Charybdis
We are returned! Death to the False Emperor!
This might seem trivial to a lot of you guys and I guess it is, but I've been having real problems playing online in Ranked recently. Now I know what you're gonna say, "don't play randoms play guys off TYM", and I try to as much as possible. But the guys in my scene and I rarely seem to be online simultaneously due to conflicting schedules so I end up playing Ranked.
Herein lies the problem. I've practiced various martial arts for 20 years and I think the same key features in terms of mentality improvement lie in fighting games: you have to 'let go', as it were. You need to stop stressing about getting better, about beating everyone and instead focus on your game. As a coach once said to me, "outside of competition, the only person you compete with is you from yesterday. If you're better than you were, you're winning".
I think there's a lot of truth in that but I've found that that kind of mentality needs encouragement: in short, to build the confidence in yourself to not care whether you win or lose but whether you perform well, you need a structure around you wherein you get support and encouragement regardless of result: you're assured of your development, even if its only by taking a round or two when you still lose 5-0 overall. And that's there in the offline scene, but online I find it very much a grind.
Taken in isolation it doesn't really bother me, but it starts to add up I've found. When you win, you get ragequits, people screaming down the mike about how much you suck. When you lose, you get messages about how much you suck and (for some reason) teabagging which enrages me far more than it should.
You combine that with online taking the piss sometimes: for instance, I had a close match with a Raiden player earlier, his record was something like 1500-200 and he was really good. I would've had him, all I needed was a single wake up attack and I had two bars of meter but it wouldn't come out, I got trapped in the corner and Raiden is death in the corner. So all the good zoning and good choices I made and good execution against someone a lot better than me was all for naught because the online decided to fuck around with the wakeup input window (and I checked on replay in practice, I was doing the wakeup correctly: I tried 3 separate times and each one failed).
To highlight what I mean, I guess I can point to this Sub Zero player (GM naturally) I played earlier. Again, he had well over 1000 wins and clearly knew his business. I've really labbed the GM match hard with Liu and I'm reasonably happy with it so long as I can keep out of that corner. So I was doing a really good job (if I do say so myself) and was about to finish it when he wiffed a Slide under my Neutral jump and I was all ready to hit him with an NJP and an uppercut to finish when he quit. No quitality, just "lost connection" or whatever. Then he bombards me with messages, about how much I suck and how I didn't deserve the win so he quit and made sure it went down as a disconnect etc. Now again, it's not a big deal on its own and I'd usually laugh it off and stick it in the Hatemail thread but after hours of this grind it really sucked the energy and enthusiasm out of me.
To contrast it with offline or martial arts or sports, Twain once said "I can live for two months on one good compliment" and that's very true. I went to casuals on Wednesday, trying out my new KL (picking up a new character every month) and got bodied. I did okay with my Liu, but my KL got obliterated by Jaxs and D'vorahs. However, I took one game from one of the best players in the scene (GM SZ) and he sent me a message later, just saying well done, much improved etc. And it really helped yknow? I got bodied in general but there was concrete proof of me improving in general and with the character in particular, so there was no need for me to get all moribund about it because the positivity and encouragement was there. Whereas online, everyone's out for their own ego or pathetic online record and can't acknowledge anything else. I guess it's why teabagging pisses me off after a close game: it was tight, could've gone either way. I'll take the Fatality, I'll take Disco but there's something about the blatant disrespect that really drains me.
Again, I know this is pretty trivial but it's starting to loom pretty large for me. I don't consider myself as being weak willed or fragile or anything like that, in terms of academic and career performance I'm very driven and can work on my own comfortable in the knowledge that I'm improving and coming out on top without external validation. But I guess cos I'm so used to that in sports and martial arts, I associate it with all my hobbies and the total reversal of that when you play fighting games online is starting to affect me.
So I was just wondering if anyone else ever feels like this: starting to dread going online because you stress out over whether or not you win despite knowing its meaningless, dreading winning because of the shit you take and dreading losing because of the inherent feeling of losing?
Any feedback or help would be really appreciated
Herein lies the problem. I've practiced various martial arts for 20 years and I think the same key features in terms of mentality improvement lie in fighting games: you have to 'let go', as it were. You need to stop stressing about getting better, about beating everyone and instead focus on your game. As a coach once said to me, "outside of competition, the only person you compete with is you from yesterday. If you're better than you were, you're winning".
I think there's a lot of truth in that but I've found that that kind of mentality needs encouragement: in short, to build the confidence in yourself to not care whether you win or lose but whether you perform well, you need a structure around you wherein you get support and encouragement regardless of result: you're assured of your development, even if its only by taking a round or two when you still lose 5-0 overall. And that's there in the offline scene, but online I find it very much a grind.
Taken in isolation it doesn't really bother me, but it starts to add up I've found. When you win, you get ragequits, people screaming down the mike about how much you suck. When you lose, you get messages about how much you suck and (for some reason) teabagging which enrages me far more than it should.
You combine that with online taking the piss sometimes: for instance, I had a close match with a Raiden player earlier, his record was something like 1500-200 and he was really good. I would've had him, all I needed was a single wake up attack and I had two bars of meter but it wouldn't come out, I got trapped in the corner and Raiden is death in the corner. So all the good zoning and good choices I made and good execution against someone a lot better than me was all for naught because the online decided to fuck around with the wakeup input window (and I checked on replay in practice, I was doing the wakeup correctly: I tried 3 separate times and each one failed).
To highlight what I mean, I guess I can point to this Sub Zero player (GM naturally) I played earlier. Again, he had well over 1000 wins and clearly knew his business. I've really labbed the GM match hard with Liu and I'm reasonably happy with it so long as I can keep out of that corner. So I was doing a really good job (if I do say so myself) and was about to finish it when he wiffed a Slide under my Neutral jump and I was all ready to hit him with an NJP and an uppercut to finish when he quit. No quitality, just "lost connection" or whatever. Then he bombards me with messages, about how much I suck and how I didn't deserve the win so he quit and made sure it went down as a disconnect etc. Now again, it's not a big deal on its own and I'd usually laugh it off and stick it in the Hatemail thread but after hours of this grind it really sucked the energy and enthusiasm out of me.
To contrast it with offline or martial arts or sports, Twain once said "I can live for two months on one good compliment" and that's very true. I went to casuals on Wednesday, trying out my new KL (picking up a new character every month) and got bodied. I did okay with my Liu, but my KL got obliterated by Jaxs and D'vorahs. However, I took one game from one of the best players in the scene (GM SZ) and he sent me a message later, just saying well done, much improved etc. And it really helped yknow? I got bodied in general but there was concrete proof of me improving in general and with the character in particular, so there was no need for me to get all moribund about it because the positivity and encouragement was there. Whereas online, everyone's out for their own ego or pathetic online record and can't acknowledge anything else. I guess it's why teabagging pisses me off after a close game: it was tight, could've gone either way. I'll take the Fatality, I'll take Disco but there's something about the blatant disrespect that really drains me.
Again, I know this is pretty trivial but it's starting to loom pretty large for me. I don't consider myself as being weak willed or fragile or anything like that, in terms of academic and career performance I'm very driven and can work on my own comfortable in the knowledge that I'm improving and coming out on top without external validation. But I guess cos I'm so used to that in sports and martial arts, I associate it with all my hobbies and the total reversal of that when you play fighting games online is starting to affect me.
So I was just wondering if anyone else ever feels like this: starting to dread going online because you stress out over whether or not you win despite knowing its meaningless, dreading winning because of the shit you take and dreading losing because of the inherent feeling of losing?
Any feedback or help would be really appreciated
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