for people who have ranked up, how long did you spend at each rank / what did you do to progress?

[Squamiger]

I'm interested in how people progressed in skill in this game. Did you start using hotkeys? Switched civs? Started playing 20+ games a day?

I played casually on Gameranger for a long time so I didn't really know my rank for most of the time I've played. When I started playing on ESO about 2 years ago, I pretty much immediately shot up to master sergeant. Then there was a point when I set all my hotkeys for building and unit selection and started using control groups, and I hit 2nd lieut, and gradually raised it up to 1st lieut on RE after about a year of practicing casually. For the last few months though I've been playing only EP and just getting trashed by everyone so I've dropped back down to 2nd lieut, but I think I've improved by learning matchups better and nailing some build orders. My goal with DE is to at least hit captain, but that might be my final plateau based on the amount of time I can actually devote to this game.

So how about u? How long did you spend at different levels, and what did the trick when you advanced?

[amiggo1999]

use 'wasd' cam control = git gud

[deleted_user]

We defenitely need @[Armag] diarouga here, his story is similar to chinese bamboo tree, he stayed 1lt for 3-4 years then became colonel/major general just in 2-3 months...

[deleted_user]

well it makes sense since rouga is the ultimate gamer, but not everyone has such amazing... natural proclivities

[Guigs]

I think @tabben was the one who progressed the most in a short period of time (from 1st lt to top 8 LAN in one year or so)

[gibson]

I remember the days when tabben was a free win, than I stopped playing him cause I would have been the free win didnt want to embarrass him.

[Rohbrot]

I was playing on voobly before starting on eso, so no clue about rank back in the day. I found myself at captain lvl after 20 games on eso, on the rank i stayed 2months, after i reached major- lt colo-colo at the end of 5 months. It took me 4 months to reach colo, while playing only spain with funky strats like revolt, nats, fi, unction and atp. I can only say that u have to choose the civ u have a good feeling while playing like @chronique with iro and spain has. (Never did make units with hotkeys or built buildings to be better or so cuz i didnt want to ngl)

[Garja]

I'd say progressing nowadays is easier with all the ESOC environment, standardized gameplay, lot of public info on strats, etc.
I've been at capt-major lvl for a good year and a half but I was playing mostly just in the weekends and with big hardware limitations (using cheap mouse with just one finger and laptop keyboard ).
The moment I started playing 5+ hours a day and fixing all the mechanical problems (moving to new hardware) I jumped to like pr35+. Then reached 40 and kept for a while through more dedication. Slowly declined from there.

Below pr30 just work on your mechanics while using 2-3 civs max. You prob gonna struggle/lose some MUs but that shouldn't affect your win rate too bad if your skilled in what you play. Above pr30 you want to expand your civ pool just to avoid getting hard countered, or at least get a solid counter strat with your main civs. And after that it's just keeping the motivation high and practicing.

[lemmings121]

Ive been a major for arround 13 years, not stuck at all, progression is coming fast!

[gibson]

Back in the day when Hazza was in my crew, I was pr28, he was pr32. Now I'm pr29 and hes pr45.

[Hazza54321]

Back in the day when Hazza was in my crew, I was pr28, he was pr32. Now I'm pr29 and hes pr45.

i miss your crew

[Mitoe]

I played on GameRanger for the first 4 years I played AoE3. In the Mac community, so there's really no way of knowing how long it took me to get to whatever skill level. When I did start playing on ESO, I started at PR33 and stayed PR33 for about 1.5 - 2 years, before eventually reaching Brigadier (went from 33 - 38 in 2 weeks) right before ESOC was created. Then I spent a year with maybe a 10-20% winrate vs H2O across 100s or 1000s of games, and eventually became a successful tournament player as a result.

Was a long road, but I think the common theme in my personal improvement is that pretty much anytime I was getting better I was consistently playing against players better than myself, and I continued pushing myself even when I kept losing. Of course, people along the way helped a lot as well. In the early days it was all Cohenski bashing me into the ground, but we always talked about the games and strategies after. Once I started on ESO people like Umeu, Garja, MusketJr, GoodSpeed, and especially Zutazuta--whenever he cast my games--really helped a lot. I still remember the first time I played vs Iroquois on RE, and got roflstomped by Garja in 7 minutes 2 games in a row, haha. And obviously H2O told me what I could improve on every game.

Improvements don't happen overnight, though. Even with people giving you constructive, positive, or negative feedback all the time it can still take dozens of games to see the kind of improvement that would increase your PR by a couple of points. The main thing is to not give up, push your comfort zones in terms of APM/macro/micro, and be willing to try new strategies, if only to find out why they are good or bad.

[Kaiserklein]

Improving is really so much about the community. Playing with good players, knowing the builds, having decent maps and balance, watching streams, reading forums, etc. I can't emphasize enough how much that helps, but I can give my own example I guess.


I was just stuck at nilla 1lt for a few months when I started, I'd just go greedy in base double rax bow no matter what. Aging with 500f to colo and that kind of shit. I'd make it work vs other bad players because I'd micro my stuff, but I really had no clue what I was doing. Then I met some guy called orba27 (he peaked around lt col or col on tad I think) who taught me how to tower rush. I started spamming that build and reached nilla major almost instantly, just because I had an actual build order. I still wasn't adapting or anything, and played 1 civ only, yet I jumped about 6 PR in a few days, simply because I met a good player.

Same happened again, twice. I was now stuck at lt col for a few months, cause I wouldn't vary my builds. Then met Lordimperialist. That guy was actually really solid, probably TAD PR40, he would just shit on everyone without any effort. I mean I probably came remotely close to beating him only once or something. We spammed 8 players GP obs games and I reached brigadier in a few weeks, I just learnt how to adapt and started playing France. These were really cool times tbh.

Then sadly he stopped playing, and I was basically left as the new best nilla player cause nilla was starting to die. Again I was stuck, and I met ovi12 who pushed me to move on to TAD to play in one of the first esoc tournies (I was basically worth tad lt col). He introduced me to Mitoe, who introduced me to H2O, and we practiced and played obs games. That was late 2015 I think, a year later I was probably top 10.


So while I had tons of fun on nilla and I definitely don't regret it, I can't help but wonder how much faster I'd have improved if I just started on EP, surrounded by the best players, with a ton of streams and useful forum threads, actual maps, etc. A whole year playing like I did with Mitoe and H2O probably would have been more useful than my 3 first years of aoe3.
To finally answer the OP's question, in my book, this is the real trick (provided you have a bit of potential).


But yeah other stuff matters. Control groups are huge. Playing more than 1 civ is huge, at least at some point. Mastering attack move is uber huge.
Ah, and don't be satisfied unless you feel like you couldn't have done better (I don't mean you played perfectly, but at least the best for your standards). If you're pissed whenever a musk gets to melee your cav, whenever you unnecessarily lose much hp treasuring, whenever you lose 1 vil to a raid, you're on the right path.

[Mitoe]

Hotkeys are huge, yeah. I very distinctly remember the first week I started using hotkeys, and how after only a few games I couldn't go back to clicking on stuff anymore. Granted, it might've been slightly more useful for me, since I was using a trackpad at the time.

[deleted_user]

I've precisely a lot less drive than the top 8 players in the world posting in this thread and I'm at a level I'm happy with. Playing a lot of games is probably the secret but you don't have to be masochistic about it. Grinding games vs someone a lot better than me doesn't sound enjoyable but I occasionally crave a challenge. My point is stay away from the labyrinth of relativism. Losing feels bad, yes, but the solution isn't necessarily git gud, because you'll never be as good as someone else, until you're the best then you're an unfulfilled nerd. Evaluate your relationship with your PR in a vaccum.

I couldn't tell you what I've explicitly/consciously done to improve. Like Mitoe, I played on Mac gameranger for years. Unlike Mitoe I didn't analyze my games -- I either took a screenshot if I won or else exited without looking at the post game. When I came to ESO after a five year hiatus or smth, I set up hotkeys for the first time and was a 1st lt. Probably because around this time streaming and tournaments became a thing, I just emulated what I watched and linearly improved until lt col. I won't ever get any better. Introducing a few new civs to my "main pool" has been rewarding, as well as experimenting with "alternative" strategies these past 6 months before DE kills ESO. All this said, I've spent a lot of time online since 2015 and so I've played a lot of games, but nowhere near actual nerd status.

[gibson]

Being really good at video games just takes something mentally that I lack. I cant "try hard" games for more than a short bit without rage quitting.

[dicktator_]

I think there are three times where I was able to improve a lot in a relatively short amount of time.

The first time was in late 2012/early 2013, I went from like captain/major in treaty to colonel in ~4 months. I think the big thing I started doing then was control grouping production. I also think I just got a lot faster in general. I don't remember too many details but I remember suddenly being able to beat players like sabusa, lukas, and king ownage, who were impossible for me before.

The second time was in early 2018 in supremacy. The weekend tours happened and I was able to make deep runs in some of the supremacy tourneys. Of course there weren't half as many top players and I was able to pass some players who were better than me due to the bo1 format but it was still more than I ever thought I'd be able to do in a supremacy tournament. I think my tournament level jumped from like ~pr32 to pr36. Around this time, I was spamming a lot of games against top players like lordraphael, which probably helped. Also I did a bo27 against h2o.

The third time was epl2, which I mention because most of my tournament results before this point had been pretty mediocre (aside from weekend tours). This was my first time doing well in a preparation format. Here I don't know what went so well here compared to other tourneys. Other tournaments which I had practiced for were: New Years Classic (monociv), NWC qualifiers, EPL1, and the Winter tournament early this year (where I got so frustrated with my practice games I unsigned from the tourney before it started). For some reason, unlike in those other tournies, I was actually able to play some games that I was proud of. I think I put a lot more thought and effort into civ picks and which strats to use, and definitely talked more about it with my teammates as well. I think my mechanics improved as well during this period, as I tried to put effort into looking at the minimap more often.

It's really hard to pinpoint one thing that lets you improve. You need to play a lot of games. You need to be motivated and excited to play. You need to understand why you're losing games and what you need to improve on. You need to have people who will tell you what you did wrong and help with your builds. You need to play a lot against players who are better than you but also play a decent amount against people you can beat, because if you only play against players who are better than you, you'll feel like shit (or maybe that's just me xD). Sometimes I feel like I have little-no control over it, sometimes I'll just hit my stride and start playing really well.

Gonna tag @TheNameDaniel , he's kind of overlooked because he didn't play sup long until we converted him, but he got to brig in sup really fast and was beating some good players, and also improved at treaty really quickly.

[forgrin]

I'm pretty much where I plateaued at after joining ESOC, 2nd Lieut. Summer of 2016 I was probably 1st Lieut to low captain level but I was playing almost all unrated games at the time, mostly with sir_musket.

In reflection I'm not nearly as serious a gamer as I thought I was. I thought I was putting some good time into the game, but I'm still just above 700hrs played on steam, which is basically nothing (considering a lot of that is singleplayer, practicing BOs for strategy guides, or just screwing around in 3v3 not learning).

I'm hoping with DE there will be more players around in my timezone and available on my schedule. I work weekends with Mon/Tues off and can usually only play PM Pacific time, which is just about the lowest pop times on ESO. I feel that finding even moderate-quality games has been difficult and that's been the biggest barrier to investing more time in the game for me recently. I've been playing much more LoL this year just because I can actually find decent games without too much effort.

[Riotcoke]

I plateaued after switching to just troll strats 24/7.

[fedjahnson]

I've been playing for 3 months and have been bouncing between ms 18 and ms19

[dansil92]

This thread is so wholesome

[King_Felipe]

I started playing again online on March of this year after like 4 years of not playing online. Started playing only brits maybe with pr13 and just with practice and some RE iro laming got to ms level. Then I realized how OP were Iro so I continued just playing brits mostly in team games where I just spammed lbs, and some 1v1s and without iro I dropped to sergeant. Then I discovered that pro players streamed on twitch and started watch them a lot. Started playing much more 1v1 and learnt the hotkeys for tc, villie production and eject units from tc. That took me to ms again. Then I learnt to play India, understood the thing of BO, started to herd better and reached 2nd lit.
Nowadays Im pr21 playing mostly brits and sometimes India. I think that the most important things to got here were to understand BOs, scout ur opponent, find nice treasures and keep the continuous vill production that is really much easier with the hotkeys "t" "v". Still trying to learn control groups but it´s being really hard for me tbh. I think also that playing a lot of unrated matches trying to learn new civs helps u understand better some mechanics and civs and also makes easy understand how to play against that civ that ur testing.

[TNT333]

We defenitely need @[Armag] diarouga here, his story is similar to chinese bamboo tree, he stayed 1lt for 3-4 years then became colonel/major general just in 2-3 months...

Rouga point traded with Maurice of Nassau

[Squamiger]

great thread, i want to hear all the pros ranking up stories

[somp]

idk prince bashed me like 200 times in a row for easy pr and then I learnt some lame tactics for self-defence idk