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On June 01 2012 12:15 Inquisitor1323 wrote: Lol the biggest ladder anxiety problem for me is when my brother watches me play and calls me a shitty player throughout the game.
Ehm, well then don't play when your brother's around because he's a dick? I understand it's easier said than done, but that really is just him being a asshole :/
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I can pinpoint the source of my anxiety exactly.
I'm worried I'll get demoted after a loss streak. The thing is, no one knows my ladder ID. I'm not worried about public appearances. The only person I have anything to prove to is myself.
Realistically, my skill has reached a plateau (in plat, ironically) where I can tell that getting onward requires me to do focused training. I don't have the time or energy for it. And since I don't play SC2 socially, getting better at it is the only reason to play.
So just laddering to pass the time carries no reward for me (since I know I won't get to Diamond or Master by just spamming games), but does carry the risk of being demoted.
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On June 01 2012 21:21 Dingodile wrote: Can someone tell me why I have ladder anxiety, although I have no anxiety, if I play LAN (even vs unknown players)?
On ladder, the mutual assumption is that your opponent is your enemy. Most 1v1 opponents won't pat you on your back when you lose to them, and you won't have the chance to rematch them.
Ie; ladder is basically a "BO1 to the death".
This leads to:
* More perceived social tension than LAN * Stronger failure scenarios
Some solutions that have been suggested in this thread: * Play customs * Decide in advance how many games you are going to play (ie. make your own BO9, "you vs the ladder", or similar) * As many have mentioned, "gging" and good manners help somewhat to lower the perceived social tension.
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I'd like to know what your take on individuals who fail to get ladder anxiety. Prior to returning to work full time I had more ladder games played than anyone in the top 500 of NA. I've been passed by several people due to not having time to play, but I've read many threads about ladder anxiety and I don't understand it at all. Am I abnormal?
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I don't see why anyone should care about ladder anxiety.
It's impossible to stuff up your account. The MMR Is set up in a way such that you will always be moved to your skill level.
If you get stressed because you got demoted, it shouldn't be stressful if you keep in mind, that you've been demoted because you're not good enough for that league, and that if you really are good enough for that league you will eventually be promoted.
You will win ~50% of games, and in the long run you will be place where you a meant to be. The ladder is self-correcting. So why are people afraid of it?
So what are you afraid of? Losing? Everyone loses half their games, half of all your time playing SC2 has already been spent in a losing game, it should be a very familiar and expected feeling.
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On June 08 2012 00:27 paralleluniverse wrote: I don't see why anyone should care about ladder anxiety.
It's impossible to stuff up your account. The MMR Is set up in a way such that you will always be moved to your skill level.
If you get stressed because you got demoted, it shouldn't be stressful if you keep in mind, that you've been demoted because you're not good enough for that league, and that if you really are good enough for that league you will eventually be promoted.
You will win ~50% of games, and in the long run you will be place where you a meant to be. The ladder is self-correcting. So why are people afraid of it?
So what are you afraid of? Losing? Everyone loses half their games, half of all your time playing SC2 has already been spent in a losing game, it should be a very familiar and expected feeling.
Read the first post.
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On June 08 2012 01:02 Animzor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 00:27 paralleluniverse wrote: I don't see why anyone should care about ladder anxiety.
It's impossible to stuff up your account. The MMR Is set up in a way such that you will always be moved to your skill level.
If you get stressed because you got demoted, it shouldn't be stressful if you keep in mind, that you've been demoted because you're not good enough for that league, and that if you really are good enough for that league you will eventually be promoted.
You will win ~50% of games, and in the long run you will be place where you a meant to be. The ladder is self-correcting. So why are people afraid of it?
So what are you afraid of? Losing? Everyone loses half their games, half of all your time playing SC2 has already been spent in a losing game, it should be a very familiar and expected feeling. Read the first post. I did. It talks about psychological effects. But if you understand that the ladder is always right in the long run, regardless of how you play, that knowledge should trump those effects. It talks about all these ways to overcome being afraid and feeling bad. But all you need to understand is that how you play in a few games doesn't matter, losing streaks don't matter, neither do winning streaks, these are all short-run hiccups, in the long-run the ladder is always right.
Knowing that you cannot stuff-up, because the ladder is always right in the long run should be enough to stop you from caring about whether you won or lost the last 10 or 20 games. Because in the long run those games don't matter and your profile self-corrects.
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Great read, thanks OP for taking the time to write it up.
@paralleluniverse, perhaps you read the OP but you're missing that it addressed your question. According to his analysis players who experience ladder anxiety don't value being told what skill level they are. So, the fact that the ladder is always right isn't at all comforting. Rather, they want their league to reflect where they want to be. So if you're currently at a gold skill level and you want to be platinum or diamond, you're going to have a very stressful gameplay experience in trying to achieve something that isn't particularly feasible the next time you hit "Find game." And, you don't have to have experienced it to understand it. It is, after all, admittedly irrational.
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Pros tend to discount ladder anxiety because they see ladder points as worthless, since to them its not competitve but rather just a venue for practice. Their competitive outlet, what they're paid to do, are tournaments, so naturally tournament results are what they invest their ego into and where they get nervous ect. Casual players most likely never or very seldom compete in tournaments, so the only way they compete is through ladder. The metric by which a casual player measures their skill is 99% through their ladder rank, so ladder games take on the importance and urgency of tournament games, as well as all the anxiety that comes with being invested in the result of a competitve 1v1. Instead of being very disappointed in themselves because they lost a tournament in the early rounds, the casual player will be disappointed when they are only platinum when they really want to be diamond, and this creates anxiety. Of course this is not a very productive attitude, as practice is much more rewarding when you treat it lightly and focus on learning, but that mindset is sometimes difficult to reach and players tend to get frusturated by losses and play less.
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Been trying to get myself to press the find match button for about a year now, I keep trying to find guides on how to "learn" the game, how to properly macro what are the "simple" starting buildorders etc.
When trying hard AI with just "scouting" it's rushes I lose 50% of the time.
I was Gold Random in season 1 and haven't played since simply because the overwhelming amount of information I still need to learn is daunting to say the least (hotkeys, buildorder, scouting, macro, hold of cheezes etc).
This in combination with me actually being unable to A click units properly due to all the adrenaline running through me at the start of just an AI game keeps me circling back to TL and youtube for guides.
Saw the record of a high master zerg who was bronze in season 1 and has been masters for two seasons now. I find myself thinking that If only I kept to my 5 games a day I'd be a bit better off but alas.
still shaking my bricks to even try the hard AI again.
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I kind of enjoy the adrenaline. I'm hoping that getting used to it through starcraft will help me deal with it better in real life situations. I'm sure we could benefit from learning to control our nerves. Public speaking is one thing that comes to mind.
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I just have to force myself to play games. I always enjoy it once I start. >.<
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Day9 just talked about this in his AMA, and cut the bullshit pretty badly, what he said was:
If you find it hard to play more than 3 games per day, just sit down, and tell yourself to play 10, or 20. Whatever the target is, just force yourself to do it and you'll be more comfortable with it.
Another thing which I've found to help some is to realise that only you care about your ladderpoints/league. Nobody else.
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Thank you so much This is very informative and I think i'll ladder now, silver league here I come !!!
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i felt so much better about laddering after reading this thank you soooooooo much!!!!
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I came here to get away from studying for my neuropsychology exam and came across this :p. Good read!
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A very well written and thought out post. Nicely done!
I used to have huge ladder anxiety. I would log on every day and never play a game. I didn't want to get demoted from Platinum. I had worked so hard to get there. After skipping 2 seasons I had to redo my placement games. I purposely lost all 5 so I would get placed in bronze so that my ego wouldn't get in the way of laddering.
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On June 08 2012 04:57 Vechora wrote: Been trying to get myself to press the find match button for about a year now, I keep trying to find guides on how to "learn" the game, how to properly macro what are the "simple" starting buildorders etc.
When trying hard AI with just "scouting" it's rushes I lose 50% of the time.
I was Gold Random in season 1 and haven't played since simply because the overwhelming amount of information I still need to learn is daunting to say the least (hotkeys, buildorder, scouting, macro, hold of cheezes etc).
This in combination with me actually being unable to A click units properly due to all the adrenaline running through me at the start of just an AI game keeps me circling back to TL and youtube for guides.
Saw the record of a high master zerg who was bronze in season 1 and has been masters for two seasons now. I find myself thinking that If only I kept to my 5 games a day I'd be a bit better off but alas.
still shaking my bricks to even try the hard AI again. Sounds like you need to set yourself subgoals. Learn one buildorder for one mu. When it's done, move to the next mu. Find on problem with your play, then move to the next. Dont look at the challenges collectively. It's way to overwhelming.
Also, it sounds to me like you need to realise just what skill-level you are at. Be honest with yourself. Dont make the games be about proving that "yeah! I CAN beat a hard AI/gold player!". Aknowledge you skill level, and play from there. And as others say, force yourself to play. The simply prolonged exposure to the anxiety will make it fade away over time.
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On December 22 2011 05:10 partysnatcher wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up!  There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view? Thanks!  CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person. However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome. TL;DR: CBT is pretty good! 
I studied psychology at university, I found it very interesting.
Some points I would add.
Modern psychology that is used today is only about 100 years old.
CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) is considered 'most popular' 'most used' approach to psych, however, my personal observations show that this is in correlation to human beings being 'good workers of society'. For example cognitive behaviour ignores the unique-ness of individuals, ignores the role of culture and the role of the unconcious. In effect, it is used to help people 'function better in regular society situations', hence I believe, why it is so popular among psychologists as it gets results fast (good value for money). This approach is often criticized for only 'scratching the surface'.
Trait approach is another example of psychology being used to help 'society have good workers'. Hence why this approcah is mainly used by Human resources managers trying to match people's traits to job traits.
Psycho-dynamic approach consider uniqueness of individuals and focuses on the unconcious. That is what I like about this approach above CB and Trait approaches. This can be a very expensive (psychologists arnt cheap when you need to go alot) and time consuming, but results not only help people become 'good workers in society' , but can have a greater positive affect on people due to it's work with the unconcious of the individual.
The humanistic approach to psych is one of my favourites. It is often criticized in modern psychology texts due to not strictly being in-line with scientific methods. This approach views humans beings as having a tendency towards growth and self-actualisation - it has spurred what is known as Positive Psychology.
To me, CBT and trait approach is a quick fix to help people 'function in society'. While the other two approaches looks more closely at the uniqueness of the individual and digs deeper into individuals.
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"Why do we get ladder anxiety"
That's dumb. Just press find match.
I really hate all the attention that's being given to it. Only very low level players seem to have a problem with laddering bronze-gold, so instead of feeding into it and acting like its a legitimate reason to not be improving, just tell them to man the fuck up and play and nobody is impressed by their current rank anyway. Know how you beat masters players on ladder? By playing ladder. All it does is match you up with opponents that are at a similar level to you based on the games you've had. There is absolutely nothing in the stakes other than your own improvement if you don't play.
Or, hey, don't ladder. Just play custom games. It really doesn't matter. Who cares?
It's not interesting because the entire concept is stupid. Play games, get better. If you can't handle a ranked ladder then gaming probably isn't for you.
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