Great write up hit the nail on the head many times. I've always wished people brought a more casual mindset to ladder games. That is to say not be scared of playing or losing. Being competitive is good and should be continued. The thing that bothers me most is people who think the league means anything. So they don't play even though they know they don't deserve their league. The leagues are just a percentage of current player skill so its all relative and really means nothing...except tm maybe. Old diamond is now high plat to GM. So ya play more ladder people don't try to win just have fun and try to improve

Rebel_

Canada94 Posts

January 04 2012 02:16 GMT

#162

Wow, that is really good.

I had ladder fears before, now i don't. Just don't think about winning and don't think of becoming a pro right a way. It takes to time to be skillful in something. No one isn't born pro, from the start. People will wake up and realize that ladder ranks and losses are just mistakes (dumb decision making, cheese or something they cant multitask to beat).

Thanks for giving an insight on the ladder anxiety. Great write up, brah.

SEA KarMa

Australia452 Posts

January 04 2012 06:42 GMT

#163

great read, never knew it was adrenaline, thought i was just really anxious or excited or something.

ZerguufOu

United States107 Posts

January 04 2012 08:40 GMT

#164

nice. very helpful

BGrael

Germany229 Posts

January 04 2012 08:53 GMT

#165

Very interesting article, thank you! By the way, the opposite kind of problem exists too, if I finish a game the "find game button" is clicked before i notice what I'm doing. Maybe that's a way to go too, just click that damn button. I recently got demoted to Plat, and this time I guess I am staying for good, but that has made laddering actually more fun. Maybe People with ladder fear should just start playing goofy until they get demoted, and then work their way back up

kuriz

Denmark141 Posts

January 04 2012 09:17 GMT

#166

This was so good! You touched so many things! I haven't played a whole lot and those few times that I have the "find match" has been so hard to press!

Mawi

Sweden4365 Posts

January 04 2012 10:14 GMT

#167

Enjoyed reading this many things I had no information about will be fun to see if its gonna improve peoples performences after this.

rcee

Sweden23 Posts

January 04 2012 10:36 GMT

#168

On December 22 2011 04:23 FADCoUltra wrote:
Great write up. I suffer from Ladder Anxiety a lot. Like many people described, just really have to pull out every last bit of will power to click that "Find Game" button.

I'm doing a lot better now that I convinced myself to practice new builds on ladder instead of AI, and don't take losses that serious anymore.

But know I have a problem where as soon as I win a game, I don't want to play anymore so I can keep the up feeling from the win and not feel the downs from another loss. It seriously cuts into my game count. Trying to force myself to play a certain number of game a day, no matter win or lose. But still, as soon as I won a game, could be my very first game in a day, I just feel like quit on the high note.

Edit: I actually don't feel too discourage about losing now. It's just immediately feel like stopping after I won a game. Anyone else experiencing this as well?

I used to do the exact same thing. I don't care much about losing but after winning like 3 or more games in a row. I look at my match history and I'm 'satisfied' and feeling discouraged from starting a new game. I'm getting a little bit better but I still have kind of the same problem. It started for me in WC3.

Makelius

76 Posts

January 04 2012 10:37 GMT

#169

I think that I have the opposite of ladder anxiety, I'm always willing to play ladder. But after I have played I get ladder hangover and I'm sad about the points that I may have lost and I think I'm stupid for playing bad.

Grimss

France18 Posts

January 04 2012 10:51 GMT

#170

Wow best article about the "ladder anxiety" I've read so far. I loved the part about adrenaline and social tension.

In my case, I play only about 20 ladder games per season because of this ladder anxiety but I can play hundreds of games against gm friends who are better than me. I also feel no fear but good adrenaline sensation when I play online tournaments or LAN and meet famous players so I had a very hard time to identify what the fuck was this ladder anxiety.

I'll definitly try the manner thing.

Thank you.

yorkey

England69 Posts

January 04 2012 12:07 GMT

#171

Great article.
I suffered with this when first starting out my laddering. I came to sc2 cold, after never playing an rts game properly before so trying to play the ladder was very daunting. I dealt with it by playing team games first(usually 4v4's) and laddering up there, now i realise team laddering as a solo with 3 randoms doesn't have quite the same status as your 1v1 league but for me it was a nice way to start and introduce myself to the scene. The thing about a 4v4 is you can get away with not contributing all that much probably right up to plat as long as you have some good players on your team. I've only ever really reached high end plat levels in 4v4s but around this time, and around the start of plat i found i needed to learn to hold my own. You find people who have reached this level normally have a bit about them so generally all 4 of your opponents will put up a fight meaning you have to as well or your team suffers.

Now this leads me onto how this helped me get over my ladder 1v1 fear, holding my own in high plat 4v4 made me realise that i can actually do this and play this game, just about

This gave me the confidence to go and properly play 1v1's. Before this I would play a handful a week at best but as time went on i gradually played more and wanted to play more. Over time i went from 'please don't let me die right now, and oh dear that army looks scary' to 'ok how to i beat that, that army is big so what do i counter it with'
I found the learning curve was something else that helped me get playing, i found it fun to try and work out how to beat certain things and how to macro better than my opponent and how to get 1 up on them and get a lead.

Over christmas i've played the heaviest i've ever played on it and i'm on the boarder of being promoted to plat in my 1v1. To most this won't seem to much of a big feat but to me it's pretty massive. This rush/adrenaline which put me off before is now what's bringing me back.

The amount of time i've sunk into 1v1's now has made me enjoy playing more and i find im not nervous about pressing 'find game' anymore

But i'm now starting to look at playing a few tournements, nothing major just free one's that i can dip in and see what the experiance is like just as a way of mixing it up. So it's now a case of trying to over come the anxiety with that but this article pretty much relates to it as well

-Cyrus-

United States318 Posts

January 04 2012 15:45 GMT

#172

Purchasing a second account is the best Investment you can possibly make of you are sufferIng from ladder anxiety.

JosephAM

Canada131 Posts

January 04 2012 16:24 GMT

#173

Verryyy interesting. Ladder anxiety's probably one of the reasons I stopped playing ladder. Reading this makes me want to go play again. :D

BraneSC2

United States123 Posts

January 04 2012 17:04 GMT

#174

To me this is the most informative post I've read. Especially since this has been a big deal to me, and probably affects me more than actual strategy does. I will try to keep this in mind.