How to Become a Master Gamer

Upgrading Your Gear

Invest in a high-quality controller to replace the stock gamepad. While there’s nothing wrong with using a standard gamepad, upgrading your controller can really improve your console experience. Get an ergonomic controller with a good weight distribution to stay comfortable during your games. Controller preferences are largely personal, so read reviews and visit a gaming store to try a controller out if you can. If you really want to compete in games, stick with wired controllers. Wireless controllers are convenient, but they are prone to lagging, which is delay between an input on a controller and the corresponding action in the game. If you’re a PC gamer, you can plug in a standard Xbox or PS4 controller into your USB port and use it as a gamepad for most games getting published today. This is a major disadvantage in first-person shooters though, since the mouse and keyboard will be more accurate.

Buy a good headset if you’re into multiplayer games. If you’re playing any kind of multiplayer game, you’ll need a good headset to be able to hear other players clearly. Get a headset with a high-quality microphone so that they can hear you as well, which will make it easier to coordinate plays and communicate the enemy’s movements during competitive games. A good headset can really improve single player games as well, since you’ll have an easier time figuring out where sounds are coming from.

Invest in a good keyboard and mouse to improve your PC experience. While there’s nothing wrong with using a standard mouse and keyboard, upgrading your peripherals can really improve your PC gaming experience. Get a mouse with additional buttons on the side to bind important keys to them, and look for a mouse with a wide range of DPI setting for accurate movement. Get a keyboard that feels good to use and has a reputation for staying responsive over long gaming sessions. There is a lot of love in the gaming community for mechanical keyboards, which use physical switches under each key to trigger a command (as opposed to a digital output). They tend to be more responsive according to some gaming enthusiasts. DPI is short for dots per inch. It is a measurement used to indicate how responsive and accurate your mouse is. Look for a mouse capable of 400-1600 DPI to give yourself a ton of options when it comes to your personal settings.

Upgrade your CPU, graphics card, and RAM to improve your computer. If you’re a PC gamer and have a little extra money to throw at your rig, consider upgrading your computer’s components. If your computer generally runs fine but struggles with newer games, look into getting a new graphics card. If it can render great graphics but moves kind of slowly, consider buying a newer CPU. Adding more RAM can seriously upgrade the overall performance of your computer.Tip: If you only have the money to upgrade one part of your PC, opt for a better graphics card. If your graphics card can render images more efficiently, your CPU won’t have to work as hard to process information. Unlike gaming consoles, like the Xbox and PS4, you can upgrade individual components in your computer. Even if you aren’t comfortable doing it yourself, you can take your PC to a computer repair company and pay someone a small fee to do it for you. Apple computers are rarely used for serious gaming. They don’t have as many customizable components as a PC and most game publishers don’t make games that are compatible with Apple computers.

Practicing Regularly

Play your game regularly to improve. Regardless of the game that you’re trying to master, playing every day will improve your skills, game knowledge, and reaction times. Stick with competitive game modes and track your progress over the course of your gaming sessions. Playing regularly is the best way to master the mechanics and strategies required to become a champion at your game. Stay away from “smurfing” in competitive games to actually improve. Smurfing is the act of starting a new account or changing your game mode to get matched against less-experienced players. While it may be fun to stomp on unassuming newcomers, it’s not really a great way to get better at the game. If your game has an elo or ranked system, track your progress to see if you’re ranking up over longer periods of time.

Take regular breaks to avoid burning out or harming your body. Playing for more than a few hours a day can lead to burn out. Take a 5-10 minute break once an hour to prevent eye strain, give your wrists a break, and reset your body.Tip: If you find yourself raging and getting frustrated, put the game down for the day. It will still be there tomorrow and there’s no reason to ruin your day over a game. While it depends a little on what kind of game you’re playing, you should play no more than 3-4 hours a day to preserve your eyes, wrist, and ensure that you aren’t sedentary for too long. Calmer games, like turn-based RPGs and puzzle games, can probably be played a little longer. Physically-intensive games, like first-person shooters and horror games, will require slightly longer breaks and shorter gaming sessions. Video game addiction is a serious problem. If you find yourself struggling to put the game down, talk to your parents or a close friend and look into seeing a therapist to help you cope with your issues.

Focus solely on your game and avoid distractions. While it’s tempting to try and multitask by listening to a podcast or chatting with a friend while playing a game, you’re not going to really improve if your attention is elsewhere. Turn your phone on vibrate and shut off email and social media notifications on your computer if you’re using your PC to focus solely on the game. Xbox One and PS4 both have notification systems. These can be shut off from the home screen under the “settings” or “account” tab. You can normally shut off the soundtrack in single and multiplayer games to focus more on the gameplay.

Play other games in your genre to gain insight and practice essential skills. If you’re focusing on becoming a master at a first-person shooter like Call of Duty, it may help to occasionally play other military-based first-person shooters like Battlefield or Counter-Strike. Playing other titles in your game’s genre will give you insight into what mechanics and strategies make your game unique. You’ll also get a different type of practice with the same hand-eye coordination that your game requires. If you’re trying to master fighter games, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and Soulcalibur are important titles to have experience with. If your goal is to master real-time strategy games, Age of Empires 2, Warhammer, Starcraft, and Company of Heroes are key games to play. If you’re trying to master MMOs, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, and Eve Online are helpful games to understand the genre. If you’re trying to get better at arena shooters, Apex Legends, Overwatch, and Player-Unknown Battlegrounds are essential titles to be familiar with.

Befriend players that are better than you and play with them. If you’re playing a multiplayer game, keep a look out for players that dominate a match. After the game is over, message good players and ask if they want to play with you. When you find a really good player to play with, follow their lead and ask lots of questions to get as much knowledge out of them as possible. Learning from players that are better than you is a great way to improve. Keep an open mind when they offer suggestions and try to implement the skills and tips that they teach you.

Avoid cheating or using exploits to avoid getting banned. Cheating or exploiting a game bug can lead to some funny outcomes or ridiculous advantages, but they don’t make you better at the game. In addition, cheating or using exploits can get your account permanently banned in a lot of competitive online games. In single player games, cheating or using exploits just robs you of gameplay and ruins the game’s intended experience.

Researching to Improve

Find online communities for your game and soak up their resources. The internet makes it incredibly easy to connect with other players that are working on improving at the same game you’re trying to master. Look online to find forums and public groups dedicated to posting guides, tips, and tricks for the game that you’re trying to become a master at. There are tons of gaming communities that use https://www.reddit.com/ as a way to pool information and resources. For example, if you want to master Counter-Strike, visit https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/. If you want to master Mortal Kombat, visit https://www.reddit.com/r/MortalKombat/. There’s a forum for almost every game on the site. It's also worth looking at Youtube tutorials to see where you're different from the top players. This can point out areas for improvement, but also where you're the better player!

Record your games to review your work and identify mistakes. When you’re about to get into a game, turn the recording function on your console or PC on to record the game. You can use the built-in recording equipment on the Xbox, PS4, or PC, or buy a capture card and install it in your console or PC and use the accompanying software to record longer sessions. Review the footage after the match to study your mistakes and figure out what you need to improve upon when you practice in the future. On an Xbox One, simply double-tap the Xbox button in the middle of the controller to automatically record video and save it to your console. If you have a PS4, press the “Share” button on the PS4 controller. Set the recording length and play your game. You can also prompt a recording in the middle of a game by pressing the share button twice like you’re double-clicking on a mouse. If you have an updated version of Windows 10, you can record a video by pressing the Windows key and G at the same time.

Watch professional gamers and full-time streamers play your game. Go to https://www.twitch.tv/ and search for the game that you’re trying to get better at in the search bar at the top. Sort through the streamers to pull up live video of professional gamers playing your game. Ask them questions in the chat on the right-hand side of the screen and pay attention to how they play to pick up on tips, tricks, and strategies that you can incorporate into your gameplay.Tip: You can also search for pre-recorded footage on YouTube, but the community at Twitch is essentially designed around competitive gaming and live entertainment, which makes it a good resource for players trying to improve at their respective games. Look for pro players with a lower viewer count to make it more likely that they see your questions in the chat.

Getting a Competitive Edge

Bind secondary keys to your mouse buttons if you’re a PC gamer. While you won’t want to change the keys that your fingers naturally rest on (for most games this is W, A, S, D, and the space bar), moving secondary keys to the buttons on the side of your gaming mouse can improve your reflexes. Secondary actions like reloading, spell-casting, or resetting the camera can be moved to the mouse to make them easier to hit on a moment’s notice.Tip: This is a particularly good idea for MMO’s or RPG’s with lots of spells or attacks on the 1-9 buttons, since these buttons can be kind of awkward to use naturally. You may need to download a driver or secondary program for your mouse to customize the controls.

Turn the graphics quality down to improve your game’s performance. Go into your game’s settings and turn all of the graphic sliders all the way down. Turning your game to the lowest graphic settings will improve the game’s performance, leading to more frames per second (FPS) and a lower ping for online games. Turn shadows totally off to really give your console or PC a performance boost. Ping refers to how long it takes your computer to interpret information from an online game’s servers. High ping means a longer delay between you pressing a button and something happening in game. V-sync (short for vertical synchronization) is mandatory for making sense of a lot of first-person shooters, but it’s usually not necessary for side-scrolling or isometric games. Motion blur can almost always be turned off to improve performance without ruining gameplay.

Avoid blaming the game when you make a mistake. Serious gamers often have the tendency to direct their anger towards the game itself when they’re struggling. This is a major obstacle to improvement, since blaming the game removes any critical analysis of your own behavior, making it harder to identify what’s going wrong. When you get frustrated, take a deep breath, take your hands off of the controller or keyboard for 4-5 seconds, and relax. Then ask yourself, “What am I doing wrong and how can I improve?” A positive attitude can go a long way towards getting better at the game. If you focus on things that you can control, as opposed to things that you have no control over, you’re more likely to find a way to improve. If you aren’t having fun, stop playing. It’s not worth wasting your time on something that you don’t actually enjoy when there are plenty of other games out there.