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Fear of achieving goals.
 

This is just something that has been running through my mind for the past couple of days.

I started playing Starcraft 2 at the end of February 2011 so almost a year ago now. I had just come from a heavy FPS online gaming background and aside from playing Age of Empires 1 and 2 when I was a little kid against the AI I had no RTS experience. I had seen a few of the pro gamers for SC2 and after having achieved the top of my game in CoD (I was mostly playing private matches against other clans from CyberGamer and could hold my own against them and don't even talk about when I kicked back on public servers) I realised that there was nothing really beyond that, so with the disappointing release of Black Ops I decided to look for something else. I was tired of trying to find teams that I would join, only to find out they weren't as committed to training as I was. And after about 3-4 clans where I played twice as much as anyone else and struggled to get people to show for tactical discussions I decided to look into something that I didn't have to rely on other people to play. I had heard about professional Starcraft when the Starcraft 2 beta came out and I decided to look into it a bit more. After watching games online and finding Day[9]'s 100th daily I thought Starcraft 2 seemed like a worthwhile game. So I happily bought it and took the plunge right into the ladder. I skipped over the practice games and placed right away. Losing all 5 and being placed right into bronze I felt lost, I didn't have a clue what I was doing and everyone else seemed to be able to get a lot more stuff than I could quickly. From preliminary research I thought I liked Zerg the most, but I kept losing and to Terrans and Protoss too, so I decided I might give them a try. I quickly found that I got bored with Terran and ended up winning my first ever SC2 game with Protoss.

At this point I still had no idea what I was doing and was quickly coming to realize that I had found something of greater depth than I had previously perceived. Build orders were a foreign concept to me and I fumbled around. But it was also around this time when Day[9] came out with daily #252 and when I asked advice in the RTS section of a gaming forum I used to frequent someone was kind enough to link me to that. I took Day[9]'s advice on mechanics to heart and trained non-stop for a week only against the AI until I had mastered using only hotkeys for actions instead of clicking as well as minimizing my scrolling by using control grouped buildings and screen location keys. I continued to play Protoss until I had won 100 games on ladder. I know my training methods weren't optimal, but I believed the way to learn the game was to just play more. I never looked up build orders. First starting with a carrier "rush" that in retrospect would have been awful if I had to see it now. I sat down and figured out the basic math myself. In my first month I mapped out to the second openings for fast expands and zealot/phoenix builds that I discovered worked well against zergs if you lifted their queens and killed their overlords. I felt like I was making massive strides in improvement because instead of looking up and seeing that all builds get a pylon at 9 I had organically figured that out myself by experimentation and I felt like I understood stuff. I had a goal and I wanted to become a professional Starcraft 2 gamer. Around this time though I began to really feel as though I wanted to try out zerg again and return to my true first love with the game. So I played a couple of games against the AI and fumbled around. I didn't know how tech worked or how the macro worked, but again my attitude of "just do it" came into play and I soon hit the ladder. I felt at home right from the start with hatch first builds. To this day I love macro games and enjoy nothing more than going hatch first. I didn't know what I was doing, but I'd make non-stop drones, double extractor trick (because I'd somehow seen/heard about that online and thought it was optimal) and as soon as I could afford a hatch above constant drone production I'd put one down. A pool would follow sometime after.

At this point I ended up getting a few pointers from higher level players (gold/plat in this case) and learned that I was making too many lings too early as well as not to do the extractor tricks. I still had no idea what I was doing in Starcraft 2, but I was hooked. Every spare moment I had was spent laddering because I had a goal. A goal to become a professional gamer and I just needed to play as much as the pros and I'd get as good as them. Skipping ahead a couple hundred hours and many hundred games later I saw a Husky cast showing Spanishiwa's Ice Fisher build. Now honestly I didn't pay much attention to the actual build aside from the concept of no gas until 40 and really heavy macro with a rapid 3rd. Naturally as a macro styled player this appealed to me, so I hit the ladder, and actually ended up going double expand before hatch against a terran and demolished him. When I checked his profile he ended up being the first gold I had encountered (I was still in bronze at this point) and I became really excited despite my risky play. I looked up the official Ice Fisher and it became all I did from then on. Within 2 weeks I was promoted to Silver, 10 days later I was promoted to Gold. I was riding a high and feeling like I was invincible after multiple 10+ game winning streaks. I felt like I'd surely be a pro gamer in a few months at that rate. But then I encountered a new bane to my existence, 2-rax bunker rushes and reactor hellions. These gold players seemed to be able to hit me where it hurt if I tried to be greedy. After such massive winning streaks I became depressed when I could barely win 2 games back to back without being "rushed". This made my ranking plateau and I wasn't improving just doing 1 build blindly the same way every time. My motivation to train wore down and I started to doubt my abilities. I really despised my existence on this planet, thinking that if I can't even do well in a stinking game why should I go on. I came very close to quitting gaming forever and gave up on my dream to become a professional player. After a month's break though I felt like trying some more Starcraft so I came back and played some games. I had recessed in skills and really ended up losing a lot, but after 20 or so games I was able to keep a 50/50 equilibrium. I no longer did the Ice Fisher, but still went for hatch first builds. I became quite well versed in holding 2-rax pressure without losing my hatch most of the time and felt ok about it. I had also been doing some hard thinking about my life and trying to get it all back together. I had finished school the year before and had been forced to take a gap year due to us not having residency in Australia yet and not being able to afford international student prices. The idea was that I'd find work and put some money aside for while in Uni, but by now it was mid August and I still hadn't managed to find anything which also contributed to my depression. But I did some thinking about my life, my goals, philosophy and general outlook and realized that I still have a good life and need to just be happy. I am glad to say that since then I've been able to keep a positive outlook on things and now don't even need to find a reason to be happy. My parents noticed it too, they told me they hadn't seen me so happy in years and felt like they had their son back again. Back to Starcraft though, with a positive attitude and having dropped my unrealistic goal of being a pro gamer by the end of the year I actually started enjoying playing again. After a few weeks I was called back to my old summer job that as always would only last until Christmas, but I was unable to play Starcraft 2 for the whole time as I was working 11+ hour days all week. Having had such a long forced hiatus from Starcraft I attacked it with vigour in January having to regain a lot of lost touch with the game again. I purchased a TW account from SC2SEA and placed Silver on there. I have been enjoying playing and refocusing my training in Starcraft. I set a more realistic goal for myself to just reach diamond whenever, but to try and learn some more every time I play.

Now to the whole point of this post. I have been thinking the past few days about that goal and with a subscription to The Grandmaster Guide and a truly open mind for the first time it is looking like an attainable goal for the future and that got me thinking. Do I want to reach that goal? To finally break out of gold and eventually hit diamond. I'm honestly scared of no longer having a goal to strive for in Starcraft because it is the whole driving force behind my play. My enjoyment stems from a constant desire to improve. Shortly after I got the game I realized the depth of Starcraft 2 and ever since then it has always felt like I have so much to improve on, as I do. But if I reach my goal of getting Diamond, and set a goal for Masters, then what is there. There has to reach a point where I will not be able to invest more time into playing and time will be the only factor in preventing me from moving from one level to the next. I don't want to reach a point and just try maintain that. I want to always try to improve at this beautiful game. But to what end? If my goal is no longer professional gaming, there has to be a logical point where I will not be able to improve without investing professional gamer level time and will stop getting better. Obviously I will evolve with the trends and meta game improvements, but with this game having practically been my life for the past year I would feel lost if I reach my goal and have nothing to shoot for anymore. I still have a long way to go from my lowly Gold status at the moment so I will still have a good amount of work to do before I get there.

Wow, I didn't mean to ramble on for so long. I love Starcraft and it has forever changed my life. I have zero interest in playing any other games and as long as I have something I can set as a goal I don't see myself quitting it any time soon.