Professional players - what is their secret?

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Esports is rapidly gaining momentum around the world. Broadcasts with esports disciplines gather millions of enthusiastic viewers, sports arenas given over to players' performances are packed to capacity, and it seems that this is only the beginning.

The big future of esports

Already, the International Olympic Committee has recognized esports as a second-level sports discipline. And although this is still not enough to include it in the Olympic program, this may change in the future.

Imagine an Olympic video game competition! But now it's not so fantastic. Major tournaments and competitions in various computer disciplines are already bringing huge profits to organizers and players alike. For example, the prize pool of this year's largest Dota 2 tournament, The International 2018, exceeded twenty-five million dollars, and the OG team that won the first place in the tournament received more than eleven million of them.

In recent years prize pools across all disciplines have only continued to grow, with sponsors reporting incredible returns on advertisedesports products. A career as a professional video game player can bring in a lot of money and recognition all over the world. So what separates casual players from professionals?

The life of an esportsman

The profession of an esportsman remains a mystery for many. However, like any athlete, professional computer players spend a huge amount of time training and honing their skills. You can't be successful in anything without dedicating the majority of your time to it - and esports is definitely no exception.

For esports players, playing a game is the same job that you need to devote a lot of your time to. For example, professional CS players often train with the whole team in separate training centers where nothing can distract them from work. It happens that they live and sleep in them with their team, spending literally the whole day in training. However, esports players are no strangers to this - tournaments are held all over the world and players have to spend a lot of time staying in hotels in a foreign country.

How to become a professional player?

Many come up with this question, because for many cybersportsmen are an example to follow and aspire to. In addition, the ability to earn and live with the help of your favorite game - isn't it a dream? However, everything is not so simple here. Many of today's professional Dota players have been playing Dota since early childhood.times when the competition was not as great as it is now, and the number of players was much smaller.

In 2018, there are hundreds of esports organizations around the world, which are very difficult to get into, because they offer decent salaries, long-term contracts and comfortable conditions. However, with perseverance, patience and, most importantly, skill, nothing is impossible. Many of the esports players who now play on the international stage and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for their victories were unknown players who simply played their favorite game very well.

Rising to the top of the rating games, which are always present in any esports discipline, there is always a chance to be noticed by one of the professionals and be invited to the team. There are many such stories, and they are not something out of the ordinary. After all, where else to look for future esports stars, if not among the best players?

How are professionals different from regular players?

Of course, the main thing that distinguishes any professional from an amateur is skill, and this is the most important thing. But can any skill be learned with due perseverance? Maybe. One of the main qualities in esports disciplines is reaction, intelligence, the ability to analyze the situation and make quick decisions. All this can be developed by diligent training. Now, games for training reaction and click speed are available for everyone, on video hosting you can find thousands of lessons and tips from professionals,there are entire websites devoted to the intricacies of games, an entire industry has been built around the training of cybersportsmen. And yet, not every person who plays well will become a professional player. So what's the deal?

Esport equipment

There is an opinion that in order to play like a pro, the best equipment is absolutely necessary, that is, a keyboard, mouse, the system unit itself and even a chair. This is partly true - on a "weak" computer with outdated components it is impossible to play at a high level. The rest is not so important. For example, for a mouse of a professional player, only high DPI, optimal frequency, comfortable grip and additional buttons are important. For the keyboard - a mechanical type of keys, not a membrane one, which helps to press it faster. Many esports players take to major tournaments, where everyone is provided with the best equipment, their own mice and keyboards, and sometimes even chairs, preferring to play what they are used to. So the mandatory need for equipment is more myth than truth.

Esports settings

Quite a lot in the game depends, among other things, on the settings of the game itself. And we are talking not only about in-game settings, but also about what can be changed before the launch of the game itself. Few people know about such a thing as launch options. These additional options help to customize the game more finely than the in-game settings - they change the overall configuration of the game.

In CS:GO,for example, you can turn off the splash screen, allowing you to speed up the loading of the game, change the tick rate (a unit of measurement for sending and receiving data from the server per second), enable the old interface from the classic version of the game, force the game to use the mouse settings from the operating system, set the priority and number of processor cores, which the game will use, set the refresh rate of the monitor, and so on. How to do it?

In games installed in the STEAM system (this applies, for example, to both CS:GO and Dota 2), before starting, select the "Library" menu, find the game of interest there, right-click mouse and in the window that appears, select "Properties", then "Set launch options". The most important launch parameter for professional players is, without a doubt, the screen refresh rate. This is set by the -freq command with a number - professionals set 120. This screen refresh rate can greatly improve the smoothness of the game.

In-game settings

Don't forget that you can change directly inside the game. In CS:GO, the settings of professional players are often the same. E-sports players prefer to use low graphics settings, leaving only shadows that are highly rendered, which make it possible to see the enemy a split second earlier. Despite professional monitors with a large screen and high resolution, most CS:GO players use a resolution of 1024 x 768 with black bars, because this way you can focus more on the game, and your eyes do not run wide,if you need to look, for example, at the radar.

Mouse sensitivity is very important - everything is individual here, but on average most e-sportsmen prefer a DPI of four hundred points and a USB Rate of a thousand. In general, this principle applies to all games, not just shooters. Low graphics settings for maximum responsiveness and no distraction from the game itself, high screen refresh rates for maximum fluidity, and a well-tuned mouse.

Additional settings

In addition to the above, for professional CS players, and indeed for any other shooters, it is considered important to adjust the scope. In CS:GO, the main command that is responsible for the view at the crosshair is cl_crosshairstyle. This command determines what crosshair style will be used. In addition, in the game you can adjust the thickness, size and presence of a dot in the sight, the stroke around the sight and its size, as well as the color of the sight and its transparency. However, there is no unity among esports players here - professional players have very different crosshairs, some even change the crosshair settings several times a week, so its impact on the game is still minimal.

Pro Binds

Binds are the ability to assign any action in the game to a specific button. And now this is really important. For example, every professional Dota player must use binds for all used items, which can be a maximum of 6 - without this, there is simply no way. CS:GO playersuse binds, for example, to buy weapons in the initial stage of the game and to quickly select the type of grenades. Esports dedicated to strategy use binds to control the army and divide it into important key units. Those who play MMORPGs, on the other hand, use binds for those abilities that could not be found on the main panel, or for those that need to be used as quickly as possible.

Thus, among the in-game settings, binds are one of the most important parts and that is why there are always additional buttons on game mice - after all, what could be more convenient than clicking on a really important button with your main hand while continuing to control the mouse?

Tricks of professionals

With success, fame comes to any esportsman. And although it is very nice to be recognizable among players from all over the world, this also has its drawbacks. For example, the games of professionals are watched. And if in the same CS:GO this is not a particular problem, let them look at it, the main thing is reaction speed and the ability to shoot, then for players in Dota-2 or similar games, where the tactical component is also important, this becomes a serious obstacle. The same problem awaits players in strategy - preparing for a serious performance, such esportsmen often play only in hidden games with familiar opponents and coaches, or simply change their nicknames. Because of this, the nicknames of professional Starcraft 2 players who play at the top of the rating tables,for example, most often look like |||||||||. In this way, they hide from their competitors and practice strategies in ranked games, revealing their identity only in tournaments.

What to do if skills are not enough?

As it has already become clear, being a professional player is not easy at all. Using the best equipment, imitating the pros and using their settings and binds, spending huge hours in the game, you can never achieve the desired success. The competition is incredibly high, skillful players compete with each other all over the world, and not everyone will be the best.

So what about those who want to touch the world of eSports or start making money on it, but are not as good at games as they would like to do? It is important to determine what the problem is in the first place. Esports is incredibly diverse, and anyone can become a part of this world with due diligence. Shooters are suitable for players with quick reactions and accurate aim, for those who know how to work in a team and analyze the situation - MMORPG or games like Dota, loners will find themselves in strategies. After all, among esports disciplines there are also games that require only intelligence and luck and do not require reaction at all, for example, card games. They also hold tournaments with large prize pools, and there were cases when even children performed at such events!

Those who are not very good at the game, but savvy in the theoretical part, can become its commentators, analysts or interviewers, coming to every major tournament andmeeting there with your favorite teams and players. A huge number of people work at tournaments and other events - videographers, journalists, electricians, computer scientists and many others. Recently, psychologists are even hired for the most famous teams to help players cope with stress and understand each other better.

Game betting

The betting industry is always growing around popular games. Professional bettors can earn huge amounts of money predicting the outcomes of games both large and small. It works in the same way as regular sports betting - you can bet on the outcome of the game as a whole or on the occurrence of a specific event. The only difference from sports is that the result can be a little more predictable with the proper level of analysis. Many teams or players have long and extensive histories of confrontations, and this makes it possible to predict the result a little more accurately than in classical sports, where performances and meetings of specific teams or people most often occur much less frequently.

So you can become a part of the esports world even if you don't know how to play like the pros do. It is enough just to love games and understand them - and anyone can connect their lives with this promising direction.