As you may or may not know, folks have managed to be able to obtain player stats from World Of Tanks. As you can imagine, there are a myriad of sites that allow you to evaluate and pick apart the performance over time, on a per tank basis and other criteria. Additionally there are mods in game such as the popular XVM that allow you to see performance criteria for players on both teams.
There is great value to this as you can partially determine if a player will catch on to opportunities on the battlefield, will they use terrain to hold an area or simply run out in the middle to end up as a burning hulk. It also lets you evaluate other players on the other side to see which sides may have low skilled players and may be able to exploit and to keep an eye on players that will cause you headaches.
As you can see, those stats can be used for a great many things. Two of the big ones being joining a good clan or tournament team. Most will have win rate and WN8, a measure of combat performance, qualifications in addition to vehicles you own. Some will flex a little here and there but in general, if you want to join up, you need to stat up.
Knowing all this, it leads to something I like to call Stats Paralysis. It's when you decide to play only when you are doing well statistically and cut off playing if things start to go south or stop a good streak after a few losses. You may also decide not to play because you already did great today and don't want to ruin it when in fact you could also have made it better.
It has lead to me definitely playing less*. I certainly don't enjoy the game as much and will quit while I am ahead or get pissed at myself for not doing so. A drive to become a purple player overrides your enjoyment of the game.
Perhaps, I need to retrain myself to not worry about it as I grind up my British tanks. Maybe join a middle of the line clan to lend to some stability. As long as I perform well and contribute during clan events, that is what will matter. I am not quite sure of the solution.
So my friends, what is the solution? Have any ideas, i'd like to hear them!
* Except when I am drunk coming home from the bars. The booze sort of drops my stats regard a little and I play some money tanks whose stats are middle of the line. No more sabotaging of tier X tanks like my poor Leo 1.
I can totally see where you're coming from, and I could see myself falling into the same pit if I let myself worry about the stats too much. Fortunately I don't - sort of - and I'll explain why in a bit. But first, a little story...
ReplyDeletePlaying competitive video games like World of Tanks is quite similar to taking part in competitive sports. the skills are different of course, but the desire to excel and win is just the same, and for some its also the hope of recognition from others. Now I'm an archer, and was part of the Great Britain 2012 team so have a bit of experience in competing, trying to win and worrying about how you appear to others while doing it! And that last bit (ie, your stats) has been the killer for many good archers (and other sportspersons).
When you start to get recognised, you start to worry about the potential criticisms that people may make of your technique, your equipment or most importantly your performance. Its a fear of being seen to fail if you don't perform up to expected standards. When you do compete and you're not doing as well as you know you can, frustration sets in, which leads to worse performance. It becomes safer to not compete, rather than risk losing, or put in a performance below that which YOU THINK other people expect of you.
Its no coincidence that the best sportspeople, and best gamers in the world, don't give a shit about what people think of them.
The thing is, you've taken your eye off the goal. The goal isn't to look great, score a certain amount, or even to beat somebody or win a medal. The goal in archery is simple: take your arrow and shoot a perfect 10 with it. Then repeat. If you do that, you'll win, you'll beat the guy next to you, you'll look great and have a good record. Sure you won't shoot a 10 with every single shot. But that's all you should ever be trying to do. And the rest will look after itself.
And thus, we finally get back round to World of Tanks :D I have seen a few Youtubers now playing with a mod that tells them how much damage they have to do to hit a certain WN8 score for that game. Some have even said in the commentary that they try to stay alive until they've that much damage! They've taken their eye off the goal - which has become their stats - instead of the true goal: playing to win the game.
ReplyDeleteYou see, in the above example of trying to do x amount of damage - why? I mean, why wouldn't you want to do as much damage as possible anyway? At what point would you ever not try to do damage? If you play to win, you'll end up doing as much damage as you could along the way. Quite often, playing safely so you stay alive longer will allow you to do more damage throughout the game and influence it for longer. So just focus on playing each game as well as you can and trying to make it a win for your team. Sure they won't all be, if you do your best in each one what more could you ask of yourself? When you lose, take a look and see if you could have done anything better. If you could, you've just learned for nest time and increased your chances. Play like this and your stats will, in the long term, take care of themselves. Atleast that's my strategy!
There will be a few games and tanks that will be bad no matter what you do. Just accept that you're doing the best you can and put them behind you. Focus on playing the next game well. and anyway, stats only say what you have done in the past! They don't matter a damn in the current match, all that matters there are your actions and decisions - which should be based on securing the win - and hey presto! You have a simple game plan to get you where you want to be :)
Anyway TLDR: forget the stats, play well and play to win and they'll look after themselves! I don't really know what mine are, and don't care about them too much.
If you want a good and inexpensive read sometime, check out "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham from Amazon. Olympic pistol shooter who coaches mental approaches to all sports, games, businesses and stuff. I'm sure he'd even design a program for WoT players if he was asked :D
Aplogies if this posts from the wrong account - Google have insisted I have half a dozen accounts between my youtube, blogger and gmail setups!
Oake (AgingJedi)
Yes, Google is a bit of a pita ;)
DeleteThanks for the input! I just need to break myself of the habit of checking them and just get back to playing. Perhaps getting rid of a few mods will help get rid of the constant reminders.
And congrats on making the GBR 2012 team that is quite an accomplishment!
Thanks! Though I should mention it wasn't the Olympic team, just a World Championships team, but it was good fun, with great weather and even better food! Can't remember much of the actual archery ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat blog by the way!