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This'll be like a little story but yours might be the same with me. If you want to see the reason quickly, I'm going to highlight it.
I'm playing video games at least for 12 years. I've played CS 1.6 and CS GO for a long time. And then, when I got a new PC I've just stopped playing competitive games and went for triple A single player games.
I never thought I lost my ability to go competitive. I've played singleplayer FPS games too and if it means anything, I've always played them in hardest difficulty. I enjoyed singleplayer games for 2 years and never went competitive. But they dryed up and since I just wait for Cyberpunk 2077 only, I decided to go into Valorant.
Beta was alright, everybody was newbie. I was doing alright. But my friends who didn't stop playing CS GO, were gods in this game. They were always top-fraggers with 30-40 kills. I was barely reaching 25.
Ranked came up, we were having a good time. Then we reached Diamond. Matches get tougher, tactics were more important, every info counted for something. And I was playing like sh*t.
My friends were shooting people like it's nothing, getting all the frags. I was getting 9 kills at most. And it's wasn't because they had all the kills, I also had my chances to get a kill but I always missed them.
I decided that I was rusty and not ready for the real challenge. So I decided to practice in Aim Lab. I started with Gridshot. 368ms first time. That was a f*cking joke. Then i got used to it, 260ms mostly. Decided to try different sensitivities.
Here are some of them I tried;-(1200 eDPI) 800 DPI, 1.5 in-game sens | yes i played like that for a time
-(960 eDPI) 800 DPI, 1,2 in-game sens | i was comfortable with it for a few days
-(480 eDPI) 800 DPI, 0,6 in-game sens | felt too slow before it clicked
-(384 eDPI) 800 DPI, 0,48 in-game sens | i decided to force myself for lower sens for a day
-(768 eDPI) 800 DPI, 0,96 in-game sens | that's the sens i've used the most. mainly because i reached 203ms with it in Aim Lab
-(560 eDPI) 800 DPI, 0,7 in-game sens | this is the one I use right now and that's only because i can do a perfect 180 degree with it
So why did I shared these sensitivities? Because even though the range between them is f*cking huge, I constantly went from one another. In one match, I used 4 of them to see if it's about my sensitivity. And I always felt comfortable with them while looking around and while aiming things in the map.
Yea, "you need a couple of weeks to get used to the new sensitivity" but I felt comfortable with every sensitivity. If I would like to play with 480 eDPI, I would first go with a much lower eDPI like 200 and then try to look around fast. It would feel incredibly slow but when I switch to 480 eDPI and it would feel alright.
Anyways, I was doing "alright" in every game mode with all of these sensitivities. But the lower ones felt better so I slowly forced myself to go lower. I ditched 768 eDPI for a time. And decided to play ranked once again.
I was f*cking destroyed. Even though if my team was bad, even though I could somehow get 28 kills, I still felt the same way like before. My bullets goes missing, I miss clear headshots, my spray acts weird, my enemy misses every bullet but so do I...
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I started to blame packet loss, my monitor(60hz), my mouse, my mouse pad, my f*cking headset, my eyes, my hands. I didn't understand why the f*ck I can't do better. I'm at the start of my 20s and it felt so f*cking dumb to play this much bad.
I watched some pro players, watched Shroud, watched tournaments. Learned new things, used them to get more kills but my aim still didn't feel alright.
Interestingly, some times I would get kills that felt so f*cking satisfying. Even tho it was just a single kill, I knew that I properly got that kill. I decided to go for DM and tried to understand what the f*ck was going on for real.
Changed how I sit, changed how I hold my mouse, changed the monitor distance, changed where I sit, changed the vibrance, changed the game settings...
But nothing is changed about how things are. I was sometimes getting satisfying kills but the rest felt the same.
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I realized that I'm actually pretty f*cking good with pistols. I would get 2-3 headshot kills in every pistol round, I would sometimes get ace and those kills would always feel satisfying to me. And I would also get pretty decent kills with Operator when I pick it up from ground to save it for next round.
My spray was sh*t then? I decided to practice more spray, tried to play Phantom instead of Vandal... No, f*cking use.
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I was getting pretty annoyed. My friends were still top fraggers and I was still the bottom fragger. I was getting more kills thanks to all this f*cking training and learning but I was losing duels all the time.
I was started to getting stressed when I was with my friends. Because I knew I was probably gonna play like sh*t again.
At least I was doing alright in pistol rounds.
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Pistol rounds? Why the f*ck am I good at pistol rounds? How come that most of my kills in pistol rounds is headshot? If I can get headshot in pistol rounds, then it means I should be able to get kills with Vandal too? But I can't?
I decided to play DM once again but only with pistols. I was mostly 2nd or 3rd on the scoreboard and even won a match one time. Only with Ghost.
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I went for normal game, got 44 kills. I was a god. Went to DM, destroyed all the matches. People added me to curse me, people told me to stop cheating. Went to ranked, got my first 30 kills.
Didn't know what the f*ck happened but I was happy until the next day. The next day, I went to practice mode and warmed up my hands, then went to ranked. Once again I played like sh*t for the entire game except the pistol rounds.
I know I'm stretching but it is serious. I was really thinking that something was wrong with my brain but I was also thinking it's not me but the game. My Aim Lab scores were improving each and every day while I was still playing like sh*t in Valorant.
What was I doing wrong then?
I know the maps, I know about crosshair placement, I give info and understand the given info, I listen to my enemies, I can read the enemy patterns, I know when to peek and when not to peek...
It all comes down to pistol rounds... How do I shoot with pistols? I simply stop, aim and shoot. Stop, aim and shot. Sometimes move a little so my opponent can't get a clear shot. Nothing special. I was still confused.
That day was sh*t. I didn't reach 10 kills in any of my matches. Most of my kills was on pistol rounds. My last watch was a 13-0 lose, I had 4 kills and they were only on pistol rounds.
Went to DM. Played a little with pistols. Got decent kills. Switched to Vandal. I played like sh*t, it felt like everyone suddenly started to cheat. I was still playing against the same enemies, the same enemies I was destroying with pistol just a minute ago. Then it clicked. My only problem was just a simple f*cking mistake. Just a little, tiny f*cking mistake.
The reason?
Make absolutely f*cking sure that you STOP before you shooting.
Feels stupid? Yeah, I agree. I was already stopping before I shoot. Or I thought so.
The things is, you maybe switch to auto-pilot during the game especially when the action starts. Or you get stressed, you panic when you see the enemy. It slowly grows and you panic more, knowing that you'll probably die once again.
And this old habit, wherever it came from, shows itself. You think you stopped but you were in panic, you shot your first bullet while you were still moving. Maybe if you stopped properly, that was going to be a clear headshot for you.
You missed that bullet but you still have a chance, you can spray the enemy down. Maybe you crouched for a better spray, and without noticing you kept moving.
That little movement caused you to miss all of your shots. Maybe you didn't stop at all. You thought survival was more important. If you move, your enemy can't shoot you and you can kill him. You thought even if you miss the first couple of shots, you can still get the kill if you continue to shoot while moving. Or you did stop, tried tapping. But you were still in panic, you didn't wait until your recoil resets.
Well, I went to DM once again. I reminded myself to stop before shooting. Because my enemy has to do the same. Sometimes they might kill you while moving with a lucky bullet, but you'll come on top eventually.
No movement at all. Even if it means I could die. That's was my rule before going into DM.
I dominated the game. Got 30 kills and died only 10 times. Maybe the other players were bad? Played more games, always top fragger. Won a couple of them.
I mostly died because I was moving and what about the people who missed their shots while I turned around and flicked them? They were crouching and moving while trying to spray me. I was sometimes getting killed by people who were running around and prefiring every corner but I knew that they were going to f*ck things up in ranked in general.
DM can be pretty frustrated. There are people walking all the time, camping, running around headshotting people...
But this sh*t doesn't work in ranked. You can lose yourself in DM and just run around yourself. Because you might die if you stop too much, but that might become a bad habit in ranked. You can get all the headshots while running, moving while crouching, prefiring every corner. But if these becomes a habit and you do them in ranked without even noticing, it'll be your death.
That was my problem. I was getting all my kills with pistols because I was stopping before shooting in pistol rounds, it was an old habit coming from CS. But I was always on the move when I was shooting automatic weapons. I somehow forgot that every bullet counts. I had 30 bullets I can shoot by only holding M1. But when I played pistols, I had to make sure that my first hit was on point.
I started to play solo ranked again. I was top fragger or 2nd all the time. I recently started to compete with my friends about who is going to be the top fragger. They win most of the time but I'm just getting started, it's feels like I'm learning the game from the start.
I was Diamond before all that happens, my friends had carried me to Diamond but I went back all the way down to Gold while I was playing solo.
Now I'm slowly rising. I put a decent fight even tho I lose, I'm happy even if I lose. And I'm getting more frags, more wins.
Make sure you stop before you shoot. Try it slowly in DM. Get faster in time, but remember to stop. If you are stressed, just keep telling yourself to stop before shooting. That'll calm your mind and you'll know that if you die, that was surely because of your aim / spray and not because of a simple f*cking mistake.
It is not always the thing you fear but just a simple mistake you didn't even think about.
Edit: Yeah alright it is long. I like to tell stories.
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