Play to Improve, Not to Win
You’ll often hear the advice, “Play to improve, not to win.” What does that mean, exactly?
Essays on self-improvement, software development, and esports.
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You’ll often hear the advice, “Play to improve, not to win.” What does that mean, exactly?
What does Reiterate have in common with top-tier Olympic coaches? It’s all in your head.
League of Legends offers players the ability to forfeit games. After a certain amount of time, any player can start a surrender vote, and if enough players vote Yes then the game ends with a loss. When is it appropriate to surrender a game?
One piece of advice I’ve seen given frequently is “You should mute all your teammates at the start of every game.” Here’s why I think you should reconsider that.
One of the most often repeated pieces of advice I see for League of Legends players is: be greedy. Always play for yourself, and assume your teammates are incapable of making the correct plays. I think this is a mistake.
This blog post by Marcus Buffet on Thoughts on Improving on Chess made some interesting points about self-improvement in general and how to properly use self-improvement tools, and I thought there was much there that could also apply to improving at esports. I recommend reading it; it’s not too long. Then you can return here for my thoughts.
In gamer terminology, to “int” means to intentionally feed, that is, to basically give up and allow your opponent to kill you repeatedly. Sometimes the term is used loosely, when a player might exclaim, “I’m totally inting” when he makes a poor play. But originally (and still) it can mean when someone isn’t trying at all, and in fact is helping the opposing team as much as they can. In this post I’d like to discuss that extreme form of inting.
If you want to improve, you have to focus on yourself. That sounds simple, but there’s more to it than you might think.