Views: 874 Setting your sights too high, how to avoid falling down
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Hey guys, shuru here. I recently came back to league and this website, and was thinking a lot about why I quit league, and why I have depression strikes when I watch pros in many games.
In a game like LoL, we have out goals, we have our expectations, and we have our eventual wants and needs. I'm a gamer at heart, beyond beliefs, I've gone pro in a few games (namely smaller games off of the radar), and I've been on PvP leaderboards for multiple MMOs. What does that mean to any of you? I've been up there, I've had pro plays, and so on in many games.
Not in LoL. I've had decent play, I've had good play, but I'm not that great of a player. Why does that bother me so much? I used to ask myself that question a lot, and I came down to this conclusion.
What does that mean? for the game? LoL is great right? well yeah, it is a good game. But that sentence is about me. I played League for about a year before deciding I wanted to go for broke, go as high as I could. I didn't make it far. I got silver, and I started getting angry that I wasn't climbing any higher. I was a better player... right? not really. It all comes down to that. I set my sights for the big stage, for the pros. And I figure one day I could make it there, if I really tried.
Why was it so bad to want to be pro? Well, it wasn't. What was bad was that it was my ONLY goal, and it was unrealistic. Maybe in a season or so I could hit diamond, maybe even diamond I, sure, and then it would be a reasonable goal, but I was silver. Instead of setting realistic goals such as "get to gold" and "get to plat," I set up this whole "IM GOING PRO" idea.
The idea is simple, we all want more, we want to get better, improve at the game, startle the crowds (well some of us :P). There are a lot of people like me, who want the eyes on them, or they want to be the ones showing the world. A lot of us are streamers, or youtubers (I'm both). Here's the trick to it all though, set subgoals.
You want to go pro but you're bronze V? a reasonable goal would be to get to silver, you obviously need improvement. You need to be able to climb the ladder, you can't just get on the first peg and reach for the top.
I wanted to go pro, and I reached for the stars without climbing the ladder. Taking this approach will undeniably make you angry with your performance, and angry at the game. You might watch the pros and go "lol I can do that, it wasn't so special" when in reality, it was a kind of play you probably never thought about. You might see gosu playing and get a 1v5 penta kill, and go "I can do that, vaynes a stupid champ anyways." but that's where it starts. You get an unrealistic goal and think you can make it, and then begin developing unrealistic expectations.
You can actually. If you want to get to gold, you probably think you're gold material right? probably, most people think that. You think you can make the plays gold players make, so you start to fool yourself into thinking you're gold level. you aren't. You might get there in your climb, after all, you can learn from every game you play, but you aren't gold.
Maybe you want to go to the pros, especially if you're like me, already having topped leader boards in other games, you think it'll be easy, you think you can make it. You fool yourself into thinking you can. And if you stream, it gets worse, especially if you ever get viewers.
Off and on, yes. Viewers can give you tips, and they love to see hype, you just made a double with lee sin with crazy ward jumps and clutch max range Qs? your streams going to hype it. That's good and bad. Encouragement is good, but to much can be a bad thing. When I streamed, a few viewers thought I was really good, talking about how I was amazing at this or that. I really wasn't, I just looked like it once and a while, on my good games. But I started thinking, "if I can do that once, I should be able to every game." and every game I played at that point was held to light of my perfect games, the ones I did best on. The ones I had good positioning, or good kiting, or great ganks. My normal games weren't perfect.... as such, I got angry, I wasn't 'improving.' I actually just was blind to my improvements because they were shadowed by 'perfect' games.
On the flip side, you get trolls. When I was trying to just play with friends, and have fun, I'd get viewers that would just blatantly insult me every time I made a bad play. One time in particular I was having a bad game, and a FRIEND (not anymore.) came in and watched me have a bad game, and told me I was NEVER going to be anything but bronze, and that I was trash.
This kind of stuff can really ruin your drive to play. it's best to ignore it, and never let it happen, you don't need it.
People are *******s. Likewise, sometimes you will meet trolls, that will swear and complain all game. It's best to ignore them. I know it can be hard not to lash back, but it seems the best thing you can do is just ignore them, or go "my bad, sorry I was positioned wrong." even if its their fault. It'll keep them happy, and a happy team is a winning team. Maintaining the equilibrium with people in your games and not flying off the handle is necessary to keep yourself from falling off the ladder.
Face it, you aren't seananners, you aren't dyrus, you aren't trick2G or Choleraninja. You're you. you won't get the viewers if you don't earn it!
For those of you who say you can't make a successful channel on youtube without being a pro, don't lie to yourself, I have a friend who makes moeny off of his channel, and it's his primary income. he's just barely silver.
As for me, I've got a video or two with 5k views simply because if it's good, or funny content, reddit will eat it up.
I get that this is exactly what I'm talking about in a sense, but what I mean is, if you fail a series, or your video doesn't get as many views as you want, or you don't make it to challenger in a week... don't let it kill you. Things take time, people who get popular fast had outside help usually, or they're just lucky. People fail series all the time, even big youtubers have bad videos, and not even all the pros had an easy time hitting challenger. it takes work, and it takes time.
Yeah, You might want to make it to challenger... you might want to be a big hit on the youtube scene, you might want to have the best stream, or you might just want to have fun.
Dufftime made a good post, League is what you MAKE it. If you make League a job, it will become a job, a chore. Set your goals realistically and you WILL make it to diamond one day, maybe even challenger. As for the pro scene, even the NA god of ADCs (doublelift) himself said it, it's partly luck.
When I watch pro games, I look at it thinking "will I ever make it there? will I ever be on screen having someone take my quotes from me? will there be a day where all I have to do is say something and billions of people will love it?" probably not. And that's OK.
Yeah it's a depressing thought, but it's also a heart-freeing one. I know I probably won't be a pro one day, but that frees up my emotions, it lets me focus on my gameplay, it lets me improve. I won't be the next chauster. I won't be the next seananners. I may never even be as popular as Purge, or Trick2G. But I'll be me, I'll be able to assess my own skills, improve my game, and improve my videos, because I'm not holding myself up to these amazing players and commentators, I'm just holding myself up to my own work.
I know this journal or blog or whatever was a bit all over, but It has to do with League and youtube and streams and so on. I apologize for the clutter and may go over it later to help it out.
as always thanks to my friends on LoL (namely OTG and shore) for helpin me out and talking me through alot of my issues with trolls and so on, and giving me encouragement.
In a game like LoL, we have out goals, we have our expectations, and we have our eventual wants and needs. I'm a gamer at heart, beyond beliefs, I've gone pro in a few games (namely smaller games off of the radar), and I've been on PvP leaderboards for multiple MMOs. What does that mean to any of you? I've been up there, I've had pro plays, and so on in many games.
Not in LoL. I've had decent play, I've had good play, but I'm not that great of a player. Why does that bother me so much? I used to ask myself that question a lot, and I came down to this conclusion.
I had high standards
What does that mean? for the game? LoL is great right? well yeah, it is a good game. But that sentence is about me. I played League for about a year before deciding I wanted to go for broke, go as high as I could. I didn't make it far. I got silver, and I started getting angry that I wasn't climbing any higher. I was a better player... right? not really. It all comes down to that. I set my sights for the big stage, for the pros. And I figure one day I could make it there, if I really tried.
Why was it so bad to want to be pro? Well, it wasn't. What was bad was that it was my ONLY goal, and it was unrealistic. Maybe in a season or so I could hit diamond, maybe even diamond I, sure, and then it would be a reasonable goal, but I was silver. Instead of setting realistic goals such as "get to gold" and "get to plat," I set up this whole "IM GOING PRO" idea.
Well, what if I want to go pro?
The idea is simple, we all want more, we want to get better, improve at the game, startle the crowds (well some of us :P). There are a lot of people like me, who want the eyes on them, or they want to be the ones showing the world. A lot of us are streamers, or youtubers (I'm both). Here's the trick to it all though, set subgoals.
You want to go pro but you're bronze V? a reasonable goal would be to get to silver, you obviously need improvement. You need to be able to climb the ladder, you can't just get on the first peg and reach for the top.
I wanted to go pro, and I reached for the stars without climbing the ladder. Taking this approach will undeniably make you angry with your performance, and angry at the game. You might watch the pros and go "lol I can do that, it wasn't so special" when in reality, it was a kind of play you probably never thought about. You might see gosu playing and get a 1v5 penta kill, and go "I can do that, vaynes a stupid champ anyways." but that's where it starts. You get an unrealistic goal and think you can make it, and then begin developing unrealistic expectations.
you're crazy, I could never do that
You can actually. If you want to get to gold, you probably think you're gold material right? probably, most people think that. You think you can make the plays gold players make, so you start to fool yourself into thinking you're gold level. you aren't. You might get there in your climb, after all, you can learn from every game you play, but you aren't gold.
Maybe you want to go to the pros, especially if you're like me, already having topped leader boards in other games, you think it'll be easy, you think you can make it. You fool yourself into thinking you can. And if you stream, it gets worse, especially if you ever get viewers.
How do viewers make it worse? wont it help?
Off and on, yes. Viewers can give you tips, and they love to see hype, you just made a double with lee sin with crazy ward jumps and clutch max range Qs? your streams going to hype it. That's good and bad. Encouragement is good, but to much can be a bad thing. When I streamed, a few viewers thought I was really good, talking about how I was amazing at this or that. I really wasn't, I just looked like it once and a while, on my good games. But I started thinking, "if I can do that once, I should be able to every game." and every game I played at that point was held to light of my perfect games, the ones I did best on. The ones I had good positioning, or good kiting, or great ganks. My normal games weren't perfect.... as such, I got angry, I wasn't 'improving.' I actually just was blind to my improvements because they were shadowed by 'perfect' games.
On the flip side, you get trolls. When I was trying to just play with friends, and have fun, I'd get viewers that would just blatantly insult me every time I made a bad play. One time in particular I was having a bad game, and a FRIEND (not anymore.) came in and watched me have a bad game, and told me I was NEVER going to be anything but bronze, and that I was trash.
This kind of stuff can really ruin your drive to play. it's best to ignore it, and never let it happen, you don't need it.
removing complications
People are *******s. Likewise, sometimes you will meet trolls, that will swear and complain all game. It's best to ignore them. I know it can be hard not to lash back, but it seems the best thing you can do is just ignore them, or go "my bad, sorry I was positioned wrong." even if its their fault. It'll keep them happy, and a happy team is a winning team. Maintaining the equilibrium with people in your games and not flying off the handle is necessary to keep yourself from falling off the ladder.
Viewer count low? no problem!
Face it, you aren't seananners, you aren't dyrus, you aren't trick2G or Choleraninja. You're you. you won't get the viewers if you don't earn it!
For those of you who say you can't make a successful channel on youtube without being a pro, don't lie to yourself, I have a friend who makes moeny off of his channel, and it's his primary income. he's just barely silver.
As for me, I've got a video or two with 5k views simply because if it's good, or funny content, reddit will eat it up.
don't get let down
I get that this is exactly what I'm talking about in a sense, but what I mean is, if you fail a series, or your video doesn't get as many views as you want, or you don't make it to challenger in a week... don't let it kill you. Things take time, people who get popular fast had outside help usually, or they're just lucky. People fail series all the time, even big youtubers have bad videos, and not even all the pros had an easy time hitting challenger. it takes work, and it takes time.
In closing
Yeah, You might want to make it to challenger... you might want to be a big hit on the youtube scene, you might want to have the best stream, or you might just want to have fun.
Dufftime made a good post, League is what you MAKE it. If you make League a job, it will become a job, a chore. Set your goals realistically and you WILL make it to diamond one day, maybe even challenger. As for the pro scene, even the NA god of ADCs (doublelift) himself said it, it's partly luck.
When I watch pro games, I look at it thinking "will I ever make it there? will I ever be on screen having someone take my quotes from me? will there be a day where all I have to do is say something and billions of people will love it?" probably not. And that's OK.
Yeah it's a depressing thought, but it's also a heart-freeing one. I know I probably won't be a pro one day, but that frees up my emotions, it lets me focus on my gameplay, it lets me improve. I won't be the next chauster. I won't be the next seananners. I may never even be as popular as Purge, or Trick2G. But I'll be me, I'll be able to assess my own skills, improve my game, and improve my videos, because I'm not holding myself up to these amazing players and commentators, I'm just holding myself up to my own work.
Don't blind yourself with thoughts of grandeur, you won't get far trying to be someone else.
I know this journal or blog or whatever was a bit all over, but It has to do with League and youtube and streams and so on. I apologize for the clutter and may go over it later to help it out.
as always thanks to my friends on LoL (namely OTG and shore) for helpin me out and talking me through alot of my issues with trolls and so on, and giving me encouragement.
Although I don't think copying stuff is necessarily a bad thing. As long as you understand the reasons why you're doing it, copying things can be a great way to learn and improve.
Also half of your post is saying not to copy what people do on streams and the other half is saying how you want to be like fabby and how people should copy him. It seems sorta contradictory.
Seriously i have the same goal as you and i know i can't legally be in the LCS until im 17.
I always set unrealistic goals because even if i fail i'll end up somewhere close to my unrealistic goal.
That is 1 year to improve myself as much as possible until i become Fabbbyyy
unlike luther who trys to copy what people do on streams , i don't try to do that.
I only actually improve when someone with a higher elo than i am pisses me off.
Here's what goes in my head
*THAT F******* CAN GET THAT ELO AND I CAN'T? WELL IM GOING TO PROVE YOU WRONG."
If you have that same mentality you will get to diamond in no time trust me ^_^ hate is a strong feeling.
If you admire somebody and try to copy them you will NEVER be as good as them, but if you are like me, you will always try to one up the pro players instead of copying the pro players.
About your streaming, I don't see a point to it, you are not going to improve by streaming or make money off it. The only thing i can see it doing is creating some lag in game and causing some unnecessary losses. Lets face it nobody is going to watch your stream so just don't stream.
You comment on how you are able to make plays but the way i see it, OBJECTIVES>everything else. Even in platinum elo people have a hard time taking objectives. you do not have to make plays all you have to do is change your decision making and you will immediately become gold.
When i see someone get a 1v5 penta, i analyze the situation and how he got the penta instead of drooling over the fact that he got a penta. Either that or i say "lame make a video of scarra failing a tribush ward instead"
i'm exactly like you i want to be like fabbbyyy but instead of being a marksman ill be the gatekeeper of the top lane/mid lane.
TLDR: go to twitch.tv/fable687
you can learn some things from fabbbyyy
:P
Then I play against actually good players and suck hard, realize I've been playing for 3 years and I'll never be diamond and cry myself to sleep.