There has been a lot going on in e-sports in recent years: new titles, and even whole types of tournament games, appear, and Polish teams are increasingly reaching the biggest titles. It is also impossible to ignore the role of large esports events, thanks to which professional gaming has been noticed also outside the gaming industry.
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The material’s partner is morele.net
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One of the most successful squads in Poland is Illuminar Gaming, which since 2015 has been successful in various games both at national tournaments and in international competitions. We talked about what esports look like todayTomasz Wójcik from the warehouse Illuminar Gaming, also known as phrwho has been professionally playing Counter-Strike for several years. We also had the opportunity to talk with Tomek about the everyday habits and training of a professional CS: GO player, the requirements he places on gaming equipment and the future of the most popular games.
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Tomasz ‘phr’ Wójcik from Iluminar Gaming: “I always recommend young players to watch professional games, as well as streams from top-tier players”
What is the daily routine of a professional CS: GO player today? How do you train, how do you prepare for tournaments, what practices can you recommend to young players who want to increase their skills in tactical online FPS?
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Honestly, it all depends on individual preferences. Some people like to play deathmatch mode, i.e. everyone at all, others prefer to practice offline on bots on specially created maps, and there are also people who only consider sparring with a team or playing 5v5 on Faceit platforms as training. I am one of the latter group of people who consider offline practice to be the most effective, and also the most comfortable for people with low mouse sensitivity in the game. My routine on the training day, which I also like to change from time to time, is to play at least an hour a day on bots, train for 6-8 hours with the team and sometimes play something or watch a match before going to bed. Sometimes I also fire up to this stream to talk to people and have a good time, and when we have a day off, I try to play a lot more individually so as not to fall out of shape. As a trainer, I don’t spend as much time on individual training as the rest. I spend a lot of time watching matches and writing down the plays of my opponents, or even copying some tactics that I think can be effective for my team.
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I always recommend young players to watch professional games, as well as streams from top-tier players. I believe that just watching better players will take the player much faster than just playing and practicing skills, and it’s best to combine training routine with watching.
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What is the hardware entry threshold if we would like to construct a complete stand suitable for CS: GO gameplay on a professional level today? I am talking not only about the hardware specification, but also about device parameters such as the refresh rate in the monitor, or even the response time and resolution of the mouse?
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I think that three things are the basis for constructing a professional position these days. This is a monitor refresh at 240 Hz, fps above 300, and a permanent Internet connection. A nice addition is a desk with electric height adjustment. When it comes to the periphery, the player always has his own equipment, on which he feels the greatest comfort and should not be imposed on other equipment that he has probably never played on. Things like reaction time and mouse resolution are also important, but from what I know, nowadays every gaming mouse already offers the highest standards of these parameters.
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Recently, a lot of interesting things have happened in hardware thanks to the premiere of the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series cards, mainly thanks to the sought-after RTX 3080. What impact does this have on the world of e-sports? Do professional players follow this type of news and willingly replace individual components?
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Personally, I follow this type of news and try to be up to date with the equipment for the sake of interest, as well as not to stand out from the competition and always play under the best possible conditions. I improve my computer whenever I see that something gives a big leap in performance or just when it becomes obsolete. I believe that professional players, if they can afford it, should not save on the equipment they train on. As for Fr.the new RTX I decided to buy the 3080 version myself because I decided that my 1080 had already developed its own and it was time to upgrade and in a few days I will enjoy the new toy, which I hope will serve me for at least 2 years of playing.
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The world is crazy about chasing the number of frames per second, but it is certainly in professional competition that this parameter is the most important. What is the optimal framerate for you and what do you think about mechanisms such as Frames Win Games, where over 144 frames per second are achieved, or NVIDIA Reflex?
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It is known that the more fps the better, the more if you have a monitor with a 240 Hz refresh rate. I do not sit so much in the technology industry to know what each technology is responsible for, but I look more at hardware benchmarks and when I see that something is much better than what I have and I can afford it because it is to help me win tournaments then I always try to delve into it and invest. I believe that in the case of CS, but also whenever possible for every game, it is good to have a reserve of at least 50-60 fps above the refresh rate number inthe monitor – to keep this fluency in every situation, because every drop below this number is very noticeable and you get the impression that the mouse is starting to “swim”.
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Let’s get back to the games. As a professional CS: GO player, how do you feel about the release of Valorant? It has a chance to shake the position of CS: GO, or is it a completely different proposition addressed to other players?
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I believe that Valorant will be a big esports title in the future, but CS: GO will still remain in number one in FPS. Currently, the game itself looks like a rescue for players who felt burned out in CS or were even banned in the past for mistakes that Valve doesn’t forgive. This is a new opportunity for all players that I almost took advantage of myself. After a few months from the premiere, I also don’t understand comparing these two titles to each other because I think that Valorant is just another FPS game that has a few elements in common with CS, but the skills of each character make it a completely different game.
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However, it is not the production of Riot Games that dominated the landscape of online games in recent years, but above all battle royale titles. What do you think of this trend as a seasoned esports athlete, are they as skill-demanding as Valve’s online FPS, or are they a completely different pair of wellies?
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If we are talking about e-sport, I do not like battle royals myself, because randomness dominates in them. In CS you have to think about everything, e.g. economy, is it worth playing a given game, is the risk worth the situation. There are simply many more factors that can be influenced directly, not just how the map will be generated. Mainly for this reason, I think that battle royale games do not require as much from the player as CS: GO or Valorant, which are games of errors and the team that makes fewer mistakes always wins, but it does not change the fact that to be good at battle royalach must also be skillful and have other skills, which probably do not need to be polished in CS. I think that this is a great fun mode to play purely for fun and once I liked to play, for example, Apex Legends or PUBG with my friends.
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Speaking of skills – what do you think you owe your professional career in CS: GO to? What skills were the most important in your case? Did you show any predispositions before starting your adventure with CS, or did you acquire skills thanks to many years of training?
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Few people know, but before CS, I played on a professional level in TeamFortress 2 and at the age of 14 I had my first competitive emotions. But then, despite my mini-successes and really good playing, I treated it more as a game than a job, because firstly I was going to school, and secondly I never planned to make a living from playing in the future. I believe that due to the fact that I started at such a young age, I was at least a little more prepared than others in terms of mentality and thanks to that I don’t have a lot of stress problems now.
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As for my entire career, I think that in my case you can say that the hobby became a job when I went with my friends, most of whom went to one class in a technical school (greetings to esc0re, magician, lizard1337 and siemień) for the lan tournament in Płońsk and we won with the team that was in the Polish TOP-2, and was also undefeated in the Polish backyard for a long time. I presented myself very well there and I was also the host of the game. After that tournament, I got my first serious offer and that’s how it has been and continues to this day. I think I have always shown some predisposition to become a professional player, only then it was not as developed as it is today and I couldn’t tell myself “I want to be a professional player” because it was too risky.
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In addition, as such a fun fact, I can say that now there are numerous projects aimed at emerging young talents, and to which I was once not admitted due to too few lost hours in CS. If I remember correctly, I had 800 hours when the records were from 1000, and then I was able to play at the highest level and show a class, where such a number of hours can be said to be funny compared to the best players.
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As you can see, e-sport in Poland is doing well, and in the future we can expect the success of Polish teams in subsequent titles. At the same time, attention is drawn to which equipment parameters are the most important for professional players today. Not surprisingly, the key is the highest possible frame rate and a properly selected monitor in this respect, which will offer a sufficient refresh rate. The assumption that the game has tens of frames per second advantage in relation to the refresh rate of the monitor should also be considered a valuable hint. In this context, it is worth recalling the NVIDIA Reflex technology presented at the premiere of the new GeForce RTX 30 series cards.
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In Poland, e-sport is doing very well. So we are waiting for further successes of our teams
Thanks to NVIDIA Reflex, developers of the most popular tournament games gain access to a special SDK, thanks to which they can optimize their titles in terms of introducing as much delay reduction as possible. This translates directly into success in competitions and an increase in K / D (the ratio of kills made by a player to his death). Importantly, to use NVDIA Reflex you do not have to buy the latest equipment, although of course in the RTX 30 family the difference will be most noticeable. The potential of Reflex can also be used by the owners of GeForce GTX 900 series cards, i.e. systems that have been on the market for six years, and all newer graphics of the Green. You can learn more about the impact of the number of frames per second on the gameplay as well as optimization and delay reduction mechanisms on the pages NVIDIA.
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The material’s partner is morele.net
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