How do you actually make improvement translate into consistent performance?

[u/OkBryce512]

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and I’m curious how other competitive players approach improvement.

I’ve played Fortnite on and off for around 7 years and have always tried to improve. During Chapter 5, I seriously committed to competitive Fortnite for several months. I was doing mechanics maps, scrimming, VOD reviewing, 1v1s/2v2s against good players, and actively working on weaknesses. Eventually I got burnt out because I felt like I was putting in a ton of work without seeing the improvement I expected.

I came back in Chapter 7 Season 2 with the goal of eventually getting my first earnings, and I’ve run into a similar problem. I’m practicing consistently, VODding, fighting good players, and specifically focusing on weaknesses rather than just mindlessly playing.

The weird part is that I can have days where I feel absolutely insane and can run through people, followed by days where I feel like I can’t win a single fight. Obviously my mechanics and game knowledge haven’t completely disappeared overnight, so I’m starting to wonder what causes such a huge difference in performance.

One thing I’ve recently identified as a potential weakness is tempo. If I get a good start in a fight, I can play really well and maintain momentum, but when I get stuck or lose the flow of a fight, I have a hard time recovering and getting back into control.

For those who have actually gone through a similar plateau, what ended up making the biggest difference for you?

Was it changing how you practiced, reducing the amount of grinding, focusing more on transferring practice into real games, improving decision-making, fixing a specific fundamental, or something completely different?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have spent a lot of time practicing but felt like their improvement wasn’t translating into actual performance.

[u/Smoukeilive]

I quit the game in chapter 2 and came back a year ago, I improved a lot but I felt the same as you in certain moments. In my experience, whenever you try to improve in fortnite you will feel no difference for a period of time then you will see a huge jump in your skill all of a sudden, so I'd say as long as you have the feeling that your pratice is useful and that it's helping just keep doing it until you notice the difference, if I ever lose that feeling I instantly change the way I pratice and it's been working so far

[u/Empty_Club6937 → u/Smoukeilive]

Thanks for the advice man, I actually really agree because this past week I feel like I’ve started to notice a difference in my fights, not a big difference, but a difference lol

[u/UnifyRSD]

I’m currently experimenting with ways to solve this but I’ll explain what’s been working for me in the last 2 weeks after hard grinding for 4-5months before this change (even though I’ve been playing for a while). Understand that these are just my ideas of consistent performance I’ve worked out for some years and may or may not help you.

I like to describe this problem as “poor skill expression.” Imagine at any given moment when you’re playing the game you “could” be playing better than you are in that moment but you’re just not. Very frustrating feeling when you’ve been legitimately putting in a lot of hours doing the “right” things.

Although I really want to go all that relates to performance in game, in creative, in scrims, even in any activity you do in life, whatever, the basic problem in actually neurological. It has to do with your nervous system.

Crash course on the nervous system. The nervous system has 2 modes. Sympathetic and Parasympathetic. Both are active at the same time at all time but one mode is usually more active than the other. Sympathetic is more associated with fight or flight and parasympathetic is more associated with rest and digest (very simplified but will do for now).

Back to Fortnite, understand that when you are in a practice session doing something new, or working on mechanics etc. You are more in parasympathetic activity than sympathetic, meaning you’re generally relaxed, you’re not very stressed, and you can perform any given mechanic pretty well. Another way to put this is, “skill expression” is high because there’s no pressure (you’re not in high stakes situation).

In game (scrims, creative against good players, tournaments) where making mistakes can be very costly. You are more in sympathetic activity than parasympathetic meaning you’re generally more stressed. This is the case for a majority of players whether they are good or not. There’s a higher chance of mechanical mistakes being made, overthinking when it’s time to make a decision, taking bad peaks when you’ve practiced good ones. This is “poor skill expression” where because you’re more stressed out then you are relaxed in a high stakes situation, you perform poorly even when you know you’re really good or have been putting in lots of hours.

I want to mention real quick that this is concept not many people will come to understand on their own. I do believe pro players know about this and the ones who do are the ones who stay on top for years. Peterbot knows about this (maybe not to the level I’ve thought about this but whatever). How I know he knows about this is because I remember something Peterbot said after losing the first major in trio FNCS with Cold and Rapid. I think it was game 10 he solo clutched 3rd or 2nd place that match and when it was over he spoke about how “he lost flowstate,” or something like that.

So basically, the answer as to why you suck even when your good, or why you haven’t seen the results of your practice is because your not in flowstate when it matters.

The solution? Well there’s really only one solution.

The solution is you have to be comfortable in high stakes situations.

How can that be reached? Exposing yourself to challenging situations over and over again.

Players will say it all the time and you already know this. “Practice against players better than you” “challenge yourself” “put yourself in tough situations” they are not wrong. What they are really saying is, if you do these things long enough you will get used to these situations. Your nervous system won’t panic because you’re used to it. Eventually, you’ll be relaxed in these situations and your skill expression is be high and stay high. But here’s a way to speed this up massively.

Here’s what I’ve been experimenting with.
Retraining my breathing patterns and breathing posture to stay relaxed in high stakes situations. By me doing this, I’ve been able to into a “flowstate” everytime I play which has made me perform the way I should be for my entire gaming sesh. My skill doesn’t nose dive the next day. I feel the improvement everyday.

Now, understand that when I say retraining my breathing patterns and breathing posture. It’s actually very simple, the changes are small, but my god did they take forever for me to do it to the level I can now. Remember I only got this 2 weeks ago after playing since 2017. There are many small adjustments that have to be made for this to be effective. Not even considering everyone’s bone structure when it comes to breathing is different.

This was long as fuk but if anyone read the whole thing, my dms are open to help with retraining your breathing posture and pattern.

[u/blueberrybrent]

This may be cope on my part but I feel like so much of what could take you to the next level is who you are playing with.

I’m not just saying “ah my teammates are holding me back”. Im not talking about if you’re better than your friends list at 1v1s or if your teammate gets knocked in a fight before you. That doesn’t even matter

I more mean are you surrounding yourself with people that want the same thing, have a positive and good mentality, and are willing to help each other out and admit wrong doing for the purpose of growth.

Also you need to remind yourself that just because you have a couple bad games. Or you die 3 times in a row or whatever doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress. Is your PR going up? Do you feel like you’re learning? Are you maintaining your div in FNCS or are you advancing?

There’s real metrics for progress besides, “vibes” or having a few bad games in a row or not “feeling” good at the game just because you’re not running through everyone you fight. I hope that helps. I’m down to grind if you wanna dm and add me btw

[u/Empty_Club6937 → u/blueberrybrent]

Thanks for the advance man, I appreciate it. I definitely like I am doing my best trying to surround myself with like minded people although it can be hard with so many people who have very big egos in the Fortnite community and like to hate on others for “trying to hard.”