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Valorant 6: Feeling Out Aiming

Byjack

I realized something today. While deathmatch and the practice range are a time to focus on hand-mouse-crosshair connection (basically pure aim), that doesn’t work in competitive game practice.

When I practice Valorant in a comp game, I should be feeling out everything including game sense, movement, and ability usage. See, aim in a real game only matters if the other aspects are set up correctly. It matters which agent you play. It matters how your enter, what your ability usage and game sense tell you. I was able to get so many more headshots when I was starting feeling out the entire game not just my aim.

The one area I realized I need the most practice with is game sense – feeling out where the enemies are hiding and being ready for multiple to peak out at once. I either don’t check corners, keep my crosshair super low or lower my guard after killing just one enemy.

I was able to ace with just game sense, ability usage and a little aim.

In the clutch clip, the one area I can clearly see room for improvement is the use of my ult. It was good for the first shot, but the next two shots should have been very intentionally trying to clear out the enemy hiding spots.

Also, in the clip below for the last round, I can see my decision-making skills need work.

  • I need to do something with phoenix and reyna inevitably who were going to rush me. I also had my ult.
  • I could have jiggled the wall, then try to make my way to long.
  • I could have dodged the phoenix flash by hiding in the corner and facing the left.
  • Or I could have peeked hard and try to make my way to long.

Here are the full game clips.

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Valorant 13: Advice From My Brother

Byjack

Today I had a strategy session with my brother who is almost at the rank I want to be (Plat) about major mindset shifts I need to do to get out of Bronze and Silver.

Here are the main areas we came up with:

  1. Learn to play off of contact better: 
    • Swing when you see teammates swinging
    • If you see someone holding, pre-aim and get ready to trade
  2. Crosshair placement and preaiming
    • Holding for wide swing vs close
  3. Methodical clearing
  4. Ability usage
    • Have gameplan for ability usage for the beginning of every attack and defending round
  5. Map awareness
    1. Look at minimap more
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Valorant 43: The End and More

Byjack

I decided today that I need to close out the Valorant challenge for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, most importantly, the challenge is over! I think it is important to have specific success/end criteria for every challenge because then it gives a distinct goal to focus on and allows for new challenges to take its place. My original goal for Valorant was to get to Plat in a month. It instead took maybe over a year, but there is no doubt that I completed the challenge. I have been solidly in Plat 1 for months now and just recently solo-queued up to Plat 2. Before there was a reason to keep the challenge going because I kept dropping back down to Gold, but now I think this challenge is well and truly finished.

Secondly, I noticed that I started posting shorter and less thought-out posts about Valorant. Since the challenge is essentially over and my goal has been achieved, it has completely lost focus…which is why it is important for old challenges to end and new challenges to start. Since my posts about Valorant have evolved into less focused thoughts along my journey in Valorant, I can remove the label of “challenge” and continue making posts of observations and thoughts in my overall Valorant journey. I will always challenge myself in Valorant and it will continue to be a long-term goal to learn from the game and grow as a player and as a person. I don’t need a challenge to denote that ambition because this entire blog is that ambitious. Challenges are meant to be smaller focused time and goal bound tools and structures.

Finally, I have new challenges I want to focus on. I have my art and creative challenge coming up, my jiujitsu challenge, and my sleep challenge. All of those challenges require time and effort and the less distractions and pressure I have, the easier it will be to complete those challenges. I will almost certainly start a new Valorant challenge in the future and I need to set a precedent for that now by closing out old and dead/completed challenges like cobwebs in the mental attic.

P.S. For old times sake, here are my latest strategies in Valorant that got me to Plat 2.

  1. Have a purpose/gameplan every round
  2. Look for multikills, not just killing and running – this gives you awareness even if you end up getting one kill and dipping
  3. Focus on what mindset works for you

To expand on number 3, the main mindsets I like to use:

  1. Flicking mindset (good for if you are feeling lots of energy and quite relaxed). Keep your mouse hand loose and imagine flicking on the enemies. Visualize centering all of the enemies on your screen.
  2. Cart of rails mindset (good for very careful and deliberate clean peeks). Imagine you are sitting in a cart on rails and you want to do a driveby shooting. Your railway car can move left and right but not up or down, and will stop the second your crosshair covers the head of an enemy. Anticipate to see them opposite the direction you peek (moving to the right, anticipate on the left).
  3. Adjust crosshair mindest (good if your micro adjustments are off). After seeing the enemy, focus on the space between your crosshair and their head and use intuitive movement to close that gap, whether it is strafing or moving the mouse.

So it is goodbye for now for the Valorant challenge, but we will probably be back at some point to compile data about this whole challenge and do a couple of retrospectives.

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Valorant 28: How to Get the Feeling for Something

Byjack

This might fall into my Valorant challenge but it goes much deeper.

I started trying to find a way to multitask in Valorant, which led me to thinking about confidence. This led me down a whole path where I was trying to understand how to focus on the game and get into the game, and get into flow.

I finally arrived at a technique that looks something like this:

  1. See the enemy
  2. Imagine their head getting shot
  3. Aim
  4. Shoot

This works for drills, deathmatch anything. The point is that you visualize the outcome first, then take some action (aiming). You don’t immediately aim, you don’t shoot as soon as you visualize.

This does a couple of things:

  • Visualizing hitting the headshot removes anxiety because in my head I can hit the shot
  • Visualization makes me focus on one target and give it my full attention
  • Aiming makes sure I actually hit the shot

On top of this, I can do anything to aim, I can use my movement to aim, I can center my screen, I can do literally anything, the important part is to visualize the headshot before it happens.

In a very interesting turn of events, I’ve actually found this super helpful in music too.

Oftentimes my singing is muddy and unclear. I’ve done something similiar:

  1. Chop the notes into shorter more enunciated syllables
  2. Savor and taste each note
  3. Imagine how I want the note to taste

This does something similar where I am more aware of each note and can sing it with more intention and emotion. I don’t skip ahead too fast, I focus on each word as it comes.

It seems that a combination of a focus on a small step, and visualization helps bring me into the present moment.

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Profit in Peace 6: Day Two

Byjack

Today is the second day in the Profit in Peace Challenge live sessions. I feel really tired. I was dreading this so much.

Questions/thoughts:

  • Calling Amazon a startup sounds like a scammy thing to say
  • I’m so tired of forced enthusiasm
  • I like this analogy
    • If you and your friend start a hot dog stand, and your friend is better than you at cooking, beat him by finding a starving crowd
    • The right bait for the right fish
  • Knowing your customer is about knowing your customer like you know your loved ones when buying Christmas presents
  • Introvert advantage is knowing yourself and knowing what you want
  • Become aware of your own patterns
  • Go to your favorite room in your house, pretend you have 100,000 dollars. Do a window shopping spree.
  • Think about how to create words that describe the whole niche but not specific, hard to find results
  • Pinterest is where people look at what they want to buy, amazon is where people search for the actual item
  • Pinterest > Etsy in 6 months > Amazon 6 months
  • Pinterest extra is an extension that you can use to see the number of saves
  • We are looking for at least 40% margin
  • Six Ps checklist
    • Popularity
      • Look for search volume on amazon (at least 20 thousand)
      • Cerbro reverse product search to find searches
    • Powerplay
      • How much of a difference can we make in this niche
      • Do we have a unique product
      • Is there a dead end search?
    • Persona
      • Do we understand who is this for?
      • Pinterest and internal research
    • Profit
      • Helium10 x ray tool
      • Find supplier on alibaba
      • Look and see how much it takes to manufacture
      • Then do a profitability calculator on a product with a similar size and weight since amazon charges based on size and weight for shipping
      • Need at least a 40% margin because other costs will bring the margin down to 25-30%
    • Practicality
      • Is it practical for you to pay for the costs of sourcing and making your product
    • Powerhouse
      • What is the second and third idea and are they cohesive ideas?
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Profit In Peace 19: Taking Charge

Byjack

I’m angry. I feel trapped at home, at work, and in my relationship. I am tired and uncomfortable like I have no personal space. I am taking charge today.

I don’t know what that means, but right now it means, that for the first time since I came back to my parent’s house, I am doing my daily routine.

Nowhere To Go

My parents

Hovering

Watching

Judging

Like glue stuck to my arms

My girlfriend

A ball of frustration and negativity

That I feel anxiety in my core

Every time she pulls at me

My work a clash between

Two fighting parents

With me stuck in the middle

Where is the space for me?

I feel several realizations come to me when I write about these emotions. First, the technique of taking space. I feel all my oxygen, happiness, room, and sanity is taken away by others. I feel like I’m making myself smaller to give room to others. The first thing I want to do is to start taking up space, making demands, and making myself big.

The second thing that I feel is important (and might give me a clue as to how I can make myself big, and not huddle real small), is remembering my boundaries and needs:

  1. Time – I want to be in control of my time
  2. Honesty – I want to be honest with myself and others
  3. Empathy – I want to empathize and others to empathize with me
  4. Possibility – I want to believe anything is possible
  5. Respect – I want others to show respect for me and my abilities

This already gives me a clearer idea of what is happening here.

I definitely feel a lack of honesty, time, and sometimes respect and empathy at home. In fact, maybe possibility sometimes too. In my relationship I feel lack of honesty, empathy, possibility, and time (and sometimes respect). And at work, I feel a lack of respect, honesty, empathy, and time as well.

I also feel that in every scenario, the key is wanting everyone to like me to not feel uncomfortable.

I caused most of these boundary violations to happen, and that is empowering because I have the ability to change them,

One of the things I want to do instead of wanting everyone to be happy and wanting everyone to like me, is approach people with my same values.

For example, if I want to be honest with someone, empathize with them, show respect, but let go of trying to control how they feel. If I want to be respected more, I can do that with empathy and honesty and respect as well.

This is far more empowering and less stressful because I am in control of myself. I can change how I approach situations, but I cannot control others.