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An Absolute Puzzle

Byjack

I am completely confused and upset by how this girl that I play Valorant went from having so much fun to always getting annoyed and mad.

Facts that I know:

  1. Used to beg me to play constantly, only stopped because I was too busy with work so I said no all the time
  2. Used to laugh and think I was very funny in games
  3. At first, was resistant to smurfing, but after she was convinced, had a ton of fun trolling on smurfs including doing frenzy only challenge
  4. Used to be afraid to talk in voice chat, only talked to me
  5. Spent all her time talking to me on Valorant and ignored her relationship because of how much she liked playing with me

She used to be my favorite person to play with for several months:

  1. Was always fun and chill
  2. Could make jokes or talk about deep stuff
  3. Made me feel special because she only wanted to play with me
  4. Would actually listen to strats unlike some girls who would get defensive when given any feedback
  5. Was very smart and improved a great deal in the time we played

However, somehow, after months of having lots and lots of fun, everything has taken a dramatic turn:

  1. Gets annoyed when she isn’t doing well and takes the game very seriously
  2. Gets annoyed when I’m taking the game too seriously but also gets mad when I goof off
  3. Wants everyone to be mean and toxic yet gets upset when people are toxic back
  4. Is mad when I’m goofing off and think I’m somehow trying very hard to be funny
  5. Claims that unrated it doesn’t matter if she wins or loses but gets mad when she loses
  6. Claims smurfs don’t matter but somehow gets mad when she loses on a smurf
  7. Somehow is able to have fun with other people and refuses to play with me now
  8. Cannot seem to remember any of our happy times and insists that she never had fun

Some factors that I think may contribute:

  1. May have been taught by someone that being slow and boring is a very bad thing, seems to be overly concerned with it and projects onto other people
  2. May feel a really strong pressure to do well, seemed to take the game extremely seriously after her friend started playing on it
  3. May also feel a great deal of pressure to play well and be less toxic around me because she wants it to work out, the pressure may cause her to do worse, and be even more toxic
  4. May feel a sense of superiority or arrogance? When we first started playing, she kept telling me she was afraid I would stop playing with her because she was lower elo than me. I never did, but always wondered if she would stop playing with me if she got better than me.

Altogether I can’t really make sense of this phenomenon and it does bother me a great deal. I suppose on some level I must accept that something about Valorant and playing with me triggers her in some deep way and that I shouldn’t let that stop me from having fun. It does make me sad that things have changed so dramatically and I lost my favorite Valorant buddy.

Valorant has become significantly less fun for me now. It almost feels like work, instead of a game that I loved. There was a period of time when I was playing with her that I truly let go of the need to win and actually just had fun. I don’t know what I need to do to get that feeling back. I hope she finds a way to have fun as well, but it breaks my heart that it isn’t with me.

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Workpost 36: Satisfied

Byjack

I feel tired today. Back is stiff. Eyes are blurry. Fatigue racks my body.

At least today, I tried to nap and relax in the morning. Will, try to continue today.

My goal is to feel satisfied enough by the end of the end so when I enforce strict bedtime at 11PM, I will feel good about it.

Mr. Beast’s Tips For Youtube

Byjack
  • Get a good friend group
  • Have a controversial opinion – make them think “what the fuck did he put in the video”
    • Match expectations immediately
    • Then exceed them
  • Change the word algorithm to audience
    • If the algorithm didn’t like your video, your audience didn’t
  • Mr. Beast just wants to make the best video ever, period no matter how much time or money
  • If a viewer liked the last video, they will like the new one
  • It is a lot easier to make one video go viral then get lots of views on lots of videos
  • Have a payoff at the end so more people watch
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Valorant 30: Resetting

Byjack

Rank got reset yesterday. I am sliding back into gold 1.

I thought about a few things today:

  1. Creating a Valorant learning course syllabus
  2. Focusing on playing the perfect game
  3. Focusing on effort and energy
  4. Focusing on the personal journey I am going on and the lessons I learn about myself
  5. Alex Hormzi approach of making it impossible for you to fail

Lessons I’ve learned about myself so far:

  1. Success means love to me
  2. Anger and rage covers hopelessness and out of control feeling of something that is uncontrollable or difficult
  3. I yell at myself because I’m afraid of failing

UNIT 1: VOD Review

  • Day 1 – TenZ – 3/9/23
  • Day 2 – CNED – 3/10/23
  • Day 3 – Yay – 3/11/23

UNIT 2: Map Understanding

  • Day 1 – Icebox – 3/12/23
  • Day 2 – Split – 3/13/23
  • Day 3 – Ascent – 3/14/23

UNIT 3: Mechanical Breakdown

  • Day 1 – Crosshair Placement – 3/15/23
  • Day 2 – Flicking – 3/16/23
  • Day 3 – Spray Control – 3/17/23
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Valorant 27: Confidence

Byjack

I’ve been thinking more about confidence in Valorant and it actually made me think a lot more about what makes confidence. I originally was interested in how to multitask because I thought that was what would make me stronger in Valorant, but I wasn’t able to find any useful information on it.

I ended up searching multitasking in sports, and I was specifically in interested in the basketball videos when they talked about confidence.

The first video was this:

Ideas:

  • Confidence is not about positive or negative thinking
  • There are two ways of thinking
    • Logically and analytically
    • Intuitively
  • Confidence is about trusting the second type of thinking
  • Timing cannot be thought

Ideas:

  • People often rely on outside sources of confidence
    • Success
    • External Validation
    • Comparing ourselves with others
  • These outside sources of validation are not reliable
  • Confidence comes from being able to trust yourself
  • Trustworthiness is from people who follow a code
    • Ex: Warrior code “no man left behind” (inspires confidence in your unit because other people won’t leave you behind)
    • Ex: Courage over success, valuing courage over failure or success validation
  • Code must be specific and have specific actions you take to fulfill it
  • Mantras can be helpful

So as they say in the video to do, I am writing down the things I use for confidence in Valorant:

  • Success – high KDA, increasing elo
  • Comparison – high KDA compared to others, higher rank
  • Knowledge and practice – learning techniques and practicing them
  • Performance – being able to predict moves, hitting my shots

What I admire in other players:

  • Clarity in thinking
  • Creative plays
  • Fast reactions
  • Precise mechanics
  • Boldness/confidence

I’ll take each of these a step further to draft out my code. I’m going to see if I can break down what I make each of these things mean:

  • I make success mean that I’m smart that I’m special
  • I make comparison mean that I’m special, that I’m a valuable or worthy person
  • I make knowledge and practice mean I’m smart and that I deserve to be heard
  • I make performance mean that I’m special and I’m capable

For the second list:

  • I make clarity mean that someone is smart
  • I make creativity mean intelligence, specialness, worthy of love and admiration
  • I make fast reactions means someone is attractive
  • Precise mechanics I make it mean someone is capable, valuable and worth a lot
  • Boldness and confidence I make it mean someone is valuable and special

To think about it further my code might need to address:

  • Inner value – what is valuable about myself
  • Inner specialness – what do I think is special about myself
  • Inner love and admiration – what do I love and admire about myself
  • Inner capability – what makes myself capable

I don’t really know what my code can be but one aspect that keeps coming up for all of these things are valuing feelings and focusing on radical permission.

Those are two things that I feel make me unique, I value myself and are a way to find freedom and give myself love and admiration.

I suppose I can also focus on the challenge in life, the idea of courage or challenge over success is something else that I admire about value about myself. Deep thinking, letting the answer of hard questions come to me as well.

The ways that I could act out this code in Valorant:

  • Check in to how I’m feeling
  • Vocalize my feelings
  • Check in to how others are feeling
  • Let the energy carry action
  • Let the plan form in my mind
  • Create a challenge at the start of every round

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Valorant 24: Looking Forward

Byjack

I’m thinking ahead to my next goal in Valorant. I think the next step is getting to Ascendant. It is going to take a lot of work just getting back to plat. Here is a VOD review where I got 1 kill the entire game. I reviewed the VOD with my brother’s friend who is a big brained diamond player.

It’s actually interesting, I think I need people who are higher elo but not too much higher because I need someone who can explain a few things, not everything all at once.

Some of the main takeaways from the VOD review on areas I can work on:

  • Playing off of teammates (using the analogy of treating them as a sky dog / sova drone / skye cabbage)
    • Follow them in
    • Use them as a distraction and to gather information
    • If they die, no biggie, they aren’t worth anything to me dead
    • If I cannot trade, I can just fall off
  • Gather notes on what the enemy patterns are
  • Think about how they play worked for them in the past rounds
  • Peek and clear more confidently
  • Don’t be afraid to make noise and util to clear a site, even if they know I’m there, it’s better than planting with no knowledge of where they are
  • Use skye binds to peek, don’t waste the util
  • Any information on someone in the vicinity or at the areas of no control (at the start of the round, or when we give up control) should be treated with extreme caution