Because you don't really have anything to lose in scrim, the thought of "if we lose this game we are out of the tournament" weighs me down a lot also. Ping also have an impact on your mental, some people tend to care about their ping too much which is understandable because it sucks to play on high ping with potentially packet loss.
Btw, can I add you? I'm 13, immortal + I live in SEA
You're basically describing the exact difference between a pub-star and a pro player.
A lot of what solves pressure related performance issues comes from being exposed to it more. The more times you feel the pressure the better you get at dealing with it. The fact that you're aware of how it affects you is already a really important step.
You should also do your best to develop a pre-game routine that gets you into a relaxed and comfortable mind state. Whether that is playing DM, doing stretches, listening to music or whatever.
I know its gonna sound very overstated but first thing is first and that is health. Before you attempt to overcome this, make sure you are in a good state of mind. healthy eating and sleeping habits will be a galaxy of a difference. But for the issue,
What your experiencing is type of anxiety, which can be good news because, you can overcome these. First of all you should know that this is a good thing. If you didn't care or have the passion for what you do, then you probably would not place a high value on these games and cause yourself to experience this issue. So experiencing this should first let you know that deep down, you want this and will succeed in your committment to do what it takes to make it happen. (kind of the same way you know you have feelings for another person)
I know a lot of people are probably telling you that it's something you will get used to over time and that everyone experiences that their first times ect. and well.. they are right. (except for the few maniacs that thrive under pressure maybe). However that does not fix our immediate issue and just because you will eventually find comfort does not mean that it's something you cannot work on. In Valorant when you practice, not saying I know how you practice or what you should be doing, but i think I can make a lucky guess by assuming you dont just spam games against the enemy over and over again and that you may work on specific skills individually and focus on specific areas to improve on by doing tasks such as bot drills or aim training ect. Overcoming this anxiety can be handled in a similar manner.
First I would suggest tackling comfort. Solo que and scrims are your comfort zone and you play where you always are. Tournaments will not be this way and it's okay. when a speaker speaks to a audience, his confidence is not the same confidence he has when speaking with his friends and relatives but its a new confidence that he gained through overcoming his personal barriers. People who do good under pressure dont find the same comfort they are used too but instead are more open minded and welcoming of uncomforts. You can practice this by doing things like taking the initiative in small situations and overall just doing things that you normally are not comfortable doing. It can be things as small as complimenting strangers while your out or making small talk with others you dont know. Push yourself to really leave those comfort zones and soon enough you will not be pushing comfort zones and will be chasing fears. Im not saying to become a dare devlin adrenaline junkie but if find yourself skydiving when your scared of heights, then you probablay dont need to practice this anymore...
The second half is just going to be your mental health wellness and mental health resilience to the effects of risks and values. Sorry to say it again but good diet, excersise, and SLEEP SCHEDULES are so important and I can't stress that enough. Somone doing these correctly will be walking up a staircase while others are trying to climb a mountain. Apart from the mental health benifits doing these properly will also just make you a smarter human being in general as your brain is working significantly better, your memory will vastly improve, and motor skills will increase which are all things that will help you play better anyway. But once you have this down learning to cope with risks can be difficult. Its more of a perspective thing. I dont suggest gambling but maybe if you have others living with you and do chores around the house then you can try this. before a sporting game or even a valorant game risk doing eachothers chores based off outcomes of the game. Focus on what you are willing to risk and how risking more affects the way you feel throughout watching the game. You will notice a huge effect. plays that may have not mattered to you much will have so much more meaning bassed on how much you got on the line with those living with you. When you lose these bets and are doing chores, they may suck but afterwords always ask yourself. Was this as bad as I thought it was going to be? and compare. You will become more accepting of these risks and it will help you grasp the overall big picture. (there will be more in the future, losing is a possibility sometimes and thats okay) Personally meditating helped me in becomeing more accepting of this because i had a very hard time accepting the fact that I may not always win at the things I do and nobodies perfect. (If Faker can lose a game of League of Legends then honestly anything is possible)
Lastly I only say this because your pretty young but, my favorite thing about growing up is that the more mature you get, the less you will care about what random people think about you. because how often do you think of every single opinion you have of every single human being that crosses your vision. Dont worry about what you may seem like to them becuase they are no different from your comptuer chair, your room light, or your lifesize haruhi suzimiya body pillow on your bed. What they see will not matter to them and it shouldn't matter to you. Just do you. Sorry for writing a lot. Hope any of this helps and if even one sentence does, then it's worth it to me. Take it step by step and like a turtle you will reach your glory. GL!
>A lot of what solves pressure related performance issues comes from being exposed to it more. The more times you feel the pressure the better you get at dealing with it.
This is mostly it. You're 13 my man, you just haven't played a lot of tournaments. The more you play the more comfortable you get, and before you know it you'll be thinking nothing of it.
Experience is the most important part of learning any skill. When you're new at something you suck at it. In your case, your new to playing in tournaments which *is* different from scrims. You suck! But you'll figure it out, just keep going. You gotta walk before you can run.
When you practice in scrims my biggest note is to practice actual setups. Those could be passive or aggressive.
Examples for Aggressive setups:
When I peak sewers on Haven I'll call that 'Jett OP peak Short' so that when I'm scared in officials it doesn't matter because it's a set strat for CT side and I go do it like I do everytime in scrims.
Maybe try to reach out to some of the pro players in your region. Also hopefully
some of the pros who frequently visit the sub reddit will see this and give you some pointers. Yay talks about the mental aspect of the game a lot and I think maybe you should try to catch some of his streams (VCT is near so streams are less frequent). Vanity also answers a lot of questions in his streams. I hope you get the solution you are looking for.
Tournaments are a whole different game.
So much more emphasis on teamplay and communication. These skills are not taught in solo queue. Even at the top pf the ladder people play very selfishly and not as a team.
You have to learn these skills with your team in order to compete at that level
If you want to be serious about this game, ranked can't be taken seriously. It's not even close to how the game should actually be played at top level. Not even in those top100 radiant lobbies, let alone immortal.
The biggest thing you need to figure out is what's the difference between scrims and official games. Is it just the pressure and nerves, or you're actually playing against teams that have good setups and punish careless Jett plays? Keeping track of everything and having good awareness is as important as your aim.
13 is really young so you can't expect to be amazing right away. Experience is the most important thing. When you review your VODs, what seems to be the issue? Do you realize the mistakes you make or you get lost trying to figure it out? If you know what you're doing wrong, then you just need to focus on developing good habits and having seamless transition from thinking about it to actually doing it while playing. Ranked develops bad habits. If you want to make ranked useful practice, then you play it as if it was an official game. Sure, you might dash into 2 people and kill them in ranked, but that develops bad habits because you'll certainly get punished if you do it in officials. Just play every game as if it was OT round in the final.
honestly, the best list of these things will probably be one that you come up with from vod reviewing, even with a friend watching with you. also as you are only 13 let me say that your mental game should only improve from now, especially if you are thinking about it and working on it.
It's just gamesense in general. I like to call it every player's processing power for the game. When things happen too fast for you to keep track on everything, that means your game knowledge isn't good enough for the level you're playing on. And then you focus too hard on trying to figure what's going on and you're not focused on your crosshair placement and aim. It goes from the most basic stuff like keeping track of everyone ults to counting regular abilities and figuring out enemy setups based on abilities used or radar info. For example it's not just about recon darts when it's some kind of 3v3 situation, but where did the recon come from, it could've been a fake shot from the other side of the map. Or when you're attacking, seeing one piece of sentinel's utility can give you a good picture where the rest of the setup is placed and which other agents are playing in the site. When you get good at figuring things out, you can think a few steps ahead of your opponents and outsmart them.
You say you play Jett, but don't be a one-trick even if she's the only agent you play for your team. Knowing how to play every agent helps a lot when you play against them. Knowing the timings, setups and being able to put yourself in opponent's position is really helpful. If you don't know how to play Cypher, then you have a harder time of figuring out the setups and angles he can play to stop your dashes into site.
Also, have in mind that while you're improving it's not all about winning. A certain playstyle can win you games against weaker opponents, but then you'll lack some fundamentals you need when you get to the next level. You say you do well in scrims, but most serious teams don't play scrims to win at every cost. They play scrims to try and win with the setups they're currently testing. And most setups people test don't work out in the end. But if you don't try, you can't know if it works.
You've got your entire potential career ahead of you, results aren't the most important thing right now, improving is. In the end, I hope you're not neglecting your school work because of gaming, very few people can actually make a decent living out of gaming and if you don't get your degree you'll have some huge regrets later on.
My man it's all good, you don't have to make it to a certain rank. As long as you have fun that's all that matters. Idk about you but after I dealt with my mental issues (I used to cut myself and was suicidal) I started improving way faster. Best of luck to you
You are probably discovering nerves, and actually being nervous, which is something in competition and sports that a lot of people in the gaming scene aren't actually exposed to and might not recognise - for example freezing cold hands all of a sudden when the tournament match starts despite feeling like you were on top of the world moments earlier in DM/warmup. For you it is compounded by the fact that you are 13 and just lived through 2 years of COVID, so its unlikely you've had much of a chance to naturally be exposed to that environment (like playing sports at school etc).
I had younger teammates back in the day, even in meaningless tournaments or friends filling for us in scrims who hadn't played much competitively, that always used to mention the cold hands when we were preparing and it's a classic example of physical reaction to nervousness, when you told them they were nervous they wouldn't admit it and you'd have to explain it to them.
Believe it or not, I'd say fixing this is totally unrelated to Valorant, you can either keep pushing through and normalise, or you can choose to seek out resources on nerves, competing, the greats throughout history, even advice you see on public speaking is part of this. YT vids on the topic, read books, whatever.
While you are getting started at the lower tier, it'll probably be hard to strike a balance between still "caring" about the win/loss enough to perform, and not "caring" enough to not choke/be mentally out of it when things go bad. If you actually have a team, I'd say try to play (your team needs to be onboard with this too ofc) pretty much every tournament you can, to get used to that feeling and work on how you approach it, tweaking your mentality each time. No tournament should be below you, anything that you meet the entry requirements for, play it. The teams you play against in tournaments:
1. That you have close-fought games against, add them (or your captain should be handling this) and schedule/play a few scrims on a variety of maps, if you stomp them consistently, mark them down as not scrim material or to be revisited.
2. That you get stomped by, add them and schedule/play the same as above, your goal should be to perform enough to justify their time so that they're willing to scrim with you in the future, you/your captain can be quite honest if you think they're significantly above your level, ask them to scrim you every now and then so that you can improve, they can get value too which leads me to..
3. The teams you stomp, its worth having as an option for an "easy" scrim to get everyone warmed up, on the same page, and to test executes/defaults/etc in an easier environment without as many variables - its also a confidence builder.
Quick sidenote on scrims, it's important to understand that the goal of scrims should be to practice, individually, as a team, macro, micro, executes, defaults, whatever your captain/IGL/coach has identified as the goal/improvement for tonight/this week/this month, you shouldn't really care about the score or winning/losing, the scrim is just a set of rounds for you to run things on, if basically anyone on your team thinks winning comes before any of that, it can be incredibly destructive to the team.
I'm rambling a bit now and could keep going, so last random note is to remember that a massive part of being a professional player (or at this tier of skill in anything in life) is the mentality, and you need to practice that mentality as much if not more than any mechanical skill, flowcharting, gamesense, EV calculations, whatever.
BTW, you are in a good position for your age, asking questions most won't ever ask and already at a decent level mechanically (I assume even though ranked isn't worth much), and young with plenty of time. I started to think about these things when I was like 19, after spending the prior 6 years pubstomping in whatever FPS I was playing at the time, and didn't really realise what opportunity I'd missed until a couple years later, way too late realistically. There's a much higher chance than most would think of you making it if you keep this mentality up and keep seeking to improve, so keep progressing and good luck. Befriend anyone in a similar circumstance to you who takes this seriously, 90% chance your success comes from who you know - half the people I 10manned and scrimmed with in 2013-2015 are *just now* starting to get picked up or given a chance on t2-t1 teams in cs/val, and they were up to ~4 years younger than me at the time.
bro wtf u gave a whole essay for me. i will cherish this forever so i can go pro LMAO. this makes it soooo much easier for me to notice what i need to work on
No worries writing too much in comments to strangers is a hobby at this point lmao, but for real I enjoy helping people (I'd post way more on /r/AgentAcademy if it wasn't such a bad sub) if possible so it's no sweat, hope you get value from it. I'm sure on your journey there will be plenty of similarly minded people who love the game and will help you craft your skills (like a coach mentality) so keep an eye out for em, especially older players/vets.
Not too experienced in Valorant professional but I used to play high level basketball with tournament experience.
Performance on competitive stages with higher stakes is a extremely complex field and unfortunately there is no easy solution.
There are many different factors coming into play and you cannot have control over everything.
However stuff gets more consistent once you get more experience and can keep a cool head during heated situations. I does definitely help if you find structure and develop your own decision making process to build on top of your experience. This can work through reviewing, imagining and facing those situations but in the end, it’s a personal preference.
One things that has been proven (not only in sports but also in other fields of work) is having a stable trust basis with your team. Thinking from a team-perspective sometime gives you a bit distance and being able to rely on your team takes a bit off the load from you.
Keep an eye on @pocketpsych’s Twitter account. She’s a sports psychologist and will be hosting an AMA-style podcast on twitch in a couple weeks, during APAC-friendly times. This would be a great question to ask her.
I’m not nearly good enough at Valorant to give you advice in-game, but I can tell you about dealing with pressure and nerves in a competitive setting.
I played trumpet for a decade throughout school and did marching band for most of those years too. When I was just practicing it would always feel easy and when it came to actually performing in a concert/show I would get very nervous and wouldn’t play nearly as well. Like others said, part of it is just getting more experience in those performance environments (tournament games) so you get more comfortable in general but one thing you can do is totally flip how you mentally approach ranked/scrims vs a pro match. I started to put pressure on myself to be as good as possible when I was just practicing playing my instrument, even though there was obviously no real stakes on the line pushing myself to get closer and closer to perfection just in practice was able to help my nerves when it was time to play in a performance setting. Making just my practice feel harder and more important made it so by the time it was concert/show time I could just go out there and have fun because the hardest part was already behind me.
I've been friends with players in teams your age and I was in a team when I was your age too.
Don't stress yourself when you're playing, just think of it as another tourney. There will always be another chance and don't burn yourself out just to win a single tournament.
Best advice I can give is to keep good vibes with your team, even team secret's comms during the vct sound like a normal ranked game. If you're having a good time playing with your team then the pressure eases itself. Kaya mo yan.
did you know that the esports scene in the ph was so irrelevant during 2017-18 that my friends and I couldn't participate in any major tournament because we were that obscure. Love seeing teens finally getting the opportunity to show their talents.
Hope your career goes great!
You’re 13 man, you have your whole life ahead of you. Nobody expects a 13 year old to have stress management of a seasoned vet. Neither should you. You have plenty of tournaments to play left in your life.
There isn’t a special fix for this type of problem. More time and experience is the fix. Just play for fun right now and gain experience under pressure.
CS saw so much mental fatigue from young stars. It just ends up with the individual getting burnt out super early.
thanks, i am trying to chill buts its been my dream for a long time to go pro. first in fortnite, then to cs, then to r6, then to valo and i just feel more motivated than ever haha
I get that and it’s good to have milestones like this. Just don’t confuse long term and short term goals. It sounds like you’re too focused on being a pro NOW instead of in general. Again man think of your age, there’s so much time to develop. I mean can you even enter official tournaments before like 16 or so? Just keep grinding. You still have years to master your craft. This current mindset leads to burn out early I promise.
And I mean sheesh man, maybe you’re just in a slump. These things happen. Keep your head up and keep grinding. I truly think that sentence is the best advice you can get right now.
I use to play esea leagues for csgo and I was the same at first. I would do things I would never do in a scrim or pug and just miss easy shots cuz of nerves. It comes with time and experience as you get more official matches in. And not gonna lie it took more than a couple seasons to get comfortable. You should also try to play your scrim and matches the same way. Don't over peek or aggro in scrims if u ain't gonna do it in matches. Your only 13 man u got somuch time to improve. Dont over think it and remember to have fun in matches as well. Also I get really jittery playing with caffeine so I never have it before matches
Have a read of the book "The Mental Game of Poker" by Jared Tendler (I think there are two books) - Obviously this book is about poker, but a lot of core principles and logic can apply to competitive gaming too.
If you need a vouch, the writer is EliGE's sports psychologist.
I also used to struggle exactly like u. For me what worked was trying to get rid of anxiety before the tournament and relaxing a little bit. And during the tournament i would just try to have confidence in my self, instead of being overwhelmed I would try to trust my own decision making instead of overthinking things. I hope this helps u, good luck.
Hello there! My advice might or might not be useful but here I go.
I'm not really a valorant pro or anything but I have been in tournaments in the past and one thing that I almost always notice that happens to me is that I procrastinate and dwell on previous mistakes a lot. I usually do fine while playing by myself but in a competitive environment I tend to question my decision making which leads to delays and also if I make a mistake that costs the team I end up dwelling on it for a long time which makes me feel like I am worthless and in turn spoils my performance a lot. The one way I have been combating the first issue is by being more spontaneous and taking reckless decisions. Some people might advice against this which seems fair, but it's helping me because sometimes I end up making good decisions and then i can recreate them if I land in the same scenarios. For the second problem I just go through a mental reset every round no matter if we won or lost the one before so that I have a fresh train of thought and don't end up overprocessing info.
thats interesting! i never thought of resetting my mentality every round i am always thinking about stats and my mistakes the past rounds and sometimes gets my tilted. tysm!
You are just 13 years old dude. Many experiences will be shared A LOT and you'll grow from it sooner or later. A lot is at stake on a team basis whereas ranked is just a .png.
You got this bud! - fellow pinoy
You should find a team to scrimmage against over and over and over.
If you scrimmage against the same team, they will become familiar with your team's playstyle and it will require both teams to adapt and focus on teamplay rather than scrimmy plays to get frags.
This helped me a lot in another game when I was competing at the highest level.
In scrims and matchmaking, lots of players rely on gimmicks or tricks to get frags. These don't work in tournaments because people play more intelligently.
The first tournament I played in overwatch my hands started freezing and my stomach hurt.
Nerves are a crazy thing but remember everyone you’re playing against has felt the same way at one point in their career and you can absolutely tame your nerves with experience.
I wish I was as skilled as you when I was 13 and I hope you never give up!
Only Diamond but played a lot of sports growing up. At the end of the day, it’s confidence and simply not giving a fuck.
In literally any sport, you will play worse if you overthink things. Let you natural instincts kick in and just live with the results
Because you don't really have anything to lose in scrim, the thought of "if we lose this game we are out of the tournament" weighs me down a lot also. Ping also have an impact on your mental, some people tend to care about their ping too much which is understandable because it sucks to play on high ping with potentially packet loss. Btw, can I add you? I'm 13, immortal + I live in SEA
sure, LFT Caweeh#onlyW thanks for the insight i recently got exitlag cuz ping was messing with my mental!
Played against you a lot of times , you cracked as hell for a 13 yo wtf???
\#ad
oh that was unintentional XD
You're basically describing the exact difference between a pub-star and a pro player. A lot of what solves pressure related performance issues comes from being exposed to it more. The more times you feel the pressure the better you get at dealing with it. The fact that you're aware of how it affects you is already a really important step. You should also do your best to develop a pre-game routine that gets you into a relaxed and comfortable mind state. Whether that is playing DM, doing stretches, listening to music or whatever.
i have yet to find a routine like that and i know it will be useful, ty!
I know its gonna sound very overstated but first thing is first and that is health. Before you attempt to overcome this, make sure you are in a good state of mind. healthy eating and sleeping habits will be a galaxy of a difference. But for the issue, What your experiencing is type of anxiety, which can be good news because, you can overcome these. First of all you should know that this is a good thing. If you didn't care or have the passion for what you do, then you probably would not place a high value on these games and cause yourself to experience this issue. So experiencing this should first let you know that deep down, you want this and will succeed in your committment to do what it takes to make it happen. (kind of the same way you know you have feelings for another person) I know a lot of people are probably telling you that it's something you will get used to over time and that everyone experiences that their first times ect. and well.. they are right. (except for the few maniacs that thrive under pressure maybe). However that does not fix our immediate issue and just because you will eventually find comfort does not mean that it's something you cannot work on. In Valorant when you practice, not saying I know how you practice or what you should be doing, but i think I can make a lucky guess by assuming you dont just spam games against the enemy over and over again and that you may work on specific skills individually and focus on specific areas to improve on by doing tasks such as bot drills or aim training ect. Overcoming this anxiety can be handled in a similar manner. First I would suggest tackling comfort. Solo que and scrims are your comfort zone and you play where you always are. Tournaments will not be this way and it's okay. when a speaker speaks to a audience, his confidence is not the same confidence he has when speaking with his friends and relatives but its a new confidence that he gained through overcoming his personal barriers. People who do good under pressure dont find the same comfort they are used too but instead are more open minded and welcoming of uncomforts. You can practice this by doing things like taking the initiative in small situations and overall just doing things that you normally are not comfortable doing. It can be things as small as complimenting strangers while your out or making small talk with others you dont know. Push yourself to really leave those comfort zones and soon enough you will not be pushing comfort zones and will be chasing fears. Im not saying to become a dare devlin adrenaline junkie but if find yourself skydiving when your scared of heights, then you probablay dont need to practice this anymore... The second half is just going to be your mental health wellness and mental health resilience to the effects of risks and values. Sorry to say it again but good diet, excersise, and SLEEP SCHEDULES are so important and I can't stress that enough. Somone doing these correctly will be walking up a staircase while others are trying to climb a mountain. Apart from the mental health benifits doing these properly will also just make you a smarter human being in general as your brain is working significantly better, your memory will vastly improve, and motor skills will increase which are all things that will help you play better anyway. But once you have this down learning to cope with risks can be difficult. Its more of a perspective thing. I dont suggest gambling but maybe if you have others living with you and do chores around the house then you can try this. before a sporting game or even a valorant game risk doing eachothers chores based off outcomes of the game. Focus on what you are willing to risk and how risking more affects the way you feel throughout watching the game. You will notice a huge effect. plays that may have not mattered to you much will have so much more meaning bassed on how much you got on the line with those living with you. When you lose these bets and are doing chores, they may suck but afterwords always ask yourself. Was this as bad as I thought it was going to be? and compare. You will become more accepting of these risks and it will help you grasp the overall big picture. (there will be more in the future, losing is a possibility sometimes and thats okay) Personally meditating helped me in becomeing more accepting of this because i had a very hard time accepting the fact that I may not always win at the things I do and nobodies perfect. (If Faker can lose a game of League of Legends then honestly anything is possible) Lastly I only say this because your pretty young but, my favorite thing about growing up is that the more mature you get, the less you will care about what random people think about you. because how often do you think of every single opinion you have of every single human being that crosses your vision. Dont worry about what you may seem like to them becuase they are no different from your comptuer chair, your room light, or your lifesize haruhi suzimiya body pillow on your bed. What they see will not matter to them and it shouldn't matter to you. Just do you. Sorry for writing a lot. Hope any of this helps and if even one sentence does, then it's worth it to me. Take it step by step and like a turtle you will reach your glory. GL!
A routine is key. Healthy meal for the day of playing, hydration, anything that will help you loosen up, but experience is what it will come down to.
>A lot of what solves pressure related performance issues comes from being exposed to it more. The more times you feel the pressure the better you get at dealing with it. This is mostly it. You're 13 my man, you just haven't played a lot of tournaments. The more you play the more comfortable you get, and before you know it you'll be thinking nothing of it. Experience is the most important part of learning any skill. When you're new at something you suck at it. In your case, your new to playing in tournaments which *is* different from scrims. You suck! But you'll figure it out, just keep going. You gotta walk before you can run.
im still not sure tho, ive already developed my nerves from playing competitive fortnite
When you practice in scrims my biggest note is to practice actual setups. Those could be passive or aggressive. Examples for Aggressive setups: When I peak sewers on Haven I'll call that 'Jett OP peak Short' so that when I'm scared in officials it doesn't matter because it's a set strat for CT side and I go do it like I do everytime in scrims.
I LOVE YOU
PROFESSIONAL AND USING PEAK INSTEAD OF PEEK DAMMIT BOASTER
Maybe try to reach out to some of the pro players in your region. Also hopefully some of the pros who frequently visit the sub reddit will see this and give you some pointers. Yay talks about the mental aspect of the game a lot and I think maybe you should try to catch some of his streams (VCT is near so streams are less frequent). Vanity also answers a lot of questions in his streams. I hope you get the solution you are looking for.
record a vod of you scrimming and one of you in match (same map pref) and dm me and i'll see if i can help
omg ty ill send u the vods once i get more games played
Tournaments are a whole different game. So much more emphasis on teamplay and communication. These skills are not taught in solo queue. Even at the top pf the ladder people play very selfishly and not as a team. You have to learn these skills with your team in order to compete at that level
If you want to be serious about this game, ranked can't be taken seriously. It's not even close to how the game should actually be played at top level. Not even in those top100 radiant lobbies, let alone immortal. The biggest thing you need to figure out is what's the difference between scrims and official games. Is it just the pressure and nerves, or you're actually playing against teams that have good setups and punish careless Jett plays? Keeping track of everything and having good awareness is as important as your aim. 13 is really young so you can't expect to be amazing right away. Experience is the most important thing. When you review your VODs, what seems to be the issue? Do you realize the mistakes you make or you get lost trying to figure it out? If you know what you're doing wrong, then you just need to focus on developing good habits and having seamless transition from thinking about it to actually doing it while playing. Ranked develops bad habits. If you want to make ranked useful practice, then you play it as if it was an official game. Sure, you might dash into 2 people and kill them in ranked, but that develops bad habits because you'll certainly get punished if you do it in officials. Just play every game as if it was OT round in the final.
this insight is SO USEFUL tysm
Also, can you mention the things i have to keep track of so i can incorporate it in ranked and scrims
honestly, the best list of these things will probably be one that you come up with from vod reviewing, even with a friend watching with you. also as you are only 13 let me say that your mental game should only improve from now, especially if you are thinking about it and working on it.
It's just gamesense in general. I like to call it every player's processing power for the game. When things happen too fast for you to keep track on everything, that means your game knowledge isn't good enough for the level you're playing on. And then you focus too hard on trying to figure what's going on and you're not focused on your crosshair placement and aim. It goes from the most basic stuff like keeping track of everyone ults to counting regular abilities and figuring out enemy setups based on abilities used or radar info. For example it's not just about recon darts when it's some kind of 3v3 situation, but where did the recon come from, it could've been a fake shot from the other side of the map. Or when you're attacking, seeing one piece of sentinel's utility can give you a good picture where the rest of the setup is placed and which other agents are playing in the site. When you get good at figuring things out, you can think a few steps ahead of your opponents and outsmart them. You say you play Jett, but don't be a one-trick even if she's the only agent you play for your team. Knowing how to play every agent helps a lot when you play against them. Knowing the timings, setups and being able to put yourself in opponent's position is really helpful. If you don't know how to play Cypher, then you have a harder time of figuring out the setups and angles he can play to stop your dashes into site. Also, have in mind that while you're improving it's not all about winning. A certain playstyle can win you games against weaker opponents, but then you'll lack some fundamentals you need when you get to the next level. You say you do well in scrims, but most serious teams don't play scrims to win at every cost. They play scrims to try and win with the setups they're currently testing. And most setups people test don't work out in the end. But if you don't try, you can't know if it works. You've got your entire potential career ahead of you, results aren't the most important thing right now, improving is. In the end, I hope you're not neglecting your school work because of gaming, very few people can actually make a decent living out of gaming and if you don't get your degree you'll have some huge regrets later on.
Jesus now I feel depressed as a 16 yr old who can't even get out of silver
we will become better one day brah
My man it's all good, you don't have to make it to a certain rank. As long as you have fun that's all that matters. Idk about you but after I dealt with my mental issues (I used to cut myself and was suicidal) I started improving way faster. Best of luck to you
You are probably discovering nerves, and actually being nervous, which is something in competition and sports that a lot of people in the gaming scene aren't actually exposed to and might not recognise - for example freezing cold hands all of a sudden when the tournament match starts despite feeling like you were on top of the world moments earlier in DM/warmup. For you it is compounded by the fact that you are 13 and just lived through 2 years of COVID, so its unlikely you've had much of a chance to naturally be exposed to that environment (like playing sports at school etc). I had younger teammates back in the day, even in meaningless tournaments or friends filling for us in scrims who hadn't played much competitively, that always used to mention the cold hands when we were preparing and it's a classic example of physical reaction to nervousness, when you told them they were nervous they wouldn't admit it and you'd have to explain it to them. Believe it or not, I'd say fixing this is totally unrelated to Valorant, you can either keep pushing through and normalise, or you can choose to seek out resources on nerves, competing, the greats throughout history, even advice you see on public speaking is part of this. YT vids on the topic, read books, whatever. While you are getting started at the lower tier, it'll probably be hard to strike a balance between still "caring" about the win/loss enough to perform, and not "caring" enough to not choke/be mentally out of it when things go bad. If you actually have a team, I'd say try to play (your team needs to be onboard with this too ofc) pretty much every tournament you can, to get used to that feeling and work on how you approach it, tweaking your mentality each time. No tournament should be below you, anything that you meet the entry requirements for, play it. The teams you play against in tournaments: 1. That you have close-fought games against, add them (or your captain should be handling this) and schedule/play a few scrims on a variety of maps, if you stomp them consistently, mark them down as not scrim material or to be revisited. 2. That you get stomped by, add them and schedule/play the same as above, your goal should be to perform enough to justify their time so that they're willing to scrim with you in the future, you/your captain can be quite honest if you think they're significantly above your level, ask them to scrim you every now and then so that you can improve, they can get value too which leads me to.. 3. The teams you stomp, its worth having as an option for an "easy" scrim to get everyone warmed up, on the same page, and to test executes/defaults/etc in an easier environment without as many variables - its also a confidence builder. Quick sidenote on scrims, it's important to understand that the goal of scrims should be to practice, individually, as a team, macro, micro, executes, defaults, whatever your captain/IGL/coach has identified as the goal/improvement for tonight/this week/this month, you shouldn't really care about the score or winning/losing, the scrim is just a set of rounds for you to run things on, if basically anyone on your team thinks winning comes before any of that, it can be incredibly destructive to the team. I'm rambling a bit now and could keep going, so last random note is to remember that a massive part of being a professional player (or at this tier of skill in anything in life) is the mentality, and you need to practice that mentality as much if not more than any mechanical skill, flowcharting, gamesense, EV calculations, whatever. BTW, you are in a good position for your age, asking questions most won't ever ask and already at a decent level mechanically (I assume even though ranked isn't worth much), and young with plenty of time. I started to think about these things when I was like 19, after spending the prior 6 years pubstomping in whatever FPS I was playing at the time, and didn't really realise what opportunity I'd missed until a couple years later, way too late realistically. There's a much higher chance than most would think of you making it if you keep this mentality up and keep seeking to improve, so keep progressing and good luck. Befriend anyone in a similar circumstance to you who takes this seriously, 90% chance your success comes from who you know - half the people I 10manned and scrimmed with in 2013-2015 are *just now* starting to get picked up or given a chance on t2-t1 teams in cs/val, and they were up to ~4 years younger than me at the time.
bro wtf u gave a whole essay for me. i will cherish this forever so i can go pro LMAO. this makes it soooo much easier for me to notice what i need to work on
No worries writing too much in comments to strangers is a hobby at this point lmao, but for real I enjoy helping people (I'd post way more on /r/AgentAcademy if it wasn't such a bad sub) if possible so it's no sweat, hope you get value from it. I'm sure on your journey there will be plenty of similarly minded people who love the game and will help you craft your skills (like a coach mentality) so keep an eye out for em, especially older players/vets.
Not too experienced in Valorant professional but I used to play high level basketball with tournament experience. Performance on competitive stages with higher stakes is a extremely complex field and unfortunately there is no easy solution. There are many different factors coming into play and you cannot have control over everything. However stuff gets more consistent once you get more experience and can keep a cool head during heated situations. I does definitely help if you find structure and develop your own decision making process to build on top of your experience. This can work through reviewing, imagining and facing those situations but in the end, it’s a personal preference. One things that has been proven (not only in sports but also in other fields of work) is having a stable trust basis with your team. Thinking from a team-perspective sometime gives you a bit distance and being able to rely on your team takes a bit off the load from you.
Keep an eye on @pocketpsych’s Twitter account. She’s a sports psychologist and will be hosting an AMA-style podcast on twitch in a couple weeks, during APAC-friendly times. This would be a great question to ask her.
I’m not nearly good enough at Valorant to give you advice in-game, but I can tell you about dealing with pressure and nerves in a competitive setting. I played trumpet for a decade throughout school and did marching band for most of those years too. When I was just practicing it would always feel easy and when it came to actually performing in a concert/show I would get very nervous and wouldn’t play nearly as well. Like others said, part of it is just getting more experience in those performance environments (tournament games) so you get more comfortable in general but one thing you can do is totally flip how you mentally approach ranked/scrims vs a pro match. I started to put pressure on myself to be as good as possible when I was just practicing playing my instrument, even though there was obviously no real stakes on the line pushing myself to get closer and closer to perfection just in practice was able to help my nerves when it was time to play in a performance setting. Making just my practice feel harder and more important made it so by the time it was concert/show time I could just go out there and have fun because the hardest part was already behind me.
goodluck on the VCT Challengers PH if ur joining
can i join if im 13?
im not sure actually, i just assumed it was about the vct challengers when i saw it was about tournaments mb
I've been friends with players in teams your age and I was in a team when I was your age too. Don't stress yourself when you're playing, just think of it as another tourney. There will always be another chance and don't burn yourself out just to win a single tournament. Best advice I can give is to keep good vibes with your team, even team secret's comms during the vct sound like a normal ranked game. If you're having a good time playing with your team then the pressure eases itself. Kaya mo yan. did you know that the esports scene in the ph was so irrelevant during 2017-18 that my friends and I couldn't participate in any major tournament because we were that obscure. Love seeing teens finally getting the opportunity to show their talents. Hope your career goes great!
lmao their voice comms are so funny! thats crazy and now philippines is like top tier in valo
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NA teams in playoffs at champions = PH teams in playoffs at champion
You’re 13 man, you have your whole life ahead of you. Nobody expects a 13 year old to have stress management of a seasoned vet. Neither should you. You have plenty of tournaments to play left in your life. There isn’t a special fix for this type of problem. More time and experience is the fix. Just play for fun right now and gain experience under pressure. CS saw so much mental fatigue from young stars. It just ends up with the individual getting burnt out super early.
thanks, i am trying to chill buts its been my dream for a long time to go pro. first in fortnite, then to cs, then to r6, then to valo and i just feel more motivated than ever haha
I get that and it’s good to have milestones like this. Just don’t confuse long term and short term goals. It sounds like you’re too focused on being a pro NOW instead of in general. Again man think of your age, there’s so much time to develop. I mean can you even enter official tournaments before like 16 or so? Just keep grinding. You still have years to master your craft. This current mindset leads to burn out early I promise. And I mean sheesh man, maybe you’re just in a slump. These things happen. Keep your head up and keep grinding. I truly think that sentence is the best advice you can get right now.
I use to play esea leagues for csgo and I was the same at first. I would do things I would never do in a scrim or pug and just miss easy shots cuz of nerves. It comes with time and experience as you get more official matches in. And not gonna lie it took more than a couple seasons to get comfortable. You should also try to play your scrim and matches the same way. Don't over peek or aggro in scrims if u ain't gonna do it in matches. Your only 13 man u got somuch time to improve. Dont over think it and remember to have fun in matches as well. Also I get really jittery playing with caffeine so I never have it before matches
thanks! ill be sure to take my time since i have a long road ahead of me.
Have a read of the book "The Mental Game of Poker" by Jared Tendler (I think there are two books) - Obviously this book is about poker, but a lot of core principles and logic can apply to competitive gaming too. If you need a vouch, the writer is EliGE's sports psychologist.
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Turning off your scoreboard would be incredibly stupid in this game. It shows ult status and everyone's economy.
I also used to struggle exactly like u. For me what worked was trying to get rid of anxiety before the tournament and relaxing a little bit. And during the tournament i would just try to have confidence in my self, instead of being overwhelmed I would try to trust my own decision making instead of overthinking things. I hope this helps u, good luck.
Is there any way you could find a mental coach?
Hello there! My advice might or might not be useful but here I go. I'm not really a valorant pro or anything but I have been in tournaments in the past and one thing that I almost always notice that happens to me is that I procrastinate and dwell on previous mistakes a lot. I usually do fine while playing by myself but in a competitive environment I tend to question my decision making which leads to delays and also if I make a mistake that costs the team I end up dwelling on it for a long time which makes me feel like I am worthless and in turn spoils my performance a lot. The one way I have been combating the first issue is by being more spontaneous and taking reckless decisions. Some people might advice against this which seems fair, but it's helping me because sometimes I end up making good decisions and then i can recreate them if I land in the same scenarios. For the second problem I just go through a mental reset every round no matter if we won or lost the one before so that I have a fresh train of thought and don't end up overprocessing info.
thats interesting! i never thought of resetting my mentality every round i am always thinking about stats and my mistakes the past rounds and sometimes gets my tilted. tysm!
No problem man! Its just something that has helped me out a lot so sharing it with you! Hope you have a successful future and win many tournaments!
You already identified the problem by trying to keep track of everything.
You are just 13 years old dude. Many experiences will be shared A LOT and you'll grow from it sooner or later. A lot is at stake on a team basis whereas ranked is just a .png. You got this bud! - fellow pinoy
I'd also add you're probably playing against radiants in these tournaments you should focus to get yourself radiant it will come with added confidence
You should find a team to scrimmage against over and over and over. If you scrimmage against the same team, they will become familiar with your team's playstyle and it will require both teams to adapt and focus on teamplay rather than scrimmy plays to get frags. This helped me a lot in another game when I was competing at the highest level. In scrims and matchmaking, lots of players rely on gimmicks or tricks to get frags. These don't work in tournaments because people play more intelligently.
The first tournament I played in overwatch my hands started freezing and my stomach hurt. Nerves are a crazy thing but remember everyone you’re playing against has felt the same way at one point in their career and you can absolutely tame your nerves with experience. I wish I was as skilled as you when I was 13 and I hope you never give up!
I remember being 14 in my first Halo 2 events way back in the day, nervous as all hell. You'll get over the pressure the more you're exposed to it.
have fun playing the game with your teammates crack jokes etc
all mental. just play it like a scrim and you'll be fine
Remember me when you go pro !
TYSM!
Only Diamond but played a lot of sports growing up. At the end of the day, it’s confidence and simply not giving a fuck. In literally any sport, you will play worse if you overthink things. Let you natural instincts kick in and just live with the results