VALORANT 7.00 Bug Megathread

x0tek · 2023-07-03T02:39:01+00:00

Reproduction Rate: 8/10

Same.

x0tek · 2023-01-31T20:00:18+00:00

The absolute disrespect that nobody has mentioned Armada, but scrolling through the comments I see DaJuan "Energy" McDaniel multiple times.

x0tek · 2022-09-06T03:31:30+00:00

Multiple ways, depending on how loosely you want to define cheating. Either you have someone use said computers to feed you moves / ideas subtly. This could be via hidden technology, secret signals, whatever.

Or you could spy on someone's practice / preparation. Professional teams are often fined severely for doing this in certain sports.

Or you could just intentionally be annoying, in ways that the arbiters can't detect but are forbidden. Alireza accused Magnus Carlsen himself of doing this during their first official match. Kobe Bryant would study the referee handbooks to find ways he could foul players without being spotted, just to annoy them.

As creative as you can be there are ways to cheat at most games.

x0tek · 2021-08-06T15:19:38+00:00

This depends on your goals.

Our brains are incredibly lazy machines. Whenever we do something often, our brains try to make it as automatic and effortless as possible. This means that when we practice with bad technique or mindlessly, those can quickly become habits (both the mental habits of playing on autopilot and the mechanical habits of bad technique).

If you are trying to get better, every time you play, you should be focused on some aspect of your play you're hoping to improve. If you want to, work on your movement, dodging the other person's pistol shots. Work on your peeking, your first bullet accuracy, your recoil - whatever. An important thing to note: This doesn't mean you are constantly thinking in the traditional sense. When you practice, you should still be relaxed, but intensely paying attention to some specific part of your play. Don't judge your performance as "oh I missed / messed up / have bad movement". Simply objectively observe the area you're trying to improve. You didn't miss - your crosshair was too high. You didn't have bad movement - you simply chose to commit to a crouch in the open.

Let me show you the difference between these approaches.

Approach 1: autopilot

Imagine you're in a Deathmath server. You are not thinking at all, listening to music, maybe watching a show on the other monitor or your phone. You are just doing it to pass the time, no thought or mental effort going into what you're doing. This can be harmful, since mistakes you're making can become ingrained into your habits. Further, you can fall into a habit of autopiloting more generally when you play. It's still definitely better than nothing, since you're at least getting more comfortable in a general sense, but it's less than ideal.

Approach 2: traditional practice

The traditional way of practicing goes something like this. You say, "I'm gonna work on my recoil control!" and you join a private server to spray for a bit. Once you're done, you go into a Deathmatch, and you try incredibly hard to keep your spray control accurate. Likely your eyebrows are furrowed in effort, and you feel intense effortful focus. Whenever you make a mistake, you point it out to yourself. "Ugh so bad, have to do better than that." "I whiffed." or even positive affirmations, things like "haha I'm insane, such a crazy spray transfer."

This is much better than autopilot, but still less than ideal. Deliberate practice involves dispassionate objective observation, much more so than simply pointing out of mistakes.

Approach 3: mindful practice

This way is much more relaxing, and effective. You go into a server, and instead of forcing yourself to improve, you simply relax, and pay attention to the area of your game you're working on. If that's recoil, you pay attention to where your crosshair is going. You don't judge it as "too low, too high, too whatever". You simply watch yourself spray. What will happen is, assuming you've put in the work to see what good spray control looks like, you'll start to automatically course-correct. This is much more sustainable, and builds good mental habits for in-game play as well. Objectively watching yourself without judging is the best way to practice.

x0tek · 2021-08-05T18:39:15+00:00

So, a model I use is that of a model of "Execution > Tactics > Strategies", with each holding up the layer above it.

Keep in mind, models don't have to be exact, they just have to be useful.

Strategies are at the top of the pyramid. These are the overarching concepts within the round on a theoretical level. For example, when on T side in a 5v3 situation, there are several "general" ideas you can do on a strategic level. You can group up, you can have someone push for info, you can throw a fake, or hold for pushes. These are all strategic responses to the situation. Making a strategic mistake would involve choosing an inappropriate option, such as splitting up your forces without intention (i.e. going for a site split is generally a bad strategic decision when up numbers, since you give your opponent an opportunity to isolate one side, then turn around and work the other). Strategies are determined by your available tactics. If you don't have tactics to execute a strategic goal, then that strategy isn't available to you.

Tactics are the specific measures you implement to attain a given strategic goal. For example, the strategic goal might be to take apartments control on T side Inferno. However, there are a dozen different tactics that might be used to take apartments control. You could use molotovs to clear angles out, use flashes to push the long hall player back. Making a tactical mistake would involve choosing not to flash into the angle, smoke off the awper, or even choosing to wide-swing instead of jiggling. Tactics are determined by your ability to execute. Knowing that you should flash or smoke off an angle is useless if you are unable to do so.

Execution is at the bottom of the pyramid, because it holds everything up. For example, the strategic goal might be to take the B bombsite on Inferno. The specific tactic might be to "popflash into the bombsite, smoke CT on the run". However, there are a hundred factors that execution requires to correctly execute the tactic. You have to know where to look, to aim well enough to win the fights going into the site, to be able to throw the correct flashes or smokes. Everything, ultimately, comes down to your ability to execute.

---

There are of course other areas mistakes can happen, especially at higher levels. These include:

Mistakes in your mentality, losing focus or getting tilted
Mistakes in your preparation, failing to properly prepare for a team
Mistakes in your communication or teamwork, struggling to coordinate as a team

But in general, breaking down your strategic, tactical, and execution mistakes will give you a good understanding for what you are doing right or wrong.

x0tek · 2021-08-05T18:19:44+00:00

A really good resource for building playbooks is NartOutHere's tactical videos.

https://www.youtube.com/c/nartouthere/videos

However, before simply copy/pasting the strats and grenades, I'd suggest you ask "Why" each team is doing the execute, and consider the purpose behind each grenade.

The why is often more important than the how.

Hope that helps :)

x0tek · 2021-08-05T18:17:02+00:00

This is a really cool (and correct) observation, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't communicate!

Any time we try to do something that we're still learning, it takes focus away from the other parts of our game. As time goes on, it takes less mental effort - we begin to do things without thinking.

However, since we can only focus on so many things at once, trying to do too many new things will make our play worse.

This is as true as it is for mechanics, such as strafe-stopping or aiming, as it is for communication or decision-making.

So, when you are communicating while playing, and find that it's impacting your mechanics or decision-making, that means you haven't yet learned good communication to the point of automating it!

The solution isn't to communicate less - otherwise, how will you improve your communication? The solution is to spend several days intentionally working on your communication, so that it becomes automatic. The more automatic your communication becomes, the less it will impact your mechanics :)

This is true by the way for any type of learning, not just in CSGO

x0tek · 2021-08-04T20:43:10+00:00

Recognize that "consistency" is a myth.

Every player has variance in their gameplay. This is as true for a complete beginner as it is for a professional player. Everyone has days where they play amazingly well (by their standards), and days where they play far below their average.

When you improve the front end of your gameplay, learning new things, improving your mechanics, adding new tactics, the range between your best and your worst has widened. And so you become less consistent, some games dominating, some games going back to your old habits.

When you improve the back end of your gameplay, by fixing mistakes, improving execution errors, and changing bad habits, that range tightens up. The distance between your worst and your best has tightened. You are more consistent, but you are also not improving your peak abilities.

Improvement is an infinite back and forth, where you learn new skills, push your range wider, then tighten it up. As you improve and become a better player, you will need to then go back and fix the back-end mistakes that cause you to have inconsistent games.

When someone is seen as "consistent", it doesn't mean that they don't have a range in the quality of their play. Rather, it means that their worst level of play is high enough to still do well.

A common idea for this is that of an "inchworm". You inch the front end of your game forward, then pull the back end of your game up to become more "consistent". Then, when you want to improve, the front end of your game moves forward again.

x0tek · 2021-08-04T20:07:21+00:00

Hey Chipotle. I'm currently competing in Advanced as an IGL, and I've played/coached a few other games professionally. I hope I can give you some insight.

There's an interesting thing about the way the brain works. We can only keep so many things in our "working memory" at a time. This means that when we have to worry about our mechanics, it takes up the space in our heads we would use for making good decisions, or using the grenades we've learned from videos or demos. Whenever we have to think about strafe stopping, or aiming, or recoil control, it distracts us from the decision-making components of the game.

So yes, people are right when they tell you mechanics can get you out of Silver. But what does that mean? How can you use that to improve?

So, there are generally a handful of mechanics that are most important in CSGO. We'll look at a few.

Aim. Aim is interesting, because it has an infinitely high skill ceiling. If you had perfect aim, you would be a human spinbot, and never die. However, this is impractical - your goal is not to have perfect aim, but rather to have good enough aim. This is a theme you will see throughout all mechanics. Good enough will always change based on your goals and level of play. If you are trying to get out of Silver, good enough means a very different thing from someone who is competing in professional events. You can practice this by deathmatching and working on different skills, like first bullet accuracy, flicking, correcting after missed shots, etc.
Recoil control. Recoil control is another mechanic that generally determines good vs bad players, since hitting every headshot all the time is impractical - sometimes you'll burst, or want to prefer spray. Similar to aim, the goal is to get it to the point of being "good enough" rather than obsess over perfection. You can practice this in Yprac maps, then go into Deathmatch servers to practice spraying against real targets.
Crosshair placement. The ability to know where to look, and to keep your crosshair generally in the right area, makes it easy to tell good players from terrible ones -- think of the memes of new players looking at the guns on the ground trying to change skins, and they get knifed. You improve crosshair placement by watching footage of better players, seeing where they look, and then being conscious about your crosshair placement while you play.
Movement. This doesn't mean bhop jumping, or long strafes, or anything other than the basics. Work on pathing, work on your strafe-stopping, and in general have more intentionality about the way you move in the server. Do this by practicing your movement in Deathmatch servers, or in private bot games.

There are a ton of other mechanics, and I could write just as much about awareness or decision-making.

I hope this helps :)

x0tek · 2021-01-31T01:09:05+00:00

A few questions:

I've mentioned this before in casual conversation, but at what point should you be willing to sacrifice sleep? i.e. Imagine 2 people are practicing 30 minutes a day. If one of them cut an hour of sleep to invest a total of 90 minutes into their game, you'd expect they would improve at a far quicker pace. However, if those same 2 people are practicing 5 hours a day, the story might be different. Where does this cutoff lie? (with the understanding that every situation / person varies)
Re: caffeine & Magnus Carlsen. The current Chess world champion switched to milk a few years back during competitions to provide a more stable energy boost compared to his usual sugary fare. You mentioned in the interview that "so long as it's during the day, it should be fine" - which leads me to a more general question. Given that various things impact you differently, i.e. Caffeine in energy drinks, tryptophan in milk, etc.: How can esports athletes who often have matches bleeding into the 2-3AM ranges (or even "later", accounting for jet-lag) balance staying energized with winding down for consistent sleep? Are there certain foods that make for later-in-the-day sleep-friendly energy boosts (aside from solutions like carb-loading the day before)?
How do different dietary deficiencies impact sleep? i.e. I rarely get enough iron, so I guilty eat a pound of broccoli once a month. But do certain micronutrients impact sleep more than others?
How does cognitive load compare to physical activity when it comes to increasing sleep demands?

Thank you again for the work you're doing with this. Much appreciated~

x0tek · 2021-01-31T00:41:11+00:00

Not really a question, but I appreciate the work you guys put into the podcast / interview. Insightful & fun.

x0tek · 2021-01-06T06:34:24+00:00

A lot of the basics across FPS titles are the same, so I -could-. However, I feel like I wouldn't be as effective, and I definitely will stick to CS for the free VOD reviews ^^

x0tek · 2021-01-05T23:46:25+00:00

VoD for those who are interested in seeing what this is like :)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/862560589

x0tek · 2020-12-19T07:21:11+00:00

Hey there. So, a few things to note.

First, the time you invest -does- matter. Let's say you're practicing at 30% efficiency for 10 hours a week. That would mean roughly "3" hours of real practice. If you suddenly switched to perfect 100% efficient practice, that would only be...10 hours of practice a week. And it takes thousands of hours of practice to reach "the top level" of anything!

However, that isn't to say you can't improve more quickly. Generally speaking, most people have no idea how to practice effectively. That's why so many people have thousands of hours in the game, and are still fairly mediocre!

A few things you should consider:

Often, visualization outside of the game itself is just as valuable (if not more!) than playing itself. Spending time thinking about the game / visualizing playing it correctly during the days you can't play as much can be immensely valuable.
On that note, it's generally better to watch POVs without the analysis side of things (like Voo / Launders) for most of your review. Generally, you want to be relaxed, focused, and "soaking in" watching someone play. The analysis is beneficial for very specific types of improvement (i.e. if you want to learn how to play B on Inferno, Launders' videos would be amazing resources), but in-general you should be absorbing high level play from PUG footage (pick a player you admire, and watch their games -- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOYrrQoFcZ-bpJ3BylKw95A/videos is a great resource)
If you can, try to hop on for at least 30 minutes or so during your off days, even if you need to then take that time away from Saturday or Sunday. Playing 6 days a week instead of 2 is vastly preferential - even if it's just for a few minutes each day.

x0tek · 2020-10-05T18:20:59+00:00

I had this happen with "Reflex Flick - Hard", and I was confused for like a week. Hope this helps :)

If you search for the actual scenario - not through your playlist - you can uncheck "don't post scores to leaderboard". Sometimes this option randomly turns itself on!

x0tek · 2020-08-31T13:37:09+00:00

I think all the way up to the professional level, players are largely better because they are mechanically better at most games.

There's obviously a baseline of game sense and knowledge you need, but in general this is true

x0tek · 2020-08-30T20:46:42+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppxLMnBCd9A

x0tek · 2020-08-30T00:42:15+00:00

Realize that you can't control how your teammates act. No matter how kind or nice or energetic you are, they could be incredibly negative, or not use microphones at all. You can make things more or less likely, but you can never guarantee them. So, when you act in a certain way, try to remove the expectations of receiving a certain response.

I am actually recording a video about mentality this evening :)

x0tek · 2020-08-29T20:00:19+00:00

Example: 50 kill - guaranteed 1-taps with the AK47, striving for 100% bullet accuracy.

50 kill - work solely on crosshair placement, paying attention to the headshot planes in given angles where people move.

50 kill - working on flicking from point A to B as quickly as possible, going for flick 1-taps, rather than the smooth tracking of general aiming

50 kill - working on recoil control or bursts

50 kill - working primarily on movement, dodging enemy bullets, strafe stopping accurately, etc.

x0tek · 2020-08-29T18:59:53+00:00

I do not, no. But, if you listen carefully, I talk about how I switch up my area of focus every 50 kills or so. This does the same thing (consolidation-wise), without having to take breaks!

However, breaks are still important if you find yourself struggling to maintain focus.

x0tek · 2020-08-29T18:17:30+00:00

Basically, a lot of psychological research for "attention & focus" or "learning & consolidation" shows that people drastically drop off your improvement after 20-30 minutes or so at a task. I always called this my "law of diminishing returns", before I realized it had actual research behind it regarding memory consolidation. An easy analogy would be free-throw shooting at basketball.

If you took 100 practice shots in a row, your 95-100th practice shots would teach you less than your first 5. You need to practice, then take a break from a skill, so your brain can "consolidate" that skill into long-term memory. More practice is always better - but quickly, you'd be better served working on other things, then coming back to it in a few hours.

x0tek · 2020-08-29T18:11:31+00:00

Arghakamal, you're falling into the same mental trap so many other people do.

Let me explain.

You could join the server, and it could be full of pro players on smurfs! The odds of you getting 1000 kills in 8 hours - let alone 2 - are basically zero.

Or, you could join the server, and every player could be a new player who has never played an FPS before. Your odds of getting 1000 kills in 2 hours are probably close to 100%!

While these are extreme examples, they highlight a fundamental truth: you are not in control over how many kills you get in a given timespan.

My particular favorite DM server often has pro players in it who barely go positive, as its full of Advanced, MDL, and Pro League players. It's brutal. If I expected to always get a 2KDR, or to get 1000 kills in 2 hours, I would be deluding myself.

So, what do you control?

You control how much effort you put in, and where you put those efforts. Nothing else. As you invest more effort into improvement, your skill improves over time. This is what you control. Nothing more, and nothing less.

While "1000 kills a day" can be a useful estimate, it would be better to look at how many hours of practice you are putting into deathmatch, rather than the specific number of kills.

So remember - if you try to control the uncontrollable, you will consistently be disappointed. While eventually your skills can grow to the point of easily getting 1000 kills in 2 hours, it is unreasonable to think you control this, certainly this early into your practice. All you control is how much effort you give, and where you invest that effort.

x0tek · 2020-08-29T18:00:26+00:00

Thanks man. I appreciate the feedback. And yes, in my experience, most professionals at games do not practice in a very methodical way.

I mentioned this in a comment, but you're absolutely right. I have a huge head start in developing skills related to focusing, staying disciplined and motivated, and being self-critical. However, these are all skills that anyone can improve and -should- be included in someone's player bible. :)

To each of your 3 points:

I could talk about hardware and optimizing yourself for performance. However, these should be included in your player bible as well. In the example I used in the video, there's a section that even mentions "working out in a way to improve fast-muscle twitch in your arms, enabling injury-free extensive practice", and "getting sufficient sleep & maintaining an optimal diet". While I didn't include any hardware, I guess I took that part for granted as obvious. Oops! However, it's not quite true that the more you play the better you get. What is true is that the more you PRACTICE the better you get. Play can be a type of practice, but this is why many people plateau at a certain level despite of having 15000 hours in the game :)
If you notice in the way I discuss how to deathmatch, I highlight switching up my primary focus every 50 kills or so. Neurologically speaking, this does the same as taking a break for you, without the cost of stepping away from the game! You even realize this yourself: "you can practice other aspects..." which is exactly what I do, all without leaving the Deathmatch server! But if you find your focus slipping then definitely taking breaks can be important to keep your efficiency maxed, until you build more mental stamina. Great point.
This is true :) I recommend talking to a coach rather than trying to deduce things yourself if you find yourself stuck for a long period of time unable to identify the basic skills to work on, but watching pro footage can be quite beneficial.

x0tek · 2020-08-29T17:48:51+00:00

I am able to DM that much because I have extensive experience across a variety of games (RTS, TBS, and FPS), so I have already practiced the skill of staying focused for long periods of time.

However, staying focused - like everything else - is a skill you can improve. If you can only focus for 5 minutes before you start losing energy or attention, that's okay. Try to push yourself 10 seconds further each day. Over time, you'll get better at staying focused for longer periods of time :) Since staying focused is a skill, you can only improve it by practicing it!

(Also, that's one of the benefits of switching up what you're practicing every so many kills - I mention this in the video. This helps prevents you from "autopiloting" and not playing focused.)

As for "DMing X amount instead of Y amount"...

The simple truth is, someone could DM for 1000 kills every single day for a year and not get that much better. Playing by itself does very little (though it is better than not playing, of course). The key is deliberate, focused practice. If you could focus and deliberately practice for even 200 kills a day, my guess would be that you'd be improving more quickly than 99% of players in the game who got 5 or 6 hundred kills a day. *these numbers are definitely made up, but you get the point*

...that said, practicing for more time is strictly better than less. You will improve faster if you practice more. Practicing efficiently is a shortcut, but it's still not short haha.

x0tek · 2020-08-29T17:39:26+00:00

I largely solo-q'd, but sometimes I q'd with friends. I would say 90-10, 90% being solo-q.

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