How do YOU tell that you are improving?

I think for me I focus on consistency between matches and engagements.

For example I tried out an Outlaw/Killclip Crimil's Dagger recently. About the first five matches I really focused on working out the spacing, trying to get consistent three/two taps with kill clip.

The next few games after that I was winning my 1v1s consistently, I didn't feel like I was all over the place with my stats.

For me, it’s self-acknowledgment and recognising that running away from encounters I was going to lose was the right thing to do. Half my brain wants to prove to the other half that I can win every encounter, but that’s simply not possible. So, I try to only commit to encounters where I have more than a 49% chance of winning. Sounds simple, right? In the heat of the moment it’s not always the way.

It gets said time and time again, but playing your life is critical to improving.

I look in the mirror and say “YOU are improving!”

The best answer is play comp ( survival) and/or scrims. With the extremely heavy skill based match making and lobby balancing any real trends are near nonexistence and makes improvements near invisible.

I use the Redrix app and look at my last 50 games and how the trends look.

When I start anticipating what the opponent is going to do and counter it preemptively. For instance, there’s a shotgun ape Titan that slide shotties literally everything: if I can break line of sight and be above the guy when he slides around the corner to shotty.

Focus on one thing at a time. Isolating one area of weakness will make it easier to see improvement.

For example i used to have a terrible habit of rushing people after getting them one shot. Half the time I cleaned them up but the other half he would lead me right back to his team who is just respond and I would die. It took me a long time to realize that I should just disengage, let the opponent get away, and regroup with my team and maintain my control.

When you do well consistently and feel like you didn't overthink your engagements, more things will feel fluid for you, and map awareness.

I knew I was improving when I would go from getting a kill and b lining to the special just to get picked by a sniper. Now I get a kill, check my radar, recover before pushing out in the open.

Destiny tracker or redrix, watch trends for deaths going down, kills and precision kills going up.

Watch some old game footage and compare it to more recent footage. Identify identical or similar situations (relevant to what you are trying improve) and see if there has been a positive change or how/if you now react differently. I think, too, once you have worked towards improving something, you’ll eventually be more reactive versus having to consciously think about it, so you could take that as a sign of improvement in a sense.

I look at how well I am doing (k/d and k/da). I also look at how well my teamates are doing, this loosely correlates to wins. I think that sometimes your improvement can show up in teamates stats. Making good choices on positioning and engagements helps your teamates a lot. You may not be winning your fights still but if you are engaging in the right places your teamates will benefit from your efforts more than if you are wandering off and fighting in non-strategic places. Dont get disappointed if your stats don't go up right away you still may be improving. When trials was a thing in destiny 1 a friend and I commonly looked for a 3rd in lfg. We are decent players 1.2-1.4. We didn't have strict requirements about who we played with so we often found players whose stats were lower than ours. People often felt like they needed to acknowledge if their stats in matches weren't as good. Over and over we told people trials is half strategy. We don't care if you die it's where you die that matters. If you pick good fights we will revive you and we will do well. If you over engage and make your body unrecoverable it gets frustrating. We played with plenty of good players that had this problem. Generally shotgun players who push hard and think they are successful cause they trade or even clear a team one round. But if during most rounds you die somewhere that puts your team at a positional disadvantage or somewhere where your opponents can revive easily everything they did wasn't helpful. I digressed into trials talk but hopefully it makes sense.

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How often do I get into 2v1s? How often do I die without, minimum, a trade? How often am I pulling off my snipes?

Just a few ways I gauge my progress. Since starting pvp, till now, I get into significantly less situations where I’m out numbered. I rarely “just die” and probably most importantly (for me) I’m landing shots.

My game sense, strategy and play making skills are all really good from other games, the FPS aspect (Landing shots / being aware of my 6 despite not being able to see it) is where I need improvement,

For me, especially in Comp, I like having a good K/D, but more importantly, I like to see that I'm winning, and in objective based games, that I'm actually contributing to zone caps etc.

After that, making sure i have decent amounts of kills since sometimes I can be too passive. and the K/D helps me track that bc if I'm dying a lot, I'm probably being too aggressive or rather careless. Also, just reflecting on how I'm dying. if I'm dying bc I'm getting sniped bc I peek too slowly, or if I'm sprinting around corners getting shotgunned thats an issue and I try to adapt.

honestly in a pure SBMM setup even if you progress you met better and better opponent so your stats barely change. fortunately destiny has a fantastic way to see if you progress.

• queue in comp solo
• play the game

=> if you are constantly matched with 0.1 KD player and the game expect you to carry then you are making progress.

=> if you are constantly matched with good players and get free carry then you are still below average.

simple :)

Look at your stats over a given period of time. You need to compare yourself versus something else to get a measure of improvement, aka you need a baseline.

If you are just looking at your overall KD(A) over time, that isn't helpful unless you play a ton because it's still going to fact in all the games you've played. You need to say, "ok so as of 12/30/19" my "stat" is X, and then as of "pick a date in the future" my stat is "Y", this is how you can tell if your k/d is improving for instance.

Otherwise it's somewhat intangible. If you feel like you are doing better, you probably are, unless you have the self awareness of a rock.

If I'm consistently landing my crits (using Rose for ref.) and not spamming and missing, if I'm hitting snipes (as I am primarily a shottie guy), if I'm in the right position relative to my teammates in comp and not being the one losing lives, sure my KD has gone up and feel better about that but I can tell when I'm in game if I am improving or not.

I get DDOS'd more often.

As you get better your elo rises so skill based matchmaking will match you against progressively harder enemies. It's hard to tell but you would notice instantly if you went on the account of a below average player for a few games.

The first few weeks where i'd regularly find myself top of the team at match end i'd think "holy shit, must've matched with some real trash...".

As it happens more and more often, now i just feel like i genuinely hold my own. I still don't consider myself good, but i don't feel like i shouldn't be there anymore. :)