some sense to this thread. I was getting madder by the page. It's sad when people take on the pretense of credible science and then build a totally specious argument, as is the case here.
As for that video of some idiot advocating no sleep as a means of achieving success... what a healthy message that is. It's not like sleep is important to learning or memory or cognitive performance or anything.
On September 12 2011 01:26 BeyondCtrL wrote: Seems like all the arguments being presented against or critical to OP have gone completely ignored by most readers (and the OP). People are reading the OP's text then replying to how awesome it is when there are plenty of arguments providing why it is contrary to so.
I don't agree with the OP, so this will seem biased, but the arguments given by several posters much better impart the impression that this fixed/growth mindset is mumbo jumbo.
Most of the people posting and "ignoring" the critical posts are people who only read the OP and nothing else. That is why.
I remember having some ladder fear when I first started out in the beta. I would just squeeze out 5 games and take a breather and rewatch the replays before calling it quits for the night. As time went on and I started playing more and more, it became far more likely for me to run into horrible losing streaks. Thats when the ladder fear really hit home and I began to avoid the game subconsciously and used school as an excuse (I mean I had SOME time to play).
I think for some people you really just have to get used to losing in order to get over it. That's when you can just hit the queue button without a second thought, or have any uneasy feelings about it as you play.
On September 11 2011 21:40 TheUltimate wrote: The whole fixed and growth mindsets thing looks very true from a certain perspective, but I think largely misses the real cultural difference that makes Korean players better. I've noticed foreign players still seem to have an adolescent perspective on what is required to make great achievements in life. This is unrelated to a growth/fixed mindset, but rather, how much players perceive is required to become great. Perhaps this is unsurprising, as one might expect that making a living from a computer game should be pure fun.
But to be blunt, to achieve world greatness in anything, you have to put in a world-class effort, whether or not talent is innate, in order to develop that talent. When I look at posts declaring that 40 hour weeks are not enough, and player should be aspiring to a Korean player's 60 hours of practice, I want to laugh. 60 hours? 60 hours is still very relaxed. In the working world, some people will invest over 80 hours of work a week simply to achieve the requirements of their job - never mind to excel to a world-class level. For short durations of time, people are even capable of 100-120 hours a week. That means almost NO time for leisure on ANY day of the week, as they are working for over 14 hours a day including the weekend. If you don't believe me, go read about how hospital doctors (obviously very smart people, but in very demanding jobs) tend to live in the US. The human limits for hard work are far and beyond anything I've seen discussed on TL, even when the Koreans are concerned.
Things maybe different for Starcraft, sure - at a certain point, you may become too fatigued to achieve the APM required to win, so yeah, perhaps you can't be playing matches for 100 hours a week. But that doesn't mean foreign players should spend 40, or even 60 hours a week playing, then spend the rest of the time relaxing. Even if they don't have the mental capacity at that time to play a game, if a player wants to become truly great, they should be strategising, drilling on micro/macro aspects of the game, and generally making the most efficient possible use of their time. After time, by consistently pushing your endurance limits to the max, you will develop them and be able to practice more effectively for longer.
Have you noticed how fatigue often plays a significant role for foreign players coming from the open brackets of tournaments? Have you noticed how little difference it seems to make for Korean players? That's because a full 3 days of Starcraft for them is nothing different from their ordinary lives.
Truth is, foreign players aren't willing to make the huge sacrifices to be the best, whereas such sacrifices are culturally accepted and honoured in Korea (and in Asia in general). Until more players adopt HuK's attitude, there will be no real competition between Koreans and foreigners.
I completey agree, I think you touched on the general differences between foreign players and koreans and pretty well.
Quite a few people have been disagreeing with the science of this thread. This is not the place to debate how scientific this theory is. TL is not a place to create scientific articles, but a place scientific articles. Everyone should understand solid science is done in scientific journals and not forum post. If you truly desire to put together arguments based upon science, the cite scientific psychology journal ect that disagree with these concepts. However, simply putting up ad hominem attacks and a few opinions about why you disagree with these is nothing more than hypocritical. The argument in this thread is entirely based upon the science in the Book Mindset and the research of Carol Dweck, who has a PH.D from yale and teaches their I believe. Here are some studies I am referring you too if you'd like to evaluate these claims more closely. However, Railing against how unscientific an article on a Starcraft 2 forum, its pretty pointless. I don't have the time to write a scientific study nor would people actually dispute it in a scientific way if i did. Here are some sources you can look at if you are interested below. However, I would guess a lot of people getting mad at this thread aren't taking a critical look at their selves, and are continuing the cycle of blaming everyone but themselves for their ladder fear and perceived inferiority or superiority.
For those that are more interested in the science.
Deiner, C. I., & Dweck, C.S. (1978). An analysis of learned helplessness: Continuous changes in performance, strategy and achievement cognitions following failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 451-462.
Deiner, C. I, & Dweck, C.S. (1980). An analysis of learned helplessness: (II) The processing of success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 940-952.
Dweck, C. S. (1975). The role of expectations and attributions in the alleviation of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 674-685.
Dweck, C. S. (1999a). Caution-praise can be dangerous. American Educator, 23(1), 4-9.
Dweck, C. S. (1999b). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development. Philadelphia : The Psychology Press.
Dweck, C.S., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (1995). Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions: A world from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry, 6, 267-285.
Dweck, C. S., & Reppucci, N. D. (1973). Learned helplessness and reinforcement responsibility in children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25 , 109-116.
On September 12 2011 04:16 RedDragon571 wrote: Quite a few people have been disagreeing with the science of this thread. This is not the place to debate how scientific this theory is. TL is not a place to create scientific articles, but a place scientific articles. Everyone should understand solid science is done in scientific journals and not forum post. If you truly desire to put together arguments based upon science, the cite scientific psychology journal ect that disagree with these concepts. However, simply putting up ad hominem attacks and a few opinions about why you disagree with these is nothing more than hypocritical. The argument in this thread is entirely based upon the science in the Book Mindset and the research of Carol Dweck, who has a PH.D from yale and teaches their I believe. Here are some studies I am referring you too if you'd like to evaluate these claims more closely. However, Railing against how unscientific an article on a Starcraft 2 forum, its pretty pointless. I don't have the time to write a scientific study nor would people actually dispute it in a scientific way if i did. Here are some sources you can look at if you are interested below. However, I would guess a lot of people getting mad at this thread aren't taking a critical look at their selves, and are continuing the cycle of blaming everyone but themselves for their ladder fear and perceived inferiority or superiority.
For those that are more interested in the science.
Deiner, C. I., & Dweck, C.S. (1978). An analysis of learned helplessness: Continuous changes in performance, strategy and achievement cognitions following failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 451-462.
Deiner, C. I, & Dweck, C.S. (1980). An analysis of learned helplessness: (II) The processing of success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 940-952.
Dweck, C. S. (1975). The role of expectations and attributions in the alleviation of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 674-685.
Dweck, C. S. (1999a). Caution-praise can be dangerous. American Educator, 23(1), 4-9.
Dweck, C. S. (1999b). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development. Philadelphia : The Psychology Press.
Dweck, C.S., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (1995). Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions: A world from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry, 6, 267-285.
Dweck, C. S., & Reppucci, N. D. (1973). Learned helplessness and reinforcement responsibility in children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25 , 109-116.
Manner up plz.
Sorry, but no. You can't on the one hand claim that you have a scientific explanation for an observed phenomenon, and then on the other hand say that it doesn't need to be held up to the rigorous standards of science because it's on TL. If this isn't the appropriate forum for this discussion, then don't start the thread.
As it stands, what you have posted is not an "explanation" of anything, it is a weakly constructed hypothesis that falls somewhere between pseudo and actual science, but masquerades as the latter. Have you actually tested this hypothesis? No.
Do you have any evidence to support the foundations of your hypothesis? No.
Have you conducted any study (or can you cite any study) that shows that Koreans, Ukrainians, and Swedes are inherently of more "growth" than "fixed" mindsets (if there is even an appropriate means of quantifying those traits)?
And to actually test your hypothesis, are there any other countries with "growth" mindsets that are not successful at SC2?
Here's another hypothesis: Starcraft became more popular in some countries (partly due to wealth, partly due to an existing gaming culture, and partly just down to chance). In those countries where it became most popular, players tended to train harder. In some of those countries a culture of discipline led to more refined training methods, which created a positive feedback loop in terms of generating stronger competition. If this hypothesis plausible? At least as plausible as yours.
Why is it that everyone blames ladder fear for the diminished playerbase? More importantly, why do people misinterpret this as a terrible thing?
The reason why people stop playing is because they find the game too difficult. When Starcraft II was released, it had already been very heavily hyped up in the gaming scene. Of course, a huge amount of players purchased the game on release, even those who knew nothing about the game whatsoever. After getting their butt kicked and realizing that the game was a difficult one to learn, they decided it wasn't worth the effort to play.
The diminishing playerbase is nothing more than the weeding out of new players without the commitment or motivation to learn such a complicated game.
Many people see this as a bad thing: the game is turning away new players, and the SCII community won't grow. This isn't true: a huge amount of people who don't actually play Starcraft watch and follow the SC scene. Though they lack the motivation to pick up this terribly difficult game, they still enjoy it enough to watch professionals play.
Though the playerbase is shrinking, the SCII community is growing.
Why are 100% of the people leaving the game attributed to fear of laddering? Some people think the game sucks. Some people think RTS's suck. Some people don't have the motivation or drive to get a higher rank because they play for fun, and fun only. And most people will have left simply because they found a game they're more interested in or just don't have the time anymore.
Season one had the most players because it was new and shiny. And had a single player story line to keep RPers interested.
I actually thought this was a decent write-up until I hit this part:
How many people resort to calling Incontrol "incholesterol" or a "noob". Honestly they are jealous he has a beautiful woman (anna prosser) can bench twice their weight, is a witty and salaried player on EG, a head community figure and a very good player.
LOL! Really? Are you some Incontrol fanboy that just wanted to throw this in? This part pretty much invalidates your post since it's not even tangentially related to everything else your post. The reason we hate Incontrol is because he's a two-faced whiner. He will complain about people talking shit about him on the forums and tell people to stop, then he'll go and laugh when he hears drewbie is going to Korea. He tells people to not restream NASL because they're killing e-sports then he'll go and restream GSL. He also talks all the time about how he's a pro player and how good he is yet he will go 0-5 at every MLG he attends and still throw his 4th place at Dallas in everyone's face. That is why no one likes him.
On September 12 2011 04:16 RedDragon571 wrote: Quite a few people have been disagreeing with the science of this thread. This is not the place to debate how scientific this theory is. TL is not a place to create scientific articles, but a place scientific articles. Everyone should understand solid science is done in scientific journals and not forum post. If you truly desire to put together arguments based upon science, the cite scientific psychology journal ect that disagree with these concepts. However, simply putting up ad hominem attacks and a few opinions about why you disagree with these is nothing more than hypocritical. The argument in this thread is entirely based upon the science in the Book Mindset and the research of Carol Dweck, who has a PH.D from yale and teaches their I believe. Here are some studies I am referring you too if you'd like to evaluate these claims more closely. However, Railing against how unscientific an article on a Starcraft 2 forum, its pretty pointless. I don't have the time to write a scientific study nor would people actually dispute it in a scientific way if i did. Here are some sources you can look at if you are interested below. However, I would guess a lot of people getting mad at this thread aren't taking a critical look at their selves, and are continuing the cycle of blaming everyone but themselves for their ladder fear and perceived inferiority or superiority.
For those that are more interested in the science.
Deiner, C. I., & Dweck, C.S. (1978). An analysis of learned helplessness: Continuous changes in performance, strategy and achievement cognitions following failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 451-462.
Deiner, C. I, & Dweck, C.S. (1980). An analysis of learned helplessness: (II) The processing of success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 940-952.
Dweck, C. S. (1975). The role of expectations and attributions in the alleviation of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 674-685.
Dweck, C. S. (1999a). Caution-praise can be dangerous. American Educator, 23(1), 4-9.
Dweck, C. S. (1999b). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development. Philadelphia : The Psychology Press.
Dweck, C.S., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (1995). Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions: A world from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry, 6, 267-285.
Dweck, C. S., & Reppucci, N. D. (1973). Learned helplessness and reinforcement responsibility in children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25 , 109-116.
Manner up plz.
"This is not the place to debate how scientific this theory is."
Are you kidding me? You're basically saying we're not allowed to refute your theory because this isn't the place to do so and we're not being scientific enough, despite the fact that you posted a supposedly scientific theory here without adhering to the strict standards you demand of us. You also keep telling us we are launching ad hominem attacks against you (which isn't true), and then proceeding to argue ad hominem yourself. Your last sentence before the citations is blatantly ad hominem, and you've repeated that point about 5 times now. You can't attack the personal motives of those arguing against you - that's ad hominem.
By the way, none of those citations have anything to do with Starcraft or Korean/Scandinavian cultures. You have not put in 5% of the effort required to demonstrate a connection between Korean/Scandinavian cultures and growth mindsets, among other things.
I don't think sub-master ladder players with "ladder anxiety" don't play because the VERY best of the best tend to be korean. Differentiating between euro/NA btw... not sure how I feel about that.
Great write-up, i think that you're totally right on this one. All the North Americans doesn't seem to practice that much. If you look at DeMuslim, he's from England and he practices alot. He is getting vastly better by the day.
On September 12 2011 04:16 RedDragon571 wrote: ... However, I would guess a lot of people getting mad at this thread aren't taking a critical look at their selves, and are continuing the cycle of blaming everyone but themselves for their ladder fear and perceived inferiority or superiority. ... Manner up plz.
On September 11 2011 19:12 RedDragon571 wrote: It seems the few that seem to rail out against this thread, are the ones that this is hitting too close too home.
You post crap like this and psychoanalyze InControl, a person you only know from posts and his shows online. And you totally ignore the posts that provide critique to your theory. Sound like you need to grow up and learn to handle criticism.
Like i said earlier in this thread. The lack of 1vs1 players has a much simpler explanation than your whole growth/fixed mindset thing. It's that most people play online games socially, and 1vs1 is not social. There's also the fact that everyone has different likes, playing to improve and work on your game might not be in the interest of the majority. Maybe people play games to enjoy themselves and just have fun with friends? Doesn't that sound more plausible?
As an example, look at LoL, Halo or CS. I'm pretty sure the reason those games have a shitload of players is due to the fact that you play them with friends and that they're much more social games. SC2 1vs1 has no interaction more than the exchange of words at the start and when you lose you instantly quit to join another game. I'm pretty sure alot of people are put off by that.
If you dont like playing ladder because you are afrade to lose, DONT PLAY. It is litterally that simple. Dont feel bad for blizzard if you dont play their game. They cant force you to stay, and if you dont like this game then obviously they arent doing anything for you.
I recommend playing Tribes Ascend and diablo 3 when they come out. both look extremely good.
How many people resort to calling Incontrol "incholesterol" or a "noob". Honestly they are jealous he has a beautiful woman (anna prosser) can bench twice their weight, is a witty and salaried player on EG, a head community figure and a very good player.
LOL! Really? Are you some Incontrol fanboy that just wanted to throw this in? This part pretty much invalidates your post since it's not even tangentially related to everything else your post. The reason we hate Incontrol is because...
LOL! Really? Are you some Incontrol hater that just wanted to throw this in? This part pretty much invalidates your post since you hypocritically went off on a tangent to bash iNc while saying "we hate Incontrol" as if you are a representative for a group that spends their time hating on him.
If you had just left it at saying that going off on a tangent about incontrol ruined his credibility, it would have been fine, but instead you called him out on going on a tangent by praising incontrol, while you then go on an tangent and start bashing him when the details weren't necessary at all.
I wonder how many sc2 players really give it as much as they possibly can.
So was he successful?
Love the video, and sir, did u even watch the whole thing before u bothered replying?
'Work at it 'till you don't even care about the money, that's success'
why yes rude sir I watched the entire thing. I get the "inspirational" part. But did he achieve his goal? His first goal was to make money. What was it after that? His goal looked to be playing pro football, or was his goal just to do some cool exercises after?
Its weird because i just came to the same conclusion not long ago, realising when i lose its because of me i need to get better if i cant even beat the people around me what hope have i got of beating the Pro's! practice practice practice
Thanks for this thread. I'm one of those people who have had success in everything with minimal effort but that can only get me so far. I always gave myself reason to be unfocused and not work hard for anything. This gave me a lot to think about, and I'm working to change my mindset starting today so maybe you'll see more of me in the future.
On September 12 2011 07:44 Glockateer wrote: Thanks for this thread. I'm one of those people who have had success in everything with minimal effort but that can only get me so far. I always gave myself reason to be unfocused and not work hard for anything. This gave me a lot to think about, and I'm working to change my mindset starting today so maybe you'll see more of me in the future.
On September 12 2011 23:42 Clbull wrote: How do you change your mindset from a fixed to a growth one?
Honestly it sounds crazy, but you have to talk to yourself, not out loud of course, but if it helps, why not.
Its hard but I found the best way is finding the voice/reasoning in your mind that:
Make excuses for what you can and cannot do, when you encounter a challenge or something difficult.
response: Tell yourself, that you are not limited by what people say you can and cannot do. If your not good at something its because you haven't had enough practice or you never really tried that. Attempt new things.
The part that tries to shelter your ego, by blaming something else other than yourself.
response: You lose a game or something goes wrong. Tell yourself its not luck, its not someone else, its not anything else. If you lost or something went wrong, there is always something you could have done better. Focus on that. If you lose or fail in some way. Don't concentrate or mull in your lose or failure, focus one WHAT YOU LEARNED from that experience. Reflect that because that happened you understand how to deal with that situation and you've grown.
Interprets every personal remark someone makes about you or something you do, as a comment on your person or pride.
response: someone just said you supply block yourself all the time. You hear, your a shitty player and a fucking noob. What you should hear, I supply block myself alot, I need to change something in my play, I'm going to iron out my builds a bit more, and focus my next 10 ladder games on not getting supply blocked.
the part that tells you that you don't want to work or practice because you don't have to.
response: You hear, If i have to practice that mean's im not good. You should hear, I need to practice in order to get better, I am going to embrace this challenge and really get myself into this new build or look at some replays and write down some timing attacks to be safe against.
the part that makes you jealous when someone else is doing good, or the part that tries to constantly justify why other people are not better than you in some aspects, or why your a better overall person.
Your friend makes master league and your still in diamond. You think, Jeez how'd he get into masters league I'm so much better than him, I beat him all the time. You should think, Wow im really happy my friend got into masters, I wonder what he improved to do it, maybe i can learn from him. I've got a masters practice partner awesome, Lets go run some practice games so I can refine my matchup.
Good post, after reading this i am 100% positive that i have a fixed mindset TT, so here i got all the reasons why i fear the ladder. Gotta ladder some more but its soooo hard to hit the find match button, anyways the op helped me thinking a lot clearer about myself, thank you.
On September 13 2011 06:58 Pred8oar wrote: Good post, after reading this i am 100% positive that i have a fixed mindset TT, so here i got all the reasons why i fear the ladder. Gotta ladder some more but its soooo hard to hit the find match button, anyways the op helped me thinking a lot clearer about myself, thank you.
I have the most fixed mindset ever and after realizing it can point out points in my life where it held me back, glad to know what I have to work on now and that I can stop blaming luck/talent for my downfalls.
On September 07 2011 09:14 RedDragon571 wrote: Foreign players also do not actively try to improve their mechanics. Have you ever seen sjow against a korean, its disqusting watching sjows minerals go up to 900 just causes hes attacking. .
I love your original OP for the most part, but I will argue with this bit about Sjow. Everybody likes to say high APM means better play, but for perfect micro a little slower APM (focus only on the battle and ignore macro for 15 seconds) is often better. And sometimes one battle can win the game, so you have to know if and when that battle occurs and take advantage of that situation if you are the perfect player. Obviously it means your macro suffers for a period of time if you do this, but that is a judgement call.
If Sjow wins a game because he lost zero units in a key micro battle, that may have been smarter than if he had lost 5 units, retreated, and regrouped with 7 perfectly queued/rallied units that took 20 seconds to arrive at the battle.
I feel like I'm not stating my point perfectly, but every time I try to take 2 minutes to post somebody comes in here with something.
EDIT: Here's an analogy to what I'm trying to say. In the wild west, the guy who won the shootout was the guy who took a split second to aim perfectly and killed the other guy with the first shot. Micro takes an extra split second here and there to do 100% perfectly. Now in SC 2, you shouldn't be microing perfectly all the time... it'll get you dead. But sometimes you can go for that killing blow, and then it's worth it.
"1. Korean's are in general better than everyone followed by European's (scandanavians) which are both much better than North Americans."
Are you serious? Or just being a troll.
Nah he seems serious about painting with nation-wide strokes. Americans aren't doing good in SC2 because they all have a fixed mindset. Scandinavia is famous for their handful of good SC2 players so their country must provide a growth mindset.
Sounds reasonable? No? Nah, i don't think so either.
On September 07 2011 09:14 RedDragon571 wrote: Foreign players also do not actively try to improve their mechanics. Have you ever seen sjow against a korean, its disqusting watching sjows minerals go up to 900 just causes hes attacking. .
I love your original OP for the most part, but I will argue with this bit about Sjow. Everybody likes to say high APM means better play, but for perfect micro a little slower APM (focus only on the battle and ignore macro for 15 seconds) is often better. And sometimes one battle can win the game, so you have to know if and when that battle occurs and take advantage of that situation if you are the perfect player. Obviously it means your macro suffers for a period of time if you do this, but that is a judgement call.
If Sjow wins a game because he lost zero units in a key micro battle, that may have been smarter than if he had lost 5 units, retreated, and regrouped with 7 perfectly queued/rallied units that took 20 seconds to arrive at the battle.
I feel like I'm not stating my point perfectly, but every time I try to take 2 minutes to post somebody comes in here with something.
EDIT: Here's an analogy to what I'm trying to say. In the wild west, the guy who won the shootout was the guy who took a split second to aim perfectly and killed the other guy with the first shot. Micro takes an extra split second here and there to do 100% perfectly. Now in SC 2, you shouldn't be microing perfectly all the time... it'll get you dead. But sometimes you can go for that killing blow, and then it's worth it.
I'm just saying there is no reason he can't do both. Koreans do both flawlessly, MVP micros perfectly while macroing, that's why hes the best in the world. I understand that when you have limited APM you can prioritize very intelligently but I think its a false dichotomy, because the third answer is just improve your mechanics till you have the apm to do both.
On September 07 2011 09:13 BabyToss! wrote: Thank you for sharing this article, dear OP. I've found myself to be a typical example of 'Fixed mindset' by reading couple of definitions, although I'd argue couple of points against. But yeah, I hope with time, i'll be able to change it, even though I believe it's not uncommon knowledge that it's very difficult task to change one's mindset, especially if it was part of someone for so many years.
Would definitelly read again.
I don't know about you, or other people, but my mindset has changed drastically with time, as a 14-15 YO i used to believe i was the king of the world, and could beat anyone in anything, if i wanted to. Now i know for a fact that close to everything needs really hard work to become the best, or close to it. Even if you want to become the best burgerflipper at McDonalds, that's gonna take alot of hard work, nothing can be done with talent alone.
I actually can almost pinpoint the exact point where i competely changed my mindset. I was playing the easiest game in the world (WoW) and found myself and two teammates doing pretty well, but we had some trouble with small specific things, and it felt like, right out of the blue i took a step back and looked at myself and realized i was a big part of that problem due to considering myself above average for no apparent reason. After getting that feeling, i've never ever criticised anyone before thoroughly reviewing my own play.
And with age and general life experince i feel like these things come naturally, the hard thing is having traits like these at a young enough age to process what's actually happening around you.
I think this is a big reason why Koreans are so much better than the rest of the world right now. Their culture/upbrining is vastly different from what europeans & americans are used to, and hard work seems to be introduced to them at a much younger age, and thus they learn the "real" world alot earlier, and apply the necessary effort to succeed.
This is just my opinion/theory, and i'd be happy to be proven wrong anytime!
I wa also in fear of laddering but now i dont give a shit on ladder i play to be better. gg after game. I found out that after i have lost my care about ladder points i can play normaly
On September 14 2011 17:01 Hexagecz wrote: I wa also in fear of laddering but now i dont give a shit on ladder i play to be better. gg after game. I found out that after i have lost my care about ladder points i can play normaly
Obviously you care, just not in the same way as before. I mean if you don't give a crap, why even bother? Finding good players to custom with would be better if that's the case, i would think.
wow what a great Article - that really touched me. I definately recognized myself in the fixed mindset section. That makes so much sense, allthough I believe my fixed mindset takes this article as excuse for me not playing ladder. I will definately read more about that and try to change my mindset in the future.
On September 14 2011 17:01 Hexagecz wrote: I wa also in fear of laddering but now i dont give a shit on ladder i play to be better. gg after game. I found out that after i have lost my care about ladder points i can play normaly
Obviously you care, just not in the same way as before. I mean if you don't give a crap, why even bother? Finding good players to custom with would be better if that's the case, i would think.
customs are good for practicing builds, but to actually improve, not really. I mean one game is a bronze the next is a Grandmaster, are you really learning anything?
On September 14 2011 17:01 Hexagecz wrote: I wa also in fear of laddering but now i dont give a shit on ladder i play to be better. gg after game. I found out that after i have lost my care about ladder points i can play normaly
Obviously you care, just not in the same way as before. I mean if you don't give a crap, why even bother? Finding good players to custom with would be better if that's the case, i would think.
customs are good for practicing builds, but to actually improve, not really. I mean one game is a bronze the next is a Grandmaster, are you really learning anything?
Obviously finding good practice partners is key to this, but if you do, i can't see a "ladderplayer" ever keeping up. Ladder is good practice for learning how to play against different styles, but as i've heard people say before, facing a strat on ladder and in a competitive game can be so harshly different that it might even hurt you in the end, if you think you can hold stuff off just because you've played against players that execute that strategy, but not as well as your current opponent.
MorroW actually stated something pretty darn close to exactly this when he lost the Assembly finals to ret. He had faced the strategy that ret applied in all games, they were just not as well executed, and thus MorroW thought he could hold it off (or bust through it) with less than actually possible.
Obviously this won't apply to every situation, but you get the point.
Not caring and just playing laddergame after laddergame to improve can easily get your own opinion about your play scewed, regardless of mindset. I've had this happen to me aswell, obviously not on the same scale, but to a notable extent.
I also believe that always trying to win is gonna get you to your goals the fastest, and not caring is pretty far from trying to be a winner. Instead of not caring, i think it would be more beneficial to care more, and try asking some opponents for advice, than just mindlessly playing ladder for improvement.
Now i'm not saying that's what anyone is doing, but that's the feeling i get when someone says they don't care. I might be more of a competitor than others, but not caring is never an option for me.
On September 14 2011 17:01 Hexagecz wrote: I wa also in fear of laddering but now i dont give a shit on ladder i play to be better. gg after game. I found out that after i have lost my care about ladder points i can play normaly
Obviously you care, just not in the same way as before. I mean if you don't give a crap, why even bother? Finding good players to custom with would be better if that's the case, i would think.
customs are good for practicing builds, but to actually improve, not really. I mean one game is a bronze the next is a Grandmaster, are you really learning anything?
Obviously finding good practice partners is key to this, but if you do, i can't see a "ladderplayer" ever keeping up. Ladder is good practice for learning how to play against different styles, but as i've heard people say before, facing a strat on ladder and in a competitive game can be so harshly different that it might even hurt you in the end, if you think you can hold stuff off just because you've played against players that execute that strategy, but not as well as your current opponent.
MorroW actually stated something pretty darn close to exactly this when he lost the Assembly finals to ret. He had faced the strategy that ret applied in all games, they were just not as well executed, and thus MorroW thought he could hold it off (or bust through it) with less than actually possible.
Obviously this won't apply to every situation, but you get the point.
Not caring and just playing laddergame after laddergame to improve can easily get your own opinion about your play scewed, regardless of mindset. I've had this happen to me aswell, obviously not on the same scale, but to a notable extent.
I also believe that always trying to win is gonna get you to your goals the fastest, and not caring is pretty far from trying to be a winner. Instead of not caring, i think it would be more beneficial to care more, and try asking some opponents for advice, than just mindlessly playing ladder for improvement.
Now i'm not saying that's what anyone is doing, but that's the feeling i get when someone says they don't care. I might be more of a competitor than others, but not caring is never an option for me.
Yeah you should definitely care about winning, I just feel like the priority should be given to IMPROVING. Practice partners are great although you have to get good at playing X v X rather than X v "Your practice partner." Ladder, has its limitations granted, but you should never have to fear or get anxious about laddering, or get so titled you go on a massive lose-streak. Mindset is just one part of getting better at starcraft and anything in general. Good points!
On September 14 2011 17:01 Hexagecz wrote: I wa also in fear of laddering but now i dont give a shit on ladder i play to be better. gg after game. I found out that after i have lost my care about ladder points i can play normaly
Obviously you care, just not in the same way as before. I mean if you don't give a crap, why even bother? Finding good players to custom with would be better if that's the case, i would think.
customs are good for practicing builds, but to actually improve, not really. I mean one game is a bronze the next is a Grandmaster, are you really learning anything?
Obviously finding good practice partners is key to this, but if you do, i can't see a "ladderplayer" ever keeping up. Ladder is good practice for learning how to play against different styles, but as i've heard people say before, facing a strat on ladder and in a competitive game can be so harshly different that it might even hurt you in the end, if you think you can hold stuff off just because you've played against players that execute that strategy, but not as well as your current opponent.
MorroW actually stated something pretty darn close to exactly this when he lost the Assembly finals to ret. He had faced the strategy that ret applied in all games, they were just not as well executed, and thus MorroW thought he could hold it off (or bust through it) with less than actually possible.
Obviously this won't apply to every situation, but you get the point.
Not caring and just playing laddergame after laddergame to improve can easily get your own opinion about your play scewed, regardless of mindset. I've had this happen to me aswell, obviously not on the same scale, but to a notable extent.
I also believe that always trying to win is gonna get you to your goals the fastest, and not caring is pretty far from trying to be a winner. Instead of not caring, i think it would be more beneficial to care more, and try asking some opponents for advice, than just mindlessly playing ladder for improvement.
Now i'm not saying that's what anyone is doing, but that's the feeling i get when someone says they don't care. I might be more of a competitor than others, but not caring is never an option for me.
Yeah you should definitely care about winning, I just feel like the priority should be given to IMPROVING. Practice partners are great although you have to get good at playing X v X rather than X v "Your practice partner." Ladder, has its limitations granted, but you should never have to fear or get anxious about laddering, or get so titled you go on a massive lose-streak. Mindset is just one part of getting better at starcraft and anything in general. Good points!
If you fear, or get anxious about your laddering, maybe competition is not the place for you? (not saying you specifically, but people in general) Imagine how you would feel if you ever were in a real competitive game if you can't even gather the courage to ladder. Maybe you should revisit and review your reasons for even playing the game in the fashion you are at the moment?
It might just be me who has alot of friends in sc2, but i can easily pick out atleast two players of each race that would be worthy opponents for me to practice and improve with. Also sticking to either customs or ladder exclusively i don't think would be beneficial, i think your tactical "core" should come from customs, and you use ladder for mostly mechanical improvements, and to keep up with the current trends.
Practicing only on ladder could possibly skew your own understanding of your skill, for both obvious, and previously stated reasons. (poorly executed strategies, major leaps in opponent skillevels from game to game, and loads of other things)
Practicing only through customs could leave you behind the current meta-game trends, and as practicing with someone else mostly focuses on your tactical play, your mechanics could suffer, depending on how you and your partner go about training.
I just typed what i was thinking, didn't read through it, sorry if i made no sense at all.
On September 14 2011 17:01 Hexagecz wrote: I wa also in fear of laddering but now i dont give a shit on ladder i play to be better. gg after game. I found out that after i have lost my care about ladder points i can play normaly
Obviously you care, just not in the same way as before. I mean if you don't give a crap, why even bother? Finding good players to custom with would be better if that's the case, i would think.
customs are good for practicing builds, but to actually improve, not really. I mean one game is a bronze the next is a Grandmaster, are you really learning anything?
Obviously finding good practice partners is key to this, but if you do, i can't see a "ladderplayer" ever keeping up. Ladder is good practice for learning how to play against different styles, but as i've heard people say before, facing a strat on ladder and in a competitive game can be so harshly different that it might even hurt you in the end, if you think you can hold stuff off just because you've played against players that execute that strategy, but not as well as your current opponent.
MorroW actually stated something pretty darn close to exactly this when he lost the Assembly finals to ret. He had faced the strategy that ret applied in all games, they were just not as well executed, and thus MorroW thought he could hold it off (or bust through it) with less than actually possible.
Obviously this won't apply to every situation, but you get the point.
Not caring and just playing laddergame after laddergame to improve can easily get your own opinion about your play scewed, regardless of mindset. I've had this happen to me aswell, obviously not on the same scale, but to a notable extent.
I also believe that always trying to win is gonna get you to your goals the fastest, and not caring is pretty far from trying to be a winner. Instead of not caring, i think it would be more beneficial to care more, and try asking some opponents for advice, than just mindlessly playing ladder for improvement.
Now i'm not saying that's what anyone is doing, but that's the feeling i get when someone says they don't care. I might be more of a competitor than others, but not caring is never an option for me.
Yeah you should definitely care about winning, I just feel like the priority should be given to IMPROVING. Practice partners are great although you have to get good at playing X v X rather than X v "Your practice partner." Ladder, has its limitations granted, but you should never have to fear or get anxious about laddering, or get so titled you go on a massive lose-streak. Mindset is just one part of getting better at starcraft and anything in general. Good points!
If you fear, or get anxious about your laddering, maybe competition is not the place for you? (not saying you specifically, but people in general) Imagine how you would feel if you ever were in a real competitive game if you can't even gather the courage to ladder. Maybe you should revisit and review your reasons for even playing the game in the fashion you are at the moment?
It might just be me who has alot of friends in sc2, but i can easily pick out atleast two players of each race that would be worthy opponents for me to practice and improve with. Also sticking to either customs or ladder exclusively i don't think would be beneficial, i think your tactical "core" should come from customs, and you use ladder for mostly mechanical improvements, and to keep up with the current trends.
Practicing only on ladder could possibly skew your own understanding of your skill, for both obvious, and previously stated reasons. (poorly executed strategies, major leaps in opponent skillevels from game to game, and loads of other things)
Practicing only through customs could leave you behind the current meta-game trends, and as practicing with someone else mostly focuses on your tactical play, your mechanics could suffer, depending on how you and your partner go about training.
I just typed what i was thinking, didn't read through it, sorry if i made no sense at all.
Great points! only thing is disagree with is this
"If you fear, or get anxious about your laddering, maybe competition is not the place for you? (not saying you specifically, but people in general) Imagine how you would feel if you ever were in a real competitive game if you can't even gather the courage to ladder. Maybe you should revisit and review your reasons for even playing the game in the fashion you are at the moment?"
It's very fixed mindset to view people as "not competitive" or "anxious." I believe people can change if they make the effort to, to get over their ladder fear or get over their competitive phobias. Quitting or giving up is easy to do, but you'll never improve as a person if you give up on such simple stuff as starcraft. The stuff about practice partners and such is great though!
First off, great post/article. Do you think there also is a 'mixed' mindset that encompasses traits of both extremes or is there no middle ground when it comes to mindsets?
i love that article i adapt fast so it had huge impact on my life (not only in starcraft) cause month ago i was 99,9% fixed mindest, and now i'm slowly changing into growth one ^^ huge thx op
On September 14 2011 23:26 Harrad wrote: First off, great post/article. Do you think there also is a 'mixed' mindset that encompasses traits of both extremes or is there no middle ground when it comes to mindsets?
Yes, in reality everyone is mixed to varying extents, ton of middle ground!
On September 14 2011 23:37 NoDDiE wrote: i love that article i adapt fast so it had huge impact on my life (not only in starcraft) cause month ago i was 99,9% fixed mindest, and now i'm slowly changing into growth one ^^ huge thx op
I can say from similar experience that it is one of the most liberating things I have experienced, however, don't let limited progress set you back and make you give up. As long as you just keep going you can become better and better, the essence of a growth mindset! :D GLHF sir!
On September 07 2011 12:51 GosuNinja wrote: This was a very interesting and informing post. I wasn't aware of the different mindsets or that you could change them, I am definatly a fixed mindset!
Where do you even start to try to change your mindset?
Honestly it sounds crazy, but you have to talk to yourself, not out loud of course, but if it helps, why not.
Its hard but I found the best way is finding the voice/reasoning in your mind that:
Make excuses for what you can and cannot do, when you encounter a challenge or something difficult.
response: Tell yourself, that you are not limited by what people say you can and cannot do. If your not good at something its because you haven't had enough practice or you never really tried that. Attempt new things.
The part that tries to shelter your ego, by blaming something else other than yourself.
response: You lose a game or something goes wrong. Tell yourself its not luck, its not someone else, its not anything else. If you lost or something went wrong, there is always something you could have done better. Focus on that. If you lose or fail in some way. Don't concentrate or mull in your lose or failure, focus one WHAT YOU LEARNED from that experience. Reflect that because that happened you understand how to deal with that situation and you've grown.
Interprets every personal remark someone makes about you or something you do, as a comment on your person or pride. response: someone just said you supply block yourself all the time. You hear, your a shitty player and a fucking noob. What you should hear, I supply block myself alot, I need to change something in my play, I'm going to iron out my builds a bit more, and focus my next 10 ladder games on not getting supply blocked.
the part that tells you that you don't want to work or practice because you don't have to.
response: You hear, If i have to practice that mean's im not good. You should hear, I need to practice in order to get better, I am going to embrace this challenge and really get myself into this new build or look at some replays and write down some timing attacks to be safe against.
the part that makes you jealous when someone else is doing good, or the part that tries to constantly justify why other people are not better than you in some aspects, or why your a better overall person. Your friend makes master league and your still in diamond. You think, Jeez how'd he get into masters league I'm so much better than him, I beat him all the time. You should think, Wow im really happy my friend got into masters, I wonder what he improved to do it, maybe i can learn from him. I've got a masters practice partner awesome, Lets go run some practice games so I can refine my matchup.
Wow, thank you for this reply. I have been doing everything you posted right here, quite literally actually, and its working! I am actually feeling better about playing games now. I am also using this advice for my school work too. It really changes how i feel when i am doing it.
why saying europeans (scandinavians) ?`sure sweden etc is great but ukraine germany etc are pretty much on a near level, ukraine perhaps even better and there is no other super strong scan country beside sweden (and since scan. is part of europe no reason to name it)
On September 15 2011 14:33 CoR wrote: why saying europeans (scandinavians) ?`sure sweden etc is great but ukraine germany etc are pretty much on a near level, ukraine perhaps even better and there is no other super strong scan country beside sweden (and since scan. is part of europe no reason to name it)
so ... not that nice start of a nice read
In the past scandanavia has been dominating the EU sc2 scene, now its less so, and other countries like portugal, france and germany have solid players. It was meant to be a generalization, I wasn't trying to be too specific, sorry bro
On September 15 2011 14:33 CoR wrote: why saying europeans (scandinavians) ?`sure sweden etc is great but ukraine germany etc are pretty much on a near level, ukraine perhaps even better and there is no other super strong scan country beside sweden (and since scan. is part of europe no reason to name it)
so ... not that nice start of a nice read
In the past scandanavia has been dominating the EU sc2 scene, now its less so, and other countries like portugal, france and germany have solid players. It was meant to be a generalization, I wasn't trying to be too specific, sorry bro
I agree with the first guy. The actual advice for regular players is great but everything else is speculation at best and kinda ruins what cound have been a great OP in my opinion.
On September 15 2011 14:33 CoR wrote: why saying europeans (scandinavians) ?`sure sweden etc is great but ukraine germany etc are pretty much on a near level, ukraine perhaps even better and there is no other super strong scan country beside sweden (and since scan. is part of europe no reason to name it)
so ... not that nice start of a nice read
In the past scandanavia has been dominating the EU sc2 scene, now its less so, and other countries like portugal, france and germany have solid players. It was meant to be a generalization, I wasn't trying to be too specific, sorry bro
I agree with the first guy. The actual advice for regular players is great but everything else is speculation at best and kinda ruins what cound have been a great OP in my opinion.
Well, it is speculation, about the relation between korean players ladder fear and mindset, however the main point was to help people with mindset. Of course the korean culture part is all opinion, that's all, can I post my opinion on a forum TL ?
On September 14 2011 17:01 Hexagecz wrote: I wa also in fear of laddering but now i dont give a shit on ladder i play to be better. gg after game. I found out that after i have lost my care about ladder points i can play normaly
Obviously you care, just not in the same way as before. I mean if you don't give a crap, why even bother? Finding good players to custom with would be better if that's the case, i would think.
customs are good for practicing builds, but to actually improve, not really. I mean one game is a bronze the next is a Grandmaster, are you really learning anything?
Obviously finding good practice partners is key to this, but if you do, i can't see a "ladderplayer" ever keeping up. Ladder is good practice for learning how to play against different styles, but as i've heard people say before, facing a strat on ladder and in a competitive game can be so harshly different that it might even hurt you in the end, if you think you can hold stuff off just because you've played against players that execute that strategy, but not as well as your current opponent.
MorroW actually stated something pretty darn close to exactly this when he lost the Assembly finals to ret. He had faced the strategy that ret applied in all games, they were just not as well executed, and thus MorroW thought he could hold it off (or bust through it) with less than actually possible.
Obviously this won't apply to every situation, but you get the point.
Not caring and just playing laddergame after laddergame to improve can easily get your own opinion about your play scewed, regardless of mindset. I've had this happen to me aswell, obviously not on the same scale, but to a notable extent.
I also believe that always trying to win is gonna get you to your goals the fastest, and not caring is pretty far from trying to be a winner. Instead of not caring, i think it would be more beneficial to care more, and try asking some opponents for advice, than just mindlessly playing ladder for improvement.
Now i'm not saying that's what anyone is doing, but that's the feeling i get when someone says they don't care. I might be more of a competitor than others, but not caring is never an option for me.
Yeah you should definitely care about winning, I just feel like the priority should be given to IMPROVING. Practice partners are great although you have to get good at playing X v X rather than X v "Your practice partner." Ladder, has its limitations granted, but you should never have to fear or get anxious about laddering, or get so titled you go on a massive lose-streak. Mindset is just one part of getting better at starcraft and anything in general. Good points!
If you fear, or get anxious about your laddering, maybe competition is not the place for you? (not saying you specifically, but people in general) Imagine how you would feel if you ever were in a real competitive game if you can't even gather the courage to ladder. Maybe you should revisit and review your reasons for even playing the game in the fashion you are at the moment?
It might just be me who has alot of friends in sc2, but i can easily pick out atleast two players of each race that would be worthy opponents for me to practice and improve with. Also sticking to either customs or ladder exclusively i don't think would be beneficial, i think your tactical "core" should come from customs, and you use ladder for mostly mechanical improvements, and to keep up with the current trends.
Practicing only on ladder could possibly skew your own understanding of your skill, for both obvious, and previously stated reasons. (poorly executed strategies, major leaps in opponent skillevels from game to game, and loads of other things)
Practicing only through customs could leave you behind the current meta-game trends, and as practicing with someone else mostly focuses on your tactical play, your mechanics could suffer, depending on how you and your partner go about training.
I just typed what i was thinking, didn't read through it, sorry if i made no sense at all.
Great points! only thing is disagree with is this
"If you fear, or get anxious about your laddering, maybe competition is not the place for you? (not saying you specifically, but people in general) Imagine how you would feel if you ever were in a real competitive game if you can't even gather the courage to ladder. Maybe you should revisit and review your reasons for even playing the game in the fashion you are at the moment?"
It's very fixed mindset to view people as "not competitive" or "anxious." I believe people can change if they make the effort to, to get over their ladder fear or get over their competitive phobias. Quitting or giving up is easy to do, but you'll never improve as a person if you give up on such simple stuff as starcraft. The stuff about practice partners and such is great though!
"Maybe you should revisit and review your reasons for even playing the game in the fashion you are at the moment?" Was supposed to be the emphazised part, as beeing 'afraid' to que up can't be any fun at all, but surely its possible to overcome.
On September 21 2011 11:19 beachbeachy wrote: Inspiring post. This will help me solve my own mindset problems in all aspects of my life =)
Awesome, Thanks! Remember its not easy to change your mindset, nothing rewarding is very easy. It takes alot of catching yourself having bad habits
I admire what you're doing here and you have given great advice but you should watch out about sounding too optimistic about everything. There are things that are both easy and rewarding: watching movies, reading books, sex, eating... (I could go on for a long time). I, and I'm sure others, stop listening when people start breaking out a different cliche like "nothing rewarding is very easy" whenever they try to make a point. Please just stick to your own thoughts (because they are worthwhile) instead of going for the easy fix with cliches.
Nice post. I think I have a growth mindset. =) At least I never shy away from a 0-20 beatdown vs friends or online. They always run away and say they're bored when I start to learn to beat them. =)
Maybe it's all those years of my childhood slamming my head into a brick wall a.k.a. trying to beat those super hard NES games.
Amazing article i think i gave a growth mindset but need to work more on that in day by day life, but in game i started as a mid bronze in S1 in S2 i went in Silver rank 1 then moved to gold rank 5 entered in S3 as gold and now im top platinum but i want to move on, i want more and more and i even played with 50% handicap (that's 50% less life on units) and want to play some players too, this way i need to play perfectly to win and in the long run is really good, i play even in master tourny to get the opportunity to play with master caliber players.
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