How To: Power Down Auto-Pilot.

Hey guys

Long time no SEA.... hahahah he he ... *AHEM*

anyway quick rundown. The team is getting more involved lately so i will not be around much with our potential sponsor and semi-pro division games coming up im pretty busy and also cause i dislike "things" otf atm.

But none the less i will try to poke my nose in now and then and im always here to help new players and or give advice if needed. never be afraid to ask :D

ill also try to keep up the blog series but they might be more spaced out than before due to work and commitments.

THUS i bring you the latest blog....

HOW TO: POWER DOWN AUTO PILOT.

Auto pilot i hear you ask? well yes, auto pilot is what 99% of us who play dota do for 99% of the games we play and 99% of the duration of those games this is what mode we are in.

dont get me wrong im not saying we all cruise it through and dont pay attention ( IM LOOKING AT YOU SAFE LANE CARRY WITH WARDS UP THAT DOESNT SEE OR HEAR OUR MASS PINGS!!!!!) im saying that once we learn how to do something to an adequate level we kinda just let our background processes just run it as we learned it. last hitting, items, movement, decisions, clicking, moving, attacking, jungling, warding.... EVERYTHING. once we learn something and/or do something enough it slowly is taken over by our auto pilot and we dont even know its happening.

in a recent interview with EE-SAMA he said one of the main reasons people lose is because they are playing in auto pilot. they might not feel like they are but ... they are.

the things we do in game we dont really "really" focus on them, we dont 100% focus and SEE what we do ... we just do it how we learnt it or how we came to do it. we pick hero A and buy items A,B,C we go to lane and do D E F and G. we just do these things because its really really hard not too. WHY?

because have you ever consciously focused for 100% of a game? from min 0 to min 50. 100% focus for 100% of the game time?

its actually exhausting like... ridiculously so.

i recently tried this and usually i play maybe 4-5 games a night. i finished after the one.. went NUP *** IT and went to bed where i slept like a baby RTZ in a crib after a naga win. its hilariously hard to do, to be able to consciously focus on the game. sure you may think you are but your doing maybe 40-50 % of moves in auto pilot mode. this made me realize that when i watch EE-sama or FLY or K-GOD or 4BOCT playing out of there minds they are 100% focused on the game. After trying it i cant see myself doing that for a whole tourney. the exhaustion that they must feel is intense. but i also found it reeeallly really hard to actually turn off my auto pilot. its constantly trying to take some control back maybe its a courier crow or maybe its a jungle stack, in those moments im back in auto pilot mode. so how do i get 100% focus 100% of the time?

HOW TO: POWER DOWN AUTO PILOT...by smuggel-sama

step 1. explain and rationalize your moves in your head.

"im going to pick this and this because of this and go there because of that and do that because of this and then im going to click here because of this and so on and so on and so on...."

this gets exhausting fast but you will soon find that when you are doing something that you cant rationalize its something you shouldn't be doing.

"im going to buy item B because of ..... err theres no reason for that item this game OK im going to buy item C because of ...."

ok now onto step 2... combine it with step 1.

Step 2. Explain and rationalize your enemies potential actions in your head

" ok so im going to move around this tree just incase they have a ward in THAT spot there because thats what i would do if i was pushing T2 and then im going to farm that jungle camp but i wont use blink to get there because they might smoke into it and i cant see 3 heroes of theirs ok im going to move outside blink range from that high ground spot cause their cent might have a blink now..."

this is doubly exhausting but soon you will find that your not dying to ganks or your not being inefficient with your movements. Now i know some of you are going to say "BUT I ALREADY THINK LIKE THIS " but do you? do you think in your head every single SINGLE action your going to take and reason it and rationalize it and explain it? or do you just click there because u want to get to point A from point B? talk each action out with step one and two.

Step 3. 100% focus.... ON YOU ... no one else.

seriously... 1000% dont focus or talk through your team mates actions... just let them do their thing. focus on you and you in relation to your enemies. thats it.

once you try this you will be like me and say bugger this im switching back on auto pilot this is too much hard work but maybe you have a game thats important? maybe your finally going to hit 3k? 4k? 5k? then try powering down auto pilot and focusing.

something good might happen.