Beginner's Guide: how to have fun and stay positive when you are not winning...yet! by FlyingFox

Note: This guide was originally created by player FlyingFox in the official Vainglory forums. The author displays as VG COMMUNITY as part of a bulk migration of guides to VaingloryFire. Enjoy!

As you improve from a beginner to intermediate player, it can be hard to stay positive when you are still learning and not winning yet! Here are ten tips to have smaller goals you can focus on that is beyond winning the battle. Let's face it, when you are starting out, you are probably going to lose more than you win, therefore it's best to have goals that helps you feel good about your progress as you become more skilled.

Give yourself credit for the improvement and learning progress, and you are likely to stay around around until you skill level improve.Don't be too hard on yourself since winning and losing are all part of the game. Remember that the result of a battle doesn't define you as a person, and at the end of the day, it's about how you handle these situations, that reflects the strength of your character and mind.

Let the fun begin with some pre-game planning :

Post at the official forum to enter the queue with a friend to keep things interesting! While team queuing is still being developed during the time of writing, it can be a lot of fun to see a familiar name in a battle, either as a teammate or enemy hero! You can always say hi to someone after the battle at the forum!

Pick a new hero and just see how it feels, make sure to read up on how to use them before the game so you can have some idea on how to use them. If you read someone's guide on a new hero, it's a great idea to try it out in-battle!

After the battle, ask yourself what did you like or not like about using the hero, maybe you don't like that they are really slow, or you find that being able to attack as a range changes how you approach the enemy completely. Either way you are sure to learn new things about yourself and how you like to fight in a battle. Don't be surprise to fall in love with a new hero, or finding out that you are better when you switch back to your favorite hero!

As the game begins...

You get gold to spend in game, time to go crazy shopping and try on different builds!

Try buying a new item to see how it affects your game, or just switch focus from crystal to weapon, test out different build to see how your character can be very different in game, and figure out how to put different builds for your characters. I had fun trying out warhorn, as it speeds up nearby enemy in team fight and is fun to have, however you might want to experiment with armor, Reflex Block and other defense items as they help late game.

Once you can hit to turrets and take minions by yourself, it's time to look ahead more and think about keeping your hero alive. Start from being more cautious when you chase after an enemy, not going too close to the enemy turret even when it looks like you are close to killing an enemy hero, buying defense items, jungling to earn gold and equip yourself hero better, reading maps better, getting boots so you can run away faster, and so on.

This focus helps me improve from being a feeder who runs after a kill, to realizing that more important to killing an enemy, self-preservation comes first, and if I stay alive, earn gold and go back to the base to shop, I get stronger and my death count drops below my kill count.

Ask not what you did to kill the enemy, but instead, ask what is the one thing you did to help yourself stay alive in each battle. Even if you had a horrible game, if you did one thing to try to keep yourself alive a little bit longer, and you can reflect on how well it works for you, that battle is valuable learning experience, you are one step closer to being awesome!

While I love hitting the enemy team head on, there's something very fun and sneaky about hiding in the bushes, and surprise your enemy with a deadly hit, and then running off. This is especially effective if you are Koshka with nice boots, as her Pouncy Fun has a good range, and her ultimate does good damage. This is a very bad idea however if you are Petal traveling with pets, as the pets peek out from the bushes and the enemy team can easily see, ambush and kill you.

That said, I seen Petal hide in bushes and just attack from unusual angle, and it can be very effective if Petal gets the fast boots and just join in on a team fight.

Play around with Signaling, and use it to communicate with your teammate. See how they respond. If your teammate give you bad advice, stay calm and understand that everyone is just human. When teammates work together to go against individual enemy 2 vs 1 or 3 vs 1 that's when you have the best chance of killing.

Also practice using signaling to gather up your teammate to take down mines, if your enemy likes to hide near these spots and attack you as a team. Use the going and avoid signal shortly after each other to tell your teammate where to go. It's fun when people listens to you. Use the going signal if yo are playing with new teammates, let them follow you down the Turret, or tap at the home base store to remind them to shop for supplies.

Take a screen shot by holding down the home button on your Ipad, and then press power, practice before the battle if you have never done it before.

Take a screenshot of the team result, and then press "details" to get everyone's build after a game, take another picture for reference, look at everyone's build and think about how an enemy's build correspond to how powerful / tanky they are during a battle.

Other ideas include
-pictures of Petal makes great wall paper, although others in the forum claim Catherine and Koshka has more to offer in term of entertainment value
-teamwork screen shot of you taking taking down turrets or minions with teammates
-Photo op during intense team fighting is not advised and should only be attempted by absolute pros. FlyingFox is not responsible for any death or defeat as a result of taking photos during a battle, you have been warned.

The fun continues after the battle so stick around to...

If you had a great battle, be proud of being part of it no matter the result, and show off the result page with two teams under the “nightly Ggs!” topic! If you are lucky, your teammate or the enemy teammate might see your post, recognize you and say hi.

Remember, no matter the result of a match, as @CaptainNeato‌ would say, "You are awesome!"

After reading the guides, there's only so much you can learn sitting in front of the iPad by yourself. I find it helpful to ask questions at the forum and get tips from other players and the admins on how to improve my game.

There are lots of little bugs that needs small patches here and there, since the game is still very new. I make it a fun exercise to catch the bugs while playing the game! Post under “Bug Reports and Help” and challenge yourself to catch something that unusual or weird. This can be fun as eventually, there won't be any more bugs to catch, so let's enjoy them while we can and see who can catch the most bugs!

Take screenshots of bugs, as pictures are descriptive and help devs out.

If you have done any of these ten things during a battle, take a deep breath and congratulate yourself, for you on the way to become a master hero! Focus your mind on staying calm, and remember that the strength of your mind has everything to do with the likelihood of how you do in the next battle.

If you lose a few battles or finding yourself feeling a little uneasy, TAKE A BREAK. I read about people on losing streak, losing 7 or 21 games continuously. If you are losing and starting to get annoyed, my advice is to stop playing, go do something else, and come back when you feel better. If you are not feeling well, it's going to affect your judgment and make you feel worse.

Be gentle with yourself, measure your progress by improvement and not your immediate result. Stay humble and know that by practicing to distance yourself from your result and focus on meeting your specific goals, you are training your mind to stay strong and persevere in the face of setbacks and difficult circumstances beyond your control. You are establishing your belief that you are a worthy individual no matter the result of your battle, because you are awesome just by being yourself and having fun trying your best!

Thanks for reading as it's quite long! Stay positive, keep improving, and see you in battle! Say hi if you fought with me, and I promise I will be friendly even if you attacked me or beat my team!

Please feel free to share your own advice on how you improved, to help the new players do the same!