Road to Average part 3 - practice and updates
Pre Introduction
I started writing this piece a while ago, and I have played quite a bit since then, but I will write this from where I was at that point in time. In the next piece part 4 I will give a bit more update on how it is going. Do I have a Premier rating or not? and if, what is that rating? and some more videos over gameplay and such. But that’s next time.
📽️ Bear with me there will be moving media in the bottom of this long piece. It might or might not be fun. 👇🏼
Introduction
Feels like I have been writing the same introduction three times now, but hey let’s do it again. The 22nd of May I started an experiment called “Road to Average”. In this experiment I will see how long it will take me to reach average skills in Counter Strike (CS2) for my skill group based on Leetify statistics. I have so far compared myself to the lowest Premier rating.
Do you remember how I wrote in the first part, that suffering was important for progress? If I haven’t progressed now I don’t know, because suffering has been suffered. So with that said I would like to apologize for almost writing that the CS community is a bunch of snowflakes that can’t handle updates and are a bunch conservative baboons. I’m from now on also that baboon 🦧.
I have finally start to understand the amount of time you need to put into this game and how overall good you need to be in all categories to not get humiliated. So I will now join the group of conservative baboons and ask Valve - please handle us gently, we bruise easily.
Key Metrics
I wrote that the Performance radar chart would be my main key metric, but I have added this one (see below). The timeline of my performance based on Leetify rating. The Leetify rating is based on people in my skill group. So I think that rating tells quite a lot about my overall performance and the radar chart tells me a bit more in which categories I’m underperforming.
We have to ask ourselves if Poor is the right wording for motivational purposes. I’m not a UX-copy but I have worked a lot with people who are good at that, and I think Poor is not the best word for finding that little extra motivation to keep on practicing and start excelling. I think it ranges from Poor, Subpar, Average, Good and Great. Both in rating and also in the different Categories mentioned above.
In this piece I will go through how I have been practicing, what I have been practicing and a bit about how it's going in general.
You can read more about the experiment in Part 1
And my statistics when I started it all in Part 2
Read more about updates in the Leetify rating
Read more about Leetify metrics and how they are calculated
More intro
First things first, let me take you through CS unbelievably complicated ranking and rating system. Playing matches in CS you either play Competitive or Premier. You can also use a third party service for matchmaking called FACEIT. I do not use FACEIT. Competitive mode is a bit more chill I would say, it feels like people are not as serious there as they are playing Premier. In Competitive you get to choose a map and your progress is map bound. Which means you can focus on becoming good on certain maps and leave the rest behind (yes I’m looking at you new Vertigo, blä).
The Premier mode feels a bit more sophisticated and people feel a bit more serious there. In Premier you don’t have as much control of which maps you will be playing on, instead you take turns banning certain maps until you end up with two maps left and you will play one or the other. The team that doesn’t choose map will get to choose if they want to start as a terrorist or counter terrorist.
I used to play a lot of Competitive because it felt nice to be able to control which map you ended up playing but I have now gone into playing only Premier instead. The problem with that is that I don’t have a rating, and being unranked means I can't que together with people over 10 000 in rating. Which means I can’t play together with some of the people I use to play in Competitive mode with. And solo queueing is brutal. If you wan’t to harden up as a person, please be my guest and do some solo queueing in CS2 Premier. Solo queuing means that you don’t have any teammates, you match with random people. Where everyone constantly tries to 1) kick you out of the team 2) ask for nudes 3) call you an idiot 4) tries to kill you 5) just go on a solo rampage trying to get as many frags as possible.
Game Plan
Leetify provides the statistics needed for creating and understanding of your own performance from all kinds of angles, but it doesn’t really tell you How you can practice those focus areas or How much one should practice to stand a honest chance of generating any results. They do provide a “focus area“ feature, which is nice but it mostly consist of Youtube videos, which in some cases are a bit too advanced for me.
If you decide to become a runner, a biker or do any other kind of sports there is often a lot of science to support how much you need to train and how to train to expect a certain result. There are a lot of science based practice plans for how to increase aerobics endurance, and how many percent of your training should consist of what, and often the increase in performance is quite predictable. In this case it is a bit less science based and the result is a bit more unpredictable.
There is no lack of material or services out there which promise results. So what I have done is to gather material from the world wide web focusing on beginners and set up a basic Practice plan for myself. In part 4 I will write a bit more how I have updated that plan.
Sorry the formatting on these videos. Everything to the right has been a bit cut. But i have solved it now, promise.
Aim
Fundamentals, aim. Most of my practice consists of aim practice of different sorts. It is also the most straightforward to train. But I have been harshly aware about the fact that having an ok aim doesn't really make you win matches, apparently you need game sense and map awareness as well. Or actually, that is quite important, but we will talk more about that later.
Let’s start with an analogy. I grew up playing music. Both my parents are musicians and it was not really a choice to play, I just needed to pick my weapon of choice. And so I did by the age of 4. My father who is a born and bred classical musician told me “when you practice, you want to be accurate before you can achieve the right tempo/speed, there is no idea to try to achieve speed before accuracy. The speed will come when everything else is in place. Have respect for being perfectly in tune, for feeling the rhythm and being accurate in every aspect”. I think this applies so well to this. Go slow, focus on perfect movements and accuracy, placing the crosshair right, keeping the gun up and standing still while shooting. Don’t try to shoot as fast as possible, first make sure you will hit, that’s how you win duels. The speed will come (maybe).
I also think I found proof of this. What I have noticed looking at my own data is that my time to damage (average time it took you from seeing the enemy player to first dealing damage to them) is often quite low. I shoot fast, but I act premature. I don’t make sure my crosshair placement is right, I act in panic or still moving. The result of that is that I do damage but not enough for a kill, and instead I give away my position and get killed instantly. So note to self “be accurate, calm down and the speed will come”.
I have noticed that players that get way more kills and higher ADR (Average Damage per round) has often higher time to damage. At least amongst the people I have played with. This probably does not apply to professionals, they probably have both high ADR and a low Time to damage. So my fairly low time to damage does not serve me…yet.
I also looked at the Time to Damage numbers together with both ADR , Spray pattern accuracy and Total damage to see if there were any patterns in between those metrics. One could think that having a low time to damage would equal high ADR, but for me, there is no such pattern. It will be interesting moving forward if this can change. Hypothetical it feels like combining a low Time to damage with high accuracy will lead to higher ADR, less deaths and more duels won. But then comes map knowledge and game sense and fudges it all up.
How do I train aim then?
The Internet gave some good suggestions on workshop maps. I've tried a few and these are the ones I like the most, and this is how I use them to become an aim-god, aim-queen, aces of aim and so on. Or just average.
One thing I try to practice all the time is counter strafing, becoming better with timing, knowing when to release and when to counter press opposite key to come to a total stop at the right moment, so I don’t have to adjust my crosshair as much. I do this by moving from the right to the left using the workshop maps I have linked below. I counter strafe, try to find the timing, adjust my crosshair and shoot. Then I try to speed it up, and when I miss I slow down and to it all over again.
Spray and pray
I don’t always practica, but I find it nice at times to make sure I’m not getting worse at spraying. Every CS weapon has recoil, especially the rifles, and you want to be able to control while spraying. What you do in this workshop map is that you learn the pattern to follow to counter the recoil of the weapon. Even though I don’t do this that often it gives me a good understanding of how it works. I usually only do it with the AK and the M4A1, the two weapons I use the most. I choose having a dummy behind while I spray so I can really see when I stop making damage. What I have noticed here is that I manage to control 8 bullets from the AK before derailing outside the dummy, and then I have to start over. And for the M4 I can at least control a magazine. And that creates a bit better understanding for when my spraying no longer does any damage and it is better for me to start over.
Arm and wrist aim
I had never done or understood this before, moving my entire arm versus moving wrist.
So what I do is that I try to keep my crosshair placement at an opponent for a longer period while moving slightly. I counter strafe and then shoot. Just to get the feeling of how to move the mouse but keeping my crosshair at the right spot.
What I also do is that I set the bot count to only 2, because then they appear randomly in the arena. Sometimes they can be very far apart and sometimes very close, so I have to adjust between wrist and arm at all times.
Counter strafing
I also warm up and practice by shooting against a wall making sure I only move sideways. I shoot, counter strafe, shoot and look at the pattern to make sure it is nice and tidy. I also try to think about this while doing the other things, so it becomes a habit as well.
Prefire and map knowledge
Map knowledge comes a lot from just playing of course. But sometimes I spend time loading pre fire workshop map. There is a lot of settings you can choose from. Most of the time I just go in there and try to understand where the most common places for opponents to be positioned, and then I pre fire. I find this fairly boring, so I don’t do this too often.
In my next piece I will go a bit more into how I have leveled my map knowledge training.
Link to pre fire workshop map on steam
Positioning and Utility
I don’t know which metrics are accounted for in the aggregated Positioning score, one of my key metrics. But my guess is something around how I’m positioning myself on a map to not end up in cross fires, strategic places to throw utility, places where I’m visible from several angles, or positions where I get a good overview of a bomb site without exposing myself and so on.
And why I am clustering Positioning and Utility together is that I think both of these come down to map knowledge. Let me explain that a bit more.
Utility
For all you non-game heads that might or might not read this, but foremost for you who read this (makes sense right). Utility is Grenades of different kinds, Nades.
Flashbangs = flash your opponent to blind them, and then shoot em
Molotov = BBQ time, burn opponents to a crisp, taste them and love it
Smoke = put down a smoke to cover yourself, or to confuse opponents, or just to create a dramatic effect
Grenades = Make the opponents into minced meat, or at least injure them with a bit of grenade power
Decoy = it is a decoy, fool em.
They all serve different purposes and they are crucial for getting an upper hand on your opponent. They can save you from stupid situations that you probably have gotten yourself into. They can save a teammate and they can hide you while planting the bomb. But they can also do harm if you don’t know how to handle them.
One thing you need to understand about grenades is how the physics works around them, how they bounce, how and when to throw them to make the most out of them and to not injure a teammate. And they’re not cheap so don’t waste them, but still do not die with utility not used. That is finance 1o1 in CS.
It is all fun and giggles to learn fancy line ups. But the most important thing is to be able to solve the problem in the moment, contextually. It is a bit like learning fancy academic theories on how to do product development, but the most important thing in the end is that you can make use of it and adapt it to any organisationen or project.
And figuring that out is based on your knowledge about nade physics as well as map knowledge, and surprise game sense. Understanding where and when opponents will show up, and what you can do with utility to stop a push, to lurk, to make the most amount of damage.
I think my bad usage of utility is a combination of my lack of map knowledge, understanding for how they work, as well as just being fast enough. Molotov is the nade I have had the most luck with so far. I often have the highest burn damage. Might be because I often play Long A on dustII and burn the sh*tz out of double doors.
Positioning
Positioning is almost all about map knowledge, knowing where opponents might be positioned as well as when. How shadow falls on the ground and where they can see you. As well as understand how you are positioning in relation to teammates. If you still have teammates alive, make sure you cover different angles, but if you’re left alone, what will be the most advantageous position. People that are much more experienced than me often say it is hard to play against lower rated players because they are so much more unpredictable. Suddenly they stand right in the open, even though they shouldn’t and so on.
I’m practicing this by loading the workshop map I linked above, where you can practice pre firing. And honestly, just by trial and error.
How is it going then?
Do you remember what I was aiming for? I said I had been playing 2.5 hours a week since I played my first game until the experiment started. I have without pushing it been playing approximately an average of 2h a day. Some days not at all and some days way more.
Metrics
I have a lot of nice statistics and visualisations in Leetify, but have decided to control the metrics a bit more myself (being the control freak I am). So I can look at the different metrics and make cross analysis in between them a bit more flexible than in Leetify. That’s what I did with the Time to Damage and ADR analysis for example. I don’t know if you can do this in Leetify, but what I’m after is following one metric over a longer period of time, and make cross analysis with that metric with others, this to investigate if there are any patterns. And which metrics might effect which.
These are ones I have extracted so far. I might add more later on if I feel like investigating something else. I had to remove the more personal metrics which I though would be fun to monitor. And the main reason for that is that I can’t play with my watch on, so I cant monitor Heart Rate and stress levels.
Date = I played the match
Time = Time on day I played the macth
Version = CS:GO or 2
Length = Length of the map
Result = Win or loss
Map = Which map
Players = Did I play with people I know or Solo queueing
Context = Where were I playing the match
Mode = Premier or Competitive
Kills = Number of kills
Deaths = How many times did I die during the match
Assists = How many assist did have
ADR = Average Damage per round
K/D = Kill death ratio
L Rating = Leetify rating
Personal performance = (How I performed in relations to my average)
Aim = Overall aim statistics, aggregated number of several metrics
Utility = Overall use of Nades
TtD = Time to damage
Total damage = Total damage in one match, shots and nades included
Cross Placement = how my crosshair placement was during the game, measured in grades from opponents
Head Accuracy = How close I was to headshot
Spray accuracy = How well I spray
Counter strafing = Stopping movement by pressing opposite key
HE damage = Grenade damage
Mol damage = Molotov damage
Enemies flashed = Number of enemies flashed
DMG per shot = Average damage per shot
My current level
So after these hours of quite intense playing, have I gotten better? Well, after maybe the first five matches when the experiment started it went quite fast and both my Aim and my Positioning was on par with where I should be compared with the lowest skill group in Premier mode, the rating I’m comparing with. But the more I play my positioning has gotten worse but my aim has not. And I guess the data becomes more accurate the more I play. So I think this Performance chart is a bit more accurate than the old ones I have posted.
Looking in Leetify or my own charts, I still don’t see any major changes in performances. There might be smaller indications that I’m a bit more consistent throughout all the metrics.
But the metrics that are connected to aim are actually getting better so the radar chart doesn’t lie. My Headshot kills have gotten higher, my crosshair placement is better, my counter strafing works (but to be honest it always has). So maybe the aim practice I have done has actually made a difference.
But what becomes painfully obvious is that becoming better at aim just doesn’t win me matches. It still comes down to game sense and map knowledge, strategy and communication with teammates.
My Leetify rating is still way below 0, which means I’m underperforming in comparison to other people in my skill group. But my personal performance has actually increased.
What would have been fun to investigate is how many hours and matches people have played that are in the same skill group as me. What is the average amount of hours played for a person with the lowest Premier rating, how many matches have they played, what is their win loose ratio and so on. People with a low Premier rank could have thousands of hours played, they just haven’t been able to win matches. And not winning matches doesn’t necessarily means you’re lousy. If you’re solo queuing it is just becomes it is hard to communicate and CS is for sure a strategy game dependent on communication with your teammates.
Another thing about my own performance is that in the beginning it was no differences in winning and loosing if I played with people I knew or solo queuing. And people always told me that playing with a team makes all the difference. But looking at the data now, I can see I win more playing with people I know rather than solo queuing. It’s not rocket science I get that, but I still want to put it out here. One factor is probably that I know them better and how they play and that our communication have become better over time but also the fact that I now actually understand what they’re saying. Before it didn’t matter what they told me, because I didn’t understand any of it and couldn’t act, I didn’t understand what to do with the information given to me. Information that is most of the time non existing when playing with randoms.
One thing I can’t stop thinking about, is what if I would have spent my first 400 hours in the way I’m playing now, not messing around on community servers? And the honest truth is that I don’t think I would have continue playing. Those 400 hours of just having fun, not being too competitive and being in a forgiving environment while learning to just play the game has for me been crucial for me.
On top of the fact that my aim actually has become slightly better, the biggest different is that I have started to enjoy playing matches. I still get a bit nervous, I don’t care that much about loosing or winning, but I genuinely care about being there for my team, and I desperately don’t want to let them down. Now I have much more confidence to take own decisions, to suggest strategies and to just try things and have fun. And just not constantly being nervous about making a fool out of a myself, and that is not a metric that should be forgotten about. Because self confidence both makes the game much more fun and in the long run I think it makes you a better player and teammate.
With all of this said, the Road to Average continues, we’re still not there. And I just have to keep on trusting the process, game sense and map knowledge doesn’t come from shooting bots, it comes from challenging myself to play matches.
Emotional stable anyone?
⚠️ DISCLAIMER - the first sound is very loud. Headphones is required. I apologies to everyone who needs to suffer through my none existing skills to control myself.
If you thought you were mentally stable:ish, you can start playing online games and you can derail faster than fast. Here comes a medley representing the emotional rollercoaster that it is playing a highly competitive game.
Highlights
When I almost aced but someone stole it. And yes I know I should not have peaked with the nade in my hand.
I don’t necessarily think these highlights are the plays I’m the most “proud“ of, some of them are just purely chaos and a bit of luck. Until next time I will put together some more highlights from my own recordings. Situations I actually think I solved well. As well as talk a bit more about my existing or maybe none existing Premier rating as well as some updates regarding practice and hypothesis changes.
See you next time
