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I recollect that playing DJCJR was taxing enough to last at least a month or 2 before I felt the need to play him again. Admittedly, the game is more 'fun' when I'm playing someone who is challenging but not a life threatening chess master class top gun instructor (aka Mark, Djcjr, baha at times).

Mark and I play more 'off the record' than we do on it and I find those games to be more enjoyable than the ones that 'count'.

I appreciate the high level games I get with Mark...we both pull off some fancy schmancy stuff at times that is a pleasure to witness.

I don't avoid GOLD matches with dangerous pilots...I play them...I accept them...I even initiate the challenges. I DO hate losing and I'm not very graceful about it as you all know. I don't get a lot of ego feeding compliments for my accomplishments despite what some might think and it's nice to hear good things about what you are working so hard to accomplish. In my case people celebrate my failures and often throw it in my face and advertise it....at least that's how it feels to me. So playing GOLD v GOLD that can result in my public shaming is an added level of stress on top of an already very difficult game vs that pilot. It's not 'fun' to feel that way and experience that too often. Just my 2 cents

It's not a chore! It's a delight! There is absolutely no other game out there like this one, and it's the tough games that keep me coming back to it! Everything else is just okay, but those contests that force me to improve, that require me to push my limits . . . !

But they are very grueling. Or can be, at least. That's no joke! One or two in a day and I'm done for a bit. I don't even play vendettas with Jeds much anymore unless one or two of the maps is pretty light.

I usually play pretty loose, even against most gold pilots. There are definite drawbacks to that, but it is less exhausting.

I'm not a Gold pilot and have no idea what you need to improve on. I think many of the elite pilots offered many great suggestions. Typically, when I play you, you rely on the same tactic. Run to the vulcan and extra ammo. This works well for you, but against a skilled gold pilot, who knows how to use other weapons, they aren't going to pick up the vulcan and they'll wait until they kill you and take yours with all that ammo you collected for them. You're so busy trying to run to the vulcan, you don't press F5 to record a demo. Take the .1 seconds it takes to press F5 while starting(at least until Drakona makes a auto-record demo feature)

Mark392 said something important as well, that I think everyone can relate to. RL distractions can start a death-run. You're left with nothing.

For me personally, the biggest things that affect my game are
* RL Distractions. This is usually in the form of a cold basement office and my hands (which suffered some moderate frostbite as a youth) do not work that well in the cold. Sometimes I'm heating up my hands after a death because of the pain.
* Frustration. Self inflicted because I do something that I know was a bad move on my part. If I survive the encounter, I take a mental note of what I did wrong with the hope I won't repeat it. If I die, I won't spawn immediately because my mind is not in the right place. I take 1-2 seconds to acknowledge my mistake, process it and clear my mind to a 'fresh start' state in a hope not to repeat it. Because I'm not a top silver pilot or Gold pilot, this is a skill I'm teaching myself. I'm hoping that as I continue to work on identifying the mistake and process it, it will become second nature and a delay won't be necessary and I can change gears on the fly. But like all skills, you have to crawl before you can fly, so it's my method of teaching myself this skill.
(I never played D1 or 1v1 back in the day, so a lot of skills, I am learning for the first time)
* Continue to identify and improve things you are weak at. For you, it might be proficiency in non-vulcan weapons. For me, this is tri-cording. I suck at it, but I am improving. I don't fly the same as other pilots and that's why I'm called "THE SLOTH". It throws off their timing and can be frustrating. Then later in the match, I'll be tri-cording much better and this throws off their timing again because I'm not where they thought I would be based on my movement problems. Also, vulcan used to be my highest weapon priority, but now it's fusion. Am I good at fusion? hell no! But I don't want to rely on vulcan all the time so it's last on my priority list. I change it around as my proficiency improves on the other weapons. Sometimes I'll be at 30-40 shields and change to vulcan and I have 2500 rounds left. Could I get a few extra kills a game if I used all 2500 rounds before something else... I guess... but at the expense of not improving.

I'm not as skilled as you, Cyrus. You're clearly a top silver+/gold- pilot. It's frustrating playing you because you're just so good but it makes me adjust and recognize shortcomings in my game that I have control over. I'll never get full movement in my hands and be able to be a keyboard/mouse player. I've had to adapt my game and you'll need to adapt yours to compete at the top of Gold. It's fun watching your progress!!!!

Keep at it and you'll be Gold in no time.

This thread speaks volume about the community that I decided to join. This is all a huge competition, yet everyone wants to help everyone. I really appreciate everything and I've re-read almost every post 5x.

So, thank you all again.

Notes taken...time to act on them!

Jedi & Morfod...you guys have made me improve to a level I didn't think was possible!

Thank you!!!!!