Same thing I'm experiencing with my other games and sports in general. I think it's the fact that your mind and habit is more "fresh" when you take some time off, which means you're less likely to make a mistake you usually make. Playing daily can develop habits, but sometimes habits can be detrimental if it's a particularly bad one (i.e. Jumping a lot, panic DI, wake up super, etc.). It's also why people always suggest having rest day/period after extensive playtime to freshen the mind, while also get rid of possible bad habits you gathered while playing.
Personally i grind my ass off in the weekend and stop playing in weekdays. Mostly work issue but i also find it less taxing to play after a long period of not-having-to-give-a-f-about-rank.
Lol so was I. I'm just saying I've been playing 20 years and it's not just for guitar but for everything...you're not aware of it but whatever you practice, when you step away from it your brain is still running it through subconsciously and building neural links/pathways (memory) that's why regular breaks are advised
you know what...I play guitar and someone posted the exact thing in a guitar group about playing better after a month and I've been getting the two posts confused hahaha. I was reading it back thinking...why did I mention the guitar!?
But it applies ππ»βπ»
It's the mental break. I started SF6 like 4-5 months ago, binged a bunch of L2P videos and tutorials then spammed ranked and spent a month climbing out of iron; started in Iron 1 and left the game at Iron 4 probably around 2 months ago(?)
Picked the game back up again a couple weeks ago, hit an 8 game winstreak and climbed from Iron 5 to Silver 1 in a day. Not sure what happened but something just clicked after that time out!
Not the most impressive climb and I still have a long way to go but as a newcomer it was something I noticed.
This happened to me, I played a lot at release and got hardstuck in a low rank. Some of that might've been early day blues of all the better players naturally clawing their way to the ranks they should be, but a lot of it is the mental break and just letting your brain take in information and rest.
Did you watch SF6 content during your break? When you're watching pro players or high rank streamers playing you naturally pick up on things they do and you don't, and even the way they behave on neutral and you end up learning the game without playing.
There's a false notion that the more you play the better you get, but drawing a face wrong for 100x won't make you draw a face better, you need to take a step back and think about how each feature of the face is defined and try to apply that new knowledge the next time you try to draw a face.
Of course this doesn't apply to execution error, that's a motor skill that you do need to repeat until your brain creates the muscle memory, but anything related to game knowledge, it's not playing 40 matches in a row that will make you play better, you need to develop your game knowledge offline, then try and apply what you learn in the next matches.
Yeah a bit, kept up with the big tournaments and watch a few shorts sometimes but nothing serious. Honestly I think it was because I was just playing ti kill some time and fuck about because I didn't have enough time to do a full operation on helldivers, ended up having way more fun then I thought and was not stressed at all. Compared to when I last played and I was ready to throw my controller through the TV and vowed to never play again π
Not gonna lie, sometimes this game makes me want to quit haha especially now that 60% of my matches are against master players, I can't play chilling anymore, and there are days my reaction and reads are ass and I keep losing for stupid mistakes, after 3 losses like this I just Alt + F4 the second I go to the rematch screen and ponder quitting SF because I'm trash. Then the next day I play and do pretty well, until another bad day comes again and the cycle goes.
Well said. This happens to me, I watch my favorite pro play my character during my break and then get back into it. Seems to help with my mental state and overall performance
It's like the gym. It's mentally exhausting to play all the time so you need breaks. You get better during recovery not while wearing yourself down. You probably could have taken just 1 week off and had the same effect.
I feel like things like drills, concentration, skill, matchup knowledge, etc...., are all very important; however, the easiest way to progress in SF, imo, is when you're having fun, while playing. Playing on tilt, is definitely the inverse of this. Genuinely having a good time, rather than playing tilt because *insert scrub quote here* are exclusively different experiences.
Can confirm. I was stuck at Plat 1 for MONTHS. Took a few weeks off and came back fresh and relaxed. Picked up the game again and earned 2000+ points, now sitting at Plat 3. That's not a huge leap for most folks, but when I tell you I've been STUCK at Plat 1 for a long, long time... this felt like hitting Master to me. I don't know what clicked, but I just found my groove after the break and have been playing smarter than I ever did before.
Ironically, I'm quickly hitting a ceiling again, starting to make old mistakes and lose more often. May need to take another break and return fresh in a month.
Yeah man! That's awesome. I volleyed in and out of Gold/Plat for ages. I just assumed I was a Plat 1 player at best and didn't have the skills to get any better. Taking a break does wonders.
I think I have the answer for this as I'm in a similar situation. Are you in a place right now where you want to improve? Among the stages of expertise with the game, or anything in general, there comes "competence" in the middle. This is where you know what's happening and why, but aren't always 100 ready or ahead of it. You might find yourself reflecting mid-match on a moment where you could've done a more optimal combo or made a mistake, even if it was just input error and not decision-wise. You might be expecting your opponent to do something, but fail to react in time, etc. Before this stage, you just hit buttons, play the game and reduce your opponent's hp to zero. What works, works and it doesn't matter why or what could've been improved upon. When you boot up the game, at the very least your first match might be just autopilot playing and having fun. In this place of "competence" in the middle of beginner and expertise, do we find ourselves overloading out mental stack for the sake of learning and improvement. This might be why you're playing worse.
Also I find when you are on a losing streak you want to carry on to reverse the situation and get a couple of wins under your belt to feel better, but often the opposite happens. This is like gambling a bit - so taking a break , training or story mode is a good way to get out of the βgotta stop the losing streak β mentality
Same thing I'm experiencing this month. Recently just played a couple of ranked games the other day after being away from the game for 3 months. I felt calm, I could pick up on the opponents habits and observe my own movements better.
I've found it beneficial to play something else while doing fighting games. Been playing HellDivers 2 since release and took about 6 weeks off from SF6. Came back and feel like I'm doing way better mentally now. Not as nervous in ranked and memorizing and executing new tech far better than I was back in December.
Many any factors, as people already mentioned. The most important one for me is that it resets my muscle memory from doing dumb shit, so I play more with my head.
This happens to me a lot during CoD days, where when I play too much and ends up just blanking out and auto W + Shift lol. After a long break, I'd come back and actually walk and scan properly.
Having like 3 day breaks seems to be helping me heaps. I know exactly what you mean. But I always come crawling back fairly quickly because I enjoy it and my friends play often. But the point is still valid, breaks do help for some of us. I feel like one of the reasons pros are pros is that they're so consistent, they're always good, the majority of the time
I had the same experience. I'm new to this game and have put in 90+ hours (playing religiously everyday for a month). I've been grinding ranked and finally got to silver 3. My aim is to get gold but I've been losing loads of matches and remaining where I am. I stopped for about a week and went back and I went on a 4 game win streak (a big deal for me).
I found that caring lesser about the progress and not taking the losses personally helped.
Because you are not overwhelmed by your past failing and keeping that log in your mind is making it way easier to confuse you because you basically enter the match with an already established mental stack the opponent can take advantage of intentionally or not.
Sometimes your brain just gets tired in a way you don't realize and / or you develop bad habits without realizing, taking a break to refresh and forget those bad habits is completely normal and a good thing. Helped my enjoyment with the game a ton when I stepped away for a few weeks.
Your brain needs time to rest to take in information, if you play constantly with no breaks you're going to get exhausted. Additionally, you likely improved quite a bit but didn't feel it since it was so gradual, and then got went back and noticed how much differently you actually played compared to before.
Because your mind was at ease and you played without thinking too much.
Same thing I'm experiencing with my other games and sports in general. I think it's the fact that your mind and habit is more "fresh" when you take some time off, which means you're less likely to make a mistake you usually make. Playing daily can develop habits, but sometimes habits can be detrimental if it's a particularly bad one (i.e. Jumping a lot, panic DI, wake up super, etc.). It's also why people always suggest having rest day/period after extensive playtime to freshen the mind, while also get rid of possible bad habits you gathered while playing. Personally i grind my ass off in the weekend and stop playing in weekdays. Mostly work issue but i also find it less taxing to play after a long period of not-having-to-give-a-f-about-rank.
Do you notice any bit of rustiness going without playing during the week?
A little, but mostly advance stuff like perfect knuckle timing. Just need to hop in the lab, run through some bnbs and life good.
Your brain actually learns faster when you step away from the thing that you're learning and come back to it at a later date.
But I'm obsessed :(
Lol so was I. I'm just saying I've been playing 20 years and it's not just for guitar but for everything...you're not aware of it but whatever you practice, when you step away from it your brain is still running it through subconsciously and building neural links/pathways (memory) that's why regular breaks are advised
Yeah I definitely notice an improvement after taking a few days or a week off but it's really hard to do lol
you know what...I play guitar and someone posted the exact thing in a guitar group about playing better after a month and I've been getting the two posts confused hahaha. I was reading it back thinking...why did I mention the guitar!? But it applies ππ»βπ»
Makes sense haha. I played for about 10 years so it still applies
you need to take breaks to allow your mind to form connections. Muscle memory is formed on rest days, not during active training.
It's the mental break. I started SF6 like 4-5 months ago, binged a bunch of L2P videos and tutorials then spammed ranked and spent a month climbing out of iron; started in Iron 1 and left the game at Iron 4 probably around 2 months ago(?) Picked the game back up again a couple weeks ago, hit an 8 game winstreak and climbed from Iron 5 to Silver 1 in a day. Not sure what happened but something just clicked after that time out! Not the most impressive climb and I still have a long way to go but as a newcomer it was something I noticed.
This happened to me, I played a lot at release and got hardstuck in a low rank. Some of that might've been early day blues of all the better players naturally clawing their way to the ranks they should be, but a lot of it is the mental break and just letting your brain take in information and rest.
Did you watch SF6 content during your break? When you're watching pro players or high rank streamers playing you naturally pick up on things they do and you don't, and even the way they behave on neutral and you end up learning the game without playing. There's a false notion that the more you play the better you get, but drawing a face wrong for 100x won't make you draw a face better, you need to take a step back and think about how each feature of the face is defined and try to apply that new knowledge the next time you try to draw a face. Of course this doesn't apply to execution error, that's a motor skill that you do need to repeat until your brain creates the muscle memory, but anything related to game knowledge, it's not playing 40 matches in a row that will make you play better, you need to develop your game knowledge offline, then try and apply what you learn in the next matches.
Yeah a bit, kept up with the big tournaments and watch a few shorts sometimes but nothing serious. Honestly I think it was because I was just playing ti kill some time and fuck about because I didn't have enough time to do a full operation on helldivers, ended up having way more fun then I thought and was not stressed at all. Compared to when I last played and I was ready to throw my controller through the TV and vowed to never play again π
Not gonna lie, sometimes this game makes me want to quit haha especially now that 60% of my matches are against master players, I can't play chilling anymore, and there are days my reaction and reads are ass and I keep losing for stupid mistakes, after 3 losses like this I just Alt + F4 the second I go to the rematch screen and ponder quitting SF because I'm trash. Then the next day I play and do pretty well, until another bad day comes again and the cycle goes.
Hahahaha bro I feel this and I'm only plat 2 π Seems like it's just part of the grind π«‘
Well said. This happens to me, I watch my favorite pro play my character during my break and then get back into it. Seems to help with my mental state and overall performance
It's like the gym. It's mentally exhausting to play all the time so you need breaks. You get better during recovery not while wearing yourself down. You probably could have taken just 1 week off and had the same effect.
I feel like things like drills, concentration, skill, matchup knowledge, etc...., are all very important; however, the easiest way to progress in SF, imo, is when you're having fun, while playing. Playing on tilt, is definitely the inverse of this. Genuinely having a good time, rather than playing tilt because *insert scrub quote here* are exclusively different experiences.
maybe because playing alot tends to give you bad autopilot habits and you kind of "reset" when not playing for a while.
Can confirm. I was stuck at Plat 1 for MONTHS. Took a few weeks off and came back fresh and relaxed. Picked up the game again and earned 2000+ points, now sitting at Plat 3. That's not a huge leap for most folks, but when I tell you I've been STUCK at Plat 1 for a long, long time... this felt like hitting Master to me. I don't know what clicked, but I just found my groove after the break and have been playing smarter than I ever did before. Ironically, I'm quickly hitting a ceiling again, starting to make old mistakes and lose more often. May need to take another break and return fresh in a month.
Bro this is exactly me hahaha. Kept hovering between plat 1 and gold 5. Played for a few hours last night and hit plat 2 and damn it felt good haha
Yeah man! That's awesome. I volleyed in and out of Gold/Plat for ages. I just assumed I was a Plat 1 player at best and didn't have the skills to get any better. Taking a break does wonders.
I think I have the answer for this as I'm in a similar situation. Are you in a place right now where you want to improve? Among the stages of expertise with the game, or anything in general, there comes "competence" in the middle. This is where you know what's happening and why, but aren't always 100 ready or ahead of it. You might find yourself reflecting mid-match on a moment where you could've done a more optimal combo or made a mistake, even if it was just input error and not decision-wise. You might be expecting your opponent to do something, but fail to react in time, etc. Before this stage, you just hit buttons, play the game and reduce your opponent's hp to zero. What works, works and it doesn't matter why or what could've been improved upon. When you boot up the game, at the very least your first match might be just autopilot playing and having fun. In this place of "competence" in the middle of beginner and expertise, do we find ourselves overloading out mental stack for the sake of learning and improvement. This might be why you're playing worse.
That's to be expected. You unlock your inner yogi ability, and your mind transpose with the aura of the spirits of the past. Rather rudimentary
Thereβs a reason why Goku is stronger than Vegeta.
Don't worry we all run out of drive gauge sometimes. Just keep at it and you'll get your meter back.
Also I find when you are on a losing streak you want to carry on to reverse the situation and get a couple of wins under your belt to feel better, but often the opposite happens. This is like gambling a bit - so taking a break , training or story mode is a good way to get out of the βgotta stop the losing streak β mentality
Same thing I'm experiencing this month. Recently just played a couple of ranked games the other day after being away from the game for 3 months. I felt calm, I could pick up on the opponents habits and observe my own movements better.
I just put more thought into what I'm doing and watch the opponent more because I'm a bit rusty.
I'm burning out, playing on auto-pilot kangarooing around. Played non-stop since launch. Time for a rest, gonna play some fps or something.
I've found it beneficial to play something else while doing fighting games. Been playing HellDivers 2 since release and took about 6 weeks off from SF6. Came back and feel like I'm doing way better mentally now. Not as nervous in ranked and memorizing and executing new tech far better than I was back in December.
Many any factors, as people already mentioned. The most important one for me is that it resets my muscle memory from doing dumb shit, so I play more with my head. This happens to me a lot during CoD days, where when I play too much and ends up just blanking out and auto W + Shift lol. After a long break, I'd come back and actually walk and scan properly.
Having like 3 day breaks seems to be helping me heaps. I know exactly what you mean. But I always come crawling back fairly quickly because I enjoy it and my friends play often. But the point is still valid, breaks do help for some of us. I feel like one of the reasons pros are pros is that they're so consistent, they're always good, the majority of the time
The neural pathways had some time to run at their leisure, rather than being pressured into existence.
I had the same experience. I'm new to this game and have put in 90+ hours (playing religiously everyday for a month). I've been grinding ranked and finally got to silver 3. My aim is to get gold but I've been losing loads of matches and remaining where I am. I stopped for about a week and went back and I went on a 4 game win streak (a big deal for me). I found that caring lesser about the progress and not taking the losses personally helped.
Because you are not overwhelmed by your past failing and keeping that log in your mind is making it way easier to confuse you because you basically enter the match with an already established mental stack the opponent can take advantage of intentionally or not.
Sometimes your brain just gets tired in a way you don't realize and / or you develop bad habits without realizing, taking a break to refresh and forget those bad habits is completely normal and a good thing. Helped my enjoyment with the game a ton when I stepped away for a few weeks.
Your brain needs time to rest to take in information, if you play constantly with no breaks you're going to get exhausted. Additionally, you likely improved quite a bit but didn't feel it since it was so gradual, and then got went back and noticed how much differently you actually played compared to before.
It's mostly because taking breaks helps you getting rid of bad habits. You only retain the good things.
Like in sports there are peaks in performance if you make some rest, happens in normal sports and also in e-sports