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How to learn well


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#1 Roundlay

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Posted October 27 2012 - 01:05 AM

I wrote down a few notes after coming across some video game papers whilst studying before the beta went live. These seem to make up a pretty good foundation for people that want to see how far they can push the Hawkens, and in the very least, are a slightly more invigorating read than a DPS spreadsheet. I left in all the big, pretentious words, and even added a few, just so the hipster milieu here really shines through.

Multitasking is evil

When it comes time to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, the human brain is not dissimilar to a sack of mangled hammers. Research shows that partitioning off one’s attentional power causes an impairment of the analytical reasoning faculties, an inability to discern relevant from irrelevant information and crippled memory management (Nass, 2009). During these multitudinous affairs, parts of the brain that usually drive single-task performance are divided under dual-task conditions, causing a sharp drop in task efficiency as our brains chew up resources trying to switch between them (Charron & Koechlin, 2012).
  • Set aside a block of time that you can dedicate to a single activity.
  • Random reinforcement trumps scheduled reinforcement at grabbing your attention, so turn off any devices that might ping you out of the blue.

Deliberate practice

Deliberate practice isn’t quite like the twilight synth odyssey that occurs between “me time” and the academia-here-I-come-two-thumbs-up! that we normally call “practice”. Instead, it is the necessarily arduous task of carrying out repetitive, goal-directed activities that focus on one’s specific weak points and that elicit immediate feedback (Gobet), research showing that this not only results in performance gains but allows for shorter study periods (Ericsson).

The goal here is not the repetition of already trained skills but instead requires repeated attempts to reach beyond one’s current skill level; this should never get easier, and if it does, you’re doing it wrong. Crossing this plateau, separating us from our latent abilities and weighing us down with insignificant psychological flaws, is the first step towards leveling up.
  • Schedule practice when you’re motivated and rested.
  • Identify aspects that should be the focus of deliberate practice and decide on methods to push performance beyond them.
  • Set aside a small chunk of time to practice these methods
  • Assess your results, any improvements, anticipated future problems, and work these into your next chuck of practice.
Only one problem remains: your ability to practice is fueled by cookie dough and or yur braayhns.

Willpower

Willpower is like realising you’ve just drunk dialed an ex girlfriend, sparking a routine of coordinated pride-regaining countermeasures, mostly involving subtle references to her new boyfriend using “scare quotes” around his “name” — a causal brain state that emerges out of the “darkness of prior causes” (Harris).

While much research indicates that the depletion of willpower is satiated with glucose (Baumeister), recent studies show that a large factor in the exhaustion of willpower is one’s mindset. When people believe that their power of will is carved in stone, their willpower is easily depleted. But when people take it on board that willpower is a self-renewing commodity and a motivation to work harder in and of itself, then people successfully exert more willpower (Dweck).
  • Get more than six hours of sleep a night (McGonigal).
  • Exercise.

Edited by Roundlay, November 06 2012 - 10:08 PM.


#2 AsianJoyKiller

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Posted October 27 2012 - 01:09 AM

How to improve your performance in Hawken according to AJK:
Use brain.
Don't suck.
Pineapples.

[HWK]HUGHES, on July 03 2013 - 11:07 PM, said:

AJK is right

The Sinful Infil HEAT Cannon Hustler, Cloaking and Smoking, C-Class Swagger, Ballin' n' Brawlin'


#3 BuDeKai

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Posted October 27 2012 - 01:12 AM

all of that stuff u mentioned is irrelevant.
pro tips: work on you aim and situation awareness, acquire deep understanding of game (weapon ranges/damage/cooldowns), seek and play against players who are better then u.

if u do it enough you can do this stuff with lack of sleep, drunk, high, and even diabetes

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also be sure to tune into The COCKPIT Hawken show! ---> http://community.pla...astshow-121212/

#4 Roundlay

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Posted October 27 2012 - 01:37 AM

View PostBuDeKai, on October 27 2012 - 01:12 AM, said:

all of that stuff u mentioned is irrelevant.
pro tips: work on you aim and situation awareness, acquire deep understanding of game (weapon ranges/damage/cooldowns), seek and play against players who are better then u.

Everything you mentioned requires deliberate practice of one form or another, which is fueled by willpower, which is compromised by multitasking.

#5 Vicerox

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Posted October 27 2012 - 03:08 AM

Stop trying to play it on the consoles, get a gaming rig. :D

#6 ReachH

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Posted October 27 2012 - 03:59 AM

This mental self help BS is for homework and building birdhouses.

Practice your flickrails, be mindful of your team and opposition, play Andromeda to death until you can snipe from one corner to the other. Practice lining up your shots with dash strafe, if he fired the first shot and you are still walking, you lost the position battle. Also guns aim up when your moving, so aim for the waist if you have no choice. Rebind zoom and item to mouse side buttons.

Wish you could assign hotkeys to items instead of using the mouse wheel, e.g. 1, 2, 3, q, e, r.

Learn to play a fps basically... the number of retards who feed snipers then complain is staggering. LOLOL IM GONNA STAND HERE AND USE A ROCKET, OMG HE DODGED! HITSCAN OP OP. Use cover, be aware of your enemy's LoS. You have a fuzzy bunny radar for fuzzy bunny sake, that is GODMODE. Your brain should be constantly looking at the radar, playing connect the red dots to the center, with lines that stop at any opaque object. That opaque object is how you get around and get nice clean shots and ambushes while the enemy are busy doing their HOLD THE LINE roleplay with your pub-meat half of team. Its called flanking through cover, or something.

And get familiar with your weapons full cycles, which means having them firing constantly until cooldown, desyncing and syncing back up again. you should have a feel for when you need to have your crosshairs on your enemy.

And learn how to move backwards, using terrain for cover, while engaging several guys. That is how you live through tight spots and go from 24-8 KD ratio sniper to 27-2 :D Your items will be so important for this. Turrets either zone people out or draw fire. Has to be one or the other. Heal lets you survive that extra shot, so you can kill that extra guy, and clear a path to your exit - so you can run away and repair, not mindlessly contribute to the other teams score, and make your opponents work for it! Shield lets you be obnoxious and dash around and plaster people with your grenade launcher right in their face, and there's nothing they can do but run or die because your dash cooldown is so much faster. Radar is how snipers hit you from across the map. Their job is easy, your job is to keep a mental note of where they are atm, and use that radar jammer to good effect to flank. Protip: don't chuck it on the road like a turret, stick it in Out of Bounds areas, up high on buildings, on unaccessible rooftops etc. Just where can't be shot easily.

And ffs the best players know how to hit and run, then still find their original target. This prediction has to be intuitive and learnt, and the easy radar impedes this before it makes it better. When the red blips start appearing everywhere, you will know how much you can sense of where the enemy is and what they are doing. Can't really give you any advice on improving this apart from play some games that don't have radar. Progamers not only have this sense in spades, but they can time a rocket shot on it so it hits someone just as they round a corner. Imagine if you could do that. Assault>Sniper what? But what about my OP thread :o :o

Half the team is always mindless, and the good half always plays around them. Pretend they are AI and use them to draw fire while you go for a semi-flank from the side. Do all this and you will dominate pub games - unless there is a really good infiltrator user on the other team :D.

And dont underestimate the 'C Class' mechs. in the right hands, a rocketeer on the bridge, or a pair of brawlers who manage to get behind the enemy can get some crazy scores. Hell, I've only been playing a day, and yesterday I thought the infiltrator was just a crappy lightweight who took advantage of the current server lag. Then I saw a guy abuse grenade launcher (that is the infiltrator right? or beserker?), excellent dash control and shield and literally go 30-4 or something ridiculous like that. I was trailing with 18 kills and the rest of our team was just collecting the scraps. I also played against him, and it was not a one sided score, maybe  42-50 or something? Wasn't 'OP' at all. Imagine what organized teams could do!

I wish I could spend more time with the 'underpowered' mechs, but there are not enough meteor points (*hint hint* ;) you owe us after that whole 'reset your 10 mech levels' BS). Hopefully there will be 'grossly inconclusive data' and they will need to extend the beta for a week :D

View Post[HWK]HUGHES, on October 23 2013 - 06:01 PM, said:

Development happens.


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#7 defekt

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Posted October 27 2012 - 04:57 AM

View PostRoundlay, on October 27 2012 - 01:05 AM, said:

*super-snip*
Good lord.  What a load of waffle.

Play the game, have fun, try not to tilt, try to understand why you lost when you die, and don't start a fight that you're not sure you can win.  Simple as that.  Now go forth and enjoy.

#8 Roundlay

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Posted October 27 2012 - 05:15 AM

View Postdefekt, on October 27 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

Good lord.  What a load of waffle.

Peer reviewed papers are waffle?

#9 aWk8

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Posted October 27 2012 - 05:23 AM

View PostAsianJoyKiller, on October 27 2012 - 01:09 AM, said:

Use brain.
Don't suck.

This, one thousand times.

#10 Finicky

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Posted October 27 2012 - 05:39 AM

-Turn off mouse acceleration and mouse smoothing
-turn camera lag and cockpit animation to the lowest setting
-play with vsync off
-play on a low input lag monitor

Voila, the game is now 10x more responsive, which enables you to develop your muscle memory way faster and improve at a faster rate.


Another tip in general: take breaks of several days when you feel you've hit a cap.
You are falling into habits (bad ones included), returning after several days allows you to reflect on your habits and recognise those that get you into trouble as you see things in a fresh light again.

#11 Xionel

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Posted October 27 2012 - 07:55 AM

Less console FPS more PC FPS...which many people here seem to try and do the opposite.

#12 SilentCid

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Posted October 27 2012 - 08:04 AM

The only pro tip not even mentioned and shouldn't be overlooked. Pick up the orbs after you kill someone unless you're not damage in anyway. The amount of time it takes you to repair puts you that much longer out of the action. I don't know how many people I've caught hearing them power down and repair while noticing their red dot on the radar disappear.

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#13 defekt

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Posted October 27 2012 - 08:18 AM

View PostSilentCid, on October 27 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

The only pro tip not even mentioned and shouldn't be overlooked. Pick up the orbs after you kill someone unless you're not damage in anyway. The amount of time it takes you to repair puts you that much longer out of the action. I don't know how many people I've caught hearing them power down and repair while noticing their red dot on the radar disappear.
More importantly, lingering over the power orbs because they contain more health than can be conferred by merely walking/thrusting through them without stopping.

#14 Roundlay

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Posted October 27 2012 - 08:38 AM

Cool to see some specific advice. Some slightly less vajazzled, top-down suggestions from me:
  • Stop boosting all the time.
  • Play the objective.
  • If you can be bothered, run your mech's fit through a spreadsheet makes mathematising upgrades much more intuitive slash visual.


#15 SakuyaP

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Posted October 27 2012 - 08:54 AM

"How to improve your performance in Hawken"

Incredibly misleading as I thought this was to improve my sluggish framerates on a rig that is way beyond recommended specs.

#16 defekt

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Posted October 27 2012 - 09:02 AM

View PostSakuyaP, on October 27 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

"How to improve your performance in Hawken"

Incredibly misleading as I thought this was to improve my sluggish framerates on a rig that is way beyond recommended specs.
Excuse the subject creep, but do not be disheartened with your hardware (if you are); the game runs liquid-quick in Offline mode compared to Online, even with dozens of mechs blowing up all over the shop.  I don't know why this is so, much less why it only seems to be affecting certain configurations, and the subject has been raised several times with as yet no official response that I am aware of.  There were threads open about this elsewhere but as yet I've not seen one recently.  (This probably isn't the thread to discuss this though.)

#17 DDwarrior

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Posted October 27 2012 - 11:49 AM

Wow, I like this topic.  I played all five of my matches this morning and by the 3rd I was winning consistently on the point and kill area with the assault.  Nice to see lots of suggestions on how to improve play.
When I've launched onto the battlefield, torn my enemies to shreds.  I stride through the field and listen, I see a ping.  I quietly take my time moving into position, it pings.  I see him...but he doesn't see me.  That feeling of making someone feel defenseless in that moment.  It is glorious!


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#18 Saint_The_Judge

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Posted October 27 2012 - 12:36 PM

Don't give a damn about anything. Go there and play your game, despite of style or whatever. Have fun, go back frequently and you are assured to get better. Oh, and Don't take MrMech or MegaKillerMachine as role models, because you are yourself, have your own stamina, your own activities, more or less reflexes than them, etc.
Drink beer.
Cheers!
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#19 CharlieCroker

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Posted October 27 2012 - 12:44 PM

How to not suck at Hawken Charlie style: Play lots, get good and have fun

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#20 Snoof

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Posted November 05 2012 - 08:38 PM

Close this thread please it is of no benefit to us
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