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
I saw this anime recapped last night and I felt it was really inspiring. It was about a guy who needs to create an unprofitable company in order to win money in a game. But in not fearing failure and instead trying to embrace it, he found it hard to not succeed. Obviously this is fiction, and people would find it easy to fail in real life, but there is a part of this that rings true for me.
When you aren’t afraid of failure, it is hard to stave off success. Everything is about having a strong mindset.
Today I want to just focus on the main ideas I said in my previous post:
I played with my brother and his friend who are in Gold 1 and Plat 1 respectively.
I feel that a huge part of the problems I run into in playing Valorant is self doubt.
When I get worried that I am playing with people better than me, instead of learning and adapting, I freeze up and cannot think properly and play worse than I would normally:
I make bad decisions
I don’t take time to aim and spray wildly
I push too fast
One way I’ve handled this is lowering my expectations for myself and my game but this is still an ongoing challenge for me.
I also played with a girl who wasn’t that good at the game on my slow laggy laptop. It was an interesting experience because at first, I did really bad, but I ended up getting so many kills. She wasn’t very good so I felt the people we were matched with were in iron (who I should easily beat) but I found it hard because it’s hard for me to flick onto their head with my laggy laptop. I always find it tough to play on the little f*cker.
Two ways that I adjusted:
Hold angles, stop pushing so fast
Make sure I isolate as much as possible. Even if I miss, I might not die if I don’t peek out to 3 or 4 enemies.
I feel like these lessons can pass over to my regular gaming PC.
There are so many nice people I meet along the road if I’m just being myself and open to people.
When I was on the plane to Napa Valley I sat next to a couple. The girl got really excited when I wanted to draw with my fountain pen because her boyfriend said she loves that stuff and was an art major like me. I couldn’t get the ink of the pen and but got ink over my hands. She gave me her wet wipe in order to wipe ink off my hands. Her boyfriend lent me a pen when I asked for one to draw with. She braided her hair to show me how braids work because I wanted to draw a character with a huge braid. She offered me her chips when I said I was hungry. She was teasing me so much and was so friendly it actually got a bit awkward with her boyfriend who didn’t seem so pleased.
When I was hiking on Napa Valley, I told a couple that it was worth the view but I had to come back down because I didn’t bring any water. The girl asked me if I wanted any of her water, and asked me if I had to cup to pour it into. Then she and her boyfriend tried to help me find a water fountain.
Also when I was in Napa Valley, I forgot to bring a pen with me to draw with. I asked the girl at the front if I could borrow or buy one. She pulled out a packet of pens and just gave me one.
When I was in Austin looking at apartments, the girl who was showing me apartments told me about how Oracle was buying the apartment complex and that she wasn’t supposed to tell me. She told me I had a really nice vibe. I feel bad because I may have gotten her in trouble because when we got back to the office, I asked her about the Oracle acquisition REALLY loudly because I forgot and she put a finger to her lips and looked really nervous. I was mortified.
When I was in Houston taking photos on the rooftop, I was feeling awkward because everyone there was in their own groups talking and they are all from Citi bank but I was taking photos by myself with a tripod. When I got in the elevator, two girls were telling me how they saw me shooting photos. “You got some good shots right? We saw you,” they told me. One girl said she was calling me the other girl’s brother since she also takes pictures. She asked me whether I lived in the area, and I told her no that I was visiting from DC.
When I went to a Chinese restaurant in Houston and I was struggling to figure out what to order, the waiter came up and asked me what I wanted to order. He asked me if I was Chinese, and I responded in Chinese. He asked me if I was born in China or the US and I told him I was born in Denmark and he said it was a nice place. He said he was from Hong Kong. “I can make something Chinese style for you”, he said and made me a custom dish with eggplant, chicken and string beans. I asked him to take a picture with me, for the memories. He agreed and asked me mine name. He told me his name but I only remember his surname (Leung).
I think back to the guy who asked me yesterday whether or not I was a Youtuber and I think I was so busy being self-conscious and embarrassed, that I closed off the chance that he could have also been a nice person. Even after I told him I had 300 subs, he said to me to keep up the good work. I was just so embarrassed I got out of there as quickly as I could.
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.
Ever since I left my house and went off to college, it has been increasingly hard to go to bed on time.
It’s killing me. I don’t recover from workouts, my mind is foggy, and my memory mists away. My moods feel erratic and neurotic. Energy during the day is a thing of the past.
And yet I cannot stop.
2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am. I keep going to bed late. And sometimes later and later.
I tried so many times to go to be at a reasonable time. I try for a few days, and then I relapse. But we aren’t giving up. We are trying it one more time.
And I didn’t do it alone. My good friend Edgar gave me this kick in the butt:
So what is my gameplan this time? How am I going to succeed when I failed so many times before?
A couple of things:
I will not try to control how much sleep I get
I will not try to control my screen habits
I will not control anything but one single factor, which is my bedtime
At the same time, I will figure out what needs I am meeting by going to bed late and how to meet those needs earlier in the day
I will commit to this bedtime long enough to form a habit
I made a list of reasons why I love staying up late at night:
Completely alone
Lots of time – no rush
Sense of accomplishment (if I feel I haven’t accomplished anything yet it gives me more time to get things done)
Consume art
Nighttime magical vibes
Dread of the next day
More time to eat and digest
I realized that not sleeping is incredibly compelling to me. It is far more challenging for me to go to sleep on time than most people. So as a result, I need to keep it simple. Bedtime at 11 PM for the next 66 days, no exceptions. The challenge will end on December 12th. I am two days into this challenge already.
What does this mean?
I can eat right before bed
I can watch videos in my bed after 11
I can get back up, stretch if I cannot fall asleep, then go back to bed
I can toss and turn at 11
I can get up at 6 am if I have work that needs to be done but I don’t have the time to finish it
In the meantime, in an attempt to meet all my needs before bed:
I will silence notifications and try to find some alone time every day
I will work to identify a task that is feasible to do and will give me a strong sense of accomplishment every day
I will try to get this done early so that I will have larger open times during the day where I don’t feel rushed
I will pursue more art and magical vibes
I will try to leave gifts for myself the next day so I have positive anticipation(ex: a clean empty sink, plans for something fun)
I will try to eat at 8 pm at the latest so I have time to digest before 11
In terms of how to structure the next 66 days, I have not decided yet, but perhaps I will try to focus on each of the needs and strategies every week.
Some additional strategies/thoughts:
Turning off all the lights
Melatonin gummies
So far, finding a way to feel accomplished/ready for the next day has been a game-changer in wanting to go to sleep. Also, it is easier to go to sleep when bedtime is a hard boundary that is very strict and everything else is quite relaxed (I can still get less sleep and wake up super earlier if I feel I’m not prepared for the next day, I don’t have to go to sleep as long as I’m in bed). Nothing is tempting as a valid excuse/difficult decision anymore.
So tentatively I feel this time will be different. My hope is that after 66 days, I will no longer have to try to go to bed at 11, it will just be automatic, and I will start to cherish my sleep and life in general!
A excellent video of someone reaching radiant from silver
A video of how to aim well by Scream a team liquid professional valorant player
What I realized is that there are many ways to improve and win valorant games and climb to plat. There are somethings that will make it easier but you don’t need to do all of them.
Valorant, like life, is a game with specific rules, but how you play it is up to you.
A few different examples:
You can play only solo queue (deciding to team up with random people)
You can play only with people you know
You can play the game to gain rank
You can play the game to try out the different agents
You can play the game for the high reaction time and mechanical skill like aiming
You can play the game for the strategy required
I decided to make a list of how I want to play Valorant in the context of this challenge.
I want to play with people who are fun to hang out with
I want to make the entire game comfortable to play for me
I want to focus on the actual objective, killing all the enemies and winning each round
Step 1: Finding people to play with
The most efficient way is just to focus on playing with people I already like playing with and try to meet new people by adding new people from games I play. I should also focus on unadding people I don’t like playing with.
Step 2: Making the game comfortable for me
The areas I need to focus on being more comfortable:
Minimap
Being able to visualize where everyone is just looking at the map
Aiming
Being able to comfortably get the physical mechanics of aim and crosshair placement down
Movement
Knowing the different ways and distances to peek comfortably
Abilities
Knowing lineups and ability planning
Clearing
Knowing how to path through a site properly
Switching weapons
Knowing the physical coordination of switching knife, pistol and main weapon
Step 3: Focusing on winning rounds
Usually, I am laser-focused on two things:
Abilities
Killing people and not getting killed
I want to reframe Valorant for me.
Generally, you want to either play for a plant/defuse or try to kill every member of the enemy team.
As a result, I want to think about Valorant in the following plays:
Brute force brawl with team, if team is pushing site together
Try to get the enemy to trip up and make a mistake by confusing them and holding weird angles or lurking
Try to set myself up for an ace by having my abilites and pathing planned out
Overall I think Valorant meets the following needs for me:
Growth: Getting better over time
Significance: The chance to practice my learning techniques in a measurable area
Love and connection: Playing with people who I like hanging out with
Here is what I think my routine should generally be:
Warmup physically, and stretch, get pumped up with music
Warmup in deathmatch, get a feeling for the mouse
Warmup in the range and spike rush and defuse
Meditate
Play a game, focus on winning rounds
Vod review, focus on the minimap awareness
Practice in custom game lineup and setups to win next time or win by more