Scrupulous Scrutiny: Improving your Self-Analysis in Reviewing Replays

So, you think you're pretty good at video games, huh? But you admit you're not the best. You know you make mistakes. You're humble enough to go back and watch replays of your gameplay to look for areas to improve. That's a good sign of a player who's going to improve. But what about when that VoD review doesn't seem to be helping you find what you're doing wrong? What if you think everything you're doing was right?

How do you approach VoD review in a way that ensures you're improving either the understanding of your mistakes or your understanding of the game?

I'm glad I asked!

If you're finding yourself unable to improve or find mistakes from reviewing your own gameplay, chances are you're not asking the right questions as you go through and watch. If you're not asking questions at all, well... I guess we found out why you're not improving.

Question everything. From everything you've done, to everything you see your opponent do, to everything your teammates do, to whatever's going on within the context of the rest of the game.

The most important question to ask when looking to improve:

Why did I do this?

If you can't understand why you did something, chances are high that it was a mistake. If you can't explain why you did something, you may need to explore the situation further. One thing to note, no matter how skilled you are at a game, the ability to understand something and to explain the same thing do not come hand in hand. Verbalizing instances is a separate skill and not always a necessary one for competitive gamers. (I refer to this mental iceberg often...) 

So, you've run into something you can't explain, but you're pretty sure you had a good reason for doing it. What do you do?

Pause the film. Ask, What are my options at this moment?

Before you answer the question, take a look at EVERY possible bit of information you can ingest. Don't answer based off whatever information you had at the time you made the decision to begin with. As you go, make a list of EVERY possible bit of information you can.

Take note of

• enemy positions
• ally positions
• your own position
• Weapons/Cooldowns/Abilities the enemy has available
• Weapons/Cooldowns/Abilities your allies have available
• Weapons/Cooldowns/Abilities you have available
• Major objectives that are immediately relevant
• Major objectives that may become relevant as the situation resolves
• Major objectives that may become relevant after the situation resolves
• Which players are reacting to the situation first
• Which players seem oblivious to the situation

Now that you've taken in all of the above information, do you have a good idea of the number of options you have available? If not, let's make a short list of generic choices...

• ATTACK THAT POOR BASTARD!
• Run away! HE SKERRY! Don't let him start a fight!
• HE SKERRY! HE STARTED DA FITE! Disengage!
• Move to help teammate
• Move too save teammate
• Sacrifice yourself for teammate
• Attempt to keep enemy from interfering outright
• Stall an enemy from interfering
• Isolate an enemy, then engage
• Feign a fight, then back off into help from teammates
• Pressure an objective somewhere else to try to deter the enemy from their current objective
• Trade an objective somewhere else for enemy's current objective
• Stall an enemy from their objective while your ally trades/takes more somewhere else.

These are just a few generic options that apply cross-genre. Evaluate how many of these options you have for the situation you haven't quite solved yet. For each time you're involved in engaging with the opponent (whether offensively or defensively), list the options you have for how to engage or disengage or stall for time for a teammate to help. Take note of which player is likely to get help first. Check all of the weapons or abilities you may use. Figure out which order of use gives the least windows for your opponent to react.

Throughout this process, you may often find you had options you didn't consider in the heat of the moment. Some of these options may be less optimal. Others may be much more optimal. Regardless, this analysis is a GOOD thing. It increases the amount of options weighing inside the intuitive mind during the game (Audley shut the fuck up about the fucking iceberg I get it okay?). Evaluating the effectiveness of the options while looking at the game analytically rather than while playing it increases your chances of making the right choice the next time.

But in the mean time... did you figure out why you made the decision in the first place?

No?

It's time to ask another question: What information did I miss?

No, not in your above evaluation. Now it's time to re-frame the situation from the whole picture you're currently looking at, back into the heat of the moment. When you made the decision, what information did you already have? Look carefully at what's going on. Did you see everything the first time? Look again. Did you notice any information you had access to that you may have missed before making the decision?

If everything seems to be in order and all the information you acted upon is there, then you ask the next question:

What assumptions did I make?

Because in most cases, you won't have full information when you're making the decision, you have to fill in the blanks. Whether you're doing this consciously or not, you're making assumptions about the state of other players. (If you don't believe me, think back to the last time you asked “WHY THE FUCK IS x HERE?” in a fit of rage after dying to something unexpected. Yep, you assumed he would be playing differently.)

Compare your assumptions to the big picture / full information scenario. Were they correct? Were they wrong? SHOULD they have been correct (was someone else playing sub-optimally or better than you understood)?

Assumptions are not a bad thing to make in games, but they should definitely be taken lightly. If you act on an incorrect assumption, you're making a low percentage play. I mentioned in Part 2 of my shotcalling blog that you should almost always assume your opponent is going to play correctly / make the best decisions. If something smells like bait, it probably is. If you're blind to an objective being taken, but it's the right decision to take or bait that objective, that's probably what's going on.

Unlike your opponents however, it's often wise to assume your teammates (especially in solo queue) are going to make the wrong play / a bad decision. This is why communication is important, whether you communicate through typing, pings, or just saying “Hey follow what I do and we'll win.” – if you're in a situation where voice chat is able to be done, explain what you're intending to do in order to avoid your teammates having to assume what you will do, as well as to avoid assuming what your teammates will do (assuming you all talk in terms of intentions.)

By this point, you should have gotten an idea of why you made the decision in the first place (and if not, you may be fucked beyond all hope, or may just need to ask someone better than you for help.)

But, along the way, you may have discovered some better options that you could have done. So let's backtrack to the “What are my options?” and ask a second question: How did my opponent react to my decision?

If they reacted aggressively, there's a good chance they had some information you were not accounting for (or they made an assumption they were stronger in the moment.) If they reacted passively, they made the assessment or assumption that you were the stronger force in the instance. You can gloss over your opponent's options/assumptions to try to better understand why your opponent reacted the way they did, but often times their initial reaction gives plenty of information about their self-perceived state.

While still focusing on your opponent's reaction, there's one more question to ask. Regardless of their reaction (which, as I said is a decent barometer for how they expected the situation to play out), ask How could I have altered his perceptions?

If you were attempting to bait your opponent into making a bad decision, but he reacted passively, did he have information that could have been denied? If you were attempting to peacock and he aggressed onto you, did he evaluate you were weaker? Did he underestimate you? Overestimate?

I assume you're reading this because you're doing part of a team game. So that means you have teammates also making decisions on the fly. So after you've figured out why your opponent reacted the way he did...it's time to ask:

How did my teammates react to my decision?

If there was a teammate nearby you expected to help or join in on the play (or in the case of LoL, across map with teleport you expected to come in) then ask: Who could've helped me? Then ask what their options were. Skim your teammates' nearby opponents' option. Could the opponent have stopped your teammate from helping you? Then chances are you expected too much of your teammate. (Was this a miscommunication or a bad assumption from you?)

Unless your team has some sort of shotcalling schematic set up (which is unlikely in the case you're self-reviewing to improve your solo queue gameplay), then chances are you're operating off assumptions and your teammates are making decisions based off reactions rather than cohesive plans made ahead of time. If your expectations of a teammate are at odds with how your teammate actually reacted, either your communication needs improved, or one of you made a mistake.

Take on your teammate's perspective of your play for a moment. If roles were reversed, what would you have expected your teammate to do?

By now you have a very clear picture of why you did what you did. And along the way, you may have found a few areas where your expectations of the situation didn't match up with how it actually played out.

Now let's frame the situation a little more by asking another question:

How did I get in this situation in the first place?

Oftentimes when you're in a position to make a mistake, you often made other decisions on the way there. Granted, if you're asking “Why did I do this?” over every step of the way, you'll already have this question answered. But in laying out other options, you may find a way to avoid putting yourself in the position to make the mistake. Ask yourself, What could I have done to avoid this situation?

After acknowledging your potential pre-emptive routes, it's time to look at the other end of the chronological spectrum...the future. How can the result of this situation play out?

Consider options both good and bad; proactive, reactive, aggressive, passive, whether you're trying to catch up or get further ahead. Pick what you think the best decision is from the current situation. Resume your video.

Did you make the decision you expected to be the correct one?

You didn't? What did you do? Well now... it's time to ask yourself...

1. Why did I do this?
   1. What are my options at the moment?
      1. What aggressive options do I have?
      2. What passive options do I have?
      3. Did I take the best option?
   2. What information did I miss?
      1. Did I see everything right the first time / in game?
      2. Was there something else I should have seen that I didn't?
   3. What assumptions did I make?
      1. Were my assumptions correct/incorrect?
      2. SHOULD they have been correct?
         1. Did I assume the best of my opponents?
         2. Did I assume the worst of my teammates?
         3. Did I properly communicate my intentions to teammates?
   4. How did my opponent react to my decision?
      1. What were his options?
      2. What were his assumptions?
      3. How could I have altered his perceptions?
         1. Does he have more information than I expected?
         2. Could I have appeared stronger?
         3. Did he mis-evaluate me?
   5. How did my teammates react to my decision?
      1. Who could have helped me?
      2. What were their options?
         1. Did I expect too much of them?
            • Was this a miscommunication or a bad assumption?
         2. What did they expect of me?
2. How did I get in this situation in the first place?
   1. What could I have done to avoid this situation?
3. How can the result of this situation play out?
   1. What is the best decision from here?
      1. Did I make that decision?

Just rinse and repeat this rubric of rhetoric as you review your replays. You will find you better understand your own gameplay, and if you can find where your assumptions, assessments, or expectations are wrong, you can begin to improve your ability to make the right decisions in the future by correcting your approach.

So, happy VoD-hunting, self-reviewing gamer. Hope this helps!

Is that Rally All It Takes?

Today, I'm going to be writing about a relatively unhighlighted facet of top level Halo play.  In fact, it's so unmentioned in competitive Halo, I don't even know if players are aware they're doing it or have a term for it.  So in this Audley Enough article, I'm going to dub it "Rallying."  In this particular article, I will use the term to explain why Pistola is God, and why ToTz and RyaNoob are both much, much better than fans and fellow players give them credit for.

If you've played League of Legends, you're familiar with the laning phase being focused on two major things: killing minions and harassing the opposing laner in order to try to deter them from killing minions.  Rallying is much akin to harassing in League of Legends.  There are three possible outcomes when you attempt to harass -- you can LOSE the exchange and become behind, and therefore be left to the whims of the opposing laner.  You can come out EVEN in the trade, and depending on other factors put yourself in a better or worse position in the lane, or you can come out AHEAD and potentially zone the enemy laner off their minion wave.

So why am I talking about League of Legends in relation to Halo?  Because that concept really is what is being applied when I refer to Rallying in Halo.  So, now to explain exactly what I mean.  You are slightly in cover.  An opponent you see is also slightly in cover.  You both see each other, and neither of you are in position to really get help from a teammate.

Much like the aforementioned harassing in LoL, there are three outcomes if the two of you attempt to fire upon each other.  You miss one shot while your opponent doesn't.  Your fate is now less in your control, as you must either back down, or hope your opponent misses a shot.  The opposite of this can occur.  Or, you can both be even in shots -- leading either to the decision for one player to back down and await allied assistance, or for both players to keep pressing the situation until one or both die.

Generally, players will not attempt to trade deaths.  If they're in a situation where they are not ahead in the battle and still have decent positioning themselves, a smart player will back down and try to stay alive with as much health as possible.  The other player will either be baited to overextend to chase the kill or also back down / stay in the same position, giving your teammates an opportunity to close and finish the kill.

I refer to these individual gun battle exchanges in which neither player is actually attempting to kill the other as "Rallying" -- they're much different than battles in which a player is mid-push and has no cover to take when a battle starts.  In those cases, the player MUST go for the kill.  This is specifically for encounters in which both players have cover available to them and may choose to back down at any point.  (I chose the term "rallying" because of the word's definition in regards to Tennis.  A Rally is an exchange back and forth between two players until a point is scored.)

Pistola is one of the best players at Rallying you will see in Halo.  He will fire until either he takes damage in return, or until the opponent catches up in damage, then immediately back down and stay alive.  He is what I refer to as a bully (a player that will focus on only favorable rally exchanges).  And he's a damn good bully.  Granted, there are many more aspects to Pistola's gameplay that make him a fantastic player, but his Bullying is top-notch.  And it's a large part of why he's so hard to kill.  If he's not confident he'll come out ahead, he won't take the fight.

One of the biggest mistake other players will make when in a Rallying situation...is that they will attempt to force the Rally even if they're still even (trading) or behind (losing / being bullied).  This is a great way to get yourself killed either by the player you're shooting, or by his teammate who has now had time to flank you while you focus on your rally.

Players who trade in Rallies constantly are a liability to their teammates.  Why?  Because if you are even or behind in an exchange, you are relying on your teammates to bail you out in order to come out ahead overall.  There are times, however, where being bullied or trading can be a net positive for your team, however...and it's something ToTz was actually superb at, and Ryanoob still does even in Halo 4.

If you are behind your opponents, (i.e., your opponents are between you and your teammates)...then it is okay to trade, lose a trade, or be bullied.  Of course, the longer you stay alive, the more net positive you can get out of such a flank.  Why is this the case?  Because your teammates aren't pulled out of position to save you.  They can move naturally.  And suddenly your opponents are pinched.  Even if they kill you, they have to turn completely around and find your teammates to take advantage of your death.  If your flank's timing was proper, this can actually turn into a 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 or other net-positive for your team.  In certain maps/gametypes, this can actually force a cycle where you then spawn at your base as your opponents spawn outside their base (as your teammates have pushed into the enemy base), and you can set up another rally where you may be forced to sacrifice yourself in exchange for your team gaining several kills.

Now, I do want to make one thing clear: Although you are LIKELY to die by doing one of these intentionally-bad-position flanks, it is not NECESSARY for you to die.  The goal is to be like Singed from League of Legends -- you want to draw as much attention to yourself while being as difficult to kill as you possibly can be.  The longer the opponents are spending to deal with you, the more freedom your teammates have to make their plays.

Think of it as a split pushing Tryndamere in LoL drawing 3 people to come kill him as he attacks your inhibitor tower in the bottom lane at 40 minutes into the game... well, now your team has an easy 4v2 at Baron...or a free Rocket Launcher that just spawned.

These bully-baiters and self-sacrificing players relieve pressure from other areas of the map by making themselves deceptively easy targets.  Much like the adorable Slow Loris...they may look harmless, but stopping to deal with them is actually poisoning your team's chance to win.  And ignoring them is just digging yourself a bigger hole.

The concept of Rallying is one that I've personally never heard players really articulate in Halo, though it's obvious from watching gameplay of players like Pistola that it's not outright foreign to top players.  You want to come out ahead in an exchange whenever possible.  And if you know it's not possible, you want to stay alive long enough to force players out of position to enable your teammates to get their own favorable positions.

Being able to understand when and how to flank to set up a sacrifice that ultimately benefits your team is why RyaNoob is such a valuable, albeit undervalued, player and how teams he's on manage to win even if audience and statistical perception suggests that he is performing poorly.  It's a play style that requires tons of situational awareness to pull off successfully...and Audley Enough, top players still don't seem to understand how much freedom they're given from actions of a seemingly "bad play" setting them up for many kills themselves.

Red Bull Gave Me Wings!

So, for those of you who haven't heard, I am now the coach of the MLG Pro team Turning Point (with the current roster of Walshy, Ninja, Naded, and Mikwen). As part of my initiation into the team, I was invited to join them at the recent Red Bull LAN in Santa Monica, California.

Before I delve into my experience and the technical aspects of what went on at the LAN, I would first like to give a huge thanks to the entire Red Bull Gaming (@redbullgaming) team, and especially to Nils (@nilsgranger), Sam (@slkeene), Audrey (@AudreyAdair), and Kevin (@kdoohan). Red Bull took care of nearly all our needs over the course of the weekend, and delivered an amazing experience.

I'll start off with a recap of my experience of the whole weekend, then switch over into a short (by my standards) explanation of the mechanics of the weekend.

But first...my trip. It started off with a plane to Los Angeles. I met Status Quo's coach, Diesel (@tylerhoyt) during my layover at Dallas/Ft. Worth. Next was LAX, where a shuttle service (provided by Red Bull) picked the two of us up, alongside my teammates Ninja (@Ninja_MLG) and Mikwen (@iMikwen) and several of the StarCraft 2 pros, including Destiny and Slush (I'm not sure who else was on board.) We checked into our hotel upon arrival. (Walshy (@Walshy304) and most of Status Quo were already there...Red Bull had taken them skydiving that day! LUCKY THEM!)

That night, we all gathered at a local bar called Barney's Beanery where dinner and everyone else awaited. I sat with Turning Point, getting past that awkward getting-to-know each other phase, and was approached by some of the Red Bull team, who were all very sociable and made me feel very welcome to be there (I was still nervous at this point!).

Friday morning, after breakfast, we headed to Red Bull Headquarters, where the very impressive set-up was waiting. A huge platform housed the eight XBoxes for Halo Reach while three stations were set up for StarCraft 2, with about 10? 12? computers total provided for the players, including two in an isolated booth.

Friday afternoon, the scrims began. It was my first time ever coaching, so I was a little wary at first. I was doing by best, but still easing my way into the process. I think I zoned out a few times, just focusing on one player at a time, a little unable to shake the fact that I was standing right behind pros playing Halo. Regardless, my team encouraged me and said I was doing fine. It helped build my confidence, but I still knew there was a lot I was missing. Overshield timers, especially.

Friday evening was the first night of streaming. I've never been a part of anything streamed before, so it was completely foreign to me, but everything was set up completely professionally. Red Bull attempted to keep everyone moving and focused on keeping everything flowing smoothly for players and fans alike. The cameras didn't really make me nervous, but I still felt like I wasn't doing my best as a coach.

Afterward, we headed back to the hotel. I checked the MLG forums from my phone and saw Snipedown had posted that it was the first time he had fun playing Halo in years. I knew this was a bad sign for the weekend to come, but I headed to bed. I was frickin' exhausted.

Saturday, breakfast again. I was the first one up, so I spent quite a bit of time talking to the guy who had been bringing the food to our lounge. We talked about several games from the past. Audley Enough, the guy providing our food every morning was a gamer (aren't we all?).

Back to Red Bull. Believe the Hype's day to pick gametypes. They picked mostly standard gametypes, apart from picking Countdown Flag twice in a row during their practice against Turning Point (because we won the first one in a nailbiting 5-4 fashion. The rematch went the other way.) I felt a lot more comfortable as a coach this day, and I think TP's performance on the day, for the most part, reflected my comfort.

Saturday evening, stream time. I don't remember many details from Saturday.

Sunday morning, more breakfast. I stayed down in the Red Bull lobby for quite a long time, not really wanting to stay in my hotel room. I mostly remained hidden behind the couch until I heard a familiar voice, though I did manage to startle a few StarCraft 2 players who came down for breakfast early (Should've scouted better, guys!)

Back to Red Bull. We had lunch waiting in the theatre, but once the theatre was down to just Halo players, Nils and Audrey brought in a surprise -- since it was Cloud's birthday, they had prepared some awesome cakes-on-a-stick that were shaped and decorated to look like XBox 360 controllers. Happy 20th, Scotty. After lunch, I remember seeing Bomber (of the Korean team StarTale) preparing to play LiquidTyler, and having just this amazing expression of pure joy on his face. He looked like a kid who'd just unwrapped a new toy on Christmas. It was so refreshing to see someone of such stature in the StarCraft II pro scene enjoying himself so much.

It was our day to pick games. We focused on our weakest gametypes and played phenomenally that afternoon. If I'm not mistaken, we won both our afternoon series before stream time, including our very first game of Zealot Team Slayer, due in part to Mikwen's reborn playstyle on the map, and partially due to my timing of the Evade power-up (I'm allowed to take SOME credit).

That evening was more streaming, and more watching Snipedown win games (okay, Believe the Hype were all playing well... but Snipedown was just... well, you remember 2008? Yeah, he's back.)

Again, I don't remember many of the precise details during the streaming portions (as it was very hustly-bustly) but I had a blast during all of it. I felt my coaching was the weakest during this evening. I blame fatigue. And Best Man.

Afterward, back to hotel, rested up for my long flights back. Connected in Chicago-O'Hare with Diesel and Ninja. Talked to Diesel a lot about the title update and potential settings while waiting on our flight from LAX to arrive and got some advice on how to improve my coaching a bit come event time. Chicago was very beautiful from above at night, but the plane was cold and tiny. Then finally, home!

And now on to the less mundane details!

Although past Red Bull LANs have been strictly for Halo teams (such as the most recent one, in New York, with Turning Point, Status Quo, and Warriors) this time, Red Bull brought along the legendary Day9 and a group of StarCraft 2 stars to give them an opportunity to practice in their awesome environment.

If you follow MLG at all, you know that typically, Halo teams use LANs to prepare and practice for the upcoming event. Red Bull decided to facilitate this and give each of the three teams present their own "day" to focus on whatever gametypes they wished prior to the beginning of each evening's streaming of the LAN (at which point, the teams would play games out like a regular series).

Turning Point, for example, believed Zealot and Countdown Team Slayer variants to be their weaker gametypes, so they made sure to play those in each of their afternoon matches in order to try to hammer out the kinks in their gameplay on their designated day, Sunday. It was a rather nice change of pace from the regular LANs, where teams just play out a full eleven game series versus one another, on one of each gametype, and expect the best.

If you read my last blog about Practice, you'll know which method I believe to be better. If you didn't read my last blog about Practice... you should. ;)

For StarCraft 2, Day9 and Red Bull gave the players an even better method of practice than just outright playing -- each day focused on specific matchups. For example, Day 1, I believe, was TvT and ZvP, while Day 2 was PvP and ZvT, and Day 3 was PvT and ZvZ. (I may be slightly mixed up on those...also the players took liberties with those).

In addition to this, players were given the opportunity to tell their designated practice partner what they wished to work on. If, for example, Sheth (shout out!) thought he had a weakness to Cannon Rushes from Protoss, then while he was practicing ZvP, his Protoss opponent would cannon rush him. This would allow him to practice countering his hypothetical Achilles heel. If a player wanted to focus on his overall gameplay and macromanagement, his opponent was barred from any sort of cheese or all-in type play.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the LAN was the addition of the physiologist team, who took blood and urine samples of participating players (those participating in the physiological study, that is...it was entirely optional) -- to test markers like the hemoglobin in the blood and the urine's specific gravity -- to weigh a player's hydration against their own self-judgment of how they played that day. Additionally, the players wore a heart rate monitor and their heart rate was tracked over the course of the day.

This was the first time (at least, as far as this physiology team knew) that such variables have been tested for gamers, and is yet another step toward recognition of competitive gaming as a true sport, as diet and nutrition come into play regarding a gamer's performance. Who knows, this could lead to stricter regimen for gamers who wish to focus and perform better over the course of a tournament.

During all of this, Red Bull provided those who wanted to see the performance of these players (whether they be fans of Halo, StarCraft, or both) with several streams, including selectable streams for every single Halo player (and I believe there were a total of three available StarCraft 2 streams, but I am not entirely sure). And of course, there was also a main stream featuring updates and commentary from Day9 and DMAQ.

If you wish to see what went on at the Red Bull LAN, go to http://www.twitch.tv/redbullgaming for rebroadcasts of the main stream. And you can find stat breakdowns for all the players at http://www.redbullusa.com/LAN

Many thanks, again, to Red Bull for this amazing experience, and Walshy, Ninja, Mikwen, and Naded (@Naded_MLG) for the opportunity to coach them on team Turning Point. Also, a thanks to Master Theory's founder, Anubis, who initially helped me with setting up Audley Enough, which Audley Enough helped get me the exposure that led to me ending up with Turning Point! Shout out to all the StarCraft 2 players, Diesel, all of Status Quo and Believe the Hype, to anyone who pitched in for the streaming of the LAN, and to the masseuses who worked very hard this past weekend!

I look forward to representing Turning Point well in ten days at MLG Orlando! And if you have Twitter, you should follow all of the awesome people I mentioned over the course of this blog, and me, @TiberiusAudley. Because I said so.