MENTORING EXPERIENCE, TECHNIQUE, AND ANALYSIS
WHY A TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVING IS IMPORTANT
Almost a year ago, I was an average 1600 player. I was angry at what many people in this community are angry about: trolls, noobs, bads, mads, tryhards, OP heroes, and whatever else you can think of. I spent much time looking for other 1600 players to try and mitigate the damage done by these terrible people that I was so angered by. What I found was interesting.
- In some respects, I was happier. I found people with a similar urge to be better. But what I didn't find was a way to do it or a will to find one. They wanted to play more than to develop themselves.
- I made mistakes. They made mistakes. I wanted to find ways to fix them. They wanted to just keep playing.
- Our MMR neither rose nor fall when together. Sometimes, we were even better off solo queuing.
I was tired of being around people who had little interest in development. I decided to take matters into my own hands and start myself on a process of self-improvement. This is when I got results.
To improve you must either: 1) find others who are also serious about improvement and work together to find/execute ways to better, or 2) take your advancement into your own hands. I chose the latter, but I am also starting a community for those who are in the first category. Click the link below if you are interested in Project VM. One of the following sections will share my rationale behind starting this community.
HOW TO IMPROVE, THE FIRST STEPS
I thought about ways to progress. What if I analyzed my replays? I did that for some time and it helped a bit. What if I watched professional gamers play? I did that for some time and it helped a bit. Now what if recorded my mistakes in a notebook, analyzed them, found methods of improvement, and executed them. My records were very basic. Every game, I recorded my hero, KDR, and the simple mistakes I made. They were usually the mistakes that either led to my death or mistakes that frustrated me so much because they prevented me from getting a kill. One of the major causes of failure was my lack of mouse control, as I spent countless seconds trying to click the same hero over and over again just to either die before casting my spells or have them run into the fog. So I spent hours and hours fixing my problem and I came up with the following article.
One of the following sections will also describe how I take notes of problems and how I fix them in greater detail.
THE MINDSET TO IMPROVE: LIFE AND PROJECT VM
Even with the slow-moving yet constant improvement I was experiencing, I was still frustrated with the world. Why was I still losing even if I was improving? Nobody else was doing the work that I was doing and as hard as I tried, I was still in the high 1600 bracket. I was close to quitting HoN for good until I encountered the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It describes the methods by which success is derived from. I realized that I gave up on my goals too many times in my life and if I continued the pattern, I would ultimately be a failure. I also realized that the greatest people in history didn't achieve success alone. They brought those who had similar dreams and desires up with them. The people I surrounded myself with would be the reason that I get to where I want to go, and I really believe that it is one way how success is born. This is why I wanted to mentor people as soon as I had time and this is why I want to start Project VM.
Looking on HonRec.com, I traced the date of my disgust with my lack of progress and the start of my desire to be a better player to November 7, 2012. You'll see that I was a 1750 player before my huge drop. I got sloppy and I started getting angry with the people I was being queued with. To be honest, it was most likely my sloppy play and my disregard for furthering my improvement that caused my demise. Here is the chart.
Source: http://adf.ly/Gpwvx (As of the 1/2/2013, HonRec is still not operational)
I wanted so badly to win. I stopped conceding games and changed my mindset to one of complete self-responsibility and I believed that every game was winnable. Think and Grow describes an attitude of perseverance and belief. I put those beliefs to the test and it worked for me. It prompted me to write multiple articles to inspire others to do the same. Many players came to criticize my work, but looking at their stats made me really wonder how profitable their strategy and habit of mentally giving up was. But then I realized that only those who want to be helped are reachable. The many who are happy with their position of rage and defeat will remain unreachable and forever in a pit of their own failures. It's the sad truth of life I've come to accept.
I was tired of failure, so I took action. Inspired to share my work and passion with others, I started to mentor and improved my own play in the process. So without further ado, here is the meat and the main subject of the article.
MENTORING, INITIAL TECHNIQUE AND DATA
My first mentoring cycle started December 17 and ended January 1. It was an incredible experience for me. Going into mentoring, I had a clear goal in mind: to create a mentoring technique in which the trainee can constantly look back at their mistakes so they can focus and improve on them. I created a spreadsheet for each player I was mentoring, defined a few goals and focuses, and watched them play games. I explained their mistakes in detail and I worked with them to correct them. I joined practice games with them to practice individual skills. I played a few games on some of my other accounts in their bracket to show them how to properly capitalize on the mistakes of other players on their level. I also told trainees to focus on one hero at a time so they can focus on and master them. Here are the results from mentoring and training. The first link shows the actual work done while the second link is a compilation of all of the data. I will write about the compiled data in another post.
All of the training records from this mentoring cycle.
A compilation of the results from my mentoring.
PROBLEMS AFTER ANALYZING IN RETROSPECT
My technique proved varying, yet generally positive results. Some players heavily retained information and techniques while others struggled with it. One player moved up a bracket and a half while many advanced in a smaller magnitude.When I collected the data, most players were only slightly ahead of where they started. If only the HonRec website were up, I would've collected the data from each trainee to display...
The beginning with each trainee was always filled turbulence. Nothing was done consistently and not much was established from the start. The only thing both the trainee and I were definite about was the fact that I was mentoring them.
I find it strange because I've seen them hit improvements of 50 MMR in the middle of a cycle, only to drop to a level near their starting MMR. I saw a sort of oscillation, a repetitive movement of MMR up and down. They are capable of performance, yet they lack the consistency needed to properly execute most, if not all of the time.
I told each trainee to look at their spreadsheet before they played every game. Some spreadsheets became long and messy. This was not conducive to improvement and had to be fixed. There was no way to distinguish problems that needed attention and problems that were already solved. This meant that I was hoping that the trainee themselves would distinguish, even if it was my job to tell them if they were making progress or not.
There was also no cycle of improvement. We didn't wash, rinse, and repeat. We washed, rinsed, washed, repeated, washed, repeated, rinsed, washed, washed, repeated, and rinsed. Having no iterative process leaves many things to chance. I am not looking to leave things to chance. I am after making things happen because of actions taken.
SOLUTIONS
After careful thought and analysis, I came up with a plan to remedy my errors. The fixes, though quite simple, took time and careful thought to develop.
I created a flowchart of the process I will be doing my best to follow from now on. It should stop the random mentoring sessions that sometimes end fruitful while sometimes ending right back where we started.
My baby, the Phase 2 Mentoring Spreadsheet.
FINAL WORDS
If you got to this point in the article, THANK YOU FOR READING! I really appreciate the time you and every other reader have spent in reading my article. After spending 60 hours mentoring and probably another 10-20 hours finding ways to improve, I'd be glad that someone cares! I hope to see many responses on my technique and if anyone is interested in this type of mentoring. One day, I hope to become a paid mentor and manage a group that is doing the same. I am also interested to meet many other people who have a similar passion for self-improvement in this game and in life.
Feel free to contact me through one of the following methods, if you are so inclined:
IGN/Forums: HarassMeNow
Skype: HarassMeNow
All of the training records from this mentoring cycle.
A compilation of the results from my mentoring.
PROBLEMS AFTER ANALYZING IN RETROSPECT
My technique proved varying, yet generally positive results. Some players heavily retained information and techniques while others struggled with it. One player moved up a bracket and a half while many advanced in a smaller magnitude.When I collected the data, most players were only slightly ahead of where they started. If only the HonRec website were up, I would've collected the data from each trainee to display...
The beginning with each trainee was always filled turbulence. Nothing was done consistently and not much was established from the start. The only thing both the trainee and I were definite about was the fact that I was mentoring them.
I find it strange because I've seen them hit improvements of 50 MMR in the middle of a cycle, only to drop to a level near their starting MMR. I saw a sort of oscillation, a repetitive movement of MMR up and down. They are capable of performance, yet they lack the consistency needed to properly execute most, if not all of the time.
I told each trainee to look at their spreadsheet before they played every game. Some spreadsheets became long and messy. This was not conducive to improvement and had to be fixed. There was no way to distinguish problems that needed attention and problems that were already solved. This meant that I was hoping that the trainee themselves would distinguish, even if it was my job to tell them if they were making progress or not.
There was also no cycle of improvement. We didn't wash, rinse, and repeat. We washed, rinsed, washed, repeated, washed, repeated, rinsed, washed, washed, repeated, and rinsed. Having no iterative process leaves many things to chance. I am not looking to leave things to chance. I am after making things happen because of actions taken.
SOLUTIONS
After careful thought and analysis, I came up with a plan to remedy my errors. The fixes, though quite simple, took time and careful thought to develop.
- Make a process to follow to make mentoring smooth, manageable, and consistent.
- Make goals more clearly definable. Also start to keep track of more metrics as time progresses.
- Theorycraft before any in-game mentoring about the hero the trainee will be focusing on. This will allow us to focus on execution rather than learning new facts.
- Restructure trainee spreadsheets to make them neater and compartmentalized while accommodating for the new process and objectives.
- Create a 'Current Issues' and 'Resolved Issues' to help focus the trainee while away from the mentor while showing tangible progress to further encourage work and progress.
I created a flowchart of the process I will be doing my best to follow from now on. It should stop the random mentoring sessions that sometimes end fruitful while sometimes ending right back where we started.
VM Mentoring Process
This will be explained further in a different post, but it is how future mentoring will be conducted. All of the other fixes have been included in the following spreadsheet below. The following spreadsheet will be a template for any future mentoring.
FINAL WORDS
If you got to this point in the article, THANK YOU FOR READING! I really appreciate the time you and every other reader have spent in reading my article. After spending 60 hours mentoring and probably another 10-20 hours finding ways to improve, I'd be glad that someone cares! I hope to see many responses on my technique and if anyone is interested in this type of mentoring. One day, I hope to become a paid mentor and manage a group that is doing the same. I am also interested to meet many other people who have a similar passion for self-improvement in this game and in life.
Feel free to contact me through one of the following methods, if you are so inclined:
IGN/Forums: HarassMeNow
Skype: HarassMeNow
