I came across a link (http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/magazines/fortune/talent_colvin.fortune/index2.htm) when reading up on competitive Starcraft. It's a nice article on the fortune magazine website on the concept of 'Deliberate Practice'. It was initially written about sports performance and presents a set of observations about top performers and draws commonalities on how they practice their craft. Simply put, it sheds light on why the best is the best.

I found it helpful because the things the article talks about can be applied to gaming and TF2.

Also, in addition to presenting eight very nicely-put principles, the article draws from a set of data/observations about top athletes and presents them in a clear, no-bullshit way.

Some exerpts:

5) It's hard. This follows inescapably from the other characteristics of deliberate practice, which could be described as a recipe for not having fun. Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that's exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands. Instead of doing what we're good at, we insistently seek out what we're not good at.

7) During the work. The most important self-regulatory skill that top performers in every field use during their work is self-observation. For example, ordinary endurance runners in a race tend to think about anything other than what they're doing; it's painful, after all, and they want to take their minds off it. Elite runners, by contrast, focus intensely on themselves. Among other things, they count their breaths and simultaneously count their strides in order to maintain certain ratios.

Lastly, I found it more useful than the Quake Bible.:biggrin:

It can be found here (http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/magazines/fortune/talent_colvin.fortune/index2.htm).

As a comment on this, we in-depth review and practice team rollouts (typically we run 20-30 rollouts focusing on every jump, turn and so forth) or mid-fights, or individual CPs in a map. The guys do get tired of it from time to time, but many aspects of the team have dramatically improved as a result.

If you don't know your own faults, you can't possibly improve on them.
If you know your strengths, try to make them overpower your weaknesses if you have not yet improved on them.

one of the ways that i used to practice in starcraft (and what i advised people to do) way back when was to spend a game just focusing on micromanaging a few units, forgetting everything else once you got your units, and try to pull off a rush with them.

then spend a game just focusing on macromanaging, or, building as many buildings and units as you possibly can, but not bothering to actually use them for anything.

the premise behind it was that micro and macro are the yin and yang of starcraft skill.

What I often do with mixed success is to force me to follow the best tactic instead of the subpar tactic that I can use well and more often than not will work.

For example, I can W+1 most soldiers with the Pyro because their aim is very bad. Of course this will never work on a decent Soldier so I don't do that and instead try to reflect, shoot a flare and reflect for the kill, the best way to do it.

Similarly I could get a lot of kills if I went after preys for a prolonged walk when playing Spy but that will not work against good players so I shoot them and learn to kill them faster.

I always try to picture the "best" strategy and follow it so as to get better. I could go Heavy on Badlands and beat most of the people I play against but it's going to be useless when playing seriously.

The importance of training is getting better, not getting kills. Now, in a tournament do what you can do best, not what should be best if you can't pull it off.

It's a much more specific, targeted article than the Quake Bible, so I don't think you can compare the two.

Uh, not to be overtly negative, but isn't this article just saying, "Do what athletes and musicians do, just do it for business"?

Hey Fish, Yes that's what the article is about. Glad you took the time to check it out though. It sounds like you're already doing the stuff it mentions so kudos to you ;)

:P I suppose to not actually be a dick about it, ammomod, DM, walkway, airshot maps, and jump maps can all be used for this (and should be).

Speaking of those maps, I am worried to many players at the lower levels are over-infalting the importance of the ammomod, TF2DM, tr_walkway etc.. If you need to work on getting your crosshair on target and work to improve hand eye coordination, those are very good options. (cp_turris I add to this to increase the vertical movements also)

But if that isn't the weak part of your game, they would not classify as improving and fall into the warm up category. If you need work on comms, you need to be playing scrims and make sure the team captain calls out very specific things just before you start to keep it fresh and work on those aspects.

Basically, the pointof the article is, do what you are bad it and likely dislike the most to keep improving those areas..