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[gamingpsychologist]

Coaching

Awareness, Responsibility, Learning how to learn and to act are the three pillars of effective coaching. During coaching the coach and the client are working on building a strong foundation based on these three pillars.

Coaching doesn’t happen randomly, it is a methodical way of accompanying someone by focusing on results in attitude, knowledge and skills. The exact goals for these areas of expertise are always set with the client. Just for this sole reason it is already important to have a dialogue with the client about the fun and problems they experience at work. These can differ from person to person, as no one is the same. Therefore, the way of coaching isn’t always the same. The are generally three kinds of coaching: 1. Function-oriented coaching 2. Process-oriented coaching 3. Context-oriented coaching Function-oriented coaching When someone new joins the team they are usually focused on performing withing their assigned role, so this might mean that a new player joins and tries to prove their worth and tries to fit in within the newly set team synergy, or it might be a new analyst who tries to have an impact on the chances to win by crunching the numbers. The learning experience of the new member lies on improving. The common kinds of questions sound something like: When am I doing well? What happens if I under perform? How do I tackle the new ways of communication? What happens if there are different vision on how to play the game?

In general they all have to do with these three questions: 1. What do I have to do and how do I do that as best as possible? 2. What does this new function mean for me, and what does the organization and team expect of me? 3. How can I use my qualities to achieve this?

Process-oriented coaching The focus of process-oriented coaching lies mainly on awareness. How do you carry out your role within the team? And how are you able to develop yourself within this role? You could say that the theme is development.

When process-oriented coaching is the way that should lead to success, it  usually means that some specific beliefs are standing in the way of further development. In this case you should center your attention towards getting a sense of the experienced reality and that it is your own responsibility to work on your own questions in order to realize the reality that is desired.

Context-oriented coaching Standing central in context-oriented coaching is the in individual and their environment. It happens often that questions arise that have to do with the meaning of life, and with changes within the team, organization or community. Questions like: Who or What do I need to do for others? Do I need to leave the team/org? Should I retire and focus on my personal growth? The most occurring themes are: - New perspective - Seeking new challenges - Work-life balance The core lies more often than not with “growth and flourishing” within the given context. How do I become the best version of myself and how do I get to be happy with who I am and what I do. People want to answer the question Why they do What they do.

Customize your coaching

If you’re a coach and you want to help improve your team, you need to be able to customize the way you approach coaching to suit the needs of the team and the individual. This not only means that you need to know which coaching style meets the needs, but also what the best suitable methods are. There are a lot of methods out there and a lot of books written about coaching. The ones I’ve learned: - GROW-model (Goal, Reality, Options, and Will) - Transactional analysis - Voice Dialogue - Cognitive behavioral coaching - Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) - Acceptence and commitment therapy (ACT) - Mindfullness - The systemic approach, - Motivational interviewing - Solution-oriented working If you want to know more about these methods, you can google search them or just ask me.

[gamingpsychologist]

Mindset

When you start to dissect what it means to perform well in a video game where tactics, strategy and team-play are important, you will find a lot of different factors. To make sense of this all I like to use four categories, mental, physical, tactical and technical. The mindset of a player really fits into the mental category, which is where my expertise lies.

The start of a mindset

Mindset in general starts with the view of the world and humanity, which includes yourself. The world view, literally means the image or representation one can have of reality, the cohesion or essence of the world. It is important to understand that everyone lives in their own reality, built out of our own experiences, memories and understanding of it. The world view is the answer you give to the question “What does it mean to live?”

The view of humanity is known as a “set of assumptions” that relates to the way someone experiences and typifies their being. It has to do with what we view is right and what is wrong. And if you think about it, there is no such thing as the real you, there live multiple yous in multiple heads, every person you ever met has their own image of you, created your actions and the things you say. This view of what it means to be you doesn’t correspondent to anyone else's view on who you are. Therefore the view of humanity is the answer you give to the question “What does it mean to be human?”

You might think right now: “What does any of this have to to with me being good in a video game?” I would argue a lot. How can you say you’re good at something when you don’t know what to word ‘good’ means?

If you ask me, what it means to be good in a video game where tactics, strategy and team-play are important; I would tell you that it means that you have to be able to connect with the people you play with. Being able to communicate properly makes room for better tactics, strategy and team-play. Resulting in cohesion, more fun and enjoyment, and better results.

The influence of the goals you set

When you have been able to define what it means for you to be good at something you can start to set specific goals for yourself. The difficulties however we encounter when we start to set goals for ourselves, like not starting, sticking with them or just straight up failing to accomplish them are topics that have been talked about in the area of psychology. The different reasons make all sense on their own, but if we want to get a clearer and completer picture we have to combine the different theories and points of view. The most common view on why people fail to accomplish their goals is that we set our goals too high. When goals set too high it can result in the feeling of  not being able to accomplish them and therefore sticking with it. However another approach to goal setting is that we don’t set the goals high enough. How are you going to keep your attention, when the result of your goal is at best average?

These two views combined, and you get more the sense of reality, setting goals too high or too low results in not sticking with them. Conclusion, set one high goal to achieve, continue this big goal by making sub goals, this way you can keep track of your progress. Keeping track of your progress is important as measurement increases performance.

Assume control of everything 

Being good at a game isn’t something that happens to you, it’s something that happens because of you, because of the actions you take. People who don’t take responsibility aren’t good at taking action and accomplishing goals.  It is equally impossible to take action when you are trying to come up with excuses.

I don’t want to offend anyone, but don’t be a little bitch. People who are good in a video game can see how their actions lead to certain results, even if these results are negative. Anyone who takes part in the blame game as the reason why something happened or didn’t happen will not be able to take control of their own actions, because they can’t see where those actions lead them.

There is no game that will be enjoyable without first accepting control over your understanding of the game, how you play the game and then the outcome of the game. People who don’t take control, turn over their responsibility over to another party. They never take charge because they don’t know for themselves what they can do.

To accomplish your goals, you need to assume control, control of everything that happens in the world around you, weather that’s good, bad or nothing, it is something that is caused by you. If you’re willing to take credit when you win, you have to take credit when you don’t. Increasing your sense of responsibility will enhance your ability to find solutions where others just see more problems.

When you for example hold an angle for one minute, and the second you look away the enemy swings you and you die. You can call that on bad timing, on why they’re taking so long to come into your cross-hair. If you had left that angle after a second or two this wouldn’t have happened. If you would just have hold that angle a little longer, if you would just have called over a teammate, or would have droned. Too far fetched? Was it just bad timing and bad luck? Maybe you are just a victim, destined for bad luck. When the game just keeps putting you in difficult spots, keeps changing it’s rules, the balance of operators, and it’s not getting any better for you, you may want to consider that thing not just happen because the devs are doing their job or because of bad luck, but because that you had to do something with it, or it would not have involved you. You chose to start to play this game, and to continue to play it, and to play it in the way you do. If you are complaining about the recent Jäger nerfs, you might want to consider that your amount of picking this operator helped to get that presence so high up, which forces the devs to take action against it.

Remember, although it might be happening to you, it is happening because of you. Although you might not want to take responsibility because you did not take the decision to nerf the operator you enjoy playing so much, the game developers are going to take action when the presence, win rate or ban rate is high, regardless of who is at fault.

I’m pretty sure you have gifts and potential you have yet to use, increase your responsibility level, assume control of everything that happens to you, and remember don’t be a little bitch.

Excuses

The first thing to know about excuses is that they never improve your situation. The second is to know which you use on a frequent basis. Do any of the I following sound familiar? I don’t have the money, I have to find balance in my life, I’m overworked (burnt-out), I don’t have a full stack, I don’t like reading, I don’t like learning, I don’t know the map, people don’t give call-outs, my teammates are bad, my teammates are toxic, it was someone elses fault, I’m sick, I’m tired, the matchmaking is bad, I have such bad luck, I have such bad timing, everyone else is doing it. 

I really had to take my time to come up with this many excuses. How many of these have you used? Think about the last time you used one, circle back and ask yourself, will any of these excuses help you to improve? I doubt it.

An excuse is a justification to do or not to do something. Excuses are never the reason for why you did or didn’t do something. They’re just a revision of the facts that you make up in order to help yourself to feel better about what happened (or didn’t). Making excuses won’t change your situation, only getting behind the real reason can do.

So why use them? Does it even matter? It is not going to improve your win conditions, in fact if you keep telling yourself these things you will start to believe them and therefore ensuring that you will continue to be a noob.

You have to understand the difference between excuses and actual reasons. Because they don’t help you improve, they are worthless of your energy. If you really want to become the best, you can’t allow yourself, your team or anyone you play with use another excuse as a reason for why something didn’t come to be. As the saying goes: “If it is to be, it is up to me”.

Conclusion

When it comes down to developing or getting a view on your mindset you have to start with asking yourself the big questions, what does it mean to live and be human? Once you can answer this for yourself you will be able to answer what it means to be good or bad. Once you have a clear view on that you start with setting high goals for yourself that fit your view of the world and humanity. To make sure you stick with these goals you set for yourself and to get actually going you set sub-goals which will help you to keep track of your progress.

There will come a moment in time where you start making excuses, be wary of this as excuses won’t improve your situation. Instead of making excuses assume control of everything and don’t allow yourself or your teammates to make excuses. Remember, don’t be a little bitch and the saying “If it is to be, it is up to me” if you don’t do take charge, chances are no one else will either.

[gamingpsychologist]

Weaponizing Influence.

“Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them.” - Alfred North Whitehead

There are two ways of thinking, the fast and unconscious way and the slow and conscious way. Because video games like rainbow six siege are fast paste and complex we tend to use the fast way of thinking more often. 

When we’re not making a conscious effort to think about the way we handle situations we make use of shortcuts like fixed action patterns, perceptual contrast and stereotypical thinking in order to make sense of all the information that comes our way. The down side of these shortcuts is that they are susceptible to influence, this way they make us vulnerable to the people who know how they work.

Fixed-action patterns Maybe you’ve seen a video like this: https://youtu.be/_1hOpnaPuwE Where a youtuber makes use of a sound board to trick their teammates by using sound. It’s funny to see because of how stupid they look when they stand still at the fourth lionscan.mp3 sound. This is however a perfect example of a fixed action pattern, an intricate sequence of behavior that occurs in the same way in the same order every time.

Now if you observe the clips of the video closely you’ll see that the teammates stand still on the sound cue when they’re standing inside, they’re not getting the visual indicator of the count down, they’re not getting the slight screen shake that happens when the EE-ONE-D drone does the actual scan. In this case we call the sound of the EE-ONE-D drone the trigger feature, one tiny aspect of the totality. When the fixed-action pattern gets activated by the trigger feature at the wrong time it seems stupid and/or funny. But remember you also have trigger features, usually they work in our advantage (standing still when the lion scan goes off will prevent you being detected), but the trigger feature can make us play the response at the wrong time.

Stereotypical thinking Something that happens a lot in human behavior, gamers are therefore no exception. In games like rainbow six siege we use stereotypical thinking as well, take for example the video that the “modest pelican” made in 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MajiBi1deqA He sums up 9 different types of siege players, by using stereotypes to try and understand the kind of enemy’s you play against or the kind of teammate you play with can be very beneficent for your own game-plan, play-style or interactions. It’s a way to simplify the game by trying to predict your enemy based on the limited information that you have.

“If an expert says so, it must be true.” In a lot of cases it happens that we use our easy mode to make decisions, but research shows that we are actually more likely to analyze information in a more analytical way when we have the personal desire and ability to do so. But when we lack the ability or the desire we assume that when a player who plays the game a lot must be right, not even looking into the strengths of the players arguments but just the fact that he said it. The #savesiege movement started by pengu is a very good example. How many people did actually pay attention to the arguments he made of why the things on his list were important vs. how many people started talking shit to devs because pengu said the game was in a worse state than it could have been.

Perceptual contrast The last thing I want to focus on before coming to my final conclusion. We humans aren’t very good at telling how much something has changed. This is due to a phenomenon called perceptual contrast. The most basic one you might have had in school during physics, sitting in front of three pails of water, one cold, one at room temperature and one hot. Placing one hand in the cold water and the other one in the hot water. After you kept it there for a minute you put both hands in the room temperature water at the same time. Even tho you have both hands in the same water, the hand that has been in the cold water feels as if it is now in hot water, while the one that was in the hot water feels as if it is now in cold water.

What does this have to do with video games? You can experience the same thing in a different manner depending on what came before. Think about the Y6 reveal and the disappointment after you read the patch notes for Y6S1, or when you played the first season on the test server and then on the live, the final version of Y6S1 felt lackluster because of all the things that predated it.

Conclusion When we play a game that is complicated as siege, or do anything else in live that gives us as much information at the same time as a given moment in siege does we tend to simplify things by using things like fixed-action patterns, stereotypical thinking, opinions of others and perceptual contrast. Which are all phenomena that can be exploited by someone who knows how to. You can use your own creativity to come up with more examples of how you can do exactly that. Now that you know that your reactions are easily exploited, you have to think twice if the action you took at the time,  with the information you had, was the right one to do.

[gamingpsychologist]

Become More Creative in the game you play

For context: I’m LVL 295 and have 1463 PVP hours, at the time of writing this.

The entire siege community knows the player MacieJay. He is known for his friendly character, his big brain and creative gameplay. When I watch him stream he usually uses his utility in a way I never thought of. I believe we can all agree that MacieJay is the most creative individual in the Siege community, some might even say he’s a genius.

To define a genius

Just like the siege community, experts in psychology can’t always agree. One of those points of disagreement is the definition of a genius. However, there is a general consensus: “A genius is someone who distinguishes himself from ordinary people by having exceptional insight and creativity.”

But what does this even mean, ordinary people, insight, creativity? Creativity is a process in the mind that generates new responses to situations, which contribute to the solution of a problem. In most papers it’s associated with divergent thinking. If you, for example, take a test to measure your creativity it usually measures the amount of responses (reactions) you can think of. Convergent thinking is the opposite of divergent thinking. This is what you need when you are presented with a problem where there is only one possible way of solving it, which is never the case in Rainbow Six Siege. 

A genius isn’t any different

A different approach at the definition of a genius, comes from the psychologist Robert Weisberg. Simply said, he argues that geniuses are especially good in solving problems and that they possess certain useful, but very human, qualities.

In his vision, the way a genius thinks is actually the same as that of ordinary people, people without mental issues. Thinking could be defined as the mental process that is involved with forming new mental images by changing the available information. Basically it’s an activity where we use the information that is available to us. We do this by using concepts and schemata.

Concepts and Schemata

Concepts are the way we use our past experiences to process new ones. Just imagine if we couldn’t do this, how different playing siege, or life in general would be. Every time having to figure out where to go or what to do. Luckily this is not the case.

Schemata are the way we form expectations or come to conclusions. For instance, if you’re loading up rainbow six siege, the word border will probably make you think of the map Border. If you’re on your way to a different country, it would probably make you think about the kind of border that separates two countries. However for someone who is about to buy a house the word border would probably make them think about the edge alongside the property.

New information that’s incomplete or ambiguous receives meaning if you can connect it to existing information from already existing expectations and conclusions. This helps you to fill up missing information.

To illustrate: I was in a match on bank and my random teammate called “In cash!” As far as my knowledge goes, there is no cash room on bank, we were defending top floor. So I asked, do you mean stock, and he said yes.

In this instance I filled up the ambiguous information of my teammates call, by using my schemes about the map bank, especially the top floor, to come to the conclusion that he must have meant the stock trading room. If we would be defending basement I would might think of the cash vault, but this was not the case.

Insight

To be able to become as creative as MacieJay, you have to know as much as Macie does about the game mechanics. You can make it easier for yourself, by putting them into sub categories, like explosives, the gadget of ash and zofia are very simillar, so what I can do with ash, I can probably do with zofia as well.

A research performed in 2008 stated that it would take you 10 years or 10.000 hours in order to become an expert within a certain field, this could be Rainbow six siege, psychology, or even things like writing a blog. You need a lot of motivation to put this much time and effort into learning something.

Born to become a genius

When you want to become a creative genius, expertise and motivation is not enough. You also need certain personality traits, that you’re arguably born with. The traits are independence, strong interest in a problem, willingness to restructure the problem, preference for complexity and a need for stimulating interactions. Exceptionally creative minds resist the social pressure to think in a certain way. With other words, they have the confidence to go their own way.

You can’t become a creative genius in siege if you don’t have a preference for complexity, smart people are always looking for the most complex problems to solve. It’s a challenge they love solving, it’s cool and fun to find a new way to deal with problems. This is the reason why, I think, Macie doesn’t enjoy other FPS games as much as he does Rainbow.

The importance of community

The greatest creative ideas get almost always sparked by an interaction between two exceptionally creative people. So if you want to become as creative as possible, find other people within the community to play with, to talk about problems you encounter, or just talk about the game in general. This is why events like the Six Invitational are so much fun, you get to talk to a lot of different members of the community about one and the same thing, Rainbow Six Siege.

The conclusion is that you need a lot of knowledge about the game, and that you should not care about other peoples opinions, you need to be motivated to learn more and to put a lot of time and effort into the game if you want to become a rainbow six player with 2000 IQ and a big brain.

Also if you have any questions, i would love to answer them, so feel free to ask them in the AMA section or on my twitter @BotRecoil

“We’re here to learn and become better.” - Jaysen ‘Bot.Recoil’ Scheepers, 2021

[gamingpsychologist]

Solving Problems

The top tier e-sports teams wouldn’t be top tier if they wouldn’t be able to solve their problems and issues. You can only solve problems however when you can identify them.

Lycan, the coach of Space Station gaming, the team that won the 2020 invitational, the world finals. Had this to say on the logic bomb podcast:

“What is the reason why you lost, where was it? Oh, we were just stalling out, why were you stalling out? That’s not your answer, that’s a comment.” https://youtu.be/_Y0H-eI6iBc?t=5168

He understands the importance of identifying the problem in order to be able to do something about it. What he might not know is that the way you perceive a problem affects the way you deal with it. This sounds abstract, allow me to explain, when you’re stalling you can think that the reason you were stalling was that you didn’t have the intel on the enemy team to do something, so you start gathering more intel by droning. But this might not be the reason why you were stalling, so you’re solving a problem with the wrong solution.

There is more than one way

If you want to really solve your problem, you need to consider all the aspects that could affect it. Take the example of stalling out, possible aspects of you stalling could be not having enough intel, not utility left to deal with the utility of the opponent or maybe even being scared to push the enemy because they have better aim than you.

Thinking of all these different aspects of why something is a problem, or rather what the real problem might be, is known as divergent thinking. Making sure that you have a clear view of all the different aspects that went into you losing a round or a match will help you solve the actual problem in a more effective manner. With the replay system that is in beta during crimson heist, it will become easier to analyse a lot of gameplay factors that went into losing a match or winning it for the matter. Once you know what the real problem is you can go and work on a strategy to deal with it.

The two types of strategies

To solve a problem there are usually two types of strategies, algorithms and heuristics. When you choose the right algorithm for your problem it guarantees the right outcome. The downside of an algorithm is that you can only use it on a specific problem where opinions or feelings don’t have any influence. So when your problem is not having enough intel, you start droning more effectively and efficiently, you might even consider bringing an intel operator, like Iana, more often.

If you have a very complex problem it can be difficult to just use, or even find, some kind of a formula or algorithm. That’s the reason why we, as humans, developed more intuitive and flexible strategies, known as heuristics, these so called heuristics are the way you usually deal with the problems you encounter in siege, we don’t use algorithms that often because the game is simply too complex.

We all have our own collection of heuristics, like when your sound gets bugged you restart your game, when the enemy rushes you take traps, or you roam more, to deny entry points. A heuristic is a way to solve complex problems in a relative quick way. But by using a heuristic you don’t always know if it’s going to give you the outcome you want, the enemy might not rush this round, you might be easily killed in the roam and give them a man advantage. There are however some general heuristics that will help you to get the whished outcome.

Working backwards

Working backwards is one of the many strategies we use. Trying to figure out where to enter the map, can be overwhelming when you don’t know where the sight is. But if you start with the idea where you want to plant, and what map control you need to pull that plant off, it will become easier to make a decision where to enter. This is why my most played operator is Jordan ‘Thermite’ Trace, he is able to open reinforced walls, and is usually the planter. It makes me think about where I want to plant, what control I need, to pull that off and therefore which walls or hatches I need to open. This way of thinking makes the game strategic, which is my preferred way to play the game.

Familiarity

Another heuristic we use is familiarity. When a map gets a rework you don’t go to that new site you never played before, you go to the sight you are familiar defending. It’s just very complex to come up with a complete new way to defend a sight. But what you might not have considered is that when you go to a new sight you’re also able to use familiarity, when you see that the sight has a soft ceiling you can think of other sights on other maps that you can hold vertically by opening holes above the entry points to the sight and default plant spots. It’s about asking yourself the question: What does this sight have in common with another one that you are more familiar with?

For example, kitchen dining on the reworked chalet. The ceiling is destructible. Which makes me think of it as the sight ventilation/workshop on the map Border. You defend this by either extending vertically, which is what I’m used to and do most often in my own matches, but you can also extend horizontally. On border you hold control of customs and supply, and on chalet you might want to extend into bar/games. But however you extend, it’s important to think about how you can impact the sight without being there.

The bigger problems

A big problem like how to play well consistently is hard to solve, but finding a new angle is pretty simple, just destroy a lot of floors and walls in a custom game. By chopping up your big problem into smaller ones, and then step by step solving the smaller ones, will help you to solve the bigger problem.

To solve the bigger problem, of how to play consistently, you need to define for yourself what that means to you. I would define playing consistently, as being able to take a gunfight and knowing I have a 60/40 percent chance of winning it. This means that I have to take into account my aim, my positioning, the position of the enemy and the utility that I can use vs. the utility the enemy has at their disposal.

Solving your own problems

However sometimes it’s hard to solve your own problems, luckily psychology can help you explain why that might be.

A mental set is one of those explanations. When you’re determined to use a specific strategy because it always worked so well, but it hasn’t worked so well in your recent games, means that you have the wrong mental set. You have the tendency to solve a new problem the same way as an old problem because you see a familiarity. This familiarity however stops you from finding a new and better way to solve it.

There is a special kind of mental set where you can’t find a new way to use a tool at your disposal. This example actually happened in a game where I played with a friend of mine, that hasn’t played siege for a while. He picked lesion, and brought impacts. I was playing mute and he was like where do we need a rotate. I said I got the rotates with my shotgun. His reaction was, okay, so my impacts are useless now.

He associated impacts with making rotates. He couldn’t find a new way to use them, like killing/downing the planter or throwing it at enemies to distort their sound, or maybe using it to impact trick.

Stop holding yourself back

It also happens that people just hold themselves back from a good solution. It’s as if you think that all 10 reinforcements need to be used, or that a certain wall always needs to be reinforced, that there always has to be someone on sight. Or on attack, a support player shouldn’t or can’t take a gunfight, because of the utility they are carrying. You don’t have to drone for a Montagne or other shield ops. All of these things can hold you back from improving or finding a new way to do things that might be better than the old familiar way. If you have any more examples of things where you hold yourself back, share them in the comments so that we can have a respectful discussion about them.

There are also a lot of other obstacles you can encounter when solving a problem effectively. Like not having enough knowledge, or just not enough interest in the problem, or you’re just too tired, don’t have enough confidence. Excitement and on the other side stress, or other kinds of pressure, can also leave an impact on your problem solving capabilities.

In the end

People are thinkers that take a decision too fast based on knowledge that is available to them, but on the other side they are biased by that knowledge, just like you can be biased by your motivations, emotions and perceptions. Is this wrong? No, I don’t think so, we’ve been solving problems like this for ages and it has always helped humanity to innovate and move forward. But knowing your limitations and taking them into account when you’re having trouble solving a problem, can only help you to become more effective and creative. And therefore will it help you improve in the game of siege.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them in the AMA section or send me twitter message @BotRecoil

[gamingpsychologist]

The mental aspect of becoming the best player you can be.

Disclaimer: This is based on research done in western countries. In general sports there are four general areas you need to be good at in order to deliver the best performance you can. Physical, Technical, Tactical and Mental.  

Now it’s possible to argue if eSports like Siege can be seen as a Sport. However I’m not interested in that argument, instead I would like to explore the mental aspect of becoming the best player you can possibly be and to show you how you can use this knowledge in your daily matches. The mental aspect includes  things like, confidence, concentration and motivation. Extrinsic Motivation

Let’s start with motivation, there are two kinds of motivation: Intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is about reward and punishment. The most common reward that’s used all over the world is money. An example of money as a motivator may look like this: “I want to be the best player, because when I’m the best I can win tournaments and receive a cut of the prize pool.” But a rank comes also with its own reward, a charm. To illustrate: “I want to become the best player I can be so I can get into the platinum, diamond or champion rank in order to receive that charm next season.” 

If you’re not playing well your teammates might become angry at you, and start to trash talk. This is also a form of extrinsic motivation. Your teammates can call you out for not being able to see an enemy by saying something like: “Are you blind?!” Or if you didn’t hit your shots “You suck so much”.

While extrinsic motivation like money and criticism might work for the short term to help you perform better, in the long term it can create less enjoyment and you might even become less confidant or even anxious to play.

Another way to get motivated is pride, guilt or shame. You might want to become a champion in order to look back on the season with pride of what you have accomplished. You could also think of it as playing for the first time with a new squad that you need to perform well, because if you don’t you will feel ashamed for ending op at the bottom of the scoreboard with dropping a donut.

I feel pride when I play against or with diamonds or champions and I’m still able to get kills and/or play the objective. It makes me think that I’m able to be as good as players in that rank. With that being said, I also think rank doesn’t mean anything, because a game is about having fun and getting as much enjoyment out of it as possible.

Intrinsic Motivation

A part of intrinsic motivation is doing something to achieve a higher goal. For instance, you do a warmup to make sure you have good aim. Even though you don’t like doing warmups you like having good aim so you do it anyway, you see it as a requirement to be able to hit your shots.

You could also get motivated by being “The way you are” this has to do with the way you perceive yourself. You  give call-outs to your random teammates because you find it good sport to do so, you don’t hate to do it, you don’t love to do it, you just do it for the sake of doing it.

So now onto the last part of being intrinsically motivated, doing something because you like doing it, you have fun while doing it. It’s like getting into the training ground and trying to get more and more headshots, after the first time you got ten headshots, then you do another one to try and break that score, just that constant need for improvement. It’s like going into a ranked match, getting a 1 kill in the first round, then you go in for the second round and trying to get 2 kills, and so on.

I would however not advise you to take kills as a measurement for improvement, what I myself use is KOST and match rating. To see this I use R6Analyst on the platform overwolf. This overlay is highly customizable and I would highly recommend you adjust it to your needs and wishes.   This constant need for improvement, doing something because you like doing it,  doing it because it helps you achieve a higher purpose, or because it’s just the way you are, is the best kind of motivation. You want to get your motivation as close as possible to this side of intrinsic motivation. The reason you don’t want to be extrinsically motivated to play or perform is because it creates a feeling of doing it for someone else and that’s not the feeling you want to have. The feeling you want is that the motivation comes from within as you do it for yourself and for your own benefit.

How do I get more intrinsically motivated?

To become more intrinsically motivated you have to make sure the motivation comes from the right source, these are confidence, autonomy and connectedness.

Confidence means basically that you believe you can do something. The best way to get your confidence up is by experiencing successes. I have confidence in this game because I started as a silver 3 in operation parabellum, and every season I was able to get to a higher rank, or stay on the same rank. To the point where I hit platinum two times in a row.

So you probably know what I mean with experiencing success but it all comes down to achieving a certain goal. If you think about it in this way, it means that your success depends on the goals you choose. In siege the most people think it’s about winning, this what gets you to a certain rank, which determines your skill. But winning is not such a great goal to choose, because it can be too easy or too hard.

Ranking up consistently is not always possible, in operation shifting tides I was not able to get to that platinum rank, which made my confidence drop. So I needed to find another way to experience success. My new goal was to make sure I saw what needed to happen to get the best chance at winning, what reinforced wall needs to be opened, what are the possible ways to get that done, without the having to rely on my random teammates. Basically, the goals was tp improve my game sense and game knowledge, this is something I could and still can do.

By choosing this goal my chances of accomplishing got higher, the amount of experienced success increased and thereby my confidence improved. I had more enjoyment, even playing solo and was able to hit platinum two the next season.

Where does confidence go wrong?

Basically having to high expectations. When I started playing siege every day for a minimum of 4 hours, maybe a bit longer in the weekends for 6 days per week, I watched videos on how to get better, asked questions on reddit on how to win more games, watched diamond ranking streamers and pro league. I started to think that those things had to help me to get to that certain point where I could win more games than I did before and get to that higher rank.

I did not actively think about it, but my expectations of my own performance are actually pretty high, I have high goals for myself. I can’t achieve those high goals, of getting a lot of kills or winning more games than losing. Which makes it really feel like a loss, you think of it of never getting those successes, I’m not good enough in the game, I quit. What’s important in these moments of frustration is to understand that your expectations of yourself are too high.

A lot of people think it’s important to look at the things where you can improve, things you’re not doing well enough. Yet this doesn’t explain on how you can do it better. So if you really want to improve you need to look at the things that you’re doing well and have a look at how you can do those things even better.

My mechanical skill is not something I’m good in. So why put all my effort and time into that. I’m better off putting my time and effort into doing something I was already able to do, read the game. When I started doing that more, my game-play improved, I made smarter decisions and experienced more success.

The role of feedback

Another way to improve your confidence is by getting feedback, and the secret sauce here is to get in a good way, this means specific and constructive. Specific means that you don’t just say “Oh, you’re great” or “You’re so much fucking better”. It means that you get to hear: “You’re so much fucking better, your crosshair placement was on head height which made it  easier for you to get that kill faster than the opponent could. “ Or “Damn, that usage of your Zofia stun utility really helped me to get the wall open, because that made sure the bandit couldn’t trick.” Really understanding what you did and how it helped someone else really helps to get more confidence in your own abilities to get stuff done.

Now feedback doesn’t always have to bee positive, when you see something that goes wrong and you are able to get that across to your teammate in way that they receive it as helpful, your teammate will be really happy with your feedback. Maybe not always on the short term, but definitely on the long term.

The issues with autonomy

Another source of intrinsic motivation is autonomy. The feeling of having the ability to make your own choices, having this ability will make you intrinsically motivated to make these decisions.  

When you get forced to play the game or to play it in a certain way, by yourself or someone else, is the moment your autonomy gets damaged. The best example I have is the R6 casual experience. When your team peaks everything, are hyper aggressive and you instead prefer to play the game in a more strategic manner, your team can make you feel like you have to play the same hyper aggressive way in order to not be put in a unwinnable situation every round.

Need to belong

The last topic is about connectedness. When you want to build your intrinsic motivation you can start with finding like minded people. We as humans have a need to belong, which means that when we belong to a group, we feel as if we are a part of something bigger and are more than just an individual. I have my own discord server and if you don’t have group already, feel free to join my server and hop into one of the voice channels to have fun and make friends. https://discord.gg/X8mAYuu When you have this group, this sense of belonging, chances are you’ll feel validated. To improve this even more, let them call you by name or at least gamer tag, as your name is the biggest compliment anyone can give. It makes people feel important and validated, so make sure your gamer tag, and discord nick name matches the way you want to be called by others.

Conclusion

So in conclusion you want to become intrinsically motivated, you do this by setting achievable goals, surrounding yourself with teammates that support you and have the same goals as you. They’ll help you by giving specific and constructive feedback. Next to that you want them to know who you are, they need to call you by name or at least by gamer tag to make you feel more validated as a team member, rather than just a team mate. Remember, we’re here to learn and become better.

[gamingpsychologist]

A team in development

We all know that cooperating within a team or with your ranked stack is important, but there are a lot of things that contribute to good cooperation, one of these things is the process of group development.

When people start to play in a team together in games like Rainbow Six Siege, CSGO or any other e-sports title, you start with just a collection of people. It will take some time before you can call that collection of people a group or rather a team. I’ll be using the terms, group and team, interchangeably.

For over 55 years there has been conducted psychological research on how groups form. One conclusion you can make with 100% certainty is that there is development within every new group. I used multiple theories to create this post. But to keep it simple I will use the terminology of Wheeler. They used the following phases to describe the developmental stages of groups: Orientation phase, conflict phase, stabilization phase, performance phase and termination phase.

The performance phase is where you want to be as a team, as this is the phase where the team is at peak performance and you’re at your best. But to enter the performance phase you have to get through the phase the team is in right now.

Disclaimer

It’s important to note that it’s hard to do experimental research on the natural development of groups, which means that we can’t be certain which theories are true and which are not. So they stay theories, and when it comes down to theories, there never really is one theory that will grasp all the aspects of reality. You can use the example of the blind men and the elephant: “A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

The main point I take away from this story is that you have to combine multiple points of view to get a glimpse at the complete picture. We’re basically in the blind because psychology as a science is young compared to sciences as physics or biology. 

The first phase of team development

Back to the main track, team development, the phase that usually happens first within a new group, is the orientation phase. However there isn’t really a set order in how these phases succeed each other, so keep that in mind when you are making an effort to improve your team.   When people come together for the first time there is always some kind  of uncertainty present within each and everyone. That’s because there are a lot of questions unanswered. Questions like: What do the other people want with this team? How is their attitude? How are they going to behave? What is their playstyle? What will be my role in the team, how do I fit in? And how are they going to react to me, my playstyle and attitude? I could add a lot more of these kinds of questions, but that would be too much of the same thing. All of this uncertainty and all these questions lead to some kind of tension. Which makes you and your mates act cautiously. Let’s see which way the wind blows first, instead of acting up and profiling myself firmly. You just don’t want that your behavior leads to unpleasant surprises. Like conflicts or disbanding. 

The influence of leadership Sometimes it might be a good choice to make clear who the in game leader will be. This will make the individuals focus on this one leader and expect them to give structure and direction. But be cautious with making the decision to point to someone to become the leader, as their behavior will be used as an example by the others. When you don’t make someone specific the leader of your team, the individuals will orient themselves around each other, instead of just that one person. Whatever your way will be, make sure you stick with it and don’t change it. If you want the team to figure it out themselves who the leader will be, then let them actually figure it out themselves. I learned this the hard way. As my team started to see me as the leader and started to take on my behavior more than the one I actually wanted to be leader. In the end the team disbanded, and now I solo or duo queue with a friend mostly.

Where to go from here?

After a wary beginning, the members should begin expressing more about who they are and how they feel about certain matters, on a personal level. They will become more open to each other and show more of who they really are as a person and teammate. To get through the orientation phase you need to understand that the goal of this phase is to check if the team is viable, if the individuals and their goals are compatible with the goals of the team and some cases the goals of the organization. With my knowledge about  and experience with team development I can tell you that doing team exercises can be very helpful with the orientation phase of a team. So if you’re very serious in putting a well oiled team together make sure that the parts get correctly assembled by doing team exercises outside the game as well. I believe this is one of the reasons why organizations put their players in team houses, they get to know each other better, gets them faster through the orientation phase and therefore faster to the performance phase.

When you have completed the orientation phase, it’s time to get a feel in what phase the team puts itself in next, so make sure you follow me on tumblr and twitter to not miss any upcoming content.

[gamingpsychologist]

Conflicts within teams

Conflicts arise naturally and belong in the development of teams.

"You have to cross the line, just to remember where it lays." -Rise Against , Satellite .

Conflicts can, in some cases, also just be disagreements. Like when you just gave a callout, for example cigar on Kafé, you might mean cigar lounge, but by someone else this might be understood as cigar shop. So you misunderstood each other, in this cases it can be enough to give a little more explanation, adding the lounge or shop to the callout will make it clearer what your intention was/is and that often leads quickly to a solution. Like oh, I call this room piano, and the other one shop, or you come to the solution to call cigar lounge just lounge.

But when you are in a match as a team, and things are not going well and people are getting frustrated with each other, it might not be enough to just give a bit more explanation. When you come across this situation it helps often to focus on what is to come and not on what was. What I means by this is to tell your plan in the upcoming round, what you want to achieve with that plan of yours and what utility or positioning you need from whom to get it done. Most of the times this is the job of the In Game Leader (IGL), but sometimes they can’t get out of their own head, and the help of a teammate is needed.

After the game you can further explain why the first round or rounds did not go so well. As there isn’t enough time for that in the round itself. However, when your team isn’t able to setlle their differences and focus on the task ahead this might be the right time to call in a tactical time out, just to let them discuss their issues shortly.

The Bigger Picture

This mentality of explaining yourself also applies to the bigger picture, a pleasant group atmosphere, where good performance occurs, won’t happen if the members do not know what each other's intentions are. If this is where the issue lies the development went to another phase, the orientation phase.

Don’t be afraid to take a step back and focus on the orientation phase and to get to know each other a little better. If you have not read my blog post or seen my video on the orientation phase, I highly reccomend you do either one of them. Disagreements usually arise after irritations, think of irritations such as when someone is always late for training, when they don't take the dry runs seriously, when someone runs in without droning first or when someone does not use their utility sufficiently.

When this is your issue make sure you make agreements about these kinds of irritations. When the operators jager and wamai were meta, it made every piece of utility matter. In the case of SSG, their Nomad player, Thinkingnade , didn't use his flashbangs often enough. The coach was competent enough to indicate that it was important for Thinkingnade to start using his flashbangs, and the agreement was made that he should focus on using his flashbangs every round on attack, an internal conflict was prevented. https://youtu.be/_Y0H-eI6iBc?t=6766

Conflicts are inevitable

Conflicts are inevitable, because they have their function, in the case of teams that’s creating clarity, clarity about the goals that each one of the members want to achieve, how they want to achieve their goals, and what the way of communicating with each other should be while they are working towards these goals. If a team is able to speak openly about the contradictions that exist and is able to resolve them, it will lead to better functioning and more unity within their goals and methods. Making sure there is time after a game, a scrim or a dry run, so that the team can talk about the irritations that are at play, a solution can be devised, or an agreement can be made. It may also be the case that disagreements about more important matters arise, such as how to treat each other, or what the goals of the group as a whole should be. These escalating conflicts can also be resolved by speaking openly about them. Discussing problems openly is important, because it requires empathy, understanding, respect and communication. All of them are elements that promote effective cooperation.

When there is a disagreement in an important area of cooperation or communication, and one is steadfast in one's own point of view, then there is a case of an escalating conflict. It happens often in these cases that people do not realize that there is a solution that works out well for both parties. By making compromises and talking about their differences you can come to an integrated solution. However, the reason why these often prove difficult is because there is no trust between the parties, because they often have a prejudice about the other. Sometimes, however, group members will avoid contradictions completely because they fear that they will hinder cooperation. This creates apathy (the opposite of empathy), a lack of commitment, hidden irritation and a lack of effective cooperation. This could be because the word conflict itself sounds negative, but as statet before they are necessary for further group development. When conflicts escalate too far and the group members cannot come to an integral solution, in most cases of amateur teams or ranked stacks, this will cause the group to cease to exist, and you will move on to the termination phase, a topic I discuss in an upcoming post, so make sure you follow me and enable notifications.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is important that when get into a conflict you remember that an integrative solution is often possible. Try to have confidence in the other, and communicate your own interests openly, try to put yourself in the other's position.

Your way of telling the story is not always the same as the other person's story,  only together can they form the truth. So try to ensure that the other person can also express their interests openly.

Keep in mind the goal of having and resolving conflicts, it contributes to the further formation of a workable unit. When everyone is aligned, it is easy to work together in a coordinated way.

It is true that resolving conflicts takes time and energy, time and energy that cannot be spent on training or competitions. However, an effective way of working together only comes when most conflicts have been sufficiently resolved. So it is not something that you can put aside and forgive and forget.