getting better at videogames

When I first started playing PvP in Destiny 2, I was utterly dog water at it. I thought the invisibility mechanics were the coolest thing and my main loadout was a bow (Le Monarque) paired with an auto rifle (Scathelock). My exotic armor of choice was Graviton Forfeit to go for long flanks while invisible. Every single match, I would be the very bottom of the leaderboard. Maybe a 0.3 or 0.4 K/D, an active detriment to the team I was on. That didn't stop me, it was so much more engaging than the PvE content in the game.

I remember the first match ever that I was second to bottom of the leaderboard, I lost my mind. Took a screenshot, messaged my friends in the #destiny-2 channel and showed this palpable piece of my growth.

I kept growing and getting better at the game, getting excited and recording clips of my small victories. With time, my victories got bigger and bigger.

There was a point where being at the top half of the leaderboard or being on a 5 kill streak or even something as mundane as hitting my headshots with a handcannon (a weapon that I had long deemed as being too high skill for me to ever actually use) were worthy of a clip and celebration.

Nowadays all of those things are common. If I'm third on the leaderboard, it's a bad match and I'm still warming up. Going on streaks are to be expected if I want to help my team win. The only weapons I ever use are kinetic handcannons (think Hawkmoon, Ace of Spades, Rose, Austringer, Eyasluna, that I switch around depending on if I need a high range, anti-flinch, or high stability option) with either a shotgun or a sniper in my energy, and to use another weapon almost feels like I'm throwing the match sometimes.

SMG's don't offer enough range and don't work well in 1vN situations (unless someone screws up and separates from their team). Pulses don't have enough handling for me to play with as much movement as I want. Fusion Rifles make it obvious that you're using a Fusion and everyone plays around that fact. Auto rifles just aren't lethal enough. These are all weapons that I once loved, but I have left behind in my quest to improve at the game.

As a result, I've been taking a lot fewer clips. Moments where I read an opponent perfectly or where I had found the exact position and tempo to pick off three people in one mag or where my movement techniques bought me enough time to win a match are left to be forgotten, because those things are the norm now.

You can see this happen in real time, if you scroll to the very bottom of my showcase of clips you can see how terrible the gameplay was then, but also how enthusiastic I was about showing these little moments to the world, with something recorded at least once a week (there are several clips in my CMS that shall remain unpublished).

My stats are better than ever in 2024, but I have yet to take a single clip, not a single moment that I was proud and wanted to show what I had done.