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by on February 9, 2012 Leave a Comment

Coming back to the scene

Competitive burnout is real, and its hard to get past. I have been trying to get into the league of legends competitive scene and its been really taxing on me. After countless losses its hard to tell yourself you want to keep going. I have started playing some single player games to keep myself sane and its been helping. I am hoping this weekend will be a fun stream and maybe get myself the fuel I need to keep playing.

I hope I see my readers there, and I am starting to blog again. School took over a vast amount of my time but it is finally slowing down so I can get some more free time.
Filed Under: News
by on November 28, 2011 Leave a Comment

Book Review: Playing to Win

   I just finished reading Playing to Win: Becoming the Champion by David Sirlin, and I can say without a doubt it should be a must read for anyone getting into competitive gaming. David uses stories and examples from all types of games from Chess to Magic: The gathering, to fighters and Starcaft. The goal of the book is to help the reader view the factors that cause people to become champions at the games they dedicate themselves to, and it accomplishes this goal. Because the book in itself is a summary of a lot of topics, I will just cover the basics and let you read it for yourself.
What I liked:

     This book tries to really dig into why certain people dominate their scene. It doesn’t go over tactics, but instead how tactics are formed, how the meta game shifts, and what pro players do to keep their edge. I found myself taking notes on how to improve my mentality when I play, and it inspired me to write my post about playing to learn, not win. David uses amazing examples from all genres of games to prove his points, and they really help show you how you can use the mentalities he teaches to solve any problem, not just in one specific game.

    Also, the way he ties in the famous book by Sun Tzu the Art of War is amazing. David ties ancient battle principles to the games of today, and really shows that no mater what you play or do, that these principles can still help you solve your problem or win.

What I didn’t like:

   While this book is amazing, there are some flaws that bring it down. People who are already involved in the competitive scene may not find enough new information to justify the purchase. David goes over a lot of topics briefly, and at times does not go as in-depth as I would have liked. While I say that, I also know that he could not have written everything I wanted to see whiteout greatly increasing the length of the book. This point is rather nit-picky, but the book does leave some to be desired. A very small side-note is that the book did come out in 2005, and as most people know, competitive gaming has since exploded in popularity. I would love to see a new edition bringing up some of the new points in gaming.

Bottom Line: Anyone interested in getting better at the games they play, or looking to change their perspective of how to approach problems, should give this book a read. I flew through it, and the examples really keep the book flowing and keep a steady pace.

 

Filed Under: review
by on November 23, 2011 Leave a Comment

Playing to Learn, not Win

    I have been reading an amazing book called “Playing to win” which I will be reviewing fully later in the week. The book has been filled with great mental adjustments you need to make when becoming competitive at gaming. One of the biggest points I have taken from it is the notion of playing to learn.

Once people get to a certain point in any game, but especially League of Legends, they stop themselves from learning. They believe they hit the plateau and now just need to win. This is a crushing blow in terms of their potential and can cause a player to not only stop improving, but become worse as a player. Games are constantly adapting, and a top-level player has to adapt too.  Here are some tips to keep in mind when playing league.

1) Set games aside to learn, and don’t worry about the outcome.
In my group of friends I am known as the guy who always buys the new champion day 1. The appeal for me is to test the new characters limits and see just what they are capable of. Any good player needs to do this not only with new champions, but old ones and ones that you think you know very well. Take a few games to try a new jungle route, try only buying certain items. Stray away from the “meta” and mess with the game.
League of Legends meta shifts so much because people think outside of the box with what we are already given. Recently Sion came out of nowhere and became a complete powerhouse in the mid lane. He wasn’t bad to begin with, it just took a shift in the meta to make him viable. If everyone just played standard, new tactics wouldn’t be flowing as much as they do.

    You also need to know how to adapt in situations, especially in tournaments. People will be trying new builds or new strategies that they have kept secret in order to win, and you will need to counter these. By having a greater knowledge of the game, and not just the current over powered strategies, will help you think on your feet and not get shaken by odd strategies.

2) Don’t be afraid of chance
When you are playing normals don’t be afraid to take chances. While playing safe is always an effective way to stay ahead or at your current pace, you need to know when to take a chance to change the momentum. If your team needs to take an objective or needs some gold to out farm a lane, take a chance. If you catch your opponent idle, it can be a great way to take the lane from them. Imagine a bottom lane where both AD carries are just farming last hits and not really worrying about the other champions. Your opponent may be zoned out, or focused too much on the health bars of the minions to notice your support inching closer. Then a double flash or exhaust can shake him up, and before they have time to react, you get the kill or cause enough damage to make them go back to base. This tactic will put your enemy out of their element because now the game isn’t going how they want it to go, and they will make mistakes. In the end, you may end up messing up the play and causing a death on your team, but taking chances can really help you if your team needs that boost to get ahead.

3) Learn limits in practice to avoid mistakes when it matters
One of the things you need to be constantly questioning is “can I do X and live”? You need to try taking on that gank or taking blue while at ½ hp because you need to learn your limits. If you see a character at 80% and you are at around 50%, try to take them on and see how close you get. Finding out when you can and can’t do things is extremely valuable. Think about it in terms of a knowledge bank. If you know more about those situations then your opponents, they are at a distinct disadvantage. While they are questioning whether the three of them could take you and your team at Baron, you know you can; and you can act without hesitation.

So my advice to everyone is to just try to get back into the learning mindset when playing the game. In a normal, and win or a loss doesn’t really matter, it’s what you gained from your time playing. If you play the same character you always do and learned nothing, was the win really worth the time? Instead, if you played a new character you never tried who you thought was overpowered, learned how they work and their weakness, and can now beat them with your main but lost the round, did you gain more? I would love to hear what you think in the comments below.

Filed Under: League of Legends
by on November 21, 2011 1 Comment

Now You’re 30: Learn the Roles

    Welcome back to Now Your 30, this post will be talking about your first few games before you try to jump into ranked.

One of the biggest hurdles for new players trying to get into the competitive scene is seeing this game differently than when you were leveling. You need to play as a team, and have a balanced composition of champions. Teams that are balanced usually stomp uncoordinated teams because the team fights will be so one sided. In order to make sure this happens, you need to do your part. This means swallowing your pride and playing for the good of the team. You will not always be able to play who you want, but learning a new character can help you find new favorite champions.

Here is a rundown of each of the roles and some of the characters that exemplify them.

Jungler: This character levels by killing the neutral mobs in the forest on the teams side of the map. This role is the hardest for new players to understand, but it is critical for the team in order to play effectively. Having a Jungler allows you’re team to have two solo lanes, which gives you a better experience and gold gain for the whole team The jungler is also useful because they cause the other team to play much more carefully. They usually have good gank potential and can work well with others. Having a jungler forces the other team to be careful when crossing the river. The constant worry of you coming from the bushes allows your team to take more chances.
Examples: Warwick, Lee sin, Xin, Gangplank, Shyvanna

AP Solo mid: This character is usually the main caster of the team. Their job is to farm for the late game, but due to their position they can also help either lane or help take dragon. When you play this role the main goal is to get creep kills, and not actual kills. Getting your AP items quickly will allow you to easily sway team fights. Most mids also have good disables to bring to the fight, which is why they should be in the fray. Remember, when playing mid you need to monitor the map and stay on point. You are a very prime target for jungle ganks so ward either side of the river and stay on the ball with your health management.
Examples: Annie, Karthus, Brand, Xerath

Solo Top: This role has the most leeway when it comes to characters. These champions need a lot of farm and usually scale very well into late game. These characters usually have a form of
sustain, such as heath regen or lifesteal. If not, most tops will buy a philosopher’s stone or a similar item to give them a decent amount of health regeneration. As a solo top your job is to not die, stay in lane as long as possible, and get every advantage you can. When you do decide to come down from top, you will have a natural advantage over the other positions due to a level difference.
Examples: Irelia, Talon, Nasus, Garen

AD Carry: This role is seen as a kill star in lower levels, but becomes a completely different story in high level play. Your job, more than anyone else, is to farm. You scale entirely off of items and need that raw damage from your auto attacks to stand out. This is why you have a support, not to run in and get kills, but to stay in lane forever. For people who are new to these style games, they are called carries because your team carries you through early game then you carry them late game. Your job is to stay alive, stay in the back of team fights, and never stop shooting. Once you get better at this role you will see your ability to siege towers. Because AD carries have decent range and hit hard, they can put shots and whittle down towers during stalemates in lane.
Examples: Caitlyn, Ashe, Graves, Ezreal

Support: Pretty self explanatory, your job is to keep everyone alive. These characters stick with the AD carry and make sure they can creep score without worrying about dieing. You need to stay on top of things, and keep your team in good position. You usually take CV (clairvoyance) so you can help learn the enemies position. Usually you stack gold per 5 items so you don’t need creep score, and ward the map for your team. A selfless roll, but critical to a teams success if played correctly.
Examples: Sona, Soraka, Janna

So these are the basics of each roll and what they do. When you start playing the best thing to do is to try each of them and at least know enough to be dangerous. Once you get better, its ok to specialize in 2-3 of these rolls, but you need to at least know what to do if you are last pick and have to play one you are not the best at.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
by on November 17, 2011 1 Comment

So now you’re 30

    Hey readers, I have decided that I should start a series of articles educating people on what to do once they hit 30 in League of Legends. My goal is to make ELO hell, which I will explain later, more enjoyable by educating the players. I am going to start simple, but some of the more advanced players may still want to skim the articles for some new ideas.    So after what feels like forever you finally reach the level cap in League of Legends. It can be overwhelming because now you are expected to suddenly play at a much higher level. The first thing you should do is realize what is expected of you, and start playing accordingly. But before that, make sure you take advantage of the perks of being 30. Here are some simple things you can do that will help you greatly in play even before the match begins.1) Get your masteries in order:
Pick out your favorite characters and start doing research on what is their optimal mastery page. This is the easiest thing to optimize because it requires no IP or game grinding on your part. Set up some very diverse pages so that you will never have to worry about quickly making a page right before you lock in. I will link to some of the more standard builds so you can have them ready for when you play.

With the radical shift in how masteries work in season 2, people are still testing new optimal builds. Over the course of the next few days people will be updating older guides to reflect the new changes so make sure you are looking at the new builds when you are creating your mastery pages.

2) Start collecting runes:
If you have not yet started buying tier 3 runes, now is the time. People playing at high level use the early game to establish dominance in lanes, and you need every advantage you can get to stay at the level of your opponents. Make sure you start buying runes that compliment your characters. Junglers are usually the most reliant on runes in order to make their paths faster and easier to execute.

These are two things you can do before you even start playing your first match at 30. I hope you enjoy this series and keep reading. Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

Filed Under: League of Legends
by on November 15, 2011 Leave a Comment

Obligatory Skyrim Post

Skyrim has basically been taking up a major amount of my time, and I have no idea how this happened. I never played an elder scrolls game until Oblivion, and even in that game I just ran around and stole stuff. I didn’t get the appeal of open world single player timesinks. I used to think that if I wanted to spend that much time in a game, it better damn well be multiplayer so I could show off; Skyrim changed all of this.
The game has hooked me better than any single player game I have played in my life. It isn’t because of an amazing story or amazing gameplay, its the feeling of discovery. This is the first game in a while that I have not just brought down to a formula, optimized, and played through. I boot it up not knowing what I wish to do, but just go a long with what I feel like. This is such a change of pace from the hallway shooters and rpgs that have come out over the last few years.
Those style games get boring because you do not feel like you are needed. Every gamer went through that exact same experience, and they did it the same way as you. When you talk to your friends about those games, its mostly about the story, and not the game itself. It feels almost like you are talking about a movie. Skryim has completely changed this social formula. I spent hours talking to friends about how we are actually going through the game, and not what they game has shown us. I decided I wanted to work with the Companions, a group of mercenaries with a secret, while my friend decided to abandon everything and run to the mages guild to learn as much magic as possible.
I would recommend this game to anyone who is interested in good games. I know that sounds cliche, but its true. I had zero interest when this game was coming out. I scoffed at reddit and my friends who fawned over every screenshot, but then I got the game and it all changed.

Filed Under: editorial
by on September 12, 2011 Leave a Comment

Streaming Basics: Adding Personality

Add personality to your stream:

 

Hey readers, I have been gathering a lot of information on how streamers stay successful and continue to gain more and more viewers. Twitch.tv is great for this information gathering because they easily show stream count and popularity for each specific game.  After a few days I came to some very basic, but good to know, conclusions.

 

1) You have the chat bar, use it

The great thing about the streaming medium is the instant communication with your viewers. While most pros don’t talk in the chat simply because so many messages go through the chat box with the thousands of viewers. As a small time streamer, you have the opportunity to see your messages and actually respond. If your viewers feel like they can actually reach you, they will perceive that as a value to watching your personal stream over the larger streamers. I would suggest using a second monitor to watch your chat as you play, but if you don’t have that, then just check it in between your games.

 

2) Convert guest into repeat viewers

Once you start communicating with your viewers, you want to use that engagement for good. I would say that the community building has yet to be fully explored. Try to get a call to action in front of them like sharing your link or following you on twitter or the stream sites follow system. Getting your viewers to become repeat viewers will greatly help your stream community. People will start being seen as regulars, and will start to take pride in being on your stream a lot. Try to encourage this by letting people moderate or giving them more attention in the chat. This will give people a great drive to come back and engage.

 

Types of Streams:

So their are a 4 big streaming groups right now. People will just show the game, have the game and music, the game and commentary, and then the game with a webcam view. I ordered them in terms of engagement, and also how you should progress as a streamer.

 

Just the game

I would fully discourage streaming just the game itself. The simple reason is that your viewers will get bored of just watching the game. They could go to a bigger streamers channel if they just wanted to view the gameplay itself. If you have some kind of crazy creative play style, then they might stay, but this usually isn’t the case.

 

The game and music

When you start streaming, you think that you should add music to the stream. This can help you get some personality, but it can also alienate your viewers. If they go to look at your stream and don’t like the music, they will switch immediately and find something else to watch. One of my friends just despises electro, and cannot stand when streamers just blare dubstep while playing. I would say that you can do this if you are still uncomfortable with talking or being on camera. Once you get familiar with streaming , move away from just playing music and add something else to your stream.

 

The game with commentary

 

Once you get comfortable streaming, its time to start directly communicating with your viewers. Using a mic and commentating your games is a great way to add personality to your stream. Having a mic allows you to show a lot of yourself to your viewers. You can be really informative and explain what you are doing step by step in the games. Another good use is to be more entertaining. Being able to joke around while playing can cause people to view you as funny and then they will actually grow attached to you, and not just your play. The greatest example for this medium is Destiny. Most starcraft fans have heard of him and his stream. He decided to talk while streaming, and quickly grew a loyal fanbase because of his antics, and not just refined play.

4 Infestor Hitsquad

 

The game and a webcam

If you are very comfortable with yourself and you are confident in your ability to stay entertaining, then a webcam feed is for you. Slayers Dragon is the most prominent streamer to come to mind who uses his webcam very effectively. He connects with his fans because they see his face, they see his looks of joy or concern. I remember when he hit grandmaster and just started dancing and everyone in the chat were elated. His creative play and entertaining webcam really pulls people to watch him over any other streamer.
As a streamer, you need to find which one of these strategies works for you and really just get out there. Do not think it is a big deal to stream, do it every time you play. Doing this will get you used to having people watch you, and soon you will get comfortable with it. You are also competing with every other streamer, so make sure you make yourself stand out.

Filed Under: Articles
by on September 8, 2011 Leave a Comment

Gordon Hayward: The American Hyunjoon?

hyungjoon

 

So, team liquid and reddit have been blowing up over the announcement of Gordon Hayward, professional basket ball player, and his entrance to the IPL. People are rushing to support him, and basketball bloggers are scorning him for his choice. All of this reminds me of the show hyung joon becomes a progamer.

 

A lot of people had doubts about hyung, and thought he was just doing it for attention, but he tried hard and really wanted to show his skills in Starcraft. I feel like this is what is going on with Gordon. He has slowly been coming onto the starcraft scene, with a featured TL stream and him laddering on occasion. Now that he si diving head on into competing, will the starcraft community rally to him?

 

Gordon Laddering

 

The biggest variable right now is public opinion. Will a pro player of a extremely popular sport move Starcraft into the public eye? Or will people just see gordon throwing away time at a lame hobby. I think that the people who play games, but dont consider themselves hardcore, may actually start to get interested in Starcraft now that someone they know is moving into that scene.

 

I’m glad IGN sees the marketing potential in Gordon, and I hope they motivate him to stay involved in the scene as long as possible and promote Esports.

 

What do you think about the announcement? Publicity stunt, or a honest attempt at breaking into the scene?

Filed Under: Articles
by on September 6, 2011 2 Comments

Ladder Frustration: How to Beat It

 

            It seems like every Starcraft forum has a popular post talking about ladder anxiety or frustration. Everyone wants to improve, but the fear of losing points scares them from even trying. This post will talk about some of the positions people take on laddering and how to stop worrying about it.

 

The ladder will place you where you need to be

During one of Day[9]’s daily shows he started to rant about the ladder. He said that people were delusional when they said, “Yeah I’m in gold but I play like a Plat”. He responded to this saying “No! You are gold, if you played like a plat you would be in plat.” This concept is hard for people to grasp. Most people playing Starcraft want to improve, and they think that is shown by their rank on the ladder. I would say that the ladder is not where you show your skill, its just a rough ranking system. If you want to improve in Starcraft, improve your mechanics, and your win rate will go up naturally. If you are only worried about grabbing ladder points, you wont focus in matches and you will lose a lot of games due to poor mindset. My advice to you is to just forget about your ranking. Try not to check your opponent’s rank after each match, instead just focus on each game.

 

Learn from each ladder match

            When people are laddering they think each game is just a one off experience. You want to move past losses as a fluke and each win was due to you completely out-skilling your opponent. More than likely, this is not the case. You are making mistakes over and over again, and if you don’t take the time to analyze your games, you are missing out on correcting them and they are slowly becoming habit.  I suggest that you keep a notebook or word document, and, after every (yes EVERY) ladder match, you write down what you did wrong, what you need to improve, and what you did well. This notebook will slowly show your habits you need to break, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what you might need to do more research on.

Ladder is for practice, not your end goal

This was one of the best mentalities to have, and few people do. People think they need to get into masters or higher to start competing in tournaments. Because of this, people think that the ladder is their highest goal. This puts so much pressure on every ladder game that basically, you are giving yourself tournament nerves every time you play on ladder. Instead, you should start competing in small online tournaments, and make those your degree of measurement of success. If your goal for the week is to improve your ladder ranking, every loss will feel like you are failing yourself, and you may quit playing early because you think you are just losing your position on the ladder. I have had that feeling before where I think I am only hurting myself if I keep playing, so I quit early and don’t practice as much as I should. What you should be thinking is that you need to use the ladder to practice because you got a tournament coming up that you want to place highly in. Each win or loss on the ladder will only be seen as experience to you. You will start to think “well, I lost to that strategy, at least I will know how to beat it if it happens during my tournament matches”.

 

Overall, if you take the pressure off of ladder, not only will you win more, but your time spent on the ladder will be used more efficiently. You will start actually improving, instead of just playing. If you have any other mental hacks to get past ladder frustration I would love to see them in the comments.

 

 

Filed Under: Articles
by on September 6, 2011 Leave a Comment

Todays stream

So, todays stream went well. The software really worked well and there were no hiccups. My play started strong but then I’m not sure what happened.

PvZ: I just dont understand what to do. I contain them hard, but then they just out produce me, I am not sure what I am supposed to do to them. Their emergency roaches can tear through my army, and I just seem to get out massed.

PvT: I win strategically, but I seem to lose a lot of matches because they just A-move and I lose everything. Im not sure how to engage MMM because they are strong everywhere. Once they max out it doesnt seem like anything ever dies.

PvP: Doing well in this matchup with my 3gate robo, though gas steal really messed me up in one game. 

I feel like I need to find a strong zerg pratice partner because on ladder I am just having the roughest time agaisnt them. I can’t tell when I am ahead or what I should do agaisnt them. 

Filed Under: Updates
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