There is a realization I have recently been coming to slowly and it’s transforming my life.
It is weird because I’ve known this for a long time – I used to say that in order to master something, you need to focus on what feels uncomfortable (not on what is easy).
I don’t know what the new part of the realization is, but something has changed.
My new mentality is to always focus on what is unknown. For things that are logical (like the selling process) logically figure it out. For things that are artistic, form a vision and idea and feel it out.
I’ve been killing it on the aim front. In deathmatch, I absolutely own.
I have been working on a new aiming mechanic, what I like to call the strafing clear. First, I went from silver all the way to gold simply off of working on my site clears. A few things I noted:
Practicing in custom matches is extreemly helpful
Way more helpful than DM flicks
Close angles call for very small clears, big angles are for big wide swings
I’ve been trying to pair this with the counter strafing mechanic and I think I figured out something.
Simply by paying attention to which side of the head you expect your crosshair to be on, you can get a much better strafing shot when you peek/clear an angle.
When you clear, you shoot like normal, if your shot is off, you adjust in the direction you need to.
I'm clearing CT, getting ready to clear the other side of container.
I see the Omen when I clear, I know my crosshair is on his left. So I need to adjust right.
I strafe right onto his head.
Instant headshot.
Let’s say you are clearing one angle, and an enemy pops up on your right. Your crosshair is far to the left of your target, so you quickly adjust, while strafing to the right to line up the perfect flick.
This is extremely useful because not only does this mean that your shots can be super accurate, it means you are moving a lot and making it extreemly hard to hit you (or atleast headshot you).
I think the coolest part, is when you strafe out in one direction, realize the enemy is to the other side of your crosshair so you strafe in the other direction to get the shot.
I also abuse the hit slow (how you freeze if you are hit) to get better accuracy and try to tap the enemy down if I am stopped midstrafe.
That being said, I think that there are a couple of different types of aiming mechanics in Valorant.
Spray control – used for wall spams and smoke spams and long gun fights
Strafing – used for clearing and gun fights out in the open
Distance shooting – used for really far fights
Holding – used to hold again specific peaks
Spray control
Got no real strat. Just try to watch the bullet tracers
Strafing
Watch the relationship between the crosshair and the head (whether left or right). Details are above
Distance Shooting
Use a lot of movement-based aiming for really accurate shots. Tap fire.
Holding
Prepare to duck behind cover, spray a few shots and duck back.
Today I was supposed to work on the upper body, but I found a really cool pose and decided to work on that instead. Unfortunately, it took a very long time to sketch out and I was also very exhausted from drawing until 4AM yesterday. I also had a lot of travel and work coming up so I was a bit stressed and overwhelmed.
I feel sometimes that I put too much on my plate for a challenge. I definitely felt overwhelmed coloring a drawing with this much detail.
Need to operate on a meditative state and trust strong intuition in order to reduce brain effort
Warmup felt a bit unfocused, maybe want to try specific thinking strategies, especially involving exercise
I have a bit of a headache now, but I don’t think it is because of the way I worked, I think it’s because of how tired I am, maybe need more rest + exercise, would like to try with a more exercise heavy strategy.
Felt like MUCH longer than an hour, felt like I have been working for 3 hours.
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? I feel this work was worth maybe $200-$300. Rather tedious coding type work.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? Maybe a 7.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 30% percentile
Gains in communication and charisma? A little since I am making the code more readable and clear.
Match 2
Reflections:
A lot less tension, with additional movement and breathing
Still trying to get my mind to cut through problems like a knife through butter, not sure how
Also felt like I was working for hours
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? I feel this work was worth maybe $150-$200. Lots of grooming, project management, some architecture, some coding.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? About a 7. Maybe 8. Grueling but not that difficult.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 40% percentile. Not that innovative but definitely clever and requires some knowledge and experience.
Gains in communication and charisma? Definitely helped make my flow much more clear. Will help with communication in the future.
So I’ve been stuck in Silver 3 forever after the rank reset and it seems that I need to do a second climb to Plat again. Perhaps I just need to relearn the basics better.
So there is a peeking guide by Noted that I’ve been trying to apply for the longest time and I think I finally understand a good mentality and visualization that can make the peeks good. It is interesting because I’ve been feeling so down about Valorant recently but I always tell myself that the lower elo I go, the more freedom I have to innovate, and innovation is definitely the thing I like to do.
So here is Noted’s peeking guide:
He talks in the peeking guide that its just something you “get used to”. But I wanted to find a way to break it down do that anyone could learn it and that you would never overpeak and angle even if you are not far away enough. This idea of drawing a line to the contested “fighting area” allows for a simple visualisation that will ensure you don’t overpeak, and to do noted’s peek, you simply have to think about drawing a longer line.
I demonstrate it here:
Another note, the best way to peak safely with this method is to have the “line” end close to the edge of the wall, allowing you to peek back in if you miss your shot.
The next piece I might need to refine is just counter strafing because that still isn’t that solid for me, especially for moving targets that I need to constantly adjust for. The initial research into this yields that miyagi-do/looking at distance between crosshair and head is the best solution so far. Results have been good, but it hurts my wrist. I am experimenting with a looser grip and using more of the arm to aim.
I’ve been thinking so long about the fear of failure and embracing pain since the fear of failure holds me back in almost every area of life.
David Goggins is famous for being someone who has made his thing embracing pain.
It’s interesting because I always wrote people like Goggins off, and I still feel like he is missing the subtle touch, the emotional and artistic, but I actually think he is onto something,
Some of the main takeaways:
Embracing showing how messed up you are don’t care what anyone thinks
Everyone is messed up, if they are judging you, they are just better at hiding it than you
Use every naysayer as motivation
When you embrace your faults, you will find the who you really are and pursue that
Self discipline is creating self respect
This self discipline thing has always been interesting to me because I’ve heard this before. But I don’t really understand it. Isn’t discipline yelling at yourself?
The embracing failures and not hiding your failures to see what you really want to be is really telling to me as well. I always wonder what I should do, but I can wonder what I could do. And being willing to show everything wrong with me just will get me closer to clarity on who I am.
