I feel… Defeated, sort of? I’m not sure how to describe what I’m feeling, but demotivated is certainly a part of it. You see, I thought I was doing well, despite my 48% winrate (40% over the past 20 games) I was under the impression I had improved quite a bit. Seeing as how I was hovering around Gold 3 at the moment, where I was Silver 3 last split. Sure I didn’t play as many games last split as I did this one, but I definitely played.
Problem is, I stumbled upon a view of what the current ranked distribution is like after the ranked changes (introduction of the Emerald rank, removal of promos). Turns out, All of current Gold is basically then Silver 3/2 (and perhaps the bottom part of Silver 1).
So after nearly a hundred games over the span of a month (of which about 2/3rds were Ahri games) and playing rather consistently, I have moved to exactly where I was before. Sure some things about my gameplay have changed, most notably my aggression. But I have been doing that for (what feels like) a few dozen games now and I haven’t exactly moved anywhere with it. And yes, I know I probably shouldn’t care about what rank I am, but my feeling is apparently not to be trusted, so what other metric is there to gauge improvement?
But enough of that, I know my problem is most likely my poor decision-making. (Although I still don’t fully agree with the notion that my mechanics are way better than my current opponents, sure they are better than maybe half of them, but the other half feel like they’re on a similar level to me).
So the big bad: poor decision making. How do you solve an issue you don’t fully understand? I know why good decision making is important, but I don’t understand why my decision making is bad. I just know it is, because if it’s not my mechanics that are holding me back, it must be my decision making… right?
‘So make decisions and figure it out!’ or so I would like to do. The chaotic nature of the game makes it difficult. There is so much happening at any given moment, I am hit with analysis paralysis and just sort of… blank. I just do something without rime or reason, because if I think about it, there are too many options and probably a bunch more I don’t even realise exist.
It feels like I’ve been handed control of car, and been told to brake. But there are dozens of pedals and perhaps a few of them lead to braking, and some won’t really matter in the long run and some will feel like they make you accelerate but they will actually brake at some point, and then there are some hidden pedals around that might even brake more efficiently than any I can see or might even make the car explode. Then there’s four other people in your car who are just randomly pressing pedals the entire ride, making it even harder to figure out which ones actually led to braking.
How does anyone ever pick a pedal to press in a situation like that?
I thought of a word to describe how I’m feeling after writing all that, at least: hopeless. I feel so overwhelmed during the games that I just cannot make myself make a decision with intent. I have no idea how to fix this. My earlier idea of literally just stopping myself from playing the game to think about it doesn’t work. I remain too overwhelmed to make any decision regardless of if my hands are on the keyboard or not. It all feels like a great Sisyphean Task. ‘What’s the point of pushing the boulder up the mountain if it’s going to roll down again anyways?’ Or so it feels.
I probably need a complete switch of mindset, but I don’t know what to…