I’m gonna try to learn how to ask good questions here to help me make progress in my goals. Here’s the article and context on how I’m going to do that:
Asking Good Questions gives tips. A good way is to present questions as a point you got stuck in your own thinking process. You tried to solve W problem, you thought of X and Y, you ran into difficulty Z, and the question is how to make progress from there. Tell that story.
I want to try what’s suggested in the quote so maybe I can have an easier time discussing about irl things and things in general.
Here’s one attempt: The Problem:
I’m trying to improve in a hero shooter game called Marvel Rivals and I feel like I’m stuck on what I gotta learn. I want to solve the problem of what is the next thing I should learn. I want to learn to climb the ranks and also be a good dps player.
The Solution(s):
I thought of watching a replay and finding stuff in the gameplay I struggle in and want to improve on. I thought if I could list a bunch of things I could improve on, then I could go in a real match and focus on getting better at those small things.
The Difficulty:
The difficulty I ran into is that there are so many things I could “improve” on but I don’t know which is the right one that’ll let me make progress. When I try to improve on something I thought would be good, the next match plays differently and I find that I don’t know if the thing I’m trying to improve on is right for that match. I just end up losing even tho im maybe slightly improving on the listed thing.
Am I overthinking on how to improve?
P.S. Now that I’m thinking about it, I think “climbing the ranks and doing it as mostly a dps player” is a harder goal than “climbing the ranks”. I could just be a healer or tank and have other dps players help me climb. I didn’t think about that before writing this.
Now that I think about it after writing this. Maybe instead of assuming that my solution will work in any match I go in, instead I should categorize the different kinds of problems I’m dealing with in a per match basis? Like, I’m dealing with brawl enemy team problem, or a poke enemy team problem, or dive. Something like that.
Context: I haven’t played marvel rivals. I played overwatch only a couple of times like 6-7 years ago.
I would say look at replays of multiple matches and try to gather more data in order to compare.
I think the problem categorization idea is good. Maybe you want examples for each problem category from many matches instead of just one.
If some things come up in many matches that’s a good sign you need to improve on it. But really you’ll have to use creative thinking to figure what is the most important skill to improve. I guess you’ve watched youtube videos on what to improve? That could at least give you things to look out for in your replays.
You could keep different things in mind to improve for different match types and work on one thing in each match type. That’s a bit difficult since you’ll have many projects ongoing at the same time.
Instead you could practice recognizing what the different match types are. If you can classify the match types you can know when you can practice the thing you want to practice.
Yeah I’ll try to do that. I like the idea of finding examples of each problem.
I’ll try to do that too cuz usually I try to find things that come many times in one match.
I don’t watch much, but Im thinking about doing it now cuz the youtubers online seem to kind of know what they’re talking about. They’re a much higher rank than me.
I was thinking something similar like this yesterday. I’ll try to recognize the match types to help me visualize what kind of problem im dealing with
That’s right, i think if I know what Im going up against, it’ll make more sense to practice a thing on them.
I have to check what percentile my rank is in when I rank up. I’m for sure under top 500. The game doesn’t let you check whenever if im right.
I got like 250 hours in competitive in total and ~370 in all modes.
Only other experience I have is with fps like cod and some other third person shooters. I would say all other shooters I have a combined of about 500 hours. And I don’t really play ranked in other games. I think I struggled a lot in those those shooters and a lot of my friends were better.
Edit 1: I have like around 30 hours in Overwatch 2 as healer. Just quickplay tho
Yeah mentioning stuff like that seems important. Like people don’t know if im a noob just starting out or im at the top rank.
I kind of don’t know what I already did to there. I thought I’ve been doing some focused learning for stuff I had trouble with like when to push as a tank or when to retreat. However, now it’s harder cuz there doesn’t seem to be as many things to get good at. Like it’s hard to see.
I read it and I think maybe the pc distribution is different than console. I’m on ps5. Sorry for not mentioning.
It seems there’s so many people in Grandmaster and Celestial on PC. I thought the number would be like: Grandmaster 2.0% and celestial <1.0%. Idk if people play more on pc
Attempt 2: The Problem:
Im trying to find a discussion method I can use that I can relate to my hobbies n life. I thought I could do learn how to ask good questions more consistently, but it’s hard to think of anything im stuck on.
The Difficulty:
The difficulty I ran into for the first article is idk if it’s helpful for one person finding mutual benefit for a discussion for himself. For the second article it was hard to visualize doing one of the tips and doing them with myself.
Honestly, it was hard to think of the difficulty for this question. Idk even know wat went in my head. I just kept thinking “Idk. what am i even reading? Is this even something i can do in an isolated way?”
Should I just go back to learning to ask good questions?
P.S. I might actually have some things to ask good questions about after writing this reply.
Hmm. I’ve had similar issues in League of Legends. I would pick something that I think I needed to improve on and then it ended up being irrelevant in the next game. One thing I did that kind of helped (though I never got really good at league) was to just focus on improving a single thing and not care about other things. A simple example: in league killing minions is an important skill to get gold, i was really really bad at it. Did that mean I lost every game due to my bad farm? nah, there was a bunch of other stuff. i just didn’t care about the other stuff and focused on fixing this one issue until i got good at it. i did that for a while until i got complacent at the game.
read through the post and got here
so that seems fairly high rank (congrats! btw)
Here’s a League youtube channel I really like: https://www.youtube.com/@Azzapp . He’s a very good player with a very positive mentality. I really like him. Idk what Rivals players you could watch, but the reason I share him is because there is a lot to learn in a game. Idk how to approach learning all these things and idk how these top players approached it (I mean there maybe resources, but they’re usually the ones who made it so how’d they come up with stuff? impressive stuff tbh), but I share his channel because:
1.) super positive good gamer. i think he has a great mental and is helping people deal with being toxic and throwing games and stuff
2.) he talks a lot about game knowledge and stuff. it helped me get a sense of just how much pro players actually know about the game. The top players actually know a lot. I just thought they were purely more skilled than me (like faster reaction time, better button mashing or something) but they also just have more knowledge about a bunch of other stuff. Paraphrasing him “League is a game with a huge tutorial. You spend hours going through iron to bronze to emerald to diamond to master to finally challenger where the real game begins.”
Maybe there are top Rivals creators you can watch and get a perspective on how they see game.
ooh last thing: the top league ranks are challenger (the very top), then grandmaster, then master. A lot of challengers comment on how master players really only have mechanics and that the difference between a challenger and a master player is really in their game knowledge. Could be the same in rivals (and other games). You probably got to grandmaster with really strong mechanics, what you may be lacking is in-depth game knowledge?
Yeah I like doing something like that. It’s easier to focus on one thing and try to improve on that.
Thank you!!
Kind of not relevant but there are talks that the matchmaking is kinda rigged. Like it makes some people climb higher than they deserve. Like there’s inflation. It’s a weird issue and don’t know if there is something really amiss.
I’ll check him out. I like looking at pro players or really good ones playing their game.
There is! I thought some boring looking facts in a game wouldn’t be worth learning, but sometimes I see pros utilize them into their skills. Makes me think twice before I just dismiss something as just boring info
That’s interesting. I like that people that are good at games don’t have to be bad at their mental. Like that is something to improve on itself
I thought something like that too like if you try hard enough you can just be as good as them.
Yeah I watch them for entertainment. Maybe I should watch them more for learning. I try sometimes but don’t do it enough.
That sounds good
Yeah I think this is the case. Like there are so many little things if one could pick up as game knowledge that goes a long way in a lot of moments.
I think my mechanics are okish like I could work on them, but the indepth game knowledge I think is probably more important. I hear a lot of the time to not worry so much about aiming and mechanical stuff like that from good youtubers. They say learning positioning and strategy is just as important if not more.
This reminds me of Captain Hindsight from South Park.
When you’re considering what changes to make, you should consider whether a change would be good in the previous game you played and all other games. If you only consider whether something would have worked well in the previous game, you will likely pick a local optima for that specific game.
It’s the same with philosophy, politics, science, history, etc.: you need a lot of knowledge to be really good at these things. A lot of newbies are clever, and they learn some things, and they don’t realize how many pieces of knowledge they’re missing.
That makes sense I think like it’s not just making a change or getting good at one thing. It’s making a change and that change is good for that game and all other games.