Views: 1269 Who is H4xDefender Really? (Part two)
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For those who weren't already aware, I play a LOT of league. I've recorded over 1k ranked games in Seasons 3-5, (I'm sitting around 750 for this season atm) and I have about 1500 normal games on my main alone as well. If you include Dominion/3v3/Smurfs/Rotating/Scrims, that is easily an extra 1k hours at least that I've spent playing, and that doesn't include VOD review/watching pro games and content creation. League has taken up a disproportionate amount of time out of my life, for better or for worse.
But why do I keep playing?
It's a mixture of a lot of things actually. (long tangents incoming)
For one, I'm way too ****ing competitive for my own good, but my desire to be a top player and go pro isn't the only reason I play as much as I do.
I started gaming at a really young age, but I was never SUPER into it until I started highschool, because believe it or not, I actually used to be relatively in shape and played traditional sports. (Mainly basketball). Until highschool began, I used gaming as a relaxant, and not much else. When physical limitations (I was like 5'2 and 90 pounds entering highschool ROFL) stopped me from continuing to play, I needed an outlet to satisfy my competitive urges, and it was around that time that I discovered that playing video games at a high level was actually a thing.
Before I got into league, I played a game called Combat Arms and got really ****ing good at it. Long story short, I was pretty much an undisputed top 10 player at points in my career before I retired, and even though the game didn't have anywhere near the playerbase of League, I took a lot of pride in what I accomplished, because getting that proficient at anything is really difficult. When I started playing League and realized I enjoyed the game, I knew immediately that I wanted to replicate what I had done in CA.
But of course, as League was my first MOBA, it wasn't going to come very easily. I put a ton of time into the game, but going pro seemed like nothing more than a pipe-dream until Season 4, over 2 seasons after I had started playing the game.
Season 4 was my "breakout season" so to speak. It was my first foray into the challenger series, and it's when I first established my name in the scene. Long story short, I went on hiatus after a few months of play because I wasn't good enough to play at a high enough level while juggling school. I may go into this in more detail later on, kinda torn on it because it would take a long time. (then again, these entries aren't exactly going to be short).
However, the sheer amount of time I put into the game did not go unnoticed by my parents. They did their damnedest to limit the amount of time I spent on the computer, and it wasn't without reason. The more effort I expended on getting better at League, the less I spent on school. I wasn't strictly a 4.0 GPA student, but I was close enough for long enough that it satisfied my parents, so I normally got quite a bit of freedom.
Nevertheless, I fully understood that the more time I spent on league, the more my grades were suffering... and I wasn't "ok" with it, but I didn't really take steps to prevent it from happening either. This has continued even up to today, and has become more and more severe as time goes by, but I'm too weak-willed to do **** about it, but I'll get into that later.
The point I was trying to make before that long tangent is simply that I played league (and really all games in general) for fun/to unwind before I realized I could actually make a run at going pro, but ever since I started working towards that goal, the line between my actual tryharding to improve and playing for pleasure has blurred. My natural competitiveness prevents me from really having fun when playing unless it is in ranked, but at the same time there are many instances where I queue up for ranked even though I know I shouldn't because my mental state isn't stable enough to play properly, and not playing properly at high ELO means you are going to ****ing lose, so I end up sabotaging my own rating most times. This is the main reason you'll see my ranking on the site fluctuate so much.
So basically, I spend a bunch of time playing because I want to go pro, but also because I play to have fun and satisfy my competitive side/relax. The thing is, these two things can't really go hand in hand, so I end up just frustrating myself... and more often then not, I go play league to fix this. (also, ranked isn't even necessarily the most efficient mode to play to improve, so I'm not improving as fast as I could).
...yeah I'm a dumbass.
if you actually read all this, you are an amazing human being
I'll probably address more personal things next entry. Definitely won't be today though.
-H4x
But why do I keep playing?
It's a mixture of a lot of things actually. (long tangents incoming)
For one, I'm way too ****ing competitive for my own good, but my desire to be a top player and go pro isn't the only reason I play as much as I do.
I started gaming at a really young age, but I was never SUPER into it until I started highschool, because believe it or not, I actually used to be relatively in shape and played traditional sports. (Mainly basketball). Until highschool began, I used gaming as a relaxant, and not much else. When physical limitations (I was like 5'2 and 90 pounds entering highschool ROFL) stopped me from continuing to play, I needed an outlet to satisfy my competitive urges, and it was around that time that I discovered that playing video games at a high level was actually a thing.
Before I got into league, I played a game called Combat Arms and got really ****ing good at it. Long story short, I was pretty much an undisputed top 10 player at points in my career before I retired, and even though the game didn't have anywhere near the playerbase of League, I took a lot of pride in what I accomplished, because getting that proficient at anything is really difficult. When I started playing League and realized I enjoyed the game, I knew immediately that I wanted to replicate what I had done in CA.
But of course, as League was my first MOBA, it wasn't going to come very easily. I put a ton of time into the game, but going pro seemed like nothing more than a pipe-dream until Season 4, over 2 seasons after I had started playing the game.
Season 4 was my "breakout season" so to speak. It was my first foray into the challenger series, and it's when I first established my name in the scene. Long story short, I went on hiatus after a few months of play because I wasn't good enough to play at a high enough level while juggling school. I may go into this in more detail later on, kinda torn on it because it would take a long time. (then again, these entries aren't exactly going to be short).
However, the sheer amount of time I put into the game did not go unnoticed by my parents. They did their damnedest to limit the amount of time I spent on the computer, and it wasn't without reason. The more effort I expended on getting better at League, the less I spent on school. I wasn't strictly a 4.0 GPA student, but I was close enough for long enough that it satisfied my parents, so I normally got quite a bit of freedom.
Nevertheless, I fully understood that the more time I spent on league, the more my grades were suffering... and I wasn't "ok" with it, but I didn't really take steps to prevent it from happening either. This has continued even up to today, and has become more and more severe as time goes by, but I'm too weak-willed to do **** about it, but I'll get into that later.
The point I was trying to make before that long tangent is simply that I played league (and really all games in general) for fun/to unwind before I realized I could actually make a run at going pro, but ever since I started working towards that goal, the line between my actual tryharding to improve and playing for pleasure has blurred. My natural competitiveness prevents me from really having fun when playing unless it is in ranked, but at the same time there are many instances where I queue up for ranked even though I know I shouldn't because my mental state isn't stable enough to play properly, and not playing properly at high ELO means you are going to ****ing lose, so I end up sabotaging my own rating most times. This is the main reason you'll see my ranking on the site fluctuate so much.
So basically, I spend a bunch of time playing because I want to go pro, but also because I play to have fun and satisfy my competitive side/relax. The thing is, these two things can't really go hand in hand, so I end up just frustrating myself... and more often then not, I go play league to fix this. (also, ranked isn't even necessarily the most efficient mode to play to improve, so I'm not improving as fast as I could).
...yeah I'm a dumbass.
if you actually read all this, you are an amazing human being
I'll probably address more personal things next entry. Definitely won't be today though.
-H4x
Though it may seem odd to say, prioritizing school work to get it done may actually give you more time for "play".
Can relate. I spend more time not playing league because I have to revise / do homework than I do not playing League because I'm actually doing it.
To be clear, not advocating seeking a girlfriend or boyfriend. Though it may seem odd to say, prioritizing school work to get it done may actually give you more time for "play".
Re self hate. No one is as perfect or productive as they would like to be.
Think about celebrating yourself for the things you are good at. It takes a lot of different skills to be good at league that are transferable to other areas of life.
A good sense of timing, research, observation, analysis, psychology, leadership, understanding rulesets, etc.,.
Life will quite often find ways to beat you up. You can offset some of that by being your own champion (which does require that you be aware that outside critique might be valid, but doesn't require you to let it reduce your sense of self-worth).
If your goal is to go pro, then you need practice, not elo. Even if your rank suffers when you play at less than 100%, it's still useful practice.
I disagree. It might be okay if you're already high up in Challenger and even if you go on a loss streak you'll still be playing vs the highest ranking players, but in H4x's position, playing while tilted/in a bad mental state is going to cause him to drop and play in a rank where the practice is almost useless for playing vs Challenger/CS/LCS players. Not to mention that practising in a state where you're constantly making bad decisions and not focusing properly isn't really useful at all aside from mechanical improvement.
And it's not like even at his highest average rank he's playing with the best of the best game after game, so he should be focusing on climbing as efficiently as possible rather than spamming ranked as much as possible.
I would recommend playing ranked on a smurf when you're not at 100% since it should still satisfy your urge to play competitively, at least that's how it works for me.
since you have limited time everyday, you have to plan out meticulously what things you actually need to maintain good grades, what things you actually need to maintain and improve effectively in League and allocate time accordingly. Ofc prioritizing studies is definitely the most important, so if you may very well end up with 2~3 hours a day on League, of which you can probably only spend time playing 2~3 games and vod review.
it's not only just a league / school thing - optimizing a daily routine and schedule is a very important life skill that is applicable to anything in life
If your goal is to go pro, then you need practice, not elo. Even if your rank suffers when you play at less than 100%, it's still useful practice. If you ever do go pro (as in eSports pro), you're going to have games where you aren't feeling 100% but you'll have to play anyway, whether it's a scrim or a game on stage.
Every player has a range of play from their best to their worst. I don't think you should beat yourself up at all for playing when you're not feeling great.
That said, if playing adversely affects your schoolwork or your mental health, make sure you have the emotional energy to play. It's not worth making sacrifices for suboptimal practice.
You might want to look into building a routine or some sort of mental warmup to get you focused if you don't have one already. It could be exercise (going for a walk or something) or sitting quietly for a few minutes or even watching some League videos to get your head in the game. If you feel like your mental state is inconsistent, there might be something you can do to make it more stable, but you'll have to try stuff out.