Developing Verminskills Pt. II: Dealing with Skill Ceilings and Frustration

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Player Guides
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This post is part of an ongoing social meta series on how to further develop skills in Vermintide and is a continuation of Part I here.

Disclaimer: I am still in a very harsh learning period myself and all learning in-game is an individual process of self-discovery. These are just things I’ve stumbled across that may help others in finding motivation in furthering their gameplay.

TL;DR: Everyone experiences their own skill ceiling in their development at some point, and changing your thought process lessens the pain of breaking through gameplay barriers.

Special thanks to Nayre for the review and once-over.

INTRODUCTION:
With the institution of Winds of Magic, Patch 2.0, and Cataclysm, I felt it was a good time to write this post, and the topics contained therein are things I, personally, have struggled with and are things I have become painfully aware of. With the changes in this patch, they do, in some way, cause you relearn what you may have known and make you check yourself as you adapt. In order to adapt however, and get over the hurdle, there is, in some way, a need to change your mindset in order to keep yourself from either burning out, getting fed up, or remaining stagnant.

This post is not a guide in mechanical exercises to break these ceilings, but more a reminder to bear in mind that mental shifts are also half the battle. Practice makes perfect, but is not the whole piece of the puzzle.

WHAT’S A SKILL CEILING?
A skill ceiling is a very individualized concept that boils down to a number of factors, both mechanically and mental. One person may struggle with horde control, another may struggle with ranged, and yet another may struggle with both. You will know you have hit your own personal current skill cap when it feels, after weeks or maybe even months of development, you feel you just are unable to develop further and feel stuck. This can lead to both good and bad things; the former being a possibly increased drive to succeed, and the latter being an uptick in salt and frustration levels (and maybe even leaving the game entirely).

It’s important to note that while all skill ceilings are personal, they are also not permanent. While there will always be some skill ceiling you will butt up against, it is raising your own personal skill ceiling that leads to further in-game development.

SO WHAT NEEDS TO SHIFT, MENTALLY, TO DEVELOP?

GOAL SETTING NEEDS TO BE REALISTIC TO YOUR CURRENT SKILL LEVEL:
It’s important to goal set for yourself during the development process as it allows you to become motivated and actively seek change. There are two types of goals to bear in mind:

  • Short-term goals: Or that one specific thing you want to focus, whether that’s “I want to take less hits during hordes,” or “I would like to be able to handle X amounts of elites when it all hits the fan,” this is one of the easiest ways to feel satisfied and notice self-improvement. Short-term goals are normally followed in a series; i.e., you finish one short-term goal and move onto the next. These, as a cumulative whole, lead to:
  • Long-term goals: Or that one thing you have in the back of your mind you fantasize about. It could be completing a true solo, it could be smashing leaderboards, could be becoming a Cata pub god. These are much harder to reach and take some time, and while good to have, can suffer from the inherent problem below.

Make sure you set realistic goals. I personally, have the nasty of habit of holding myself to indubitably high standards, to the point where I’ll beat myself up about them for not reaching them (see “Placing Blame”, below). So therefore, it’s always important to look at what you’ve achieved and what’s next, versus comparing yourself to what you want to be (hard to do, I know). Only you can develop at your own rate, and forcing the issue can be detrimental to progress and mental outlook. While having some date set in stone is always beneficial, it is not worth beating yourself up should it not be met. It will happen, given time.

PLACING BLAME SHOULD LEAD TO SELF-REFLECTION:
In my experience, I know I have hit a skill ceiling when I start placing blame and frustration on things. This can manifest in two ways:

  • Placing blame in yourself: You are your own worst enemy. “Why can’t I do this?” “Why isn’t this faster?” “God, I suck at this!” will be pretty common mantras. These are the days where you want to throw the game out the window and hate yourself.
  • Placing blame in others: Everyone is your enemy. The pub who didn’t ult correctly? Their fault. That person who accidentally drank their heal pot instead of giving it you? Their fault. That wipe? Everyone’s fault but your own. This is a dangerous place to be and will make you hate everyone in the game when things go south.

This isn’t to say that placing blame isn’t an inherently bad thing, but it needs to be looked at in a way to bring constructive growth vs destructive salt, and is important to gain perspective.

Ergo, if there is a wipe in Cata, how did it happen? Did you get poked through a horde? Did your teammate die and you compromised your position to res him and it went south? Failure in a run is normally a series of events going wrong and how it is reacted to (both team and self), vs one small thing. It is important to take these events in retrospect and glean what you can from them so you can make better decisions in your gameplay in the future.

SUPPORT SYSTEMS MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER:
This sounds somewhat silly as Vermintide is, of course, simply a game, but when pushing boundaries, it can become somewhat consuming and sometimes somewhat lonely. Vermintide’s cornerstone is the people you meet along the way, and the people who enjoy playing with you and/or interacting with you. I’ve found Vermintide support systems are most productive with an inherent mix of people (with there, of course, being crossover):

  • The cheering section: Those friends who are always super upbeat, enjoy seeing you achieve goals, and are happy when you’re happy. These people keep you motivated with their chipper attitude and inherent joy.
  • Those that make you check yourself before you wreck yourself: Or, those friends who know when you’re frustrated and listen to you vent while reminding you to stay realistic. They remind you what you’ve achieved, and maybe what you’ve set for yourself may need to be scaled back a touch so you don’t lose your mind.
  • Those that make you wreck yourself: Or, those friends who know you can do A and want to see you reach goal B. These are the people that point out that you should be focusing X activity when you’re really focusing Y, and sometimes smack you and go, “Well, do the thing, already!”

In addition, developing with friends is even better than developing by yourself.

TAKING BREAKS IS HEALTHY AND YOU SHOULD TAKE HOWEVER LONG YOU NEED:
Sometimes, just sometimes, you just can’t go on. You boot up the game and just cannot play Vermintide for whatever reason. This means that it’s time for a break, recharge your batteries, and come back later. For me, this can be anywhere from 24-48 hours. For others, it could be weeks or months. However long it takes, I’ve found starting fresh from a clear head may even make me play better than inherently forcing the issue.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, MAKE SURE YOU’RE STILL HAVING FUN:
It’s sometimes easy, too easy, in fact, to get wrapped up in attaining the next level that you forget why you started this all in the first place. While it’s satisfying to go at breakneck speed 99% of the time, take some time to slow down, do something casually, and check-in with yourself. If you’re no longer having fun, something has gone terribly wrong, and you’ll need to find ways to make that fun again. Development stalls when you’re no longer invested.

What helps motivate you in breaking your skill ceilings in game?

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Beautifully put. Excellent advice for any and all players. Having healthy self-growth habits are important. For me, I think I’m more curious than critical. I like analyzing things and trying new things out. Seeing difference perspectives. It’s important to look at things from other views because you may see things you never did before. When other people offer advice, it doesn’t mean they’re always right or always wrong. Sometimes their advice has value(even if they’re completely rude). Sometimes it has none. And sometimes you can take something someone said and apply it to something you already do and end up with something that’s better than both prior ideas.

I never liked the idea of “placing blame” because it has negative connotations and causes people to shirk responsibility more than anything. I’ve often tried to look at things from a more scientific basis. A “cause and effect” and

That applies to life and in game. There is almost always more than one factor that leads to a specific conclusion. Understanding all of these things and trying to address each of them helps with improvement. If you single one thing(or person) out because it’s convenient and then ignore everything else, you’re only hurting yourself. You can change yourself but you can’t change other people. Self improvement starts with yourself and gaining understanding.

Having friends who help each other improve is really nice. It’s important to have healthy relationships or people rather than ones that circle-jerk(for lack of a better term) about how everyone and everything is bad and it’s all bringing them down. Or how they’re so good when they may not be. It’s good to be realistic with yourself and others, just like it’s good to take into consideration constructive criticisms.

For me, it’s almost always something like “can I do this?” or “I wonder if…”. The better I am the more things I can try and I can really see how far and crazy I can take things. I remember back when I played Call of Duty: Black Ops nazi zombie mode, no one liked the sniper rifles. Everyone said they were terrible. I could walk on water in that game mode so I was like “hmmm…”. So I picked it up and challenged myself to play with it. Every other game was someone saying “you just pack-a-punched that?”. It was amazing. Both people’s reactions and crushin’ it with a sniper rifle. I went even further and would see how far I could take things with each and every weapon. Just experiment constantly to keep things interesting and fresh.

I feel that sometimes it’s not about breaking through the ceiling, but finding a way around it or creating an opportunity to grow and flourish. We can get lost looking at things in a linear way, only ever looking up and we forget that there may be things to our left or right. We just have to bother ourselves to look. It’s important to have fun with what you’re doing and that includes making improvements. If you’re being excessively rude and shirking responsibility, it may be time to take a step back and look at things a little differently.

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I get what you are aiming at here, but…

Ive got like 2100 hours across the two vermintide games now, and. . . I still learn stuff all the time that I never knew.

I had finished all of okris challenges before WoM, and I had collected at least one blue illusion for every weapon in the game.

The introduction of WoM has created even more mystery in the vermintide playing process. Certainly, every situation is avoidable. . . but how in the world are we supposed to know that?

An old example of mystery, boss and patrol triggers. If they were in a single spot every time it would be easy for people to recognize a trigger. However, the triggers are in a region. This makes it hard to understand what is going on. Random even. Until you’ve played enough to realize that the trigger is a region. It requires testing.

Same thing goes for the entire combat system, even more so now with the mystery of stagger dynamics and the talents that interact with them. The kill breakpoints may be irrelevant in some case now, and stagger breakpoints are confusing.

Honestly, performance in this game is now soooo much about feel. Experimentation, and a critical eye is what is necessary to find the good builds.

Many many players were burdened by the lack of clarity around breakpoints. Had they known and used them the game could have been up to 50% easier on legend. It was such a critical mechanic, but many players, even good players missed the boat on them.

How is self improvement mindset going to provide you with knowledge? People can be all about self improvement, but if they are practicing the wrong thing they are never ever going to achieve. Its like the 1000s of runners that were trying to hit the 4 minute mile. They couldnt because they were training the wrong things, but then after it happened and the correct practices became known. . . many others could then run a 4 minute mile.

Achievement, is not just about mindset and a can do attitude. It also requires knowledge of the intricacies of the system you are looking to achieve within.

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I had part one covering that, on how to gain knowledge, etc. This post is really not meant to be read in isolation, but in conjunction with that + whatever else you’re doing to improve.

But honestly, it’s really 50/50. How many people have put the game down because it doesn’t feel the same or they’re struggling? Salt inhibits progress rather than fosters it. If you take away the mental factors that encourage salt, progress is more smooth and enjoyable. Of course mechanics fall into play, but you can be the most mechanically-inclined person, but if you’re beating yourself up every other day, you’re effectively hurting yourself.

There’s plenty of guides that talk about how to adapt to the new system + game intricacies. There are plenty of resources online that cover those. What’s not really spoken about is the mindset, additionally, that helps foster success in practicing that. This guide is a bit more of a social guide than a gameplay guide, if you will.

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Self-improvement and knowledge about certain mechanics or such aren’t mutually incompatible. Rather, they’re two sides of the same coin. To gain that knowledge, you need to know what to look for, and that comes from improving your skills and finding out your limits. And once you gain the knowledge, it’s through your skills how you apply that knowledge. They work together for you, and both are needed to get to high level of play.

Let’s take the dodge mechanics as an example. You’ve played a while and gotten comfortable with the game. But as you play, you notice that your dodging doesn’t seems consistent, either as you change weapons or as you dodge a lot with one. You seek info, and find out about Effective Dodges. It won’t immediately make you better, but now you can apply that knowledge to your play and thus build your skills further.

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I will throw my 2 cents without reading anything.

If its too hard take easier tankier class (cheese mode take zealot) its fun to whack hordes and be unstopabble and if you watch when you get hits or being in bad situations you can learn from it not being punished too much

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Stagger demo(to understand and compare stagger talents). I made this for those that like visual demonstration. Hedge also created a very detailed explanation in the Winds of Magic - Patch 2.0 - Patch Notes.

Squirrel Squad’s discord also has a “#resources” section where you can find things like:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xnnRCjZzO-R0udz5C_u45ydHRNx6w53YcDtr8JEHOV0/edit#gid=62597031
This is a breakpoint calculator updated(at the time of this writing) to 2.0.3 . You can do “field testing” like what I often do or you can use this handy excel spreadsheet. You can see if it’s working by field testing after you’ve figured out what should or shouldn’t work for breakpoints and the like.

This is accomplished through both experience and research. Taking the time to experience things, trial and error, and seeing what reliable resources exist. Mindset may not be the only thing, but it’s a critically important factor in self-improvement. I’ve seen countless people blame everything else but themselves and never improve. “Oh this game is bad. It isn’t me at all.” Often times for self-improvement, the biggest hurdle a person faces is themselves. @Exanimia addresses this in her guides she has posted. There is a psychological element to things and most people will ignore that truth.

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/me goes off on a tangent

I was just thinking about self-improvement and motivation it requires lately and why some people have it while others aren’t even close to it. Reasons being both the WoM outrage and the fact that we are just now vetting people and looking for one more highly motivated super nerd for our team (work stuff).

My conclusion is that while it requires a very specific mindset and attitude I also believe that one can train self and eventually start thinking the right way. Without the right mindset you aren’t even capable of self-reflection to begin with and without it there is no self-improvement happening.

How do you get there? IMO by breaking out of your comfort zone as often as possible. Even little, simple things like going for a run/exercise very early, taking a cold shower, fasting for one day, learning something new - language, skill, whatever (with self-imposed deadlines), doing things you can yourself instead of paying others - cooking a nice meal instead of ordering some hot garbage… list goes on, you get the point.

By doing something that “sucks” you get an instant gratification afterwards and it builds character, it builds confidence and confidence breeds motivation. Repeatedly going through SUCK and overcoming it will make you realize that a lot of your ‘problems’ either aren’t a big deal or are your own fault and can be actually solved by YOU yourself. Through this, eventually, you will start looking at problems in a “how can I solve this or make it better” way instead of “who do I blame for this”.

This attitude then translates to everything you do, including videogames. Frustration will be (at least partially) replaced by curiosity and motivation.

On the other end of the spectrum is the “always in my comfort zone” attitude that most people have. It’s easy to be warm and cozy, to sit back and complain about everything that isn’t just right, to blame anyone and everyone for everything that sucks and to look for ways to paint yourself the victim.
This only breeds laziness and entitlement and it kills any and all motivation and without it you get nowhere.

Surrounding yourself with people of either mindset can also make a big difference and push you the right (or wrong) way.

TL;DR: Just be better 4Head.

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Cool.

I know about these resources, I beat Cata FoW last week after about 4 hours of wipes.

My post was about the volume of knowledge that is necessary to be a good player. The fact that it must be gathered from so many places is a major hurdle for most people. As an example, many of the people I play with use a single person as the source of all of their knowledge about the game because they can not be bothered to access those resources.

The hidden details of this game, and the complicated systems that control it are very likely wayyyyy to much for the average person.

I also personally have an issue with the concept of a “self improvement mindset” in general. It is my belief that most people want to be good at what they are doing, and also want to improve. That is not the problem.

The barrier is that they do not know how to do that, and can not identify the correct thing to practice. There are many interpretations of what the “correct” thing is, and therefore even when you use these resources you cant be sure what to do.

Then if you chose to follow a resource and it fails, you might think, I did the work, I practiced what I was supposed to practice. I made the sacrifice and I wasnt rewarded. That is coincidentally the value of the Cain and Abel story, the sacrifice that isnt accepted. Hence Cain got super salty and killed Abel.

So, the question for me is always, what action to take, what sacrifice to make or recommend. I would never say, “keep trying/sacrificing and dont get salty”. It is human nature to get salty when you’ve done what you think you should do and it doesnt work out.

Furthermore, most people cant be experimentalists and innovate. The main reason is that congnitive dissonance must cause you so much pain that you must be on the search for universal answers, new answers in order to be stress free. You then are willing to suffer through enormous amounts of failure to get there. That probably doesnt sound like many people that you know. It’s not a common trait. The action that cognitive dissonance creates in most people is to weave the new uncomfortable information into the old to make the story of their life self consistent.

The one we are seeing a lot of right now is this:

“I’m good at vermintide 2”. I experience stress because I can no longer win legend games. Therefore, “Fatshark has ruined the game”.

This is an example of a self consistent, stress free solution to the cognitive dissonance created by not being able to win after such a long period of easy wins on legend. It takes a very special person to not do that.

All of the problems will go away once a meta that is easy followed becomes common knowledge. Based on recent Cata games, we are now smashing them faster than old legend, so soon these complaints will go away because the average player will again be able to say, " I’m good at vermintide 2".

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Interesting, this brings up another issue I have with self improvement mindset. It is unbelievably self centered.

A quote with many attributions, “If I have seen further it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants”. Great humility is necessary if you believe that quote. Very little under the sun is new.

Our belief that, “I can do better” is incredibly short sighed and dare I say stupid when such an incredible amount of information and philosophy and human innovation has come before us. To think that you can contribute, individually, in the face of all of that is plain and simple hubris. The hubris of reinventing the wheel.

What is needed most of the time is something very simple. Copy an expert and practice what they do, once you’ve done that, copy another, and again and again until you know everything you want to know and can do everything you might want to do. Then if you want more, explore around your area of interest. If you fall behind, copy the new export.

Else, invent! However you should know that if you do this in the vacuum of your own mind, you will likely only make something that has already been made 100 times over, and your version will be many generations behind. Thinking that you know whats best (or that you can even find it) in your very few years of life is almost inevitably folly. . . unless you have studied the accomplishments and failures of others, and perhaps experienced them as well.

The greatest people always accept that they are not the smartest person in the room, and always use any opportunity to learn from others that they can.

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Self-improvement mindset and cultivating motivation has absolutely nothing to do with selfishness.
If anything, it often includes other people and helping them or learning from them. You need motivation to begin with and you get motivation by making some degree of progress in whatever you’re doing.

It’s the lazy consumerist bums who just sit back and point their fingers simply because it’s easy. Those with no drive for self-improvement are the ones who have no motivation to learn because it’s just easier to convince one’s simple brain that everyone else is stupid. Those who see self-improvement as elitism simply because, in their mind, it’s easier to twist ‘trying to be better’ into an insult and feel better about achieving nothing that way.

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Oh my, self improvement mindset is most certainly selfishly motivated! Why do it at all?

I’ll explain it in warhammer terms, “Grimgor is da best!”.

If you put yourself on a deserted island with all the food in the world, you go insane and depressed quite quickly. The reason? From a baby’s cry to your desire for self improvement, it all stems from a desire to elicit a response from other humans that somehow makes your life better.

In the case of self improvement, the action itself “self improvement” leads to a better you. This response solicited from others after self improvement is for you. Not anyone else. It is also likely that improved person will not give credit where credit is due. . . to all the infrastructure that allowed and enabled their improvement. This is self evident to the improved person because not everyone is as good as they are. . . therefore it is obvious how self made they are. . .

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I think it better to always believe “I can do better” than “I can do no better.” Sure, there’ll always be a person that’s better (and a person that’s worse) than you, but why reach for mere adequacy when you can reach for more? I’d rather fail trying to do better than succeed at doing no better.

If this were universally true, humanity would’ve reached the pinnacle of its achievements centuries ago and stagnated from there.

Selfishness. A little isn’t inherently a bad thing, if you always put everyone else first and neglect yourself entirely you’re hurting yourself a lot - and in truth, you can best help others when you are in a position of strength and security yourself.

Too much of it is bad too but I’d argue that isn’t self improvement anymore, that’s self enrichment at other people’s expense.

:face_with_raised_eyebrow: Analogy does not compute, (most) humans are social creatures so you get depressed from the isolation there, not anything else.

I mean yeah, if you care too much what others think about you. In reality many of the most successful people in life aren’t afraid of what others think and often they are also the ones who have failed the most, what sets them apart from the crowd is that they keep getting back up and keep trying. Again and again.

Unless they stole their success it’s probable they got there through hard work and dedication, and that is laudable. Did they get there entirely without benefiting from the things the people who came before them did? Likely no, but at the end of the day it was they who put the effort in to improve, not everyone does that.

People underestimate the power of the individual. Many of history’s major political movements and discoveries came about on the backs of individuals - leaders and inventors - who had the drive and ingenuity to make it happen. If anybody can do it, why is it that many people don’t?

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Certainly this is true, I am not advocating against slothfulness. I am suggesting that we place credit where credit is due, and pay homage to what allows us to improve from our starting conditions. I am certainly an advocate of activity, and I have suggested specific “simple” activities in my post above.

If what were true? To paraphrase, I said that if you chose to “go it alone” you would likely fail. Likely being the operative word. Certainly we have examples where this is not the case, but they are rare. The base rate is extremely low for people going it alone and being successful, but it much higher when people chose to full engage with their communities and the knowledge base that the community has provided.

We’ll get to this gem later.

This agrees with my point, what humans do is because they are social.

I mean, yeah, humans are social creatures, right? You said it!

Yeah, hard, work, dedication, a life that exists based on the infrastructure already provided, a head start that exists because of the works of others around them, and even a life that exists from the works of their parents.

And here is where we diverge, and I will never agree to this point. History is filed with people that were in the right place at the right time. An example, Mahatma Ghandi. Had Ghandi died in 1920, do you think that we would even know his name? Another example, Cyrus the Great. Would we even know his name if there hadn’t been a massive takedown of the Assyrian Empire just before he came to power? Those are two examples of the greatest victories of peace, that both occurred after some of the greatest wars the civilized worlds (at those times) had seen. They were alive at a time where the world was tired of war, and power vacuums existed. That is what made them, and had it not been them, someone else would have stepped in to fill the vacuum because well. . . that is what always happens.

Most people dramatically overestimate the power of the individual. Your “Gem” above, the enrichment of individuals at the expense of others, IS the driver of the myth of the “Self Made Man”. No sir, not a chance, ALL of the “Self Made Men” were allowed to be great through the circumstances of their life, their upbringing, their country, the achievements that already existed, and the time at which they existed.

so many stupid edits, writing from phone…

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In all my experiences with games, the ones who are the most successful are the ones who are most creative and do strive for self-improvement. Saying you’re selfish for wanting to improve yourself is like saying you’re selfish for eating. It gets to a point of ridiculousness and it’s simply wrong. Doing something for yourself does not imply selfishness. There is nothing wrong or selfish with wanting to better yourself, whether that be physically or mentally.

  • “Selfish - devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one’s own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.”

An act or thought doesn’t always have to include the benefit of another in order for it to “not be selfish”.

Saying “I can do better” is what helps bring people further. It isn’t short-sighted or stupid. If everyone followed your philosophy here then the world would grind to a halt.

The OP provides a lot of positive insight into how a person can improve themselves. A mound of valid points that have been tried and tested. The things you’ve posted so far in this thread have done little to contribute to the OP or other players.

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Yikes! What precisely is the problem with accepting that when you chose to eat a chicken that you have chosen yourself over the chicken and that is certainly selfish. If we can’t agree on that, then you are right, we will not see eye to eye.

What precisely then is my philosophy for action? I will restate it here because you missed it:

Nothing about society would grind to a halt if people took action like that. In fact, what I have stated above is precisely how society functions, and it also how society moves forward. Perhaps I left out the importance of positive thinking during that process!

OK, then! My initial point was very simple, lack of easy access to the mysterious knowledge in this game is far more of a barrier than people wanting to do better. People always want to do better, and their greatest barrier is knowing how to do it! Knowing what to do that will lead to success is what is important. Everyone has the appropriate mindset when they are mining gold from the ground. It’s easy to be driven when you are doing the right things and being rewarded for it! Suggestions about mindset, from my perspective, are largely pointless. What action to take is the key. People will have the right mindset when they are doing the things that lead them to success. You seem to not agree, that’s fine. Based on your most recent post it may be because you did not read or understand what I wrote. I’d take another look at what I’ve written, and perhaps think about it.

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More offtopic things

Alright, I misunderstood that point, it came across as defeatism/you shouldn’t bother to invent new things because your idea’s not going to be original or as good as the ones that came before.

Your analogy still doesn’t hold. Humans are social creatures yes, but not everything we do is motivated by being social. Humans also depend on food and sleep, but not everything we do is motivated by those two things either.

Otherwise solo hobbies wouldn’t exist.

Just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s always good. Humans are by nature tribal (whereas eg ants are hive creatures, and octopuses are 110% individualist without a social bone, let alone bones at all, in their bodies) and look at all the warfare that’s brought us.

Not to mention: Being good at being social doesn’t mean being a pushover. The most successful people in social settings are in fact the ones that illicit respect, usually by being the exact opposite: unafraid to speak their minds and unwilling to let other people box them in or tread on them. Not the ones that are worried about what every single other person thinks of them and every single thing every other person says about them.

What about the people who make it that grew up poor? Without parents? In hostile environments?

Or the people who grow up with it all and end up throwing it away? In the UK they found the majority of wealthy families have lost their wealth by the 2nd generation and something like 90% by the 3rd. If it’s entirely based on the non-human inputs how it is they aren’t succeeding?

Sure, the technologies of the past and the successes of people in your family help you out a lot, but they’re not the be all end all either. It’s more like going into a Legend run and either getting a boss + patrol right in your face out the door or not.

Perhaps not and circumstance does play a part, but without those individuals it’s possible those entire movements would have failed without them. Had it not been Napoleon, but someone else, it’s very likely the French would not have had the great successes they did in the Napoleonic Wars. Were it not for his military genius they could well have lost all those battles.

Take a look at the Soviet Union when Stalin died, it left a power vacuum in the Soviet leadership initially. Stalin, judgement aside, had the right personality to keep the country under an iron grip. If anyone could have done it why was Khrushchev by comparison such a weak leader in the eyes of the Russians?

By contrast in the business world you have many people who fail, fail again and keep failing, time and time again, but finally have a massive breakthrough. And they try all kinds of things to get there. Those are the kinds of enterprising people that would succeed in any era, it’s merely a matter of time to them.

Going back to Napoleon, the man clearly had a knack for military strategy. Had he been born at any other point he probably still would have made a great military leader, whether or not we would remember him.

But that aside, what does it matter whether or not they’re remembered? You don’t have to be famous to have made a difference. Making an impact as an individual doesn’t necessarily mean being remembered, things get forgotten as history goes on but all it takes is an individual to change the course of history. Assassinations are a prime (albeit often negative) example of this.

Or take many political movements. If the person at the head of it has the personality and charm of cardboard oftentimes no matter how good their ideas are (or aren’t), they won’t get anywhere anyway. By contrast an individual with loads of both can go a lot further.

What if Ghandi had been an unrepentant ass like he is in Civilization? He could’ve easily driven away many of his supporters. The same goes for many leaders. In other situations it’s exactly the leader that is a tyrant that is advantaged on the other hand. Individuals aren’t all interchangeable.

Got it. Don’t eat, die. It’s the virtuous way to go out, I am dead, long live mr cluckles :joy:

But to be serious, the point there is more: it’s kinda useless to call it selfish. Yes, it’s ‘selfish’ sure, but it’s a net loss. You can’t be selfless all the time or it falls back into the point about neglecting yourself and thereby being in a bad position to actually help others. At a basic level you do have to take care of yourself, call it selfish or whatever you want, it’s a necessity. There’re also plenty of things you can do that aren’t at someone else’s expense that only benefit you, eg exercise and many hobbies. Not everything you do for yourself means someone else suffers for it. Improving your leadership and people skills for example is even a net positive for people you’re working with.

Yes, a lot of the time it’s easier to copy what other people have done and that’s not inherently always a bad thing, I agree. It came across as you saying people shouldn’t bother to try new things though.

Society 150 years ago (less in places, and in others not at all) didn’t allow women to vote. In the UK around half that time ago Alan Turing was chemically castrated and driven to suicide for what kind of adults he liked to sleep with despite his major contributions to codebreaking.

The reason we have the progress we have is because people were willing to break the rules and do/say things differently. Were it not for those individuals going against the current we wouldn’t have the progress we have today.

Even the meta builds in games are discovered by experimentation and often people doing random wacky things that might work but probably won’t.

Yes, not all progress ends well or is good, but that’s how it is. Complete stagnation would mean sitting around in caves wondering why all the mammoths died out.

See, this I agreed with 100%, it was the rest where you lost me (in terms of agreement, not understanding).

Anyway, I think I’m getting more and more off topic, so I’m going to call it quits here.

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Ultimately, I see Verm as a team game, but you can only influence your own decisions as you’ve got bots or other real, live human beings making decisions that differ from yours. That leaves your own improvement and decisions in the hands of yourself. You can influence others, you can guide them towards a certain amount of team play (which is for pt. 3, just trying to curate some examples from different people), but it is, in the end, up to you to decide how to react and interact. This, in itself, leads to self-improvement of your own skill development, which, in turn, leads to more successful games as you can start honing in on the correct decisions.

For context, part I, linked in my post, goes over how to acquire this knowledge. No acquisition of knowledge comes without barriers, and having the mindset to seek that knowledge is a step towards self-improvement.

Further, then, you have very skilled players who take others under their wing to impart knowledge. I find the inherently selfish are not those I wish to learn from. Not sure about anyone else, but I certainly credit my teachers towards my development, and there are many, on multiple different platforms and skill levels.

That being said, I implore people to keep their debate civil on this post as starting a war over the more philosophical points in this guide is not something I inherently wish to foster.

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I think the bits I loved about your post were the ideas of:

  1. Setting goals - particularly the idea of bite sized chucks of goals. Examples of goals that I’ve set for myself are as follows.

A) Listen for specials, particularly multiple specials of the same kind, and then kill them if it is my responsibility. This is a real issue in the Cata, multiplicity of specials.
B) Giving pack masters space while controlling horde, so as to not get snagged when they are stacked when they are protected by a meat shield.
C) Not diving Banners until it is safe to do so - I’ve needed to stop myself from doing this with Slayer in particular because I’m too used to him being tanky.
D) Finish weave 60.
E) Practice calling out specials for the team.
F) Practice calling out hordes in the back.
G) Recommending that we fall back at the appropriate time.

I love little goals, the smaller the better for me. Nice easy little brain cookies. I generally don’t do long term goals though, it feels like a little much. I just go for the small stuff these days.

Also, placing blame on yourself, that is the best advice anyone can give. Mainly because you can only control yourself. However! There is a complexity to it. You can blame yourself for not being able to get your team to work together. That is an example of something that I did at one time. I worked on communication skills to get people to work well together. Asking question like, “Do you think we need to kill specials faster?” after we barely survived a wave a specials? This seems to help people focus specials a little bit. You yourself can do a lot of things to control the situation, more than you think!

Also the bit about friends, my litmus test for friends is very simple. People that don’t respond to every victory with, “I did that and MORE!” or people that respond to every bad thing that happens to you with, “Man my life is sooo much worse than yours”. . . ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS. Get rid of those people immediately. I think the best trait in a person is when you can have a discussion with them and they don’t immediately accept your point of view, and when a decision has to be made they are willing to go with a solution other than their own. I like people that communicate. Having the right friends is clutch in life and in V2.

But to answer your question directly, what keeps me motivated is getting to the top of new mountains! DWONS and Cata FoW and getting the win are the feel good moments that keep me playing, and they wouldn’t be worth it to me if they weren’t hard. It’s the 5 hours of wipes that creates the elation after the win, for me at least.

Good stuff. Sorry for the distractions up above, I got a bit philosophical.

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Yeah, me too. We were headed the wrong way on a one way track.